The Daughters of Eden Trilogy Page 29

  ‘So you have thought about it?’

  ‘Of course I have.’

  ‘So what are you saying, that there’s nothing to be done?’

  She paused. ‘The only way out’, she said, ‘would be to run away. Leave Jamaica and forget about everyone else. Just like Ainsley and Rose. But that would only start the whole wretched cycle over again, and I won’t do it. So yes, I am saying that there’s nothing to be done. And you know it, too.’

  He opened his mouth to reply, then shut it again. She was right.

  Rainwater dripped from the eaves. An egret sped upriver, brilliant white against searing green. In the garden, Abigail rooted around in the undergrowth.

  She glanced at his hand on the railing. He had rolled back his shirtsleeve to deal with the cut, and she looked at the broad wristbone and the fine fair hairs and the thick vein snaking up his forearm. Why couldn’t she touch him, just once, so that she’d have something to remember?

  She reached over and put her fingers on the back of his hand, just above the bandage. She felt his grip tighten on the balustrade; the muscles moving beneath the skin. She felt the tension in him, the holding back.

  She put her hand on his shoulder and raised herself on her toes and kissed him. She had meant to reach his mouth, but in her nervousness she missed, and her lips found the roughness of his cheek. He smelt of rum and horses and cool, rain-washed skin.

  He put one hand on her waist and the other on the nape of her neck, and bent and kissed her mouth. Softly at first, just finding her lips. Then more deeply.

  Startling, unfamiliar, strange. She was spiralling down into heat and strength and otherness; warmth and closeness, unbelievable closeness; no barriers, no holding back, no more being alone.

  She put her arms round his neck and felt the heat of his skin against her wrists, and his damp hair, and his grip about her tightening. She didn’t want it to end. She wanted to drown in him and never wake up.

  At last they had to draw apart for breath. They stood with their heads together, taking in each other’s scent. She was shaking and so was he.

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ he said. ‘Is this what you came to tell me? That you want to be with me but can’t?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s why I came.’

  ‘You know I’ll never accept that.’

  ‘You don’t have a choice.’

  ‘There’s always a choice.’

  She put her hand on his chest and felt his heart beating beneath her palm. Why must it be like this? she thought. Just when everything’s so clear, it has to end.

  ‘Madeleine—’

  ‘It’s getting late,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to go back.’

  His arms tightened about her. ‘You can’t go. Not after this.’

  ‘Cameron—’

  ‘You can’t just leave.’

  ‘Let me go. I’m sorry. Let me go.’

  ‘I don’t understand you. It’s always as if there’s something missing.’

  ‘I know. I do know.’

  ‘Why won’t you tell me?’

  She put both hands on his chest. ‘I have to go,’ she said again. ‘It’s late. Please. Fetch my horse.’

  ‘Madeleine, you can’t just—’

  ‘Yes I can.’

  She had promised herself that she would not look back, but of course she did. She was halfway down the track to the cane-pieces when she reined in.

  Already Eden had slipped back into the past, but she could still see Cameron standing on the steps, watching her go.

  She hated herself. She had told him nothing and achieved nothing, except to hurt him and make everything a hundred times worse.

  She turned and put Kestrel into a canter, and rode blindly through the cane-pieces and across the sliding river, and down the muddy road towards Fever Hill.

  It was six o’clock by the time Sinclair returned from town, greatly calmed by his interview with Dr Valentine. But he was granted no time to dwell on that, for as he brought the pony-trap to a halt outside the house, Kean descended the steps with a note from Great-Aunt May.

  I must speak to you. The west grounds, forthwith. We must not be overheard.

  A cold sweat broke out on Sinclair’s forehead. What could possibly be so momentous that Great-Aunt May would break the rule of a lifetime and go into the grounds in daylight?

  Without stopping to wash or change his clothes, he hurried round to the back of the house.

  In the shade of the great, half-dead silk-cotton tree, two straight-backed chairs had been set on the hard brown grass. In one, beneath an enormous black sun-umbrella, sat Great-Aunt May: rigid, unmoving, and armoured against the sun by a floor-length dust-coat of flint-grey silk, the ever-present grey kid gloves, and a wide-brimmed hat swathed in veils of pewter chiffon.

  Trembling with nerves, Sinclair took the chair beside her.

  She turned her head to regard him, and through the veils he caught the gleam of her inflamed blue gaze. Her imperious ivory features were as inscrutable as ever.

  He licked his lips. ‘I confess, Great-Aunt, that I do not understand what—’

  ‘Indeed you do not,’ she said coldly. ‘But you shall.’

  He passed his hand over his throat and chin. She did not seem to be angry; at least, not with him. If he hadn’t known her better, he would have said that she was excited. Or perhaps grimly satisfied. His pulse quickened.

  ‘This afternoon,’ she began, ‘Kean overheard an exchange between two persons on the Eden Road. Your wife and another. An undesirable.’

  He opened his mouth to protest, but she quelled him with a glance. ‘Regrettably,’ she went on, ‘Kean did not hear all, for he was disturbed by field-workers and forced to move on. But he heard enough.’ She paused. ‘Your wife has not been honest with you, Sinclair.’

  ‘That I know,’ he said hotly.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘you do not.’ She folded her long narrow hands in her lap. ‘Your wife,’ she said evenly, ‘is not who she says she is.’ She glanced down at her hands. ‘Your wife is Jocelyn’s granddaughter.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Power and knowledge fizzed in Sinclair’s veins as he rode out in the early morning to see his brother.

  He looked about him and relished everything he saw. The young cane glistening after yesterday’s rain; the blacks weeding the rows with brute, unthinking vigour; the pickneys scurrying for the quatties he tossed in the mud. Yes, everything knew its purpose in God’s grand design.

  And now his own purpose had fallen into place with startling grace. The old man’s granddaughter!

  When Great-Aunt May had first told him, he had been stunned. But she had cautioned him not to act rashly, and she had been right. So he had kept his silence and spent all night in prayer, seeking to grasp the full glory of God’s plan for him.

  And now at last he understood. He understood why God had given him this woman to wife. He understood the trials which God had made him undergo. They were to prove his worthiness for the great office which was his destiny.

  Looking about him at the rain-washed cane, he thought, who on earth can stop you now? It is all so clear. Dr Valentine will cure her of her condition, and she will be a proper wife to you at last. She will gratify your needs and bear you a son, and when the time is right you will tell the old man the truth, and watch him dandle his great-grandson on his knee. And your inheritance will be secure.

  The old man’s granddaughter.

  How strange to think that only days before, he, Sinclair, had been frightened to touch her. But he knew better now. For this was no ordinary woman. This was Ainsley’s child. This was his inheritance made flesh.

  It no longer mattered that she was intransigent and unwomanly, for that was not her fault! He understood that now. He understood from yesterday’s providential visit to Falmouth that she was simply ill. Dr Valentine had explained it all most fully.

  ‘Women, my dear Mr Lawe, are closer to the infantile state than men. And as suc
h they are impulsive, emotional, and extremely prone to disorders of the nerves. I can well understand your dismay at your wife’s behaviour – but be assured that her condition is not uncommon. That self-will which you describe, that persistent flouting of authority, are, to an experienced physician, merely the familiar symptoms of acute neurasthenia; what one might in layman’s terms call an exhaustion of the nerve power.’

  An exhaustion of the nerve power. What a relief to have it laid bare in cool scientific terms, and to learn that it could be cured! ‘There is much room for hope, Mr Lawe, oh yes indeed. For there is a regimen, well established and of proven efficacy, which I myself have used for many years to treat just such cases as this. Depend upon it, my dear sir. After three months of the isolation cure – that is to say, of bed-rest, seclusion and sedation – in short, no stimuli whatsoever – your wife will be a different woman. Obedient, well regulated, and properly eager to take her place at your side as your helpmeet and comforter.’

  The track narrowed, and Sinclair reined in. He could see nothing but empty cane-pieces, and beyond them the eerie grey-green cones of the Cockpits, looming startlingly close. He wondered if he was lost. But just then he spotted a pickney in the distance. He hailed the boy, and tossed him a quattie to lead the way to Master Cameron.

  ‘Mas’ Camron at de works yard, sah,’ said the pickney, pointing up the track with a grimy finger. ‘Mile or so up ahead. But him have a short heart dis morning, sah, dat true to de fact! Swearin, sah! Swearin like half past midnight! An nobody cyan say why.’

  Well well, thought Sinclair, putting his mount forward to follow the boy. So my brother is not in the best of humours.

  He recalled his wife’s altered features when she had returned from her ride the previous evening. A lovers’ tiff, no doubt. Well, well. It was of no consequence now. Once his brother learned the truth about her, all that would be at an end.

  He pictured them together in the squalid old ruin he had just glimpsed in the distance. How often had they met? What was it like? Did she divest herself of all her garments? He pictured her in poses he had seen on his visits to Holywell Street . . .

  A chicken hawk exploded from the trees, making him start. He passed a shaky hand across his brow. Calm, calm, he told himself. It doesn’t matter what sins they have committed in the past. Nothing matters but your destiny. You will take her to Providence for the isolation cure, and Dr Valentine will make her well again, and she will be a proper wife and bear you a son. And when your inheritance is secure, your brother will know the bitterness of eternal defeat.

  Smiling, he looked about him at Eden’s shimmering cane-pieces. Yes, yes, my brother, you may toil all you wish, but it will always be in vain. You can never surpass me now.

  He rode on up the muddy track, and at last the pickney pointed out the works yard, fifty feet ahead. Sinclair reined in. So this was what his brother did with his time.

  A sprawling, untidy compound populated by the usual gaggle of blacks. In the foreground a jumble of workshops and storehouses; at the far end, an enormous cut-stone boiling-house with a towering chimney, and an aqueduct behind it, and a mill; a curing-house, a distillery, and at the furthest remove, a long, low trash-house surrounded by piles of sickly yellow cane-trash spread out to dry in the sun. Croptime was long over, but there must be a tail-end of milling in progress, for the ground was white with trampled trash, and the air thick with the stench of burnt sugar and rum.

  How can men live like this? wondered Sinclair in disgust. How can they blind themselves to all that is good and noble and pure?

  He dismounted and gave his horse to the pickney, and strolled over to wait at the entrance to the yard.

  He could see his brother outside the distillery, supervising a group of blacks unpacking some piece of equipment from an ox-wain. He was hatless and in shirtsleeves, his hair unkempt and curling with sweat. Sinclair was disgusted. This, he thought, is what happens when the white man consorts with the black. The darkness may not rub off on his skin, but it stains his soul.

  At last his brother saw him and crossed the yard. He made no attempt to conceal his displeasure.

  Sinclair took off his hat and put on a jaunty smile. ‘Hail, brother, and well met!’

  His brother wiped his forehead on his arm. He looked tired, his eyes red-rimmed, as if he hadn’t slept. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘And a good morning to you too,’ said Sinclair gaily. ‘Working on a Saturday? However did you prevail upon our dusky brethren?

  ‘I paid them,’ he snapped. ‘Now what d’you want?’

  With his riding-crop, Sinclair indicated the track. ‘Walk with me. I have something to impart.’

  ‘I don’t have time.’

  ‘I assure you, it will not take long.’

  ‘All the same, I—’

  ‘Indulge me, brother. I have come all this way.’

  His brother glanced at him, then back at the yard, and sighed.

  They started walking up the track. It was overhung with poinciana trees, some of them still in late bloom. Sinclair studied the vermilion petals underfoot. ‘Brother,’ he said, ‘I have something to tell you.’

  ‘So you keep saying,’ his brother said irritably. ‘Why don’t you just—’

  ‘Please.’ Sinclair held up his hand. ‘This is of some moment. Indeed, I should call it little short of a revelation.’

  ‘Really,’ said his brother, sounding unimpressed.

  ‘Yes. Really.’

  ‘Concerning?’

  Sinclair turned and met his eyes. ‘Concerning my wife.’

  The dogcart clipped smartly along beneath the giant bamboo, and Sophie hugged Pablo Grey and thought what a difference a day could make.

  Everything was going to be all right now. Ben would find some way to retrieve her shadow, and she would start to get better at last. And the accident with Victory had, after all, been exactly that: an accident. Sinclair had explained it all in great detail.

  As soon as she had told him what she’d seen at the hothouse, he had changed completely. He had been really quite nice, and had explained that he’d only been stern with her before because he was worried at her telling a falsehood. Which, considering that he was a churchman, was understandable.

  It had been an accident. Of course he hadn’t known that Victory was inside. In fact, he’d closed the door to stop little children from wandering in and getting into difficulties.

  It was such a relief. She’d wanted to tell Maddy straight away, but Sinclair had said no, we shall wait until we’re all at Providence together, and then you can tell her.

  It had been his idea to arrange the holiday to Providence as a surprise for Maddy. That morning, after he’d returned from his ride, he had suggested to Maddy that she might care to go into town to see Mrs Herapath, and Maddy had jumped at it, for she had been very much out of sorts since her ride the previous afternoon. Then, while she was gone, they had packed Sophie’s valise, and left for Providence – for it was Sinclair’s idea to take her there a day ahead, so that she could supervise the housekeeper in making the house nice for Maddy, as part of the surprise.

  As the dogcart clipped along beside the Martha Brae, Sophie’s pulse quickened. Maybe this was the day when she would see an alligator. Certainly there seemed to be plenty of wild creatures about. So far she had seen a large pale-yellow butterfly, a flock of bald-pates, and possibly a mongoose, although Sinclair had said that it was only a cane-rat.

  The next moment, her spirits plunged. Victory hadn’t been dead a week, and here she was spotting wild animals as if he’d never existed.

  She dreamed about him every night. She wondered if it was lonely being dead, and if it had hurt to die. Maddy had said that he would have become sleepy through lack of water, and not known what was happening. Sophie hoped that wasn’t just a white lie to reassure her.

  The afternoon was wearing on, and she began to wonder if they would ever reach Providence. She decided not to risk asking Sinclair. H
e had been nice about the hothouse, but she hadn’t forgotten what he had told her about going to Hell. With Sinclair, you could never tell.

  The road became steeper, and they left the river behind. The hills were suddenly much closer. The Cockpits at last? She longed to consult the little volume in her valise which Clemency had given her as a present: Tales of the Rebel Maroons of the Cockpits. The very thing for a holiday in the hills.

  She would miss Clemency. She had helped with the packing, and fussed and not wanted Sophie to leave, just like a proper mother. To cheer her up, Sophie had told her about Ben, and made her swear to keep him secret, and Clemency had been touched. She’d cried when they left, and promised to visit Sophie very, very soon – but Great-Aunt May had said No, that would be inappropriate, and Clemency had backed down. She always backed down, and Sophie really wished that she wouldn’t. Real mothers do not back down where their children are concerned.

  At last they came to a pair of tall iron gates, and Sinclair reined in and spoke to the gatekeeper. The gates swung open, and they trotted up the carriageway between ranks of rigid yokewood trees.

  As the house rose before them, butterflies started up in Sophie’s stomach. She knew that Providence was a hunting lodge, so she’d been expecting something cosy and rustic, like the cottage in The Children of the New Forest. But this house was even larger than Fever Hill, and slightly frightening. It had pointed gables like a witch’s dwelling, and blank, unfriendly louvres painted dark grey. And worst of all was the huge wedge-shaped structure with blind stone walls which jutted from the west wing like the prow of an enormous ship.

  Sophie asked what it was.

  ‘That’s a cutwind,’ said Sinclair. ‘In the old days, they used to shelter inside it from hurricanes. And perhaps also’, he added with a curl of his lip, ‘they used it for locking up naughty little children when they were especially bad.’

  Sophie told herself that he was only joking. But she didn’t think it funny in the least. Not after Victory.

  Helpers in grey uniforms ran down and took charge of the dogcart and Sophie’s valise, and one of them picked her up and carried her up the steps and set her down in a shadowy gallery with her crutches. The gallery was extremely clean, with a floor of brown linoleum like the scullery at Wyndham Street, and it stank of Lysol. It was screened off on either side, but Sophie sensed that there were people behind the screens, although she couldn’t hear a sound. The whole place was eerily quiet, and she realized that there weren’t any dogs, which was unusual for Jamaica.