Black Dawn

by Christopher Nicole

  'And as Master of Hilltop, I will have something to fear?’

  Her other hand joined the first, to hold his head. 'Something,' she said. 'Your past, to begin with. Hush. Listen. The Hiltons, the Warners, were not given their sugar plantations, their islands; they took them.'

  'You could say the same of every family, did you reach back far enough into their past.'

  'I am reaching back not two hundred years, Dick. And in that taking, they committed horrible crimes. Tom Warner, Tony Hilton the first, they once massacred an entire Indian nation, to obtain St Kitts. Your great-great-grandfather, Christopher Hilton, marched with Morgan on Panama. Your Uncle Robert, this man you go to live with, my own brother, once mutilated and hanged a Negro for uncovering himself before my sister.' 'Uncovering himself?'

  'You know what I mean, Dick. And the affair was Georgiana's fault. Robert hoisted the boy with his own hands.' 'Thirty years ago.'

  'Is that so very long? But even that, even everything else, done individually, is as nothing beside the greater crime, that of populating the islands with slaves themselves. The Warners, the Hiltons, played their part in that.'

  'You sound like Father.'

  'Should I not? We have stood shoulder to shoulder, these twenty years.'

  ‘I have always supposed you supported him from love, and not conviction.'

  'I supported him. There is all that matters.'

  He kissed her fingers. 'And I support you both. I meant what I said, this evening. And slavery will soon be a thing of the past. Father says so, and he is winning his fight. The trade is already outlawed.'

  'The trade,' Suzanne said. 'What rubbish. There is a nation of Negroes in the West Indies now, Dick. They need no increments from Africa to grow. As for being over, do you think the planters will agree to emancipation? There is their wealth, this wealth you look forward to inheriting, gone at a stroke. And can you imagine, for one moment, what will happen when two million black people are presented with their freedom, suddenly, in the presence of twenty thousand whites? Do you remember St Domingue?'

  'Vaguely. As a nightmare. Mama, I know how you must feel about it, about Aunt Georgiana's death, but. . .'

  'I feel nothing about it, now. I am merely trying to be sure you understand that this is no sinecure you undertake. Nor will you even be able to stand to one side and watch events shape themselves. As Richard Hilton, as the Hilton of Hilltop, you will be expected to lead, not follow.'

  'And I will lead as my conscience directs me. I promise, Mama.'

  She withdrew her hands, leaned back in her chair. 'I have no doubt of that, Dick. Yet will even that not be easy. The whites will hate you as much as the blacks.'

  'As their leader?'

  'As their superior, certainly. Jealousy is always a cause for hate. But there is more. You will understand that almost every white man in the West Indies is violently opposed to any interference in his affairs, in the institution of slavery. As I said, it is the foundation of their wealth, if they are wealthy, of their claims to superiority over the blacks if they are poor. You are Matt Hilton's son. And Matt once had one of them hanged, for murdering a black.'

  'James Hodge,' Dick said. 'Father has told me.'

  'Aye. But not the whole truth, perhaps. You will have to know it. There was a great scandal. That house your father assaulted, was here in London. The young woman seemed to be white. But she had Negro blood. Worse, she was an absconded slave.'

  Dick stared at her in horror. 'But. . .'

  'Your father loved her, Dick. And Robert found out about it and had her returned to the West Indies. To her rightful owner, James Hodge.'

  'My God. But . . . Father says Uncle Robert assisted him in bringing the case against Hodge. In having him hanged.'

  'Aye. Perhaps Robert regretted his crime. I do not know for certain. I do know that Matt had no idea Gislane's arrest was due to Robert, at that time. It was after he found out the truth that they quarrelled.'

  'What happened to the woman? Gislane?'

  Suzanne Hilton shrugged. 'She was sold again. And again. Eventually to Louis Corbeau in St Domingue. She practised obeah, the Negro witchcraft, became a leader in the revolt there. Perhaps she still rattles her bones, I do not know. She saved my life and yours, at the end. Because by then Matt had fallen in love with me.' 'Yet you hate her.'

  'Should I not? In any event, I have always felt that she saved us out of contempt, not pity. I'm sorry. I did not mean to cause you distress. But the events were well known, and could be thrown in your face.'

  'They happened a long time ago,' Dick said. 'Even Hodge was a long time ago.'

  'There was a widow.'

  'Will she spit in my face?'

  'I doubt that. She is probably dead. Anyway, she has disappeared. Robert offered her money, and she spat in his face.'

  Dick smiled. 'And this is the tyrant?'

  Suzanne sighed, and got up. 'He is a strange man. Circumstances made him strange. He inherited Hilltop when he was scarce older than you. He had that fall from a horse. You have heard of that.'

  'You have told me.'

  'So I have. It left him unable to have children.'

  'Thus I am in the position I now find myself.'

  'But you must try to understand, Dick, the feelings of a man, left solitary and alone, with omnipotent power as far as his eye could see, and yet without the power inside himself of commanding a decent woman into his bed, for fear of ridicule.'

  'I see what you mean.'

  'And then, one sister murdered by a mob, the other deserting husband and friends to marry her own cousin, who was an Abolitionist into the bargain . . .'

  'Do you regret your life, Mama?'

  'Not for an instant. I am attempting to think with Robert's brain. The wonder would be if he were not strange. And now . . .' She turned, violently, stood above him. 'He has made his feelings clear, Dick. He wishes you to inherit, presuming you show a tithe of the ability, the character, I know you possess, and he hopes of you. He has selected you, and not Tony. He is a cunning man. It seems he has had his agents here in England carry out a secret investigation, into the pair of you. And Tony is dismissed for his apparent weaknesses. The weaknesses of trying to be a gentleman. It is hard.' 'Mama . . .'

  'Listen a moment. I have told you enough of my brother for you to know that while he is a man of strong hates, he is a man of utter generosity as well, given the reason.'

  'Of course, Mama, but. . .'

  Suzanne dropped to her knees beside her son. 'And you'd not deny that Tony deserves his chance in the world. Listen to me. I would not interfere with your chance at wealth, your chance to inherit Hilltop. I am only asking you to give your brother at least half of your chance. He is bitterly disappointed. Well, who would not be. But his disappointment may take him into strange paths, drink, gambling. Oh, I know he already treads those paths. Here is our opportunity to free him from those vices. Take him with you, Dick.'

  'Tony? What will Uncle Robert say?'

  'I will give you a letter. I ask nothing for Tony save that he be employed as an overseer. But give him the opportunity, to prove what he can do.'

  'Well, I . . . anyway, he'd never agree.'

  'He has already agreed.'

  'Eh?'

  'I have put it to him very straight.'

  'And he agrees? He understands that. . . well, in view of the investigation you have just related, he must mend his ways.'

  'He understands. He has agreed to follow your wishes in everything.'

  Tony?'

  'Tony.' She got up again, went to the door, opened it. 'Come in here.'

  Tony Hilton came in, slowly. 'We adventure together, then, Dick.'

  Dick hesitated, then rose to his feet. 'Aye, well, I was wondering how I should survive the crossing, without company.' He held out his hand. 'Together then, Tony. With but one objective; to prove ourselves worthy of owning Hilltop.'

  Tony's lingers squeezed his. 'I'll say amen to that.'

  He
was smiling. Even his eyes were smiling. When Tony Hilton smiled he was one of the handsomest men Dick could think of. Here was company, the best of company, to stand at your shoulder.

  But what had Mama just said of her brother? A man is what he is, and cannot change? My God, he thought; what have I done?

  3

  The Coward

  ' "It is convenient to divide the types of sugars into two main groups." ' Richard Hilton spoke the words slowly and carefully, and loudly, as the gusting wind whipped each syllable from his mouth before it was properly pronounced. ' "They are monosaccharoses, formerly called glucoses, and disaccharoses, formerly called saccharoses." Eh?'

  Anthony Hilton yawned, and pulled his coat tighter. They sat on the poop deck, and faced aft, for the brig was beating into a stiff southwesterly; spray clouded over the bows with every dip into the rolling green of the waters, and often enough came flying the length of the deck, while astern of the ship, merging with the flowing white of the wake, the whitecaps pranced and broke, churned by the breeze which scattered the young men's hair, flapped their coats, ruffled the pages of Dick's book.

  ' "The first term," ' Dick continued, "includes the simple sugars, bearing the formula Ca(H20)." We must remember that.'

  ‘Oh, indeed,' Tony agreed. 'I am to plant Ca(H20). That sounds uncommonly like water to me.'

  'Well,' Dick said thoughtfully. 'As in all plants, there must be a great deal of water in the average sugar stalk.'

  'Oh, quite,' Tony agreed. 'But not half so much as there was in that gale the other day. Did you watch it coming over the bow? I thought we were for the bottom.'

  'I was hanging on to Mistress Marjoribanks,' Dick said. ‘I thought she was for it, certainly. She puked green, at the end. I expected to see her gut, at any moment.'

  'Ugh,' Tony said. 'Do remember we don't all have a stomach like yours. Still, I suppose it pays to have a digestion like a carthorse, if one is going to marry a mare.'

  'Now, look here . . .'

  Tony smiled, and stretched. 'A very handsome mare, let us not forget. Do you dream of her?' 'Every night.'

  'Ah, but you have only been separated three weeks,' Tony said. 'When it is three months, you will have forgotten what she looks like.'

  'Never. She has promised to send me a likeness. She is having it commissioned.'

  'How sweet. You'll want more than just a face, to keep you constant amidst all those brown-skinned wenches.'

  'Tony!'

  'Oh, I promised. To be a Hilton's Hilton. But so far as I can make out, they rather went for the brown. Don't frown so, I am only joking. Actually . . .' He sat up, his elbows on his knees. 'I have used this fortnight for thinking.'

  'About brown bellies.'

  'No.' Tony's face was quite unusually serious. 'About being a Hilton.'

  'You are a Hilton.'

  'And you are being deliberately dense. Mama gave me Uncle Robert's letter to read, you know. No, listen. Stuff that damnably boring tome. Listen. He decided on you, instead of me. Now why? Because I drink more than I ought, because I gamble more than I can afford, because I am rutting from whore to whore rather than attaching myself to some unworthy female. I am not thinking of Ellen, believe me. Any female I accumulated would be unworthy. But think on this. Robert Hilton has spent his life doing all of those things, at least according to Father.'

  'Which no doubt, now that he is growing old, is why he doesn't wish his heir to follow his example.'

  'Hm. You know, old boy, you are the priggiest prig I ever came across. Oh, you'll do well. But not while you are looking over your shoulder at your conscience. You want to let go a little, live a little, especially if you are going to spend the better part of your life married to Ellen Taggart. She'll have you hog-tied to the bed-post in seconds.'

  'You do talk the most utter rubbish,' Dick said, without anger. 'Now, let us get back to it. Uncle Robert will certainly want us to know something about our crop. Where were we? "The formula of the second group is Cl5H32016." Say it now.'

  'Just what I was thinking of,' Tony said. 'Here they come'.

  'Eh?' Dick marked his place with his finger, looked back along the poop deck where Captain Morrison, all red cheeks and unshaven chin, was welcoming the rest of the passengers for their afternoon constitutional. 'Oh, Lord.'

  Mistress Marjoribanks came first. She was a large lady, although she had lost weight during their fortnight at sea; the weather had been unfailingly bad and she was a poor sailor. Then the Collies, Mistress Collie clutching her babe in her arms, while it wailed and gnawed at her pelisse, Dr Collie holding the older child by the hand, half dragging it across the deck; having made the appalling mistake of marrying before completing his medical studies, he had been forced to seek a livelihood in the colonies. Then Master Rowland, who sported yellow braces under his vest, and pretended to smoke a cheroot, for all that his cheeks were tinged permanently green—his father was a plantation manager, and he felt it necessary to act the part. And then Captain and Mistress Lanken. Captain Lanken was a very military gentleman, with square shoulders and a jutting chin, who seemed almost naked without his red jacket. He was in fact, like them, on his way to a post as manager of a plantation in Jamaica, having recently been invalided from the army as a result of a wound which had left him with an almost useless left leg. Thus he walked with the aid of a stick, and with the assistance of his wife.

  Who was currently the object of Tony's admiration. Joan Lanken was less than half the age of her husband, Dick estimated, and was an extraordinarily pleasant young woman, not especially pretty because of her somewhat flattened features, but with an agreeably plump figure and a delightful little tinkle of laughter. Her hair was pale brown, and a positive mass of curls, although these were presently concealed beneath the edgings to her fur bonnet, for the breeze remained chill. Dick, indeed, was fast coming to regard her as almost a sister, as it was impossible not to regard all the cabin passengers as close relatives, in view of the intimacy in which they were forced to exist, sleeping, eating, dressing and undressing, quarrelling and laughing, grumbling and dreaming, all together in a cabin hardly twelve feet square.

  Tony was on his feet. 'Ladies. A better day.'

  'Oooh, this roll. Oooh, this pitch.' Mistress Marjoribanks sank to the blanket he had spread on the deck. 'I shall never travel again, Mr Hilton. Never. I should not be travelling now. It is cruel, cruel, to send for me like this. James has existed without me these four years. He could have done so for four more.'

  'But think of it,' Dick said. 'The Caribbean. Why, save for the occasional hurricane, it never blows there. Endless months of calm seas, warm sun, blue skies . . . you will be wondering why you did not accompany your husband in the first place.'

  'Ugh. All those cannibals?'

  'I think the Caribs are just about extinct,' Dick said. 'Except perhaps for a few settlements in the smaller islands. In any event, they have learned to respect our strength.' His gaze drifted to the rail, where Joan Lanken and Tony were leaning, shoulders touching, apparently contemplating the sea.

  'Reading, sir? Reading?' Humphrey Lanken barked rather than spoke.

  'The Essentials of Cane Growing, sir,' Dick explained. 'By Dr James MacLaren.'

  'Essentials? Why, sir, there is nothing to it. In those islands, sir, why, cane grows like grass. Oh, indeed, sir, it is a simple matter.'

  'I'm sure you are right,' Dick agreed. 'Good afternoon, Captain Morrison. A fine day.'

  'Good day to you, Mr Hilton. Oh aye. The weather is on the mend. For the time.' He winked. 'We don't want to forget 'tis the storm season.'

  'Oooh,' screamed Mistress Marjoribanks. 'Not a storm.'

  'Ah, 'tis early yet,' Morrison declared. 'The first hurricane seldom sprouts before August; we've a week in hand. Soon enough we'll pick up a trade wind, and then, why, it'll be coasting along with the wind abaft the beam, and not a whitecap in sight. You'll like that, Mistress Marjoribanks.'

  'Oooh,' remarked that lady. 'Will she still ro
ll?'

  'Oh, aye, well, ships do roll, madam. Ships do roll. But none of this pitching. Ah, no. There'll be no pitching once we find the trades. Now ladies, gentlemen, I'm unpacking my cheese today. Real Stilton, ladies, gentlemen. You'll want to be in the cabin at four, eh? Good stuff, no mildew, well, none you can't stomach, and going cheap. Oh, aye, four o'clock.'

  He bustled forward, and the Collie children, momentarily silenced by his bellow, began to wail once more.

  'Damned scoundrel,' Lanken said. 'Why did he not uncover his cheese last week, eh, while it was still fresh?'

  'Because then we all had cheeses of our own, captain,' Tony said, having turned back from the rail. His cheeks were flushed, and to his consternation, Dick saw that Joan Lanken's were also pink. And they had been looking over the lee rail, backing the wind.

  'And now he can charge us what he likes, knowing that our own stocks are low,' Collie grumbled. 'Truly they say that all seafaring men are pirates at heart.'

  'Aye, well, we are in the rascal's power, and must make the best of it,' Lanken declared. 'Mistress Lanken, I'm for a stroll. You'll take my arm, if you please.'

  'Of course, sir.' Joan Lanken gave Tony a quick smile, and seized her husband's left arm to propel him over the quarterdeck. Dick found that his own arm had been seized, and by his brother.

  'Do you fancy her?' Tony whispered, pulling him to the taffrail.

  'Eh? Good Lord, no.'

  'Then you're a fool. She let me touch her titties just now, and right through the cloth, Big.'

  'For heaven's sake, Tony, with her husband right there?'

  'He is a total fool. And quite incapable, she says.' He grinned. 'His leg keeps getting in the way, and she says it is the stiffest part of him. Listen, she is absolutely begging for a little service.'

  'Then are you the total fool. In our circumstances?'

  'Ah, well, there's the difficulty. I suggested she and the captain shift their berths to our side of the cabin, but she feels he would suspect something. On the other hand, it is going to get much warmer in a day or two. No one could be blamed for waking in the middle of the night, and needing air.'