‘Don’t try to get out of it. I’ve just come from Sibella. She’s in a terrible state.’
‘I take it that means she didn’t enjoy the party.’
She looked down at her hands. It didn’t seem possible that he could treat this as a joke. ‘I know it’s because she’s a Traherne,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I know that’s what this is all about. But I never thought – I never imagined you’d sink this low.’
‘And you do now?’ He gave her a slight smile. ‘You’re quick to believe the worst of me, aren’t you?’
‘You used her. You used her to curry favour with Great-Aunt May.’
A flush darkened his cheekbones. But he recovered swiftly. ‘And of course in polite society’, he said drily, ‘nobody ever uses anyone. I’m always forgetting that.’
‘The least you can do’, she said between her teeth, ‘is give me back those trinkets of hers.’
‘Ah, so that’s why you’ve come.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘She’s in trouble with her sweetheart – her sweetheart whom, I might add, she cordially detests – and now she’s sent you to do her dirty work.’
Sophie coloured.
‘You see,’ he went on, frowning, ‘you indicated just now that I was a blackguard for using her. But to the uninitiated, it might appear that she was using you. Although that’s impossible, isn’t it, because, as I said before, in polite society nobody ever uses anyone. I mean, she isn’t using Gus Parnell to buy herself a comfortable future. And her father isn’t using her, or Parnell, to buy himself back to financial security. And her brother certainly isn’t using you to get out of his own little spot of trouble.’
‘Alexander isn’t in any trouble,’ she snapped. Then she felt annoyed with herself for standing up for him.
‘That shows how much you know,’ he remarked. Thoughtfully he tapped his fingernail against his teeth. ‘And what about you?’ he said suddenly. ‘What are you using Alexander for?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why are you marrying him? Is it to buy yourself a bolt-hole? Somewhere safe and secure and far away from Eden, so that you won’t ever need to—’
‘I didn’t come here to fight,’ she broke in. ‘Just give me the scarf and the brooch and I’ll go.’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because you don’t need them! You’ve got what you wanted. You’re just keeping them to make a point.’
‘Am I? And what point is that?’
‘To show us all how powerful you’ve become.’
He laughed. ‘And you think I need a couple of trinkets to do that?’
‘Apparently, yes.’
Abruptly his smile vanished. He got to his feet and came round to her side of the desk and leaned against it with his arms crossed on his chest, looking down at her. His eyes were glittering. With a flicker of alarm she wondered if he’d been drinking. ‘You’re so quick to think the worst of me,’ he said in a low voice.
‘You’re not giving me much choice.’
For a moment longer he looked down into her face. Then he pushed himself off the desk, moved past her to the bookshelf, opened a large cedarwood box, and took out a small brown paper parcel. He tossed it onto the desk in front of her. ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘One scarf. One brooch. Both slightly used. Just like their owner.’
She took the parcel and stood up to go. ‘Thank you,’ she muttered. She felt sick.
He moved back behind the desk, and opened the doors onto the south verandah, and stood with his back to her, looking out. ‘If she’s angry with me,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘it’s not because I met her at the Burying-place. It’s because I didn’t.’
She stared at the package in her hands, then back at him. ‘What? You mean—’
‘She waited, but I didn’t turn up. There. Now you know.’
She thought of Sibella’s outraged face. I feel so humiliated. I begged – I wrote to him. There was no reply. ‘You – you never intended to meet her there. Did you?’
He laughed. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t go that far. The truth is, I didn’t think too much about it. It was sort of a spur-of-the-moment decision.’
‘She waited for hours. In the dark.’
‘Did she really?’
‘Then she risked scandal to come here and beg for her things.’
‘So?’ He turned to face her. ‘It’ll do her good. The silly little cow’s probably never had to beg for anything in her entire life. Now she knows how it feels.’
Again she looked down at the parcel in her hands. Somehow it almost made it worse that he’d been playing with Sibella. ‘If I hadn’t come and asked for this,’ she said slowly, ‘would you have sent it back anyway?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Why not?’
‘Why should I?’
‘But – you would have ruined her.’
Again he laughed. ‘Isn’t that a bit melodramatic?’
She shook her head. ‘What’s happened to you, Ben?’
He shot her an impatient glance.
‘Look at you. You’ve got everything. An enormous house. Fine clothes. Beautiful horses. But inside, something’s gone.’ She tapped her breastbone. ‘In here. It’s gone.’
In the glare from the doorway his face was dark. ‘I think you’d better go,’ he said quietly.
‘What happened to you? Did getting rich burn it all away?’
He turned back to the verandah. ‘It wasn’t the money which did that.’
Chapter Thirty-One
From the Journal of Cyrus Wright – Volume the Second
January 28th, 1832 Terrible, terrible calamity. I write this from Falmouth, whither I have removed with Mr Monroe & Family, as the country has been over-run with havoc. Slaves running amok with irresistible fury. Fever Hill burnt all to ashes, & Seven Hills, Parnassus, & countless others. Only Mad Durrant’s place at Eden spared, for he always was unnatural soft to his Negroes, & never would flog the women but only the men.
The militia patrol night and day. I pray to God to deliver us from the evil designs of our slaves. Have put Congo Eve in the collar to prevent her going runaway, for Mr Traherne’s Strap is among the rebels.
Plick! A swallow dipped to drink from the aqueduct. Evie glanced up from the page.
She’d only been back an hour or so, but already she was in her old place on the wall, leaning against the trunk of the ackee tree, with her bare shins stretched out in the sun. To her relief, her mother had been out when she’d arrived.
Strange. She’d been eager to get home, but now that she was, she longed to be back in the hills. Up in the cave, she’d felt safe. It was as if there were a presence watching over her: a shadow at the corner of her eye. Down here she felt exposed. And what was more, she had a strange, taut sense of suspense. She’d felt it as soon as she woke up that morning. She’d felt it all through the ride down from the hills with Ben. She felt it now. A prickling in the air. A sense of something ready to happen. She glanced down at the book in her lap. Was this it?
The second volume of the Journal of Cyrus Wright. Sophie had brought it to her as a present, a few days before Christmas. She’d told Evie that she’d found the first volume a few weeks ago among some things Madeleine had sent to her, and read it in one sitting. Then she’d got Miss Clemmy to ferret through the boxes of Master Jocelyn’s books up at Eden, and this second volume had emerged.
Sophie had been quietly triumphant, and Evie had been touched. But she hadn’t wanted to read it in the cave. She’d been afraid of what she might find. She didn’t want to learn that Cyrus Wright had finally broken the spirit of Congo Eve, or that he’d beaten her once too often and left her dying in a ditch.
And yet – she needed to know. More than that: she sensed that Congo Eve was trying to tell her something. Maybe that was why the journal had found its way to her in the first place.
With a shiver of apprehension she opened it again, and began to read.
February 22nd, 1832 Have just been delivered from
exceeding peril. Was returning to Falmouth from Salt Wash when a Negro leaped out and dragged me from my horse. It was the Negro Strap, much altered & terrible of visage. He struck at me with all violence, shouting ‘This for what you done to Congo Eve’, but by the mercy of Providence his blows glanced off my stick. He drove me back into the Morass & I called out Murder, and some militia men rode up & laid hold of the villain & beat him till he knew no more. I sustained a bruised elbow, very sore, & was much befouled by the Morass. Altogether put beside myself with fright.
March 7th By the mercy of Providence I am now fully restored, & greatly rejoiced, for the Rebellion has been quelled. Mr Monroe exceeding active at the assizes. I myself have been at the square many times to view the punishments, and yesterday I watched Strap flogged and hanged. The brute made a tolerable good death. Dined with Mr Monroe: broiled conch, a ham, & good porter. Cum Congo Eve in the undercroft, supra terram. Told her of her paramour’s end. I said, Now he is gone for ever. Let that be a lesson to all Negroes who would raise their hand against the white man. She replied not a word. I shall keep her in the collar overnight.
March 14th Since the last entry a sennight ago, I have been sick near unto death with the bloody flux. I believe it was some foul Negro poisoning by Congo Eve, for she went runaway the very night I was took sick. Have not been able to learn how she broke free of the collar, but suspect the other Negroes of assisting her. They fear her for knowing Obiah, Mial, &c.
July 28th Congo Eve still runaway. It has been over four months, & all attempts to recover her have failed. Find myself exceeding low in spirits, & much troubled by the Night Mare. Doubtless I am not yet fully recovered from the flux. Cum Jenny in Bullet Tree Piece, sed non bene.
August 5th One of Mad Durrant’s field Negroes saw a woman ‘very like to Congo Eve’ some weeks past, heading south into the Cockpits! Have sent men after her & posted a reward.
August 6th Have myself questioned Mad Durrant’s field Negro. He did indeed see the woman heading south, towards the region known as Turn Around. Have sent more men with hounds.
‘There you are,’ said Grace McFarlane.
Evie jumped. She shut the book with a thud and clasped it tight. Her heart was pounding. The region known as Turn Around. Of course. Of course.
‘So,’ said her mother. ‘You been away.’ She took in her daughter’s bare feet and naked shins and her wary expression, but she made no remark.
Evie nodded. Yes, she thought, I’ve been away. I’ve been in the region known as Turn Around – perhaps in the very cave in which Congo Eve stayed hidden all those years ago.
She was shaken, but not deeply surprised. Some part of her – the four-eyed part that she used to hate – had perhaps guessed it all along.
Grace ran her tongue around her teeth, and spat. ‘You’re looking meagre, girl. Look like you been ill, up at Mandeville with that friend of yours.’
‘I had a fever,’ said Evie.
‘Hn,’ said Grace.
‘But I’m better now. I’m much stronger.’
Grace gave her a long, searching look. Then she nodded. ‘That I can see.’ She indicated the book. ‘You got much more of that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, when you done, come along back a the house. I’m making red peas soup.’
Evie nodded.
Her mother turned to go. ‘So Evie,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘You back now. Yes?’
‘Yes, Mother,’ she said. ‘I’m back.’
When her mother had gone, Evie sat in silence by the aqueduct, watching the dragonflies skimming the opaque green water. I’m back, she thought. But for how long? And what am I going to do?
Again that sense of tautness and suspense. The air felt hot and heavy, crackling with energy. She opened the book.
Surprisingly, there were only about five more pages of script, and the rest was blank. She resisted the urge to read the last page first, and went back to where she’d left off.
It appeared that when Cyrus Wright had sent out the hounds in August 1832, he’d sent them out in vain. The next entry was a pair of small, mildewed clippings from the Daily Gleaner, carefully pasted in. Both were from a column advertising for the return of strayed stock and runaway slaves. January 1st, 1835. Escaped: Congo Eve, five feet five inches high & branded with the mark CW on left shoulder, belonging to Mr Cyrus Wright of Fever Hill Estate. Whoever shall lodge the said Negro with the subscriber shall receive a reward of ten shillings. Cyrus Wright (sub).
The second clipping contained an identical advertisement dated the following year. The reward was doubled.
There followed two pages of spare one-line entries, often only one per year. There was no more mention of the weather, or of his sexual conquests, or what he’d had ‘to his dinner’. Cyrus Wright had lost his taste for the minutiae of his life. But every so often he would tersely record that his health and spirits remained ‘indifferent’. And each year there was a stark note that Congo Eve had not yet been found.
The penultimate entry was longer, but tremulous. By then, Cyrus Wright had been an old man of eighty.
November 13th, 1849 Congo Eve not yet found, but rumoured alive and in the hills. This day, Master Jocelyn Monroe was wed to Miss Catherine McFarlane. Miss McFarlane brought with her several Negroes from her father’s estate, including Leah, the sister of Congo Eve, and Leah’s daughter Semanthe. The daughter is blind, but has a look of Congo Eve. Both mother & daughter are said to be in contact with Congo Eve, & to have learned from her the unclean secrets of Obiah & Mial. I questioned them strenuously, but the wretches refused to tell of her.
The final entry was six weeks later, and in another hand, large and untutored. January 2nd, 1850. This day Cyrus Wright Esq. died in his sleep. By Elizabeth Mordenner, his wife.
Evie closed the book and put her hands on the cover. So Cyrus Wright had died in his sleep, with a wife at his side – a wife he’d never even bothered to mention in his journal.
The fact that he’d died peacefully after escaping punishment for all his cruelties would once have outraged Evie. Now she almost felt sorry for him. It was clear from his bitter little notations that he’d spent the rest of his life – all eighteen years of it – tormented by the knowledge that Congo Eve was living freely in the hills, in the region known as Turn Around. He might have survived an attempt to poison him; he might have escaped Strap’s attack on his life; but in the end, Congo Eve had had her revenge.
Evie had thought a lot about revenge while she was regaining her strength up in the cave. She’d promised her mother that she would never confront her father, Cornelius Traherne, and she intended to keep that promise. And yet – she craved justice from the Trahernes. Justice for herself and for her mother, and for that child begotten in incest, whom she’d sacrificed in the cave.
But what should she do? Should she emulate her ancestress and try a poisoning? Or should she act the civilized twentieth-century teacheress, and turn the other cheek?
Who was she? That was the question. Until she decided that, she wouldn’t know what to do.
All her life she had wanted to be white. All her life she had envied Sibella Traherne – rich, pretty, thoughtless Sibella, who had everything Evie had always wanted. Sibella Traherne. Her half-sister.
But strangely, Evie didn’t envy her any more. How could she? Sibella was just a poor, weak woman who was terrified of her own father, and detested the man she was going to marry. And if Evie couldn’t envy her, then why try so hard to be white?
She wasn’t white. She was mulatto. She was the four-eyed daughter of Grace McFarlane, and a kinswoman of Congo Eve. Wasn’t that something to be proud of? Wasn’t that what Congo Eve had been trying to tell her all along?
A gust of wind stirred the ackee tree above her head. She looked about her at the creeper-clad ruins of the old slave village – the village which Alasdair Monroe, in his murderous rage, had burnt to the ground after the Rebellion. Then an idea came to her.
Pen
sively she traced a triangle on the cover of the journal. Maybe that’s it, she thought. Her heart quickened with excitement. Maybe it’s time to get up a little Christmas Rebellion of your own.
To reach the Burying-place at Fever Hill, one crossed the lawns at the back of the house, and took the path over the crown of the hill and halfway down the other side.
But if one then continued on past the Burying-place, the path snaked through a thicket of ironwoods, and finally ended at a creeper-choked ruin in a dark little dell. People shunned this place, for it was the ruin of the old hot-house or slave hospital. A place of duppies and evil memories: some long-ago, some not so long-ago.
Precisely because no-one went there, it also possessed a curious kind of peace. At least, it did for Ben. That was why he’d caused the three coffins to be placed here beneath a temporary bamboo shelter, until the mausoleum could be built. It was also why he’d come here to be alone, after fetching Evie.
He sat on a block of cut-stone with his elbows on his knees, watching a centipede working its way along the coffin which held his brother’s remains. It was peaceful in the clearing, but not at all quiet. The rasp of the crickets rose and fell like the soughing of the sea. A flock of jabbering crows flew raucously overhead. A mongoose emerged from beneath a dumb-cane leaf, spotted Ben, and vanished into the undergrowth.
Life was going on all around him. Busy, indifferent, beautiful. So why couldn’t he find peace? After all, he’d achieved what he wanted. He’d found Robbie and Lil and Kate, and brought them out to the warmth and the light. Why wasn’t that enough?
‘What do you want from me, Kate?’ he said aloud.
A cling-cling flew down onto the roof of the shelter and regarded him with a beady yellow eye.
‘I made the wrong choice and you paid for it,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve tried to make amends. What more do you want?’
The cling-cling hopped along the roof and flew away.
Ben sat on in the clearing, while the rasp of the crickets intensified. He was dizzy with fatigue and still half drunk – and still disgusted with himself. That look on Sophie’s face. What happened to you, Ben? Inside, something’s gone.
The Daughters of Eden Trilogy Page 77
