The Daughters of Eden Trilogy

by Michelle Paver

  ‘But do you think it’s quite the thing?’ bleated poor Mrs Pitcaithley.

  ‘Depend upon it,’ said Cornelius with a glance at Gus Parnell, who was sitting in moody silence. ‘Everyone will go, simply because they can’t bear to be left out. I hear that even old Ma Palairet hasn’t the courage to stay away.’

  Only Clemency declined, out of loyalty to Madeleine and Cameron, who had sent their regrets by return of post.

  ‘We can’t possibly go,’ said Sophie later to Alexander, having sought him out in his study.

  ‘Why not, my love?’ he said, looking up with a smile from the letter he’d been writing. ‘I rather think that we ought.’

  She stared at him. ‘But I couldn’t. I couldn’t possibly.’

  He stood up and came round the side of the desk and took her hand. ‘That’, he said gently, ‘is precisely why we must. We must show everyone that the man means nothing to you now.’

  ‘I could show that just as easily by staying away.’

  ‘No you couldn’t,’ he said patiently. ‘Darling, people have such long memories. It pains me to say this, but that little episode did rather demean you in their eyes.’

  ‘Demean me?’

  ‘Well, of course. It always lowers a girl to form an attachment outside her own degree.’

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he talked her down. ‘I don’t say this to distress you, my love. It’s in the past. But don’t you see, that’s precisely why we must go? To show everyone that it doesn’t signify in the least.’

  She felt her blood rise. ‘So I am to attend Mr Kelly’s Christmas Masquerade simply because he means nothing to me, while I’m barred from seeing Evie McFarlane, precisely because she’s my friend. No, Alexander, I have to say that I don’t see the logic at all.’

  ‘I hardly think that you need to,’ he crisply replied. ‘All you need to do is to be guided by me.’

  After Sophie had gone, slamming the door behind her with a force which reverberated through the house, Alexander sat for a moment in silence, kneading his temples.

  Confound it all. Everything was such a muddle. Sophie was dragging her feet, and the governor was looking thunderous, and there had been a quite startlingly uncivil letter from Guy Fazackerly, demanding to know when the debt would be settled. TWENTY THOUSAND POUNDS, he’d written in insulting capital letters, absolutely due by New Year’s Day. What was the man worrying about? Didn’t he realize that as the wedding was now fixed, Alexander could go to the Jews and borrow against the expectation? Didn’t he realize that he would get his filthy money, every penny of it? People were so confoundedly disagreeable.

  And now to cap it all, there was this other little unpleasantness.

  On the blotter before him lay Evie’s letter. He’d been rereading it when Sophie came in, and had only just had time to turn it over. Now he took it up again with weary distaste.

  Dearest Alexander,

  Why have you not come to see me or written a line? It has been weeks since I told you my news, and I have heard nothing from you. Is that kind? You promised to visit me. You promised to help me. I am so alone. I can’t tell anyone, and I can’t think about anything else. I don’t know what to do. My love, I need you now more than ever . . .

  Confound it all. Why did women get themselves into such scrapes? After all, men handled far trickier matters every day, and never made such a fuss. Why, he himself had managed to square things with Evie over his engagement to Sophie almost as soon as he’d got off the steamer! It had been tricky, but he’d carried it off. So why couldn’t Evie deal with this little difficulty of hers with similar finesse?

  And really, when one thought about it, she had misled him most dreadfully. He’d always assumed that a girl like her would know very well what she was about in these sorts of things. Surely she would either not allow herself to get into such a scrape – or, if she did, she would know how to get herself out of it? How could he possibly have known that she was so ignorant of the ways of the world? That she would be careless enough to get herself with foal?

  No. When one looked at it in the round, he’d been most frightfully misled.

  The clock on the bookshelf struck half past six. He heaved an enormous sigh. In another ten minutes he would have to go and dress for dinner. Dash it all, why was there never enough time for a fellow to draw breath?

  With a sense of being greatly ill-used by the world at large and by women in particular, he took up his pen and began to write.

  Dear Evie,

  I particularly asked you never to write. By doing so, you have made things confoundedly difficult for me. I know that I said I would see you, and so I shall; given time. But you must understand that when you told me your news the other week, I was so taken aback that I scarcely knew what I was about. And forgive me, but I must ask you: are you absolutely sure that it is mine? If you tell me that it is, then of course I must take your word for it; nevertheless I feel it my duty to enquire.

  Moreover I must confess that until this rude awakening, I had felt entitled to assume that you knew how to avoid this kind of unpleasantness. You must admit that you never led me to believe the contrary, and that I was therefore justified in my assumption. I might add that your timing in this matter could hardly be worse, given my impending marriage.

  Here he paused. His marriage couldn’t really be said to be ‘impending’. But let that pass. Besides, Evie probably didn’t even know what the word meant.

  However, no-one can say that I have ever neglected my obligations. I therefore enclose a five pound note, which I trust will enable you to take care of your little difficulty promptly, permanently, and to your satisfaction.

  I hope to look in upon you when I next run up to town. In the meantime, pray, pray, pray, do not write again. Yours, AT.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Where are the spirits when you need them? thought Evie as she sat hunched on her grandmother’s tomb.

  Every night since she’d got back to Fever Hill she’d come out here to the bottom of her mother’s yard, and asked the spirits for guidance: for some sign as to whether she should have the child, or get rid of it. But nothing came. Only the dark trees leaned over to listen to her thoughts.

  Lord God, what a fool she’d been! How could she ever have imagined that she was good enough for Alexander Traherne?

  A hot wave of shame washed over her as she recalled her secret fantasy: that he would realize that he couldn’t marry Sophie, and marry her instead; that he would bring her proudly back to Parnassus and introduce her to his family. And she would turn to his father with a cold smile, and dare him to remember the frightened little girl he’d tried to rape in the cane-piece seven years before.

  Lord God, what a fool.

  The murmur of voices drifted over to her on the sweet night air. She glanced back to the house, where her mother sat smoking her pipe with Cousin Cecilia and old Nana Josephine. For the first time in years she wanted to join them. She wanted to kick off her shoes and feel the dust between her toes, and just sit and reason awhile. But she couldn’t. What she carried inside her set her apart.

  And time was running out. It had been the middle of October when she’d found out that she was carrying. She’d told Alexander three days later, and he’d promised to stand by her. And she had believed him.

  At first when she didn’t hear from him, she thought he’d fallen ill. Then after several desperate weeks, the letter arrived. You have made things confoundedly difficult for me . . . Your timing could hardly be worse . . . Are you absolutely sure that it is mine? Pray, pray, pray, do not write again.

  Write again? How could he imagine that after such an insult she would ever contact him again? Every night she lay awake screaming at him inside her head. Every morning she got up heavy with tiredness, still silently screaming.

  All the lies. The kisses, the caresses, the burning promises. Sophie didn’t mean anything, he had said. It was just a marriage of convenience. It was Evie he loved.

&
nbsp; What did it come to in the end? A sweaty embrace and a cheap dinner in an out-of-the-way dining-house. A paper sun-umbrella and a five pound note.

  She had the money now, tucked into her bodice; just like that gold chain which his father had once given her, and which she’d lost in the struggle in Bamboo Walk. His father. Why hadn’t she realized they were just the same?

  A breeze stirred the pimento tree above her head. She pressed her knuckles to her eyes until she saw stars. Lord God, girl! Stop going over what’s past, and think! Time’s running out. It’s already the fifteenth of December, and you’re over three months gone. You’ve got to do something.

  But what?

  Get rid of it? But if she got caught she might be thrown in gaol. It would be the end of everything. And if she bore the child, it would still be the end of everything. She could never teach school again; never dream of a respectable marriage to a respectable man. Her life would be over.

  She didn’t know what to do. She longed to talk to someone. Ben maybe, or Sophie. Except that Sophie was the last person she could tell.

  A noise behind her, and she opened her eyes to see her mother standing by Nana Semanthe’s tomb, looking down at her with her hands on her hips. ‘What’s wrong with you, girl?’ she said quietly.

  ‘Nothing,’ muttered Evie.

  Her mother picked a shred of tobacco from between her teeth. ‘You been back awhile, and hardly said two words. Got some big high thinking going on, and black feelings, too, besides. Not so?’

  Evie shook her head.

  ‘Sweetheart trouble? Sweetheart trouble out in foreign?’

  Evie thought for a moment, then nodded.

  ‘Some sugar-mouth buckra man.’

  Evie’s head jerked up. ‘Why you say that, Mother?’

  ‘Tcha! I not no fool. What the name he got, this man?’

  But again Evie shook her head. One thing was certain: her mother must never find out. Grace McFarlane had done some dark things in her time. If she ever learned who’d done this to her daughter, he wouldn’t live long. And then Grace would be hanged for murder. And the Trahernes would have won.

  ‘Mother,’ she said, swinging her legs off the tomb, ‘don’t worry about me. It’s all over now.’

  ‘Evie—’

  ‘I said it’s over. It’s done. Now I’m tired, I’m going to bed.’

  The next morning she awoke to a strange new clarity. It wasn’t that she knew what to do; but she felt sure that today she would make her decision. As she lay watching Mr Anancy spinning his web in the rafters, she wondered how such certainty had come about. Had some spirit dreamed to her while she slept?

  She put on her town clothes, and told her mother that she was going up to the busha house to see Mr Kelly.

  ‘What you wanting with him?’ said her mother narrowly. ‘Is he the sweetheart?’

  ‘Oh, Mother! Of course not!’

  ‘True to the fact? Bible true?’

  ‘He’s like a brother to me. You know that.’ And I hope to God, she added silently, that he’ll be like a brother to me now.

  But to her dismay, Ben wasn’t at home. ‘I’m afraid he’s out riding,’ said the ugly black man who came out onto the verandah. He was very dark, with a clever, bony face which reminded her uncomfortably of a younger version of her cousin, Danny Tulloch. She took an instant dislike to him.

  ‘My name’s Isaac Walker,’ he said, smiling as he extended his hand.

  She gave him the barest of nods and ignored the hand. ‘Evie McFarlane,’ she muttered. Black as a Congo nigger, she thought contemptuously. Too black, too ugly, and too damned polite. Who the hell does he think he is?

  His smile widened as he took in the name. ‘Grace McFarlane’s daughter? I’ve been looking forward to—’

  ‘Please tell Mr Kelly that I called,’ she said coldly, and turned to go.

  ‘Are you sure you won’t wait? Or – d’you want me to give him a message?’

  She looked him up and down with the disdain which only a beautiful woman can fling at an ugly man. ‘No message. Good day to you, sir.’

  She walked down the carriageway in a towering rage. Don’t you start your sugar talk with me, she told Isaac Walker silently. You with your trickified smiles and your lying, sweet-mouth ways.

  Now she knew what her mother had been muttering about the night before with Cousin Cecilia and old Nana Josephine. A well-to-do black man up at the busha house – and unmarried! What a fine thing if he made a match with their Evie!

  And of course, she told herself, setting her teeth, their Evie isn’t good enough for anyone better. Not good enough for a white man with blue eyes and golden curls.

  Her anger lasted about a mile and a half. By the time she’d come out into the Fever Hill Road, all that remained was a cold, heavy dread. She realized now that her plan to see Ben had been nothing more than a delaying tactic. Ben couldn’t tell her what to do. She had to decide that for herself.

  It was dark by the time she got back to her mother’s place, and the fufu was bubbling on the hearth. ‘You know is past eight o’clock?’ Grace said sharply. ‘Where you been all day?’

  ‘Out,’ muttered Evie. She tossed her hat in the dust and threw herself onto the step. She was bone-weary, and she could still smell the stink of the bush-doctor’s hut on her clothes. She wondered that her mother didn’t smell it too.

  ‘Where “out”?’ demanded Grace.

  ‘Just out. Cousin Moses gave me a lift to Montego Bay, and I did a little shopping.’ Which, in a way, was true.

  ‘Shopping? Cho! Don’t seem to me that you bought anything.’

  ‘I didn’t.’ That was a lie. The little brown bottle of physic in her pocket had eaten up over half of Alexander’s five pounds. The rest had gone on a train ticket to Montpelier, and a seat on the mail coach home from Montego Bay.

  She’d been travelling all day. All day she had felt people’s eyes on her, and imagined their silent condemnation; even in Montpelier, where nobody knew who she was.

  Her mother gave the embers a prod, and came to sit beside her. ‘Evie,’ she began, ‘that sweetheart you got.’

  Evie tensed.

  ‘Now don’t give me no back-answer, girl. Just listen.’ She paused. ‘You know it does no good to tangle-up with that kind a man.’

  Evie gave a weary smile. ‘Yes, Mother, I know.’

  Grace studied her face. ‘Evie – you got anything to tell?’

  Evie met her eyes without blinking. ‘No.’ She was good at the blank eye, and it worked. Grace gave a curt nod, and went back to watching the fire.

  Evie sat and watched it too. And it seemed that in the embers she saw again the old bush-doctor’s knowing leer as he’d handed her the physic.

  His hut stood on the outskirts of Montpelier. To reach it one passed the gates of the Montpelier Hotel – the most splendidly appointed hotel in Jamaica, according to the guidebooks. A year ago in the first flush of their romance, Alexander had promised to take her there. Now all she’d glimpsed as she trudged past was a pair of enormous gates, and an avenue of stately yokewoods sweeping up towards some fairytale palace that she would never see.

  The bush-doctor’s hut had smelt of goats and press-oil and ganja. He had liquid yellow eyes and glistening toothless gums, which he bared in a constant grin. ‘Likkle quinine,’ he’d chuckled, tapping a long, sharp fingernail on the bottle, ‘and oil a tansy; oil a parsley, and other things too besides. Mind you drink it down like a good girl-child!’

  Oil of tansy and other things too besides. It sounded harmless, but she didn’t doubt that if she decided to use it, it would work. Such mixtures were secret and hard to come by, but they’d been around for a very long time. She remembered a passage in the journal of Cyrus Wright. Congo Eve miscarried. He suspected her of taking ‘foul potions’ to bring it about.

  Beside her, her mother took up a stick and drew a circle in the dust. ‘You know, Evie, you father was a buckra gentleman, too.’

  Evie
bridled. ‘I know that, Mother. But just because you took up with one doesn’t mean that you can tell me what—’

  ‘No, that’s not what I intending.’ She tapped the circle with the stick and frowned. ‘I going to tell you a thing, Evie. I didn’t take up with you father. He took up with me.’

  Evie shot her a look. ‘What do you mean?’

  Grace shrugged. ‘You know what I mean. Years back, I’m setting out for Salt Wash one afternoon. I’m cutting through Pimento Piece, heading over towards Bulletwood, and he’s out riding and he sees me. And he’s too strong for me.’ She opened her hands to take in the rest.

  Evie stared at her. Grace had spoken in the everyday tone she might use when talking of a spilt basket of yams. Evie tried to speak but no sound came. She cleared her throat. ‘You mean – he forced you?’

  Her mother snorted. ‘Well I sure as hell didn’t ask him,’ she said drily.

  Evie licked her lips. In all her musings about her father, it had never occurred to her that he might have forced himself on her mother. Grace McFarlane? The Mother of Darkness? It wasn’t possible.

  Her mother crossed out the circle and tossed away the stick. ‘It happens,’ she said flatly. ‘Women need lot, lotta courage to live in this wicked world.’

  Evie was shaking her head in bewilderment. ‘But – did you ever tell anyone?’

  Her mother snorted.

  ‘But you could have gone to the magistrates—’

  Her mother put back her head and hooted. ‘Merciful peace, girl! You a teacheress, but you witless as a newborn pickney! What anybody coulda done if I did even tell? The man too strong! You hearing me? Too strong in every damn way.’

  ‘But – what did you do?’

  She shrugged. ‘Thought about lot, lotta things. Thought about running away to foreign. Or letting the River Missis take care of it. Or going up into the far country and taking bush-medicine to kill it dead inside a me.’ She frowned. ‘To kill you, I meaning to say.’

  Evie flinched. Until now she’d only thought of the thing inside her as the most desperate of problems. For the first time she realized it was a child. Would she have the courage – or the wickedness – to do what her own mother could not?