‘Sophie’s safe too,’ he told her. ‘I took her out of Burntwood, she’s with the old man. We’ll go down to Eden, and get you some food and some clothes, and then we can go to Fever Hill and see her. Everything will be sorted out.’
‘How?’ she said harshly. ‘He’ll tell them one version, and I’ll tell them another. If you didn’t believe me, why should they?’
‘He won’t be able to wriggle out of this. He—’
‘Yes he will. He’ll say I’m mad, he’ll say I’m making it up.’
‘Madeleine—’
‘He can do what he likes, Cameron. He’s the husband. He has all the power.’
‘Not after what he did—’
‘Yes! Even then! Don’t you see? What he did won’t have any consequences. It won’t matter. That’s how it works.’
‘Everything has consequences,’ he said.
Sinclair was enormously relieved when he reached the edge of the forest. But as he emerged blinking into the glare, he was startled to find that he didn’t recognize the way ahead. The hills were steeper than he remembered, and criss-crossed with paths no wider than goat-tracks.
Still, he thought, no harm done. A glance at the sun gave him a rough idea of a northward course, and he put his horse forward along the most likely track.
Despite the heat of the afternoon, he was in excellent spirits. The moment she had brought out that revolver, he had known that he was saved. A half-naked madwoman brandishing a gun. Even if she survived, no-one would believe a word she said. And the beauty of it was that the sister would be tarred with the same brush. Insanity in the family; who would have credited it? Poor Reverend Lawe. What he must have suffered!
In the distance he saw a black man meandering into view, and his spirits rose still further. Here was a dusky messenger, sent by the Almighty to guide him home.
The man was only a country black, barefoot and in ripped dungarees and tattered jippa-jappa hat, and so dull-witted that he took some moments to grasp Sinclair’s shouted enquiry. But he had the primitive’s sure sense of direction, and readily indicated the track towards Fever Hill, before his own path took him out of sight behind a spur.
Humming under his breath, Sinclair put his mount forward.
Poor, handsome young Reverend Lawe. All Society would sympathize after what he’d endured with that woman. It would be easy to find another wife. And she would bear him a son, and his brother would be vanquished, and he would come into his inheritance at last.
As he rounded a bend, an animal shot across the track. His horse reared, and he lost his stirrups and fell.
For a moment he lay winded, listening to his horse galloping off down the track. Then he sat up, wincing and rubbing his head. There seemed to be no serious harm done. A bruised hip, a slight contusion at the back of the head, and a scrape across the left palm. His horse, however, was nowhere to be seen.
He got to his feet and retrieved his hat, and brushed himself off.
Glancing round, he saw with a start that a little pickney girl, a mulatto, was crouching on the slope above, watching him.
A stroke of luck, he thought. Here’s just the creature to run and retrieve the horse.
He called to her to come down, but to his surprise she did not respond. He repeated the command more sharply. Still no response. Like some diminutive pagan idol she squatted on the slope, her garish yellow frock tented over her knees. He wondered if she were deaf.
He was not the man to tolerate disobedience, but for once he decided to let it pass. It was too hot to climb the slope and discipline her.
A short, uncomfortably warm walk down the track revealed that his horse was nowhere to be seen. He would have to go back and collar the pickney after all, and compel her to run for help. But when he retraced his steps, he was exasperated to find that she was no longer there. It was a confounded nuisance, but he would have to make his way on foot.
It was another hour before he could bring himself to admit that he was lost. Instead of leaving the Cockpits, he seemed to be heading deeper into them. The track had become narrow and treacherous: to his left the ground rose steeply, but to his right it fell away into a dizzying ravine. That simpleton must have pointed out the wrong path.
He stopped to rest by a thorn tree. The air shimmered with heat. The glare off the white rocks pained his head. The rasp of crickets assailed his ears – and behind it, a great, watching silence that he found peculiarly disagreeable.
Once again he struggled to his feet, and this time his heart leapt to see a man on the track, some distance ahead. He was saved: the man was white. True, he was as ragged and filthy as any backwoods black, but he was a white man none the less.
‘You there!’ Sinclair shouted. ‘Come down here at once!’
To his consternation, the man made no move to obey. He stood on the track with his hands at his sides, silently watching.
Outraged, Sinclair started up the slope towards him. But as he drew nearer he saw that the ‘man’ was in fact just a boy: dark, scrawny and sharp-faced, and with an unsettling resemblance to the urchin from Fitzroy Square.
Which, he told himself angrily, is arrant nonsense. It’s just that they all look alike.
But he couldn’t help glancing about him for that other one, the hunchback with the flame-coloured hair. And for one unnerving moment he even thought he saw him, some twenty yards behind. But it was only the little mulatto girl who had watched him earlier.
This time she was accompanied by two tall blacks: hill Negroes, by the look of them. Relief washed over him. Now there were grown men to assist him instead of children.
He turned to find that the white boy had also been joined by blacks: a full-grown male, and three squat and ancient Negresses. The male was unremarkable, except that he resembled the simpleton who had pointed out the wrong path; but the Negresses were hideous. They wore the gaudy headkerchiefs and strident yellow and green print gowns so beloved of their kind, and their skin was so black that he couldn’t make out their features. Faceless black totems, they sat on the path: their stubby arms clasped beneath their enormous breasts, and their horny feet stuck out, the soles showing obscenely pink.
A scatter of pebbles behind made him spin about, and he overbalanced and nearly fell.
Some thirty feet above him, another Negress stood looking down with her hands on her hips. She was younger than the others, and slender; but although her skin was mahogany, not sable, the glare was too bright to make out her face.
‘You there!’ he shouted. ‘Come down and help me at once!’
She made no reply. She just stood there with her hands on her hips, a pose he found both unsettling and astonishingly insolent.
He wondered why she felt entitled to behave with such freedom towards a white man, and opened his mouth to administer a sharp rebuke.
But as he did so, she began to pick her way down the slope towards him, and as she drew nearer, he recognized her. And understood.
Chapter Thirty-Five
March 1896 – eight months later
The service had ended and the congregation was filing out. Madeleine was preparing to make her usual swift retreat to the carriage, when Jocelyn put out his hand and touched her wrist. ‘One moment, my dear.’
She turned and looked at him, and knew immediately what he would say. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I can’t.’
‘Just talk to him,’ he said gently.
They drew aside to make way for Clemency and Sophie, and watched them leave the church and disappear into the glare of the porch, their heads already turned to one another as they embarked on the sermon and the congregation, and whatever other thoughts they had been prevented from sharing by two hours’ enforced silence.
Madeleine said, ‘You promised you wouldn’t engineer a meeting.’
‘And I have not,’ said Jocelyn. ‘But since this is the only time when you go out, there’s a good chance that he’ll be here.’ He paused. ‘After all,’ he added, and the corners of his mout
h turned down in his version of a smile, as they often did when he mentioned Cameron, ‘it’s what I’d do.’
She opened her reticule, then snapped it shut again. ‘What do you think I should do?’
He sighed. ‘I don’t know, my dear. I don’t know what you want. What I do know is that this – reticence – of yours, this unwillingness even to see him, isn’t making either of you happy. You’re both in pain. And I’d very much rather that you weren’t.’ He frowned and tapped his cane on the flags, as if he’d just made a damaging admission. ‘So yes, I think it would be a capital idea for you to have it out.’
What he hadn’t said was that her ‘reticence’, as he called it, was hurting him too. He had no son and no legitimate heir; all he had were two illegitimate granddaughters and one adopted son whom he was gradually allowing himself to love again. It would mean the world to him if she married Cameron.
And she wanted to. More than anything. But the risk was too great. And the only way round it that she could come up with was too shocking to mention to anyone. She couldn’t even tell Sophie. Or Clemency. Or Dr Pritchard.
She watched Jocelyn square his shoulders and give himself a little shake. ‘We shall be by the carriage,’ he said as he picked up his hat.
‘Jocelyn—’
‘By the carriage,’ he said firmly. ‘Don’t worry. We shan’t go without you.’
Cameron arrived at the church shortly after the service had ended. He had brought Abigail with him. A mastiff for moral support. If he hadn’t been so on edge, he would have smiled.
The previous evening he had taken his Scotch and soda and made a tour of the renovations to the house. The missing shingles had been replaced, the new bathhouse was nearing completion, and the master bedroom finally had a bed in it – although from habit he still slept out on the verandah. But as he’d stood in the golden evening light surveying what had been achieved, he’d wondered if it would all be for nothing.
Duke Street was busy with churchgoers, and he had to search for a place to leave Pilate. Through the dust of departing carriages he spotted Cornelius and Rebecca Traherne on the other side of the road, talking to Jocelyn, Clemency and Sophie. Madeleine was nowhere to be seen. God damn it to hell. Not again.
Sophie caught sight of him and waved so vigorously that she nearly fell over. She was wearing her new light walking-splint, of which she was immensely proud. ‘Dr Pritchard has pronounced my lungs quite sound, and the tuberculosis practically vanquished,’ she had told him on her last visit to Eden – which had been an historic one, for Clemency had brought her all on her own, and had absolutely driven the trap herself. ‘I shall have a limp,’ Sophie had told him, as if it were a badge of honour, ‘but Grandpapa says it will take more than that to keep me from whatever I put my mind to. I have asked him to teach me to ride, and he has promised to see to it. But I expect I shall have to remind him several times, for he often forgets.’
Clemency had spotted him too, and shyly lifted a hand in greeting. He tipped his hat to her and forced a smile. She had remained loyal to the grey hair dye – ‘such a soothing colour’ – but was gaining daily in assurance, now that May had taken to spending all her time upstairs. With unnerving suddenness Jocelyn had transferred the management of the house to Clemency, and after a hesitant start she was beginning to overcome her fear. And her health had improved immeasurably, now that she had something to do.
Across the road, Sophie was patting her lap and calling to Abigail to come. Cameron gave the mastiff a nudge with his boot and she padded across, her tail lazily swinging, her head lowered for the expected caress.
‘Grandpapa,’ said Sophie, ‘how do I get her to sit?’
‘You don’t,’ said Jocelyn drily. He threw Cameron a glance, and the corners of his mouth went down.
Cameron nodded to him, but made no move to join them. He knew the old man would understand.
He turned and made his way up the church path, taking off his hat and gloves as he reached the porch. St Peter’s was empty, except for Mr Mullholland the curate, and a trio of lady volunteers tidying the flowers. No Madeleine. Cameron swore under his breath. The curate shot him a look.
He went back into the glare of the churchyard. Since Sinclair’s death he had seen her exactly seven times, and always in the company of others. For the most part she was edgy and monosyllabic, or worse: polite. And over the past five weeks, he hadn’t seen her at all. He’d had to content himself with two brief notes, both pleading ‘indisposition’. She was avoiding him. He couldn’t work out why.
Since the funeral she hadn’t left Fever Hill except to go to church. Nothing out of the ordinary there, he reminded himself. No respectable widow would make calls for at least a year after her husband’s death. Except that with Madeleine, there was more to it than that.
It was as if she felt obliged to do penance: to Jocelyn for having lied to him; to Clemency for being the daughter of the man who had deserted her and the woman who had stolen him away; and perhaps also – and this was worst of all – to Sinclair’s ghost.
In his darker moments, Cameron cursed his brother. He wished he could honestly grieve for Sinclair, but he was too conscious that, for his brother, death had been an escape. He would have been crushed by the public disclosure of his guilt. And as things had turned out, there had been no disclosure. Grace had said that she was content to let it lie.
Cameron had told her who had killed her son as soon as Madeleine had told him, the week after the funeral. ‘In a sense,’ he had said to Grace, ‘one might regard Sinclair’s death as – I don’t know, perhaps an act of God?’ Grace had studied his face for a long time, her mahogany features unreadable. ‘Maybe so,’ was all she had said.
He rounded the corner of the church, and saw Madeleine standing before the Lawe family plot, where a new stone commemorated Sinclair Euan Lawe, suddenly in a riding accident at the age of thirty-one.
With a spasm of anger Cameron saw that she was still wearing the dull black crape of deepest mourning. He’d been blunt about that, the last time they had met. ‘Surely it’s time to lighten the gloom just a little? Or do you propose to emulate the Queen, and remain in deep mourning for the rest of your life?’
‘According to Clemency’, she had retorted, ‘one year of deep mourning is proper form.’
‘Perhaps it was, twenty years ago,’ he had said. ‘Besides, since when were you guided by form?’
To that she had made no reply, and he had known that he’d gone too far.
In the end he had grasped the bull by the horns. ‘I don’t understand you, Madeleine. What is this about? You didn’t love him.’
‘No,’ she had sombrely agreed. ‘No-one did.’
To begin with, he had wondered if in some perverse way she felt responsible for what had happened to Sinclair. ‘It was an accident, he had told her with deliberate bluntness. ‘Why should you feel guilty because he lost his way and fell down a ravine?’
Then he realized that he was mistaken. It was not the manner of his brother’s death which had brought about her withdrawal, but the fact of it. Sinclair’s death had given her back her freedom. She had benefited from it. How could she not experience guilt?
Above his head a flock of grassquits squabbled noisily in a frangipani tree. As he passed, they rose in a cloud and flew away.
Madeleine had seen him, and was waiting composedly beneath her parasol of dull black silk.
He had to admit that she looked very well in mourning. Black suited her dramatic colouring, and gave her dignity and poise. It also reminded him disturbingly of Great-Aunt May.
As he approached her, the little family group that was laying a wreath at a nearby tomb turned discreetly away, and made strenuous efforts to display no curiosity whatsoever.
Madeleine flicked them a glance, then gave Cameron a meaningless smile and offered him her hand. He took off his hat and pressed her black-gloved fingertips and bowed, and they turned and started sedately for a more secluded part of the church
yard.
For a while they walked without speaking. To break the silence he said, ‘Sophie looks well.’
‘She is,’ she replied. ‘And she can’t wait to show you her new treasure. Mrs Herapath gave it to her on Friday. It’s a photograph of our mother.’ Sophie and Clemency were becoming frequent callers on Olivia Herapath – who, while still cool towards Madeleine, was making rather a point of spoiling her sister.
Cameron said, ‘I thought Olivia destroyed all her photographs of Rose years ago.’
‘It turns out that she couldn’t bear to part with this one, as it’s the best portrait she ever took.’
‘Except for the one of Hector, of course.’
She smiled. ‘Of course.’ She seemed perfectly at ease with him provided that they kept to neutral ground. It made him want to shake her. Here they were, making small-talk like a couple of acquaintances at a five o’clock tea, when all he wanted to say to her was, Marry me. Promise that you’ll be my wife. I can’t go on like this, I need to hear you say it.
‘Cameron, I’m sorry,’ she said with disarming suddenness.
He coloured. ‘For what,’ he muttered.
‘I’ve treated you appallingly. The truth is, I haven’t been able to talk to anyone. Not even you. I needed to think about things. To make sense of what happened.’
There must be more to it than that, he thought. But he decided not to press her yet. This was the most that she’d said to him in eight months.
‘I know it’s been hard for you,’ she said.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Yes it does.’
They exchanged glances, and his heart leapt. Then she spoilt it by asking if he’d heard any news about Ben Kelly.
‘Not as yet,’ he said between his teeth. The boy had been seen shortly after the funeral, working his way towards Kingston on a coastal steamer, but since then all enquiries had drawn a blank.
‘No doubt he’ll turn up,’ Cameron added. He knew that he sounded perfunctory, but he didn’t care. Her concern for the scrawny little street Arab baffled him. She’d explained that they had been friends in London, in some incomprehensible way which made Cameron absurdly, humiliatingly jealous. And she had also admitted that for some unexplained reason the boy had followed her to Jamaica, and lent her his gun. His gun? Why the devil should a fourteen-year-old boy need a gun? But as to that, she either could not, or would not, say.
The Daughters of Eden Trilogy Page 39
