Black Dawn

by Christopher Nicole

  'My mother, sir.'

  'Oh, I say, my day for disaster. Of course, he had two sons. Do you know, I had not linked the matter? Well, well. Once again, Mr Hilton, I apologize.' He frowned at his empty coffee cup, then set it down, seemed to be drawing himself together. 'Yet, sir, I must speak plain. How do you stand?'

  'On what, sir?'

  'Slavery, sir. You have undertaken the ownership of this plantation. You are aware of the scurrilous methods they are employing in England? They know the nation would never stand for Abolition, so they are preaching Amelioration, sir.'

  'You had best explain.'

  'Well, sir, if they are forced to agree that slavery is decreed by God, and more important, is an economic necessity, they are concerned that it should be as polite as possible. Why, sir, there is a contradiction in terms. Will a slave ever work unless driven to it?'

  'No doubt you are right, Mr Kendrick. But cannot even the driving be divided into the vicious and the necessary?' 'You'd withdraw the whip?'

  ‘I understand it is mainly intended to be withdrawn from the women. But in fact, I have withdrawn it altogether, or at least, not found sufficient cause for its use in my week on Hilltop.

  And the plantation appears to prosper.'

  'A week? By God. You've not had to plant. And from the women? You've not sampled their tongues.'

  Dick thought of the gang he had just left. Indeed he had no idea how else to bring them to heel. But his spirit rebelled at being ordered to brutality by his neighbour.

  'Anyway,' Kendrick continued. 'You'll learn the facts soon enough. 'Tis your seat we are concerned with. You'll take it?'

  But now Dick was very angry indeed. He wonder if it had not been bubbling within him all this time, ever since that ill-fated duel, perhaps, but certainly since the bookkeepers had abandoned him. And all for the wrong reason. He got up again. 'And will I be welcome, sir, if I bring Mistress Gale to sit in the gallery to oversee me, and if I stand up and support Amelioration or, indeed, Abolition?'

  Kendrick had also risen. His cheeks were so purple he might have been about to have a fit. 'Indeed, sir, you would not, on either score.'

  'Well, then,' Dick said, 'as I perceive that Jamaica has managed to survive without a Hilton in the House these twelve years, it had best continue to do so, and allow me to get on with my own problems. And my housekeeper, sir.'

  'Gad, sir,' Kendrick snorted. 'Gad. I had hoped we could be friends. Gad, sir. You're nothing but old Robert, come back to life.' He stamped down the stairs, vaulted into the saddle, and rode off.

  Dick sat down and wiped his brow. Christ, what a stupid way to act, he thought. It must be the heat, affecting my senses.

  'You were magnificent, Mr Hilton. Magnificent.' Harriet Gale carried two goblets filled with sangaree, iced red wine to which brandy and fruits had been added. She held one out for him to take, sat beside him. 'He spoke nothing better than the truth. You are a reincarnation of Robert Hilton.'

  'Me? He was having his little joke. As you are, no doubt. Me? There can be no man in all the world more confused. More miserable, perhaps. I know not where to start, to be a Hilton, to be a planter. To be a man, even.'

  Harriet Gale gazed at him, over the top of her glass as she sipped.

  'Then there is the matter of you. If you were listening, you must have heard what he said. What everyone is saying, perhaps. Oh, don't be alarmed. I would not have you leave, Mistress Gale. I would protect your reputation. And mine, no doubt. Perhaps if we could obtain another white woman, to live here with you. Aye, that is the ticket.'

  Harriet Gale put down her glass beside Kendrick's coffee cup.

  'I do not wish, or need, another woman to live with me. Are you afraid of people's talk?' 'Why, I suppose not. But. . .'

  'Well, then,' she said. 'The best way to answer gossip is to make it the truth, then the wagging tongues lose interest.' She leaned forward, held his face between her hands, and kissed him very deliberately on the mouth.

  6

  The Betrothed

  Where Ellen Taggart had thrust, and Joan Lanken had ballooned, Harriet Gale licked. The sensation was so delicious, the assault was so sudden, the feel of her body against his was so much what he had wanted throughout the previous week, that Dick was for a few moments unable to move. Then he remembered where they were, and seized her wrists. 'Mistress Gale. Harriet. . .'

  'Don't you like me even a little?' Her face was only inches away, her enormous deep brown eyes looming at him. And her body still rested on his.

  'Of course I like you. But on this verandah . . .'

  'There is nobody here. Save slaves.'

  'Yes, but

  She laughed, deep in her throat. 'I forgot. You regard them as important. Will you come upstairs?'

  'But. . . they will know.' There was no question of refusing her. As a quick exploration now assured her.

  She gave his breeches a squeeze, smiled at him. 'Of course. But does it matter?' She rose away from him, holding his hand. And God, how he wanted. How he had wanted, it seemed, since that evening with Ellen. Ellen. And all his promises.

  But Harriet was already at the stairs, and starting up, and he was still holding her hand.

  Boscawen was standing in the archway to the dining room. 'You want me put away the horse, Mr Richard?'

  'Ah . . .' Colour flamed into his cheeks. 'If you would be so kind, Mr Boscawen.'

  'Right away, Mr Richard.' Boscawen looked up at the gallery. 'You there,' he bawled. 'Come down here.'

  Two of the maids hastily appeared, armed with dusters and brooms and pans. They scurried down the stairs, averting their eyes from Harriet, who had released him and reached the top, and smiled at him. He almost ran after her. 'My God. They know.'

  'And are anxious that you should enjoy me.'

  'My God,' he said again. 'I doubt I will be able.'

  Again the low laugh, and she went into her bedchamber. 'Out.'

  Judith had been lying on the bed, peering at one of the books from the library; she could not read but enjoyed the illustrations. Now she scrambled to her feet, gazed at Dick.

  'Oh, my God,' he said. 'This is impossible.'

  The child sidled past him, and as she reached him, gave a little moue with her lips and tossed her head, almost suggestively.

  'She'll be a right whore, one of these days.' Harriet closed the door. 'I'll have to watch her.'

  'Mistress Gale,' he gabbled. 'Really ... we must be mad.'

  'I am mad,' she agreed, and held his arm to escort him across the room. 'Mad with desire for you, Dick. God, even to think of you inside me reduces me to a jelly. And you want me as well. I can see it in your eyes, Dick.'

  He found himself sitting on the bed, and realized what had been bothering him for the previous ten minutes; she was absolutely sober. She released her gown, stepped out of it— she wore nothing underneath—and knelt to pull off his boots, her breasts sagging towards him in a most entrancing fashion, and below the breasts the fold of flesh at her waist, the pout of her belly, the sudden rise of silky brown hair. He reached for her, closing Ins hands on the soft mounds of flesh, to hold them and use them to bring her against him, while she smiled, and busied herself with his breeches, and lay on top of him as he fell back across the bed, kissing his mouth and eyes and nose and chin, sighing as he caressed, her hair drooping on either side of her face to scatter across his.

  But he wanted to possess, as she was willing enough to be possessed. He rolled her on her back, watched her eyes dilate with pleasure, and then without warning she uttered a scream of ecstasy, and dug her fingernails into his back and shoulders, scraping them across the flesh so that he too reached an orgasm in a frenzy of pain which left him lying panting, on the no less exhausted woman.

  'I did not mean to hurt you.' His lips were against her ear.

  'You have not hurt me enough. Nine years? I think I was almost a virgin again. Dick. Dick. How I have longed for your coming. And yet, I feared it, too. I did not kn
ow what you would be like, whether you would like me ... I cannot breathe.'

  He rolled away from her, and she sat up, and knelt above him, straddling him, to remove the last of his shirt, play with his nipples in turn, while she worked her haunches to restore him once again to desire.

  And this time she would be the mistress, her fingers digging into his chest, her tongue lolling, her hair scattering as she shook her head.

  Her entire body sagged, and she slowly lowered herself, to lie on him, blood pumping through the arteries of her neck to fill her cheeks, while her flesh was sweat-wet to his touch. 'Christ,' she said. 'You must have wanted, as much as I.'

  A time to think. As if thought were possible, except of the woman, except of desire, except of wanting to arouse again, except of feeling her legs lying on his, her groin pulsing on his, her nipples scraping on his, her mouth sucking at his. But yet, a time to think. The whole house would have heard her scream, would have known what they had accomplished. But the whole house would have known, anyway, once the bedroom door had shut behind them. How could he ever look any of them in the face?

  And there were hooves, outside the opened window, and that so well remembered voice.

  'Oh, my God,' he said. 'Tony.'

  'Now perhaps he will leave me alone’ she said. 'Eh? Tony?'

  'Ever since the first night. Oh, I permitted nothing. But he would persevere. Will he be jealous?' 'Of me? Very likely. I must get up.'

  Because there were other voices, rising through the old wooden floors. Boscawen, certainly, protesting. Tony, laughing. And boots on the stairs.

  Harriet rolled away from him, regained her robe in a single movement, and pulled it on, in the same instant draping his breeches across his thighs.

  The door opened. 'Great God in Heaven,' Tony said. 'I did not credit my ears.'

  'You are a rude fellow, Mr Hilton,' Harriet said. 'Breaking into a lady's bedchamber.'

  Tony nodded. 'Oh, I am. Well, madam, I am to congratulate you. For at least knowing what you wanted. Are you alive, down there?'

  Dick sat up. 'I'll not apologize, to you or to anyone.'

  'Spoken like a Hilton, old boy. Why should you apologize, to me or anyone? But while you tossed your delightful grandmother, I have been working for Hilltop.'

  'Grandmother?' Harriet cried. 'Why, you . . .'

  She ran at him, and he caught her wrist. 'A jest, Harriet. Merely a jest.'

  'How much did you lose, last night?' Dick asked, buttoning his shirt.

  'A trifle, compared with what I won. James. James. Come up here and meet your employer.' 'Eh?' Dick stood up.

  'James Hardy,' Tony said. 'Mr Richard Hilton, Hilltop's new owner. Oh, and Mistress Harriet Gale.' Tony beamed at them.

  The man was at once short and thin, with a sallow, West Indian complexion and somewhat straggling brown hair. He wore a coat over his opened shirt, and carried his hat in his hand; he had not shaved this morning, and this combined with his thin, even pinched features, and his long nose, gave him a slightly villainous air. But he was by no means dull; Dick observed that a flicker of his green eyes took in the entire room, although he did not appear to look away. 'Mr Hilton,' he said. 'I am honoured, sir. I wish I had come at a more opportune moment.'

  'Bah,' Tony said. 'They were finished. You were finished, Dickie, lad? And you could not have come at a more opportune moment, James. He plants, Dick. And has done so all his life.'

  'Indeed?' Dick shook the young man's hand, and frowned. Because he was very young; in fact he would have estimated Hardy was the youngest of the three. 'That cannot have been so very long.'

  'Eight years, sir,' Hardy said. 'I first rode aback when I was fifteen.'

  'He was orphaned,' Tony explained. 'And had to earn his keep. But his people were planters before him. It is in his blood, as it is in ours. But he has the experience. And there is more.'

  'Indeed,' Dick said. 'Well, of course you are welcome, Mr Hardy. We shall go down and have a glass and discuss the matter. Perhaps you will dress and join us, Harriet.' He glanced at her; now it was difficult to believe what had happened. But her smile was enough to reassure him that it had been no dream. Christ, what a future suddenly opened in front of him. Of Harriet, endless hours, endless days, endless months of nothing but Harriet. He wanted to scream with joy. Which made the pleasure of being the Hilton, of employing labour, of sitting over a glass of sangaree and discussing business matters, knowing always that she was there, twice as delightful. He escorted Hardy to the stairs. 'But what of your present employers?'

  'I will be frank with you, sir,' Hardy said. 'When I heard how you had dismissed all your bookkeepers, I quit my post, sir, hoping for employment here. Then I discovered I lacked the courage to ride out and see you, and was utterly miserable, before I encountered Mr Anthony last night in town.'

  'And approached him. Mr Boscawen, sangaree if you please.'

  It was all but eleven, and too late to return aback now, in any event. And surprisingly, he found no difficulty at all in meeting Boscawen's gaze.

  'Yes, sir, Mr Richard. Right away.'

  'But you have not heard the best of it,' Tony said, following them down the stairs. 'James is well experienced in field work, of course. But his principal business has always been concerned with the factory.'

  'The factory?' Dick cried. 'And us within a month of grinding. But this is splendid news. Did you see the Reverend?'

  'I did. A detestable fellow.'

  'He'd not come?'

  'He explained to me that he could see no purpose in attending Hilltop to conduct a service where there was no congregation left to hear him. He'd spoken with Laidlaw, of course.'

  'But. . . how do we exist, without a service on Sunday?'

  Tony smiled at him. 'He also said he doubted his services were really required by a planter determined to live in the most blatant immorality.'

  'Why . . .' But the man was speaking nothing more than the truth, even if he could not have known it was the truth when he uttered the words. And yet, strangely, Dick felt only anger, not shame.

  As Tony saw. 'So I told him we really had no need of him. We have no need of anyone, Dick. We are Hiltons. And we have James.' He swept the first goblet from Boscawen's tray, held it high. 'I give you Hilltop, and its finest ever crop.'

  Its finest ever crop. It was difficult to believe anything valuable could come out of this turmoil, this heat, this filth. Dick Hilton stood on the high catwalk, situated near the roof of his factory, and looked down on the huge vats, which seethed and bubbled immediately beneath him, sending both their heat—for beneath each enormous metal tub there was a glowing fire—and their aroma, the sickly sweet smell of evaporating molasses, to shroud him, to paste his shirt to his chest like a second skin, to have sweat rolling from his hair to cloud his eyes.

  He watched the slaves, standing on the catwalk immediately beneath him, most of them naked, poking the thick liquid with long poles, making sure it kept moving, while others watched the huge gutters off which the molten sugar drained, to fill the cooling vats on the other side of the factory, where it would evaporate, the molasses to drip through the perforated bottoms into yet more vats, to be used as a basis for the plantation's other main product, rum, while the crystalline sugar would remain in the hogsheads and gradually fill them, until they were ready for shipping. The slaves were watched in turn by Absolom, also naked, marching up and down behind them with his whip, slicing the air, and a streaming back from time to time, shouting at them, but all unheard by Dick ten feet above.

  The noise was quite remarkable. He had not supposed it possible. It seemed to fill the entire plantation, from the slash of the machetes as the cane was cut in the fields, through the creaking axles of the carts as they were trundled behind the mules up the ramp to the great shoot above the factory, increasing in the power mill, where the biggest and strongest of his slaves marched round and round the treadmill, chased by Tony's whip, to propel the huge, squealing rollers which gave the cane
its first crushing, before it was pulled and prodded by another army of slaves, who added water to the partially crushed stalks, a carefully calculated twelve per cent dilution, based on Hardy's assertion that even pulped cane will retain, for some moments, a given percentage of water, which will mix with the unextracted juice to increase the volume by as much as twenty-five per cent on a second crushing. He had even spoken of repeating the operation a third time, but Dick had argued against this, as it was apparently an experiment not yet carried out with success on any other plantation.

  But the refreshed cane was continuing on its way, to the next set of rollers, which completed its destruction, squeezing the very last drop of liquid into the great vats, while the shattered stalks, now hardly more than straw, and called bagasse, dropped from the shoots into the pits beneath, to be turned with pitchforks by another army of slaves, and then shunted along in mandrawn carts to feed the great fires. A sugar estate wasted nothing, when grinding. It was a self-perpetuating hell, producing the sweetest substance in the world.

  His wealth. Just a seething liquid, a few crushed stalks, a few gallons of water, an endless procession of sweating flesh, male and female, adult and child, and all driven by the ceaselessly flailing whips of the drivers. Even he had been forced to accept this, at least during grinding. He did not see how Father could have managed any other way, had he been here. To maintain this level of effort, this level of labour, this level of unceasing brutality, to humans and cane alike, the whip was an essential adjunct.

  Not that he would have been able to use it. He would not have been able to produce a tenth of this liquid gold. He watched James Hardy climbing the ladders. The little man was stripped to the waist, and his skin glistened. His hair was matted and he had not shaved in ten days, so that his beard sprouted, pale brown and bristly.