Some distance away, in a cane-piece to her right, a little group of field-hands clustered about a wagon leaning drunkenly into an irrigation ditch. She saw Pilate tethered nearby, and Cameron’s fair head. He was by the wagon, stooping to examine the damage. As she reined in, he straightened up and saw her.
At that moment the wagon gave a shuddering jolt and sank further into the ditch. Everyone sprang back.
Cameron turned to speak to a tall Negro beside him, and reached for his hat, and went round the back of the wagon to untether Pilate.
‘I have to talk to you,’ she said when he’d ridden across. She had to raise her voice above the noise of the rain.
He gave her a concentrated look that she couldn’t read. ‘That’, he said, ‘isn’t a good idea.’
‘I know, but— I know.’
With the back of his hand he wiped the rain from his face. ‘What about Sinclair? Does he know you’re here?’
‘Of course not.’
A terrific peal of thunder. Their horses sidestepped in alarm.
He glanced over his shoulder at the men by the wagon, then back to her. ‘Come up to the house.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
By the time they reached the house, the rain was coming down in force.
They went in the back way, so Madeleine saw nothing of the exterior except rain-pummelled creepers and broken fretwork eaves. Then they were in the hall, and he was showing her into a dim and shuttered ‘spare room’, then leaving her without another word, to go and see to the horses.
She removed her hat and her sodden dust-coat and threw them on a chair. Her hair was wet, her riding habit damp but not soaked through. Nothing to be done about that now. Besides, it was too hot to catch a chill.
As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she made out more of her surroundings. A thick, soft covering of dust, and a musty smell of neglect – but the room must once have been beautiful. The walls were panelled in amber sweetwood, the windows hung with the remains of blue and white shantung, the floor tiled in cool terracotta. But the hangings were mildewed, the panelling worm-eaten, and the canopied bed had collapsed into a pile of mouldy planks. Rain rattled into a washbasin through a hole in the roof. The chair on which she’d thrown her dust-coat had lost one of its legs.
She remembered the haunted ruin in the photograph on the piano at Cairngowrie House. The tree-fern in the window like a shattered monocle; the steps curving down into the jungle garden. She was inside the house which her own forebears had built. Inside the past.
A crash of thunder and a brilliant flare of lightning, and the rain on the shingles became deafening. She moved to the window.
Against the broken louvres the fronds of an enormous fern trembled in the rain. She looked down over a steep slope of wind-tossed trees: palms and wild almonds and tattered philodendrons, their huge leaves dipping and swaying beneath the onslaught. At the bottom of the slope she made out stables and a cook-house, smothered by creepers and bougainvillaea and great scarlet bursts of ginger lilies. It was hard to tell whether the buildings supported the greenery, or the other way round.
Everywhere she looked she saw dilapidation and decay and abundant life. In Eden everything is wilder and more alive . . . the sun shines more fiercely, the rain strikes harder, and the leaves are so green that it hurts your eyes . . .
No, she told herself. Don’t think about that now.
On the wall near the door hung a shattered looking-glass, still with a silvered fragment in one corner. She went to it and set about unpinning her hair and combing it through with her fingers, and putting it up again.
The rain ceased with tropical suddenness. Blue sky began to show through the hole in the roof. Sunlight limned the ferns with gold, and a haze of vapour rose from the slope. Grassquits twittered furiously amid a ringing chorus of frogs.
She opened the door into the hall and looked out. It was empty. Cameron must still be down at the stables. She emerged into a large central space made airy by high open rafters, louvred fanlights, and several more holes in the roof.
The house seemed to be smaller than Fever Hill, but was clearly much older. Mrs Herapath had told her that it was the oldest on the Northside, and one of the few to have survived the Christmas Rebellion – for by the standards of the time, the Durrants had been good to their slaves. ‘Too good,’ Mrs Herapath had muttered darkly. ‘Too many little black and brown unofficial Durrants scurrying all over the place.’
The hall was empty of furniture except for an enormous and very dusty mahogany table which was clearly a dumping ground: a trio of hurricane lamps with cracked glass shades; a tottering stack of Gall’s Weekly Newsletters from the previous year; three large tins of Everett’s Patented Harness Cleaner; a crate of Glenfallock Highland Whisky, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and a tattered copy of Cassell’s Book of the Horse. From what she could see of the rooms that led off the hall, they too were in a similar state of neglect.
How can he live like this, she wondered. Where does he live?
She moved through to the sitting-room, which was empty except for an ancient, battered chest of drawers on top of which lay a belt with a broken buckle, a watch-chain and a pile of loose change. She resisted the temptation to look in the drawers, and went forward to the louvred doorway, which presumably led into some sort of gallery.
She never forgot that first moment when she opened the doors. She had expected a dim, shuttered chamber like the gallery at Fever Hill. Instead she found herself on a wide, open verandah in a blaze of light.
A flock of parakeets exploded from the trees, and filled the sky with emerald wings. The sun shone green through tree-ferns dripping beneath the eaves. Purple grenadilla invaded the broken fretwork balustrade, and white bougainvillaea, and papery red hibiscus. At her feet a double curve of creeper-choked steps swept down into a steaming wilderness. She saw mango trees and cedars and palms; lime trees and wild cinnamon, powder-blue plumbago and purple thunbergia, and the vivid orange and cobalt of strelitzia. At the foot of the slope, the opaque jade-green river slid by beneath water-heavy plumes of giant bamboo, the banks aflame with torch ginger and the scarlet claws of heliconia. Across the river, the road cut a rust-red slash through the shimmering cane-pieces, and far in the distance lay the grey-blue glitter of the sea.
The air was rich and hot and buzzing with life. The rasp of crickets, the piping of frogs, the twittering of sugarquits and wild canaries. She took a deep breath and smelt the mineral freshness of wet red earth. In Eden everything is wilder and more alive . . .
She ran to the end of the verandah and leaned out as far as she could. The house was set in an amphitheatre of forested hills, their slopes dark in the glare of the sun. And deep in the forest there stands an enormous silk-cotton tree. That’s where we used to meet, your father and I. She scanned the hills, but it was impossible to see for the glare.
Then, as she watched, a haze passed across the sun, and for an instant, far in the distance, she thought she saw it. Taller than any oak, its great outstretched limbs supported a separate world above the canopy: a world of strangler fig and Spanish moss and orchids like little darts of flame. The Tree of Life. The creepers hang down to the ground, and at night after a rain they’re speckled with fireflies; and there are moonflowers as big as your hand, so fragile and pale that they’re like the ghosts of flowers; and with each breath you take in the scent of cinnamon and lime and sweet decay . . .
She blinked back tears.
A sound of footsteps behind her, and she turned to see Cameron coming out onto the verandah.
He saw her taut expression, and misread it. ‘It used to be a proper gallery,’ he said, as if he felt he must apologize, ‘but the wood-ants got into the louvres. It seemed simpler just to open the whole thing up.’
She crossed her arms about her waist. ‘It’s beautiful.’
There was an uneasy silence. She noticed that he remained by the doors, a safe distance away. He stood with his hands in the poc
kets of his shooting jacket, awkward and on edge.
Then two things happened at once. An enormous mastiff hurtled up the steps and launched itself at Cameron, and an ancient black man with unsteady yellow eyes emerged from the house bearing a tray with an earthenware pitcher, two tumblers, and a bottle of rum.
Helper and mastiff narrowly missed one another, and Madeleine, grateful for the diversion, found a rickety cane chair near the steps, and sat down. She took a tumbler from the helper’s tray and held it on her knees with both hands.
There wasn’t much furniture on the verandah, but the question of where Cameron lived was finally solved. He lived out here. Behind him was a cot-bed hastily covered by a moth-eaten grey blanket, and flanked by an elderly washstand and a large, iron-bound campaign chest. On the chest was a stack of battered ledgers, an ancient kerosene lamp, and a corner of silvered mirror-glass. She thought, no wonder he cuts himself shaving.
He caught the direction of her glance, and coloured. ‘Sorry about this. You must think I’ve gone bush.’
She shook her head.
‘It’s just that there’s always so much to do on the estate. I haven’t had time for the house.’
‘Why do you sleep out here? Is it because of prison?’
He dismissed the helper, and watched till he was gone. Then he turned back to her. ‘How did you know that?’
‘Oh. Just a guess.’ She paused. ‘Was it awful?’
‘Um. Yes.’
‘Did it change you?’
‘I think so.’
‘How?’
He frowned at the floor. ‘Made me more tolerant, I suppose. I mean, I had some good friends in prison, but they weren’t the sort of people with whom I’d have associated before.’ Again he coloured, and she guessed that he was thinking about Grace.
She wanted to tell him that she wasn’t the least bit shocked that he’d had a black mistress. How could she be shocked, when right now her photograph was probably gracing the trays outside Bob Venables’ grimy little shop in Holywell Street?
The mastiff trotted over to investigate her, and sniffed her hand, then trotted back to Cameron and slumped at his feet.
She said, ‘I take it that’s the famous Abigail.’
‘Sophie told you about her?’
She nodded. ‘She’ll be annoyed to have missed the introductions.’
Another awkward silence, while they both thought how unlikely it was that Sophie would ever be allowed to visit Eden.
Madeleine took a sip of her drink. It was freshly pressed cane juice: pearl-grey and fragrant and wonderfully steadying.
‘Would you like some rum in that?’ said Cameron. ‘You must have got rather wet.’
‘No. Thank you. But you go ahead.’
He poured a measure of rum into his own glass and added a splash of cane juice from the pitcher, then took a chair by the campaign chest. She noticed that he only used his right hand, and that his left remained in the pocket of his shooting jacket, where a dark blotch was beginning to soak through. She said, ‘You’ve hurt your hand.’
‘I caught it on a nail, that’s all.’
She remembered the moment when he had seen her in the cane-piece. The wagon’s lurch and his quick recoil. He must have been concealing it in case she was squeamish. ‘You ought to see to it,’ she said. ‘Go on. I’ve seen blood before.’
Looking slightly embarrassed, he took his hand out of his pocket, and she saw that the handkerchief he’d wrapped about it was mostly scarlet. He unpeeled it to reveal a messy cut across the palm. Abigail raised her head and sniffed, and he pushed her nose away.
Madeleine said, ‘Does it hurt?’
‘No.’ He shrugged. ‘Yes.’
They exchanged slight smiles. He went inside and came back with a clean handkerchief from the chest of drawers, and sat down again.
She ought to tell him now why she had come. Just tell him and get it over with. But she couldn’t do it yet. Let him bandage his hand and have a drink. Yes, let him have a drink. He was going to need it.
Behind him on the campaign chest stood a leather travelling frame containing a pair of photographs. In one of them she recognized a younger Jocelyn, much less rigid and hawk-like. In the other, a young man with wavy fair hair. He looked happy and handsome and unafraid. He was her father.
Cameron said something, but she didn’t hear.
She had forgotten what her father looked like when he smiled. How could she have forgotten something as important as that?
‘Madeleine? What’s wrong?’
She dragged her gaze away. ‘Is that Ainsley?’
‘I’m sorry? Oh. Yes, that’s Ainsley. Abby, go away.’
‘He looks young.’
‘He was twenty-two when it was taken. Just before he took off with Rose.’
‘What was he like?’
He picked up the bottle and splashed rum over his palm, hissing as it began to bite. Abigail lapped blood and liquor off the floor until he shoved her aside with his boot. ‘He was clever,’ he said without looking up. ‘Imaginative. Enormously self-critical. Which could be infuriating at times. And kind.’ He paused. ‘I think that’s why he could never be happy after what he did. Because of all the people he’d hurt.’
At Cairngowrie House when her father had been home for more than a few weeks, he would become pensive and quiet, and her mother would say that he was beginning to feel guilty about being with them.
‘Have you really forgiven him?’ she said.
He glanced at her in surprise. ‘Of course. He was so young when it happened.’
‘Have you forgiven Rose?’
‘She was young too.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
He considered that. ‘I was thirteen when they left, and a little bit in love with her myself. But yes. Of course I’ve forgiven her. Poor Rose. One can’t be angry for ever. But it’s strange. I still—’ He broke off with a frown.
‘What were you going to say?’
‘It’s just that I still dream of him. Ainsley. And they’re not peaceful dreams. I don’t know why.’
Don’t you? she thought. He had never once mentioned Ainsley’s children. He seemed to have driven them from his mind. Strange that such a perceptive man should be able to deceive himself for so long.
She said, ‘Do you still miss him?’
He laid the handkerchief across his knee and folded it to form a makeshift bandage, and began winding it round his palm. ‘Imagine how you’d feel if Sophie went away and never came back.’
In the garden a flock of crows settled squabbling in a mango tree. Abigail gave a gruff bark and hurtled down the steps to see them off.
Madeleine said, ‘You know, I read the transcripts of your court-martial.’
He raised his head and stared at her. ‘Why?’
‘To find out what you did.’
‘I told you what I did.’
‘No, I mean really. I wanted to know everything.’ She looked down at her lap. ‘Mrs Herapath told me about Clemency’s letter.’
With his teeth he pulled the knot tight. ‘Olivia Herapath talks too much.’
‘I don’t think so.’ She paused. ‘Why have you never tried to make it up with Jocelyn?’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because you could.’
He made no reply.
‘I think’, she said, ‘that you’ve become accustomed to living like this. It’s become a way of life. Just as it has for Jocelyn. You’re so alike. You could be father and son.’
She watched him pour himself another drink and look at it, and put it down untasted.
His hair was still damp, and as he wasn’t wearing a necktie she could see the droplets of rainwater trickling down his neck. Heat rose to her cheeks.
‘Madeleine, ‘ he said, ‘why did you come here?’
‘I needed to see you.’
‘It only makes things worse.’
‘Yes. I know.’ She spread her hands on the rust-coloured ser
ge of her skirt. Now was the time to tell him. Just tell him and have done with it.
She tried to imagine what he would say when he knew that she had been lying to him from the beginning. She looked at him sitting there with his elbows on his knees and his injured hand held a little stiffly, and his damp hair curling on his neck like a boy’s. He seemed so capable and strong, but he could be hurt. Especially by her. How could she do it? She couldn’t hurt him. All she wanted was to keep him from harm.
‘I needed to see you,’ she said again.
‘Why? What good does it do?’
She shook her head. She couldn’t tell him. It was cowardly and wrong, but she couldn’t do it.
He rubbed his good hand over his face and gave her a look that she couldn’t read. ‘That night at the Trahernes’,’ he said, ‘I wanted to kill Sinclair. My own brother. And I wanted to kill him for what he said about you.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said you’re not as innocent as you seem.’
She got up and went to the balustrade. ‘He’s right,’ she said. ‘I’m not.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
‘It’s true.’
‘What do you mean?’
She shook her head. She heard him get to his feet and come to stand beside her.
They stood together in silence, looking out over the steaming garden. Again she felt herself growing hot. She wanted to touch him, to put her fingers to the base of his throat and feel the cool rainwater and the warmth of his skin.
He said, ‘If things had been different, we’d be living here together, you and I.’
‘Don’t say that.’
He turned to her. ‘Leave him. Leave him and come to me.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Yes you can. You don’t have to follow the rules, you can break them. I know, I’ve done it.’
‘Well, I can’t. He’s Sophie’s guardian.’
‘Bring her with you. She’d love it here. She’d get better.’
‘He’d come and take her away. He could do it. He’d have the law on his side.’
The Daughters of Eden Trilogy Page 28
