But Grace never did say how Evie was to learn that. And long ago Evie learned that since she can’t tell if they mean good or bad, it’s best to swallow her spit and say nothing at all.
Like the time when she was twelve, and saw blind old grandmother Semanthe, who’d died when she was little, sitting by the hearth, as sharp as sin. Two weeks after that, Evie’s brother died. For years she blamed herself. Maybe if she’d told, he would have lived. But how was she to know that nana Semanthe had meant it for a warning?
And last month she’d seen a spirit-girl standing behind Ben. A thin, sad spirit-girl with red hair and blue shadows under her eyes, just standing there. Evie hasn’t told Ben yet. What good would it do, since she doesn’t know what it means?
Thinking on that, she gets up quickly and brushes the dust from her skirt. ‘I’m going for a walk.’
Grace chews on her pipe and blows a smoke ring. ‘Watch youself out there, girl.’
‘I always do.’
She leaves the yard and starts off into the dark, moving noiselessly between the tumbledown slave houses mounded over with creepers, and the big black pawpaw trees standing guard. All the houses are ruined, except for theirs. They’re the only ones who live here. Apart from the duppies.
Ratbats and moonshine, she thinks with disgust, that’s my home. Halfway between the gates to the Fever Hill Road and the busha house up on the hill. A halfway place for a halfway girl who’s neither black nor white.
She reaches the old aqueduct at the edge of the village, and curls up on the ancient cut-stone wall. The frogs are loud roundabout, and the scummy smell of the stagnant water fills her nostrils.
When they were children, she and Sophie used to come down here looking for treasure: for one of the big jars of Spanish gold that the nanas say got lost from ages back. Of course they never found one. But once they found a little calabash baby rattle from slave time, still with a couple of john-crow beans inside. They tossed for who should keep it, and Sophie won. She was always the lucky one. It’s no different now.
Evie stretches out her legs and studies her brown canvas shoes with dislike. This afternoon at the stables, Sophie looked so pretty and fine in that beautiful flounced dress, with the white lace gloves, and those lovely high-heeled shoes with the little pearl buttons on the straps.
Jealousy curdles within her. How are you, Evie? I didn’t know that you’d taken a position here. As if Evie’s some kind of maid!
A ratbat flits across the moon. A forty-leg ripples up the trunk of the ackee tree. Evie clasps her knees and scowls at it.
The truth is, it wasn’t Sophie’s fault. She meant no harm, and she was mortified by her mistake. It’s Evie McFarlane who’s got this black, uneasy confusion in her heart. There’s trouble coming for Ben because of that red-haired spirit-girl. And some kind of trouble for Sophie, too. But how bad? And when? And what should she do?
Maybe she should talk to Ben. She can tell him most things, for he’s like a brother to her; sometimes she even calls him her ‘buckra brother’. His skin may be white and hers brown, but underneath they’re the same; they’ve both lost loved ones and done bad things, and they’ve both got no place where they can fit in.
Thinking of that, she brings out the little bag on the cord at her neck. Not the guard with the piece of her caul inside, but the other one: the tiny green silk bag that she calls her ‘buckra charm’, for it contains the fine gold chain that she can never openly wear. If she did, her mother would ask questions, and the man who gave it her would know that he can have her for true. The sweet-mouth man with the cut-crystal eyes and the up-class buckra ways.
But she’s no fool, is Evie McFarlane. He’s had no kisses from her, and no hand’s play, either. She’s a decent girl and she knows her worth.
And yet – sometimes it feels good just to take out the fine gold chain and pour it from palm to palm, and remember that she only has to crook her finger at him, and everything will change. No more slave village. No more fufu out in the yard. And best of all, no more four-eyed nonsense. No more dead-bury spirits walking about under the sun.
Because all that four-eyed talk is just so much cane-trash, Evie, it’s just so much trash. You’re not four-eyed. You’ve got no spirit-sight. You never saw nana Semanthe sitting by the hearth, or the red-haired spirit-girl standing behind Ben.
And you did not, this afternoon at the stables, see old Master Jocelyn following Sophie up the croton walk; stooping a little and leaning on his silver-topped cane, like he always did before he died.
Chapter Seven
Sophie always was pretty bad at hiding her feelings. So when she ran into a spot of bother it wasn’t long before all Trelawny knew. Including Ben.
He did his best to steer clear of it, but he couldn’t help picking up talk. Moses Parker and his niece Poppy heard it first, up at Eden. Then they told their cousins the McFarlanes down at Fever Hill, and they told their cousins, Danny and Hannibal Tulloch at Parnassus. And on to Ben.
It turns out that Miss Sibella saw Sophie chatting to Evie in the stableyard, and then ‘had a quiet word’ with her about getting too familiar with the coloureds. Sophie didn’t take too kindly to that. In fact, the very same afternoon she rode over to see that Dr Mallory at his darkie clinic at Bethlehem, and started helping out. She made out that she’d meant to do it all along, but Ben’s not fooled. She’s just doing it because Miss Sibella had that ‘quiet word’ with her.
And according to Moses and Poppy, the quality up at Eden were none too pleased about it, neither. Madeleine was worried that it’d keep the young men away. ‘How are you going to meet anyone if you’re always at Bethlehem?’ As for Master Cameron, he couldn’t see the point. ‘I’m not sure where you’ll find the patients, Sophie. I mean, people of our sort are hardly going to desert their own doctors for a bush hospital in the woods. And as for the blacks, I’d have thought they’ll see it as undercutting their own people – the myal-men and the obeah-women. They may even be offended.’
He had a point, but Sophie wouldn’t see it. She’d got the bit between her teeth, all right.
That was a week ago, and since then things have been limping along quietly enough. But today it’s the Historical Society picnic, and it looks like the ladies are ganging up on her again.
The picnic’s a big posh charity affair with a lecture and a lunch and tea after. This year, Master Cornelius is the host, so it’s no expense spared. Huge stripy marquee and a band, and all sorts of fancy nosh. The only thing is, it’s up at Waytes Lake. Not Ben’s favourite place.
The last time he was here was with Mrs Dampiere. He can see her now, talking to Master Cornelius under the poinciana tree. She catches his eye and tries not to smile. She thinks it’s funny. Ben don’t. He feels like everybody’s watching him, like everybody knows. And it only makes it worse that Madeleine and Sophie are here, too.
So now it’s tea-time, and Madeleine’s off by the lake talking to Master Alex, and Sophie’s sitting in the marquee with Miss Sibella and old Mrs Pitcaithley and Mrs Herapath, and that’s when they start in on her about the clinic. All very ladylike and polite and ‘for her own good’, but still having a go. Hannibal Tulloch’s on serving duty, and hears it all. Though why he thinks Ben cares one way or the other is anybody’s guess.
What’s it to Ben if some posh bint’s got in over her head? Besides, just because he give her a hard time in the stableyard the other afternoon, that’s no reason why he should worry about her now.
But still. He takes a little walk past the doorway, to see what’s what. And when he does, he gets a surprise. He’d expected her just to be a bit narked. After all, she’s not the sort to be fazed by a telling off. But when he sees her she’s sitting by the tea urn, all alone, and with that look on her face that she gets when she’s trying not to show she’s upset. It puts him in mind of when she was a kid, and she give him the picture-book and he went for her. It puts him in mind of the other day at Fever Hill.
A while later, he�
��s standing by the carriage with Trouble when he sees her again. Master Alex and Madeleine are still by the lake, and she’s making straight for them, very determined. Up she goes to Master Alex – not a glance at her sister – and draws him aside and starts talking to him, all sweetness, but very, very firm. That’s Sophie for you. One minute she’s down in the dumps, and the next she’s doing something about it.
To begin with, Master Alex is looking down at her and smiling, the perfect gentleman; then his smile fades, like he’s just had a nasty surprise. Then he looks over at Ben.
Shit, thinks Ben, as he watches them coming towards him. What’s she gone and said to him?
‘It seems that Miss Monroe has hurt her wrist,’ goes Master Alex, looking a bit pink about the cheeks. ‘You’re to drive her home at once.’
Ben shoots Sophie a look, but she’s turned away, very composed. What’s her game? Her wrist was fine ten minutes ago when she was pouring the tea.
He scratches round for an excuse. ‘Trouble didn’t ought to be pulling a carriage in the first place,’ he tells Master Alex, ‘let alone traipsing all the way up to Eden and back.’
Master Alex raises an eyebrow. ‘I think, my lad, that you may safely leave me to make the decisions.’
‘But sir—’
‘Look to it, Kelly. And no more talk.’
For a moment, Ben meets the pale blue eyes. He can tell that Master Alex isn’t best pleased about it neither, but for some reason he’s going along with it. Maybe Sophie said a word to him about what she saw at Montpelier, to persuade him to toe the line. She’s not stupid, is Sophie.
So Ben heaves a sigh and tips his cap at Master Alex, and jumps up into the driver’s seat and stares stonily ahead.
‘Is anything wrong?’ goes Sophie to Master Alex, as cool as mint.
Out of the corner of his eye Ben sees Master Alex pull a wry face and shake his head. ‘Just a typical groom. Overprotective of the horses to the point of insolence.’ Then he hands Sophie into the phaeton, and turns to Ben. ‘Up to Eden, and look sharp. I want you back by seven.’
So now it’s been twenty minutes since they set off, and she still hasn’t said a word, but he’s buggered if he’ll be the first to speak. He didn’t ask to drive her home. And if she thinks she can make him talk just because he’s a servant, she’s got another think coming.
They turn a corner and come on a john crow in the middle of the track, gobbling up the last of a cane-rat. Trouble snorts and tosses her head, and the john crow twists its ugly red neck and hitches its wings and buggers off. Ben tells Trouble not to make a fuss, and she shakes her mane tetchily in reply.
And still Sophie don’t say a word.
They come out of Waytes Valley onto the Fever Hill Road, and that’s when he realizes that he’ll have to speak first, to ask her which way she wants to go. Oh, bugger. Bugger.
He tips his cap and turns his head sideways. ‘D’you want to go by town, miss, or cut through Fever Hill?’
‘Fever Hill,’ she replies. ‘That is, if you think you can find your way through the cane-pieces.’
He sets his teeth. He can find his way blindfold, as she must know. What’s her game? Is she needling him because he give her a time of it at Fever Hill? Well, what’s she expect? She’s grown up now, and a lady. It’s not her place to talk to grooms.
So after a quarter of a mile they turn right into the Fever Hill carriageway. They go up through the cane-pieces of Alice Grove, and past the Pond, and the old ruined sugar works that got burnt in the Rebellion; past the slave village where Evie lives, and the tumbledown aqueduct. They skirt the bottom of the hill and go past the great house stables, then across the trickle of the Green River and out into the cane-pieces of Bellevue. It’s a hot afternoon for the beginning of December, and everything’s breathless and still. Even the crickets are half asleep. All he can hear is the clip-clopping hooves and the creak of the carriage, and the blood thumping in his ears.
They reach the guango tree that marks the end of the estate, and he turns right onto the Eden Road. The land starts to climb, so he slows Trouble to a walk. Wild almond trees overhang the road, their big dark leaves casting stripy shadows in the dust. The noise of the carriage is loud. Sophie’s silence is getting on his nerves. Why don’t she say something?
They start down the slope towards the bridge over the Martha Brae, and he catches the familiar smell of greenstuff and rottenness. This time of year the river’s a sluggish, muddy green, its banks choked by creepers and those big red claw-flowers. The bridge is soft with moss, and over on the other side he can see the ruins at the edge of Eden. Only a couple more miles, he thinks with relief.
It’s a rum old place, the ruins at Romilly. Tumbledown walls tangled over with hogmeat and strangler fig. Ironwood trees and giant bamboo shutting out the light. And in among the creepers, these strange little twisted mauvy-white flowers. Evie says they’re orchids. All Ben knows is that they’ve got a thick, sweet scent that makes him think of graves.
The darkies say that years back, Romilly was some kind of slave village like the one at Fever Hill. That’s why they don’t come here, on account of all the duppies. But Ben don’t give a tinker’s cuss about duppies. When he was a lad he used to come here all the time. He used to sleep out here. Darkie ghosts? What are they to him? He’s got a packload of ghosts of his own.
‘When you get across the bridge,’ says Sophie, making him jump, ‘just pull up on the other side.’
What? Christ. What’s she up to now?
He gives the reins a flick. ‘Very good, miss,’ he mutters.
‘After that, you may help me down.’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘And stop calling me miss.’
‘All right.’
When they’re over the bridge he pulls up. Then he jumps down to help her out. As she puts her foot on the step she stumbles, and has to steady herself on his arm. She don’t look at him, but he can tell that she’s angry with herself. She always hated that knee of hers. He wonders if it’s still giving her trouble. She don’t limp or nothing, but it looks like it buckles now and then.
He ties Trouble to a clump of giant bamboo, then stands by her head with his hand on her coarse black mane. It’s stuffy under the bamboo, and sort of muffled. Just the slow creak of the canes, and the rise and fall of the crickets, and the whisper of the river. He takes a deep breath, but still feels breathless. Where’s all the air gone?
He watches Sophie walk to the riverbank and pace up and down, her arms crossed about her waist. She’s in pale green. Floaty pale green frock, lace gloves, and a big straw hat with a pale green ribbon down her back. It’s pretty, but it don’t look right on her. Funny, that. Madeleine was born for nipped-in waists and leg-of-mutton sleeves. She’s made of curves, just like that Lillie Langtry on a postcard. But when Sophie’s all poshed up, she don’t look right. And she knows it, too. She’s too skinny and she moves too fast, like she keeps forgetting that she’s in long skirts. She can’t seem to stay still long enough to play the grand lady.
He tells hisself that she’s just some bint like all the others; just some posh bint like that slimy Mrs Dampiere. But it don’t work. It never did with Sophie.
‘I used to come here with Evie,’ she says, looking down at the river. ‘We used to give offerings of rum to the River Mistress, and make a wish. I always made the same wish. I asked the River Mistress to make sure that wherever you were, you’d be all right.’
Christ, she can talk straight when she wants to. He’d forgotten that. It gives him that hot, prickly tightness in his chest. It makes him feel trapped.
‘It looks as if the River Mistress heard me,’ she goes on, ‘although it did take rather a long time to find out.’ She turns and shoots him a look. Her face is stubborn and set. Straight dark brows drawn together in a frown; little shadowy dents at the corners of her mouth deeper than usual. He’s in for trouble, all right. ‘I know you don’t want me to talk to you,’ she says, ‘but I don’t
care. I’m fed up with being told what to do. So just this once I shall do as I please, and you can’t stop me.’
She’s right about that. He can hardly put her in the dog cart if she don’t want to go, can he? And he can’t just leave her here to walk the rest of the way home – although that’s what she deserves for putting him on the spot like this.
‘Ever since I got back,’ she says, ‘everything’s been different. Eden. Maddy. My friends. You. I’ve tried to pretend it isn’t so, but what’s the use?’
So what d’you want me to do about it? he tells her silently. If you’re asking me to make you feel better, you’ve come to the wrong bloke.
She takes a couple of steps towards him, and lifts her chin. ‘Eight years ago, you disappeared. You just disappeared. Where did you go?’
He don’t reply. Why the hell should he? Why the sodding hell should he?
‘Come on, Ben, answer me.’
He turns his head to the river, then back to her. In the dappled green shade she looks like something under water. She’s got that pale, pale skin: the sort that never even gets a flush from the sun. ‘I went to Kingston,’ he says between his teeth. ‘I went to Kingston and Port Antonio and Savanna la Mar, and half a dozen other places in between. There. Now you know.’
‘But what did you do?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘How did you live? How did you survive?’
‘What d’you think? I worked.’
‘Yes, but at what?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘I want to know.’
‘Well that’s a shame, because I’m not going to tell you. It’s high time we was going—’
‘No!’ she cries, stamping her foot.
A couple of ground-doves shoot up into the trees in a startled flurry. Trouble puts back her ears and looks worried.
Sophie ignores them. She’s pressing her lips together to keep them steady, and suddenly she looks very young. He almost feels sorry for her. She’s still the same old Sophie. Easily hurt, but always putting herself in the way of more hurt. Why else would she be talking to him?
The Daughters of Eden Trilogy Page 48
