'Please,' she said softly. 'I made a mistake, once. All of my life, I think. I wished only to yield, as a young girl, to a man of whom I dreamed, a formless creature, yet one I never doubted would appear. And then I met you and my dream became reality. Yet still the decision was only to yield. I sought to escape the brunt of life, by belonging. I had not realized that no human being can, or dare, escape the brunt of life. Hear me out, please. In this business you are but the bridge between two spirits, Kit. Even you are no more than that. Yielding, as I thought, I yet put out a mortal challenge to your wife. I thought no more of it, then. I said to myself, it is between Kit and Marguerite, and if he now loves me and not her, then I am content, no matter what sin we commit. Yet how wrong I was. It was never between you and Marguerite. It was ever between Marguerite and me. So she reacted, with the passion and violence which is the part of her character, and, I suspect, first made you fall in love with her. Can I quarrel with her for revealing her true self in such a situation? Would I have acted differently, granted her wealth and position and upbringing? Do you know, I encourage myself with the thought that I would have been more straight with my rival. I would not have had the deed done by stealth, at night, when I was a thousand miles distant. I would have faced her, even had I ordered others to do the deed. But there is flattery, if you like, of myself. I lack her wealth and position, and thus I do not know for sure how I would truly have acted.'
She took his hand between hers. 'And then you returned, and rode forth to avenge me, like the man you are. I did not wish to stop you, then. I did not know what I wished, then. I wished only to lie down beneath the weight which oppressed me. Sometimes I wished for death itself. Yet would I not take my own life. Perhaps because of my beliefs. Perhaps because I am a coward. And when I would again flatter myself. I say perhaps because I have more strength than that. But when you failed, and were incarcerated in that dreadful prison, then
I perforce had to consider the matter in a more sober light, and I realized that even had you succeeded, had you dragged Marguerite into town and forced her to scream an apology at the top of her lungs, and had you arraigned the murderers of Agrippa and had them hanged, yet would I still be an object of contempt and pity. No one could blame Marguerite for crumbling before the assault of Kit Hilton. But who would ever take the side of a husband-stealer?'
'Then are we doubly damned,' Kit said. 'As I failed in my mission.'
'I doubt that anyone blames you for that, either, for there cannot be a man in Antigua but knows that you acted as he would have done in similar circumstances.'
'Faith, I wish I understood more of human nature.'
'It is not so very difficult to understand,' she said. 'We had best be getting home.'
He flicked the whip, and the trap rolled into town. 'Then where is your solution to our problem, as you have thought so deeply on the matter?'
She sighed. 'I wish I knew. I only know that the solution must be mine, Kit, not yours. So I beg of you, do nothing rash.'
'I have already promised Daniel that, and felt heartily ashamed for it.' He drew rein before the General Store. 'May I come in with you?'
She shook her head. 'It would be better not.'
'Another thing I can hardly understand. Tell me, does your father speak with you in his own home?'
'Seldom. He is as bewildered by events as I.'
'Bewildered. By God, there is an odd emotion.'
'Do you think so? He is a man of great discipline, over himself, and over those who would work with him or live with him. He brought me up in that mould, as he has ever lived with Mama in that mould. Now he no longer recognizes me, and he cannot understand how Mama will care for such an outcast.' She smiled, a sufficiently rare sight nowadays. 'But then, I scarce recognize myself. Can you imagine, Kit, how many pairs of eyes are at this moment watching us, hidden behind their shutters? Antigua has had no such source of scandal since Edward Warner's wife was kidnapped by the Indians, with all that must have entailed, and yet returned here to rule over them. So must I be less of a woman than she?' She leaned forward, kissed him on the lips. 'That will keep their dinner conversation flowing agreeably.' She squeezed his hand as she stepped down.
'Tomorrow at one,' he said.
'Tomorrow at one, Kit.' She went inside.
He flicked the whip and the trap covered the few yards to the Governor's temporary residence. How strange indeed were the patterns life took up. He had wooed her in a fit of drunken passion, and taken her off to be his mistress with heroic violence. And now he was back to courting her like any timid young man, barred from her door by her father's disapproval.
But this time he would do it her way, because he must. And because he wanted to. This time there was no need to fear any sudden cessation in their affairs.
And indeed he had thought of nothing else since his release from prison. Yet so many other things clamoured for his consideration. Marguerite remained an overwhelming factor. Lilian spoke of her own humiliation, and of her inability to deal with it. But he had also been brought low, by the determined animosity of that remarkable woman. And even had he been able to erase her entirely from his mind and his memory, there remained always Tony and Rebecca. He had not seen them for more than a year. What had been told them of their father, he wondered. What did they think of their father? Or did they think of him at all? And did he have any rights, where they were concerned?
And, looking at the larger canvas, there was the certainty of troubled times ahead, which also he was reluctant to consider. For Daniel had wasted no time in letting the planters know where they stood. In his speech to the Assembly, which tradition demanded of a new Governor, he had all but called them rogues and traitors to their faces, had declared his firm intention of governing the colony as a colony, had used the phrase, 'I will bring the malcontents to heel,' and had left them gaping in impotent indignation. Edward Chester's face had gone as red as his hair, and he had stared around the room, making sure of his support, and then up at the gallery, identifying his enemies. And flushing to a yet darker hue on discovering Kit. So, what would be the planters' remedy for the predicament in which they now found themselves? Why, a simple one. They had refused to vote any money, not only for the necessary purposes of government, but also for the building of Government House.
Yet was the island governed, and the house all but built. The captains of the ships which brought mahogany from the Mosquito Coast, no less than those which brought fine cloths and fine wines from Europe, no less than Wolff himself, with every slave he possessed working on the site, accepted Daniel Parke's notes without question. They could, in fact, do nothing less, but obviously they also had no doubt that when there eventually was a reckoning, they would have to receive their money; the planters' crops were sold in England, and their London agents handled all deductions, for goods or taxes. No City merchant was going to quarrel with Whitehall on account of a few angry Antiguans. As for the very few civil servants required—amongst whom, Kit realized, he must now number himself—or the soldiers of the garrison, they were well used to their pay being a year and more in arrears.
He trotted the horses beneath the archway, and threw the reins to one of the Negro servants waiting there. He took off his hat and entered by the side door, mounting the inside staircase to the shaded gallery which ran round the seaward side of the house, pausing to marvel at the quiet. St John's in mid-afternoon was like a town of the dead.
He climbed the great staircase to the upper gallery, unbuttoning his coat, and heard a giggle of laughter. He stopped, his heart seeming to climb very slowly into his throat, for he was sure he could recognize the voice. He approached the door, it led to one of the guest bedrooms, and stopped again. Now all was silent once more. Yet had he heard the sound, and he could not believe his ears. He rested his hand on the door knob, hesitated for a moment, and then twisted it and threw the door inwards in the same instant.
Daniel Parke gave a startled exclamation as he sat up, instinctively reac
hing for the pistol which waited by his bed. The woman beside him gave a shriek, and reached for the rumpled sheet to cover her nakedness, while Kit stared at her in total horror.
For he had indeed recognized that high-pitched giggle. The woman was Mary Chester.
'By God, Kit, but you are liable to die long before your allotted moment, if you persist in behaviour like that.' Daniel Parke slouched in his chair, his wig askew, his coat and vest unbuttoned. He had drunk better than two bottles of wine with his dinner.
'I doubt I will apologize again,' Kit said. 'For the deed, yes. For the motivation, hardly. The act was downright suicidal.'
'Bah.' Parke snapped his fingers, and the butler hastened forward with another bottle. 'Drink up.' He leaned his elbows on the table. 'I represent the Queen. True or false?'
'Oh, true, but ...'
'Therefore I am the Crown by proxy. True or false?' 'True, but
'Therefore it behoves me to act like a king. Name me a king who has lacked a mistress. One? What am I saying. Name me a king who has lacked a harem.'
'Charles I,' Kit said.
'And he got his head chopped off. In any event, as his father's harem consisted of boys, he was doubtless confused. Besides, Mary is what a man like me needs. God, how I need her. Oh, I understand other tastes. I recognize yours, for slender legs and waists which are nothing more than rib covers, and tits which can scarce tickle the palm of your hand. Mary, sweet Mary, is what I desire, Kit. There is nothing but flesh. Christ, man, to sink my face in those bubbies is to lose my awareness of the world beyond. To discover my whereabouts below that belly is to travel to unknown planes of delight.'
Kit sighed. 'I have no wish to discuss the lady's charms, Dan. Neither hers nor those of any woman. I but wish to remind you that she is Chester's wife.'
'And damned unhappy with her lot. I'll wager you did not know that.'
'Chester and I have not been particularly close these past two years.'
'Aye. Well, you can take it from me that he only seeks her bed to torment her. That often enough he uses his belt on those marvellous hams. By Christ, one day I will take his ugly face and thrust it down his throat.'
'Yet will you be in the wrong, before the law, and I had supposed that was your main concern.'
Parke glanced at him, frowned, and drank some more wine. 'Who's to know, may I ask? Or do you propose to print a broadsheet?'
'Do you suppose for an instant an affair of that nature can be kept privy, in St John's?'
'And why not, sir? We meet three times a week, in the middle of the afternoon. Had you not so unreasonably returned early you would have suspected nothing.'
'And her husband?'
'Like all husbands, suspects least of all. It is his custom to visit the Ice House every day before noon, as you are well aware, his plantation being so close to town, and there to drink himself nearly insensible. Add four glasses of port with his luncheon, and he is retired by one of the clock, in an absolute stupor from which he does not arise before five. Sweet Mary is always back in bed beside him by four, which allows us two hours of delicious tumbling.'
'With the wife of the man who must in any event lead the opposition to your measures. 'Tis utterly indefensible. For find out he will, Dan. I'll wager you that.'
'Then let him step forth as a cuckold. What, Chester challenge me? I'd pin his ears back for him.' Parke set down his glass and struggled to his feet. 'I must be away.'
'What now?' Kit demanded. 'Another lady? It is all but midnight.'
Parke grinned at him. 'Come.' He led the way, a trifle uncertainly, down the corridor to a downstairs sitting-room, and carefully locked the door. From a chest in the corner he pulled out a long black cloak, and a mask, made to look exactly like a human face, with a moustache and somewhat long nose, but not otherwise grotesque. 'I shall go for a walk.'
Kit scratched his head. 'Wearing that clown's garb?'
'This clown's garb is very suitable, Kit.' Parke stood before the mirror to adjust the mask and carry the cords behind his head. 'It needs a roomful of candles, such as we have here, and a close inspection, to tell that it is not flesh, and I will supply candles his face was seen to be ashen, and he panted. 'Dan?' Kit cried. 'Are you hurt?'
Parke shook his head, still gasping, and pulled himself up the stairs. 'Blinded, more like. Fetch me a drink.' He blinked at the crowd of servants. 'And get back to bed, God damn you. A drink. Rum.'
Fie reached the gallery, sat in a chair. Jonathan hurried forward with a glass.
'A shot, was it?' Kit said. 'I'll turn out the guard.'
'They are there already.' Parke drank deeply, and sighed. 'And I have sent them back again. We'll have no publicity.'
'But someone tried to kill you.'
'Aye,' Parke said. 'Someone. Lurking in the street, to aim at me as I emerged.'
'Knowing that you would emerge,' Kit said. 'I did not suppose your subterfuge would survive. This island is a quarter of the size of an English county, Dan. Can you suppose English Harbour does not know everything that happens in St John's, within the hour?'
'Aye,' Parke said. 'Maybe you were right. By God, assassinate me, would they?'
'Yet you'd not have the guard chase the fellow?'
'No.' Parke finished his drink and stood up. 'I know now where I stand. Where I had supposed I would always stand, Kit, eventually. Four-square to the devils. You'll be at my shoulder?'
'You have my word. My only concern is that you give them less opportunity, and I do not only now speak of bullets.'
'Words will cause me no harm,' Parke said. 'But by God, I will harm them. May the devil come for my soul, if I do not bring them down. Make no mistake about that.'
'Strange words, for a Governor,' Kit said, and stood, hands on hips, gazing at the house, into which furniture was being carried by gangs of Negro slaves. 'And look, he means what he says.' He pointed to where more Negroes were dragging a cannon into place beneath the flagstaff from which floated the cross of St George. 'He declares war on his own people. I hope he does not set more substance by the Queen's support than really exists.'
Lilian made no reply. This afternoon, even for her, she had been unusually silent.
'But still,' Kit said, 'it is a splendid house. You must admit that, sweetheart.'
'Have I ever denied it?' She mounted the steps to the verandah, her hand loose in his. The workmen smiled at them and touched their hats. 'And what of your ship?'
'She will be launched in a week, by all reports. Then ...'
'Then will you once again be absent from my side, too often.'
'Sweetheart ...'
'A man must be active. He must do. While a woman must wait. Is that not what you were going to say?'
'Well ... perhaps I would have chosen my words a trifle differently.'
'The substance would have been the same. But tell me this, Kit.' She freed her hand, and turned to gaze at the lawn, already sprouting grass, and the drive, and the labourers, and the engineer, and the red-coated sentry, patrolling the boundaries. 'Did not a great part of your love for Marguerite spring from admiration of her as a woman who stepped beyond the limits placed on our sex by history and convention?'
'Well ... she is unusual. I will grant you that.'
'She is breathtaking,' Lilian said. 'In the sweep of her personality. Because she refuses merely to confess, I am a woman, and therefore weak, and thereby hindered. She does what a man would do, whenever it becomes necessary or profitable.'
'There is no denying that,' Kit admitted. 'I suppose in many ways she is unique.'
'No human being is unique,' Lilian said quietly. 'They may only think in unique ways. But we all possess the same attributes, and most of us possess very similar feelings. Were you a general, what would you count the stratagem most likely to give you success in battle?'
'Why ... surprise, I would suppose.'
'And what has Marguerite done all her life, but surprise her friends and her enemies, her creditors and her debtors
, by the force and unexpectedness of her action, of her decisions. And thereby she has achieved all her position and her power, and the admiration with which both men and women regard her.'
'I had not really expected to discover you in the role of Marguerite's defender,' Kit remarked.
'I but seek to point out the strengths on which she trades. Because you see, Kit, if I am ever to hold my head up high again, as Lilian Christianssen, and not merely as Christopher Hilton's mistress, then I must match her on her own ground.'
'But that is ...'
'Impossible? You diink too little of me, Kit. Not that you can be blamed for that. I have ever thought far too little of myself. But this last year I have thought a great deal, as I have had little else to do but think. I have tried to understand the point of view of my enemy, for she is my enemy and there is no point in arguing against that. She has reduced me to a contemptible nothing, a fool of a woman. I must either die, for I cannot live in that guise, or I must force her to admit that I am as good a woman as herself. It so happens that I have at last hit upon a way which provides me very simply with one or other of those alternatives.'
'Sweetheart ...' Kit began uneasily.
'Hear me out, please,' Lilian said, continuing to speak in the same quiet and composed tone. 'I yesterday wrote her a letter, reminding her of my grievance against her, and challenging her to meet me, at a place of her choosing, and with weapons of her choosing, and at a time of her choosing, that we might settle our quarrel once and for all.'
Kit gaped at her. 'You challenged her to a duel? But that is preposterous.'
'On the contrary.' Lilian unfolded a slip of paper she had hitherto kept in her hand. 'Here is her reply. "Mrs Christopher Hilton will be happy to meet Miss Lilian Christianssen, on the beach outside St John's, at dawn tomorrow morning, for the mutual settlement of their quarrel. The weapons she has chosen are pistols.'
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