They had been climbing all the time and the air, though still warm, had a freshness about it that Dominica had not known in Kandy.
As they reached the corner Lord Hawkston said:
“Shut your eyes!”
Dominica obeyed him, then heard him order the carriage to draw to a standstill. There was a moment’s pause before he said:
“Look now!”
Below them was a deep valley surrounded by hills and behind them again there was a range of high peaking green mountains. Directly ahead of them there was a cascade pouring downwards into a lake, and descending again hundreds of feet in a torrent of silver.
Almost blinding in the sunshine Dominica could see beside it a long, low, white house with wide verandahs on two floors.
The gardens surrounding it were a mosaic of colour, a blaze of jungle flame: yellow, gold, white-pink, purple and even blue, which she knew belonged to the nelu, which could carpet the ground with its rare blooms.
Below the house, rising from the depths of the valley to the edge of the garden, were the dark green tea-plants luxuriantly filling their terraces which were like steps rising towards a Temple.
Dominica drew in her breath. She knew Lord Hawkston was waiting for her to speak and at last she said:
“Now I know why Adam and Eve came to Ceylon!”
“You think this is another Eden?”
“The original could not have been more exquisitely, breathtakingly beautiful!”
She knew he was pleased not merely at her words but by the sincerity with which she spoke them.
“That was what I thought,” he said quietly, “when I first saw the valley!”
The view was so lovely and in a way so unexpected that Dominica sat staring at it spellbound.
“Do you like the house I built?” Lord Hawkston asked.
“It is lovely—very lovely!”
“Do you really think so?”
“It looks like something from a fairy-tale,” she answered. “I am sure the lake is enchanted.”
“You must learn to swim.”
“I have always wanted to, but Papa would not let us go into the sea. He said it was immodest.”
“No-one will see you here,” Lord Hawkston assured her, “especially if you bathe when everyone else is at work.”
“I will do that.”
Then he saw Dominica glance at the torrent below the lake and he knew she was remembering that Seetha had met her death by throwing herself down it.
His lips tightened in a hard line and he knew that whatever he might say, however hard he might try to prevent it, the tragedy of Seetha’s death would overshadow Dominica’s arrival.
He signalled to the coachman and the carriage began to move more swiftly as the road went straight along the side of the hill towards the house.
It was the road he had built himself and he thought it was a considerable achievement of which he could be well proud.
The house drew nearer and as it did so he felt that Dominica was pressing herself back against the cushions of the carriage as if in a sudden weakness.
He smiled at her.
“Do not be nervous,” he said. “There are so many interesting things to see and so much I want to show you that I know you are going to enjoy yourself.”
Dominica turned to look at him and he saw the anxiety in her eyes.
“It is all right,” he said quietly. “Just trust me as I have asked you to do.”
“I will ... try,” she murmured.
It was not until Dominica had gone to bed that Lord Hawkston had a chance to speak to his nephew.
Gerald Warren had met them in the Hall as the carriage drew up at the front door of the house, and as he had stepped forward with what his Uncle thought was a somewhat forced smile on his face Lord Hawkston received his second shock of the day.
In two years Gerald Warren had altered almost out of recognition.
He had put on at least three stones in weight, his face was red and puffy, and even before he smelt the spirit on his breath Lord Hawkston knew the cause of such a change.
When he had last seen him Gerald had been slim, smart, and had an undoubted charm which made women like Emily Ludgrove find him easy to love.
Life in Ceylon had swept away his elegance and changed him to a point where his Uncle could hardly believe he was the same person. He had obviously been drinking before they arrived although he was, Lord Hawkston noticed, formally attired and had made himself as presentable as possible.
He was quite obviously on edge at meeting both his Uncle and Dominica, but as the evening progressed and he had consumed a considerable amount of whisky he grew more relaxed.
His raucous laugh rang out, interspersed with long grumbles about the difficulties of tea-planting and the boredom of being so far from civilisation.
Lord Hawkston had been sure Gerald would make an effort, but if this was the best he could do it was not very impressive.
He hoped however that Dominica, not having known him before, would not be as surprised at his appearance as he was and would find him, because he was young and near her age, at least pleasant.
He himself found as the hours passed a cold fury growing inside him at the idea that any young man could have failed so completely in a position of trust and had not even appreciated the opportunity he had been offered.
“It is my fault. I should never had sent him here,” Lord Hawkston told himself.
But the fact that he had been in the wrong did not make him any the less angry.
He managed, during dinner, to keep the conversation at least tolerably interesting and he only hoped that Dominica was not aware of the amount of whisky, or its strength, Gerald was consuming.
He thought she was tired and she confirmed this when she rose to her feet soon after they had finished coffee in the sitting-room whose long high windows overlooked the valley.
“I think, if you will excuse me, My Lord, I will retire,” she said to Lord Hawkston. “It has been a long day.”
“It has indeed,” he replied. “Good-night, Dominica, and I hope you sleep well.”
“I am sure I shall,” Dominica replied. “Good-night, My Lord. Good-night, Mr. Warren.”
She curtseyed to both gentlemen and went from the room.
Lord Hawkston had already been annoyed on arrival to find that Gerald had shut up the top of the house where he had always slept and they were all using the bedrooms on the ground floor.
“Why have you done that?” he enquired.
“I couldn’t afford so many servants,” his nephew replied with a truculent note in his voice. “There was no point in having them sitting about doing nothing.”
Because Dominica was there, Lord Hawkston checked the words which came to his lips.
He was well aware that on the generous allowance he had made to Gerald before he left for England he could have afforded as many servants as were necessary.
He guessed from what James Taylor had told him that Gerald’s allowance had been frittered away on riotous living and whisky.
He was careful, however, not to show his anger until the door closed behind Dominica and he was alone with his nephew.
It was then that he spoke in a controlled, quiet voice, but with every word as effective as a whiplash.
“I have heard about Seetha’s death,” he said. “How could you have been such a fool—such a damned fool as to dismiss her without the usual payment? Anyone round here could have told you to how much she was entitled.”
“I was well aware of how much she expected,” Gerald said surlily, “but I hadn’t got it. Do you understand? I hadn’t got the money!”
“You could have at least promised that you would give it to her on my arrival,” Lord Hawkston said, “or the Bank would have advanced you a loan.”
“I’ve already had a loan.”
“How much?”
“A thousand pounds, and they would not give me any more.”
“You have spent a thousand p
ounds over and above what I sent you?” Lord Hawkston asked incredulously.
“There are also some debts,” his nephew said defiantly.
Lord Hawkston walked across the room trying to control his temper.
“I see now that you were too stupid and too idle to take on a job of this sort,” he said. “But I believed in you and thought you had the qualities required to carry on my work here. I was mistaken!”
“I would like to go back to England.”
“And when you get there what do you intend to do? Live on your mother? She has very little money, as you well know, and you have spent most of it already.”
“At least I shall be with civilised people.”
“Now listen, Gerald,” Lord Hawkston said. “I am not going to permit you to behave like a spoilt child and go running back to your mother just because you have made a mess of everything here.”
His tone sharpened as he continued:
“It is unfortunate that Emily Ludgrove changed her mind about marrying you, but I think if you had come to Colombo to see her she would have been so shocked by your appearance that she would have broken off the engagement anyway.”
“I never really thought Emily would marry me,” Gerald Warren said, “not if she had known she had to live in this dead-and-alive hole.”
“Well, this is where you are going to live,” Lord Hawkston announced angrily. “I have brought you a wife who will look after you and, I hope, keep you in order. I will get the plantation back into working order and then when I return to England you will carry on until I can find someone more adequate to take your place. Is that clear?”
“What is the alternative?” Gerald enquired.
“The alternative,” Lord Hawkston said slowly, and his voice was harsh, “is that you work your passage home steerage! You will never have another penny-piece of my money, and I shall make sure on my return to England that you have none of your mother’s!”
There was a silence, then Gerald Warren threw back his head and laughed. It was an ugly, jeering sound.
“You’ve got it all nicely tied up, haven’t you, Uncle Chilton? You have me in chains and there is nothing I can do about it. Very well, I’ll marry the wife you have chosen for me. She’s quite a pretty little thing and perhaps she’ll contrive to make this place seem less like a mausoleum. I imagine you’ll give us enough to live on?”
“I will pay your debts,” Lord Hawkston said, “and I will give you an allowance which in Ceylon will make you seem comparatively rich as long as you stop drinking.”
“Entirely?”
“You will sign the pledge!”
“Now really, Uncle ...” Gerald began in a conciliatory tone.
“Those are may conditions!” Lord Hawkston interrupted. “Take them or leave them.”
There was a pause.
“Very well, blast it, I’ll take them!” Gerald exclaimed.
He stared at his Uncle with undeniable animosity in his eyes, then he picked up the whisky bottle.
“If I’ve to sign the pledge tomorrow,” he said, “I might as well enjoy myself tonight. Thank you, Uncle Chilton, for your generosity. I am sure you expect me to be deeply and humbly grateful.”
His voice was sarcastic.
It would have been a more dignified exit had he not staggered against the side of the door as he left the room.
CHAPTER FIVE
Dominica lay awake thinking over what had happened during the day.
She had been tired when she came to bed, but she had been unable to sleep.
She found herself shrinking from the thought of Gerald Warren and while she knew in her heart that she could never marry him, she dared not express such a decision in words.
The difficulty would be how to explain it to Lord Hawkston.
She had quite confidently believed that Gerald would look very like his Uncle and she had repeated to herself over and over again Lord Hawkston’s description of him as ‘tall and good-looking’.
When she had seen the fat, red-faced man waiting for them in the Hall she had not at first realised that this was in fact the man she had come to meet; the man she had promised to marry without having seen him.
She had been far too astute not to notice the amount of whisky that Gerald consumed during the evening.
She told herself that her father’s denunciation of alcohol of all sorts was one of his obsessions and that gentlemen like Lord Hawkston drank wine with their meals as a matter of course.
But Gerald Warren smelt of spirits and as she saw the tumbler at his right hand being filled again and again by the servants, she knew without being told that he was drinking too much, and that this must account for his appearance.
Besides this, when she was alone in the darkness of her room, the horror of Seetha’s death swept over her so that it was difficult to think of anything else.
Dominica loved the Ceylonese women for their gentleness, their sweet natures, their friendliness and the loving, childlike trust they had in those whom they served.
She had real friends amongst those women who attended her father’s Church, many of whom came to her with their problems, and she knew them intimately.
She could imagine all too vividly Seetha being impressed by Gerald Warren because of his position, because of the fine house in which he lived and which must have seemed to her to be luxurious beyond her wildest dreams.
Perhaps, Dominica told herself, she had loved him also with her heart whatever Lord Hawkston might say to the contrary.
Because she knew the people so well she was aware that a Ceylonese peasant who lived in the hill-country was a gentleman with a philosophy of life which he was not prepared to barter for material prosperity.
If hunger made it imperative for him to work, he did so and he did it well since he was both skilled and intelligent.
But he preferred to be poor and his own master rather than rich and at the beck and call of someone else.
Dominica had talked with the women who had come with their husbands into Colombo from many of the outlying provinces, so she knew that the Ceylonese had never become reconciled to the subjugation of their beautiful mountains to the needs of an alien agriculture.
They tried to stand aloof from both the coffee and the tea-plantations and Kayons especially, except when they were really hungry, seldom worked on the tea Estates in a regular capacity.
This was the reason why the planters had found from the very beginning that it was essential to rely on the importation of Tamil labour who came mostly from the Coramandel coast of Southern India.
It was the Tamils who cleared the jungle and dug the terraces first for coffee, then for the tea which followed it.
Employing Tamil labour made the planters’ lives more difficult because they had to learn a new language with which to converse with their labourers, who were not as quick at learning English as were the Ceylonese.
They were happy, easy-going, courteous people as a rule and Dominica wondered what agony of mind had forced Seetha into taking their own life.
Could she really have been so unhappy at being turned away by Gerald Warren?
Why did she not seek the comfort of her own people? And why indeed did her father, if he was so fond of her, not prevent her from committing suicide?
There were so many questions that puzzled Dominica and yet she had the feeling that she would never learn the answer because it was a matter that neither Lord Hawkston nor Gerald Warren would ever discuss with her.
Restlessly she rose from the bed on which she was lying, knowing that the dawn must have broken because there was a faint light beneath the curtains.
She drew them back from the window to look out on the view which had held her spellbound the day before.
Her bedroom was at the end of the house and had one long window looking over the valley and another onto the garden and the lake.
The morning mists still shrouded the bottom of the valley, but already there was a faint light glowing behind t
he mountains in the distance, and the stars, which had illuminated the sky the night before, were fading into insignificance.
She turned to the outer window and as she watched, the first golden ray of the sun glittered on the cascade as it fell from the hill above down into the lake. She could hear the roar of the torrent as it descended hundreds of feet into the valley shrouded with mist.
It was incredibly lovely and the beauty of the flowers in the garden was breathtaking.
As the light grew stronger, she could see them more clearly, the guelder roses, geraniums and campanulas, interspersed with magnolias and oleanders.
There were also feathery bamboo, orchids and mosses, and a number of flowers which she recognised as English such as foxgloves and lobelias, arum lilies and many different species of rose.
With the increasing light Dominica realised that the garden, which must have been laid out with great care by Lord Hawkston, had been allowed to grow wild. Already the jungle of convolvuli, vines and rattans were encroaching upon it, and the undergrowth was throttling many of the plants.
She found herself thinking how upset she herself would be if a garden over which she had expended so much love and care should have become neglected during her absence.
She had known without his saying anything the night before that Lord Hawkston had been angry and she was aware that it was only his good manners and self-control which had prevented him from speaking about it at dinner.
It had been bad enough, Dominica thought, that she should feel awkward and shy at meeting Gerald Warren, but what must Lord Hawkston have felt also to find his household reorganised, his servants dispersed, and his garden neglected?
“He was very brave about it,” she told herself, and she wondered if when she had gone to bed he had spoken to his nephew with the anger he had felt inside him.
‘He loves this house and everything in it,’ Dominica thought.
Then almost as if he were a part of her thoughts she saw Lord Hawkston.
He came from the back of the house and was riding along the further side of the lake where the torrent passed under a small bridge.
He was on horse-back and she saw that he was wearing a white open-neck shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows.
Moon Over Eden (Bantam Series No. 37) Page 10
