The Daughters of Eden Trilogy

by Michelle Paver

  Today she’s all poshed up to meet her sweetheart. She’s got her blue frock out of pledge, and she’s even put on her stays. Which means that Jeb Butcher can’t be far away.

  And sure enough, he’s waiting for them on the corner of Walworth Place. He’s a costermonger, and until Kate got sweet on him Ben wanted to be a costermonger too, and wear a velveteen jacket, and kicksies that flare out below the knee like a candle-snuffer. But over the last month, Kate’s been talking of going to live with Jeb. Of course she’s only joking. But it gives Ben a pain in his chest just to think of it.

  So now they’ve reached East Street, and when they’re nearly at number 39, Jeb shoves off home. That’s when Ben says to Kate, ‘I got you a present.’

  ‘A present?’ She grins at him. ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘Here you are,’ he says proudly. It’s a pipe, a proper white clay pipe with a long stem for a good sweet smoke, just how she likes it. He’s been waiting for a chance to give it her for days.

  She takes it, and her face goes still.

  His heart sinks. Bugger. She don’t like it.

  ‘Where’d you get this, Ben?’

  ‘Found it, didn’t I?’

  ‘You mean you clicked it.’

  ‘I never.’

  ‘You did. This is old Mrs Hanratty’s pipe. I seen her smoke it.’

  Ben don’t say nothing. Him and Jack clumped the old biddy a few days ago, and clicked her savings that was sewn into her drawers. Laugh! Did they laugh! There she is lying in the gutter, yelling blue murder, and thrashing her skinny yellow pins like a beetle.

  Turned out she only had a couple of bob and her lucky pipe, and a twig that Jack said was heather. So Jack took the rhino and give Ben the pipe, and chucked the rest down the drain. But afterwards Ben wished they’d left the old biddy her bit of heather.

  Kate gives him back the pipe without a word, and they go indoors. She’s well narked. But there’s no time for him to say nothing, because they’re home.

  Kate shoves the pudding on the table and everybody grabs a spoon and digs in: Jack and Lil and Pa, and Ma with the baby asleep under her lotties. Robbie’s off in his corner as per usual, watching the spider. He does that all day. Maybe he thinks the spider’s going to do something, instead of just prossing about in its web.

  Ben tries to catch Kate’s eye, but she won’t look at him. She’s narked, and he knows why. Mrs Hanratty’s a neighbour. You don’t click from the neighbours.

  He’s all hot and prickly inside. And that makes him narked at Kate, cos she’s the one making him feel like that. What’s he sposed to do, say sorry? Well, bugger that.

  Pa scrapes the last of the meat pieces out the tin, and shoots Kate a look. ‘You was a long time coming. Where you been?’

  ‘At the bakehouse,’ snaps Kate, ‘where d’you think?’

  Jack and Lil and Ben keep their heads down. Ma looks from Pa to Kate, and twines a lock of orange hair round her skinny finger. Any moment now and she’ll start snivelling.

  Ben puts down his spoon – quietly, so as not to nark Pa. If only Pa could be in a good mood today, and tell stories and crack a laugh, like he does sometimes. If only he didn’t fancy Kate.

  ‘You been with that Jeb Butcher,’ goes Pa, watching her.

  ‘I never,’ goes Kate.

  ‘You was,’ goes Pa.

  Kate gets up and goes to stand at the window, with her arms round her waist. Pa looks at her. He looks at the way her skirts swell over her hips, and her lotties push up under her frock. Ben knows that look. It’s the same as Jack give Lil last summer, when it was so hot that they slept in the altogether.

  Oh well. After Jack got into Lil, they was friends again soon enough, so maybe it’ll be like that with Pa and Kate? A bit of a blow-up, then everybody friends again. And then Kate won’t go off and live with Jeb.

  ‘You was out with that Jeb Butcher,’ goes Pa again.

  ‘She never,’ goes Ben, covering for her. ‘We come the long way home on account of – there was dray-horses in Walworth Place.’

  Pa’s green eyes turn on him like a searchlight. ‘What you on about?’

  Ben swallows. ‘See, I don’t like dray-horses. I get scared.’ It’s true, he does. Except there wasn’t no drays in Walworth Place. Only Jeb.

  Pa leans across the table towards him. He’s so close that Ben can smell the coal on him, and see the black dust in the deep lines from nose to mouth. That mouth. Lips like a statue’s, and the edges so sharp they could be knife-cut. He can give you a smile with that mouth that’ll make you feel ten feet tall, or he can give you such an earful that you’ll want to crawl down a sewer. And you can never tell which is coming next. You just know that you’d do anything to make him like you, if you only knew how.

  ‘Scared?’ goes Pa, in a sneery voice that makes Ben’s belly clench like a rat trap. ‘Scared of a couple of nags?’

  ‘They got big feet,’ mumbles Ben.

  ‘Big feet!’ goes Pa. ‘They’ll stomp all over you with them big feet if they catch on you’re scared! But if you don’t show them you’re scared, you’ll be all right. Don’t you know that yet?’

  Ben shakes his head. He hates for Pa to think he’s yellow, but he’s got to cover for Kate. ‘It’s not that I don’t like horses,’ he mutters. ‘It’s just that I don’t like dray-horses.’

  Pa snorts. But all of a sudden he’s not sneery no more, he’s laughing. ‘Oh, so it’s just dray-horses you got a down on?’

  Ben chucks him a doubtful look, then nods.

  ‘Well, well,’ goes Pa, looking round at the others. ‘We got ourselves a sodding attorney! A twisty-turny attorney, playing with words!’

  Lil sniggers, and Jack and Ma join in, but it’s more out of relief than cos it’s funny. Kate comes back to the table and sits down again. And the spring in Ben’s belly loosens up.

  Everything would be all right if Kate would only look at him again. But she’s still narked about old Mrs Hanratty’s pipe.

  So after supper he slinks out for a bit. And an hour or so later when he gets back, the curtain’s down and Ma and Pa are in the back room, and the others are prossing about in the front. Jack’s curled up asleep, and Lil’s jiggling the baby on her lap, and Robbie’s in his corner, watching the spider.

  Kate’s sitting by the window with her tray on her knees, making violets. She’s folded back a bit of newspaper off the window to let in the light, and she looks pretty as a picture. That coppery hair and the paper violets on the tray, and the blue glass pot of paste. All the lovely colours.

  Ben sidles up to her, steering clear of the violets so as not to dirty them. He goes, ‘I took the pipe back to Mrs Hanratty.’

  She finishes off another violet and puts it on the tray.

  ‘I didn’t say sorry,’ he mutters. ‘Just left it in her shakedown where she’ll find it.’

  ‘That’s good,’ she says without looking up.

  Later, he’s sitting with Robbie watching the spider, when she comes over and squats down and puts a mug in his hands. It’s her own tin mug with the painted roses that Jeb give her. ‘Kettle broth,’ she says.

  That’s his favourite. And she made it just the way he likes it, with the water well mashed into the bread, and a dot of lard on top for a relish. She must of gone next door to get the water hot.

  He scowls at it. ‘This because of that sodding pipe?’

  She puts her head on one side. ‘Maybe. Careful with that, it’s hot.’

  ‘Piping hot,’ he mutters.

  She grins. ‘Pipe up, you idiot, I can’t hear you.’

  ‘Pipe down,’ he shoots back, ‘or you’ll wake the baby.’

  She cuffs him round the head, and goes back to work.

  Ben woke with a start as Norton drew back the curtains.

  For a moment he didn’t know where he was. His heart was pounding. He lay still, fighting the pull of the dream.

  Outside it was still dark. Rain pattered against the window panes. The street-lamp
shone in his eyes. Seven o’clock, and a fire was already blazing in the grate. Some time around five, a housemaid would have crept in and made it up. She hadn’t woken him. Since coming to London, he’d slept like the dead.

  And now he was dreaming of them, too.

  Rubbing his face, he propped himself up on one elbow, and watched Norton setting the coffee tray on the table.

  The dream clung to him. He couldn’t shake it off. All the little details. That blue frock of hers. The roses on the mug. His terror that she might leave. Twenty years on, and he hadn’t forgotten a thing. Christ.

  The unflappable Norton poked the fire, turned the gas on low, then went through into the dressing-room to lay out his master’s clothes. He did it all without a word. Ben hated talking in the morning.

  Ben got out of bed and shrugged on his dressing-gown, and stood looking down at the fire. Even without it the room would have been warm, for he always took houses with hot-water pipes in every room. What was the good of being rich if you couldn’t stay warm?

  He turned to survey the bedroom. In the golden glow of the gaslight, the furnishings were opulent but not ostentatious. The deep patina of well-polished mahogany. The dark blue sheen of silk damask hangings. The rich gleam of morocco book-bindings. What would Jack have made of it? Or Lil, or Kate?

  Christ, why dream of them now, suddenly, after all these years?

  Norton appeared at the dressing-room door and discreetly cleared his throat. ‘Shall you be going riding this morning, sir?’

  ‘No,’ snapped Ben.

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Ben went to the window and looked out. The sky was lightening, the rain easing off. ‘On second thoughts, yes.’ He’d just bought a three-year-old at Tattersall’s: a big flashy chestnut who needed taking in hand. It was a challenge, but he knew that when he sold her in a few months’ time he’d be passing on a much better horse.

  ‘Very good, sir,’ said Norton, and silently withdrew.

  Norton was the perfect servant. Soft-spoken, soft-footed, and utterly unperturbed by his master’s moods. Of course, who knew what he really thought about Ben – a man he’d have crossed the road to avoid five years before? But who cared, so long as he did his job?

  Sometimes, Ben still had to remind himself that he was rich. It felt like play-acting. Isaac felt the same. ‘I dunno, Ben,’ he’d said once. ‘These days I’m “Mr Walker” or “sir”, but inside I’m still plain old Isaac, the nigger-boy from Lambeth.’ It was the same for Ben.

  And a lot of things about being rich bored him. Changing your clothes all the time, and the ceremony of meals. Servants creeping about. Having to plan your day in advance. Shall you be going riding this morning? How the hell should I know, I’ve only just woken up.

  He poured himself a cup of coffee and returned to the window. The coffee was good. It bloody well ought to be; he’d paid enough for it. Six shillings a pound in some fancy shop in Piccadilly. And then he’d got a telling off from the cook when he brought it home – although not to his face, of course; it had come through Austen. Apparently he wasn’t supposed to go out and buy coffee on his own. For some reason a box of cigars or a crate of wine was fine, but nothing else.

  Well, sod it, he’d buy what he liked. That was what he liked doing: buying things. Then getting rid of them.

  That was the good thing about money: it was entirely predictable. You buy a fine claret or a good cigar, and you know what you’re getting. Money doesn’t let you down, not like people.

  But six shillings a pound! How d’you square that with Kate getting sixpence a gross for her paper violets?

  Again the gnawing sense of loss. That bloody, bloody dream. Until he’d got to London he’d never had a single one. Panama. Sierra Leone. Brazil. He’d slept like a baby.

  Maybe it was coming to London that had done it. After all, London held other memories apart from Kate and Jack and the others. Cavendish Square wasn’t very far from the Portland Road. The other day he’d even thought of walking down it, just to see if the photographer’s studio was still there. He’d stopped himself in the nick of time.

  So maybe it was thinking of that – or trying not to think about her – that had got him all churned up.

  Involuntarily he glanced at the picture above the chimneypiece. It was an oil painting of Montego Bay that he’d seen in Paris and taken a fancy to. It wasn’t very good, but at least the artist knew what royal palms look like, and poinciana trees and bougainvillaea.

  Funny, but he still missed Jamaica. It was probably why he’d ended up in Brazil: because he’d felt at home there, with the parrots and the darkies. And now that he was in London, he sometimes went all the way down to the gardens at Kew, just to stand in the Palm House and breathe in that hot, wet, green smell, and see if the vanilla was in flower.

  ‘Norton,’ he called over his shoulder.

  The valet appeared. ‘Sir?’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind. No riding. I’m going to Kew.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ said Norton.

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘But Kew’, said Sibella crossly, as the train rattled through the suburbs, ‘is so frightfully middle class. I fail to see why we can’t go to Richmond.’

  ‘Because’, answered her brother with an amused glance at Sophie, ‘it’s a cold, dank morning, and we wish to be pleasantly warm in the Palm House, rather than shivering with a lot of undernourished deer.’

  ‘They’re hardly undernourished,’ retorted Sibella. ‘It’s a Royal Park. As far as I’m aware, there’s nothing royal about Kew.’

  She turned to the window and studied her reflection. When she was satisfied with her new pouched walking-coat with the sable collar, she renewed the attack. ‘All those ghastly terraced houses. And tramways, and – and day-trippers.’

  Sophie wondered in amusement why Sibella believed that they themselves fell outside the term. ‘I imagine’, she said, ‘that we’ll be safe from the crowds on a Wednesday morning in April.’

  Sibella ignored her. ‘I so much prefer Richmond. And I wanted to see that new theatre. Apparently it’s the first kind of chic.’

  ‘You can see the new bridge at Kew,’ said Sophie.

  ‘Don’t try to humour me,’ said Sibella, turning back to the window.

  Again Sophie and Alexander exchanged glances, and Alexander rolled his eyes. He’d joined them at the last minute, much to Sophie’s relief. Sibella had been impossible ever since she’d heard about Fever Hill.

  ‘But it’s your family seat,’ she had complained in a scandalized tone over her chocolate, having ignored Sophie’s request that the subject be deferred.

  ‘We don’t have a family seat,’ Sophie had replied, taking refuge in pedantry. ‘We’re not aristocracy. But even if we did, our “seat” would’ve been Strathnaw. And if you remember, Madeleine sold that years ago.’

  She’d thought that a powerful argument in her favour, but Sibella had brushed it aside. ‘I dread to think what Aunt Clemency will say.’

  That put Sophie on the defensive. ‘Clemency could hardly go on living at Fever Hill by herself. Anyway, I hear that she already spends a good deal of her time at Eden.’

  ‘But still—’

  ‘Sibella, it’s done. I’ve signed the papers. I’ve—’

  ‘But why?’

  Then Sophie had gone into her prepared speech: about feeling morally obliged to repay Cameron for her education, and wishing to recompense Mrs Vaughan-Pargeter more adequately for her keep. Sibella had listened, and asked a sharp question about just how much Sophie felt compelled to repay Cameron, but had entirely missed the fact that Sophie was window-dressing.

  Her real reason for selling Fever Hill was simple and stark. She needed to sever her ties with Jamaica. By getting rid of Fever Hill, she was cutting herself loose from all the pain and regret. She was finally setting herself free.

  So why wasn’t she feeling any better?

  ‘When shall we tell Alexander?’ Sibella had asked, sti
rring her chocolate.

  ‘Not yet,’ Sophie had said in alarm. ‘First I’ve got to write and tell Madeleine and Cameron.’

  Sibella had looked appalled. ‘You mean you haven’t told them? Oh, Sophie!’

  Again she’d been on the defensive. ‘Why should that matter? It was mine to do with as I pleased.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Sib, please. Let’s talk of something else. And not a word to Alexander until I say.’ After that she’d extracted a solemn promise of silence, and then at last the subject was dropped.

  You did the right thing, she told herself as she and Alexander wandered through the dripping green jungle of the Palm House. They were alone together, for Sibella had declined to ‘play gooseberry’, and had gone off to inspect an adjacent greenhouse. You needed to cut yourself off, and you did. And now you’re free.

  So what was she doing in the one place in the whole of London that reminded her of Jamaica?

  She raised her head and studied the intricate green-gold fronds of a tree-fern which wouldn’t have been out of place in the gardens at Eden. She took a deep breath, and the air was as hot and humid as the forest on Overlook Hill. Only the sounds were different. Instead of the rasp of crickets she could hear the soft hiss of humidifiers, and the discreet murmur of the well-to-do visitors admiring the palms.

  Alexander reached up and held a frond out of the way of her hat. ‘I’m told’, he said, ‘that there’s a rather fine display of orchids in Greenhouse Number Four. Shall you care to see it?’

  ‘Not really,’ she replied. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t at all care for orchids.’

  ‘To tell you the truth, neither do I. I dare say I’m the most dreadful philistine, but I’ve always thought that they look rather badly made.’

  She smiled.

  Charming, handsome, undemanding Alexander. How he had changed from the old days. If someone had told her two months ago that they would become friends, she wouldn’t have believed it. Alexander Traherne? That indolent, conceited young man?