HF - 03 - Mistress of Darkness

by Christopher Nicole

  Pink flamed at her throat, but surprisingly stopped short of filling her cheeks. He remembered now that she had always been a remarkably calm girl, as she was become, apparently, a remarkably calm woman. 'If indeed what he says is correct and she took it upon herself to separate you from ... this young woman, then no doubt your anger was justified,' she said quietly. 'As for your sojourn here, I repeat, it will certainly be a pleasure for us and we must try to make it so for you. Dirk?'

  'By Christ,' said the Dutchman. 'By Christ. You Hiltons have a way of making life difficult for yourselves. You're not to leave Statia, Matt. You know that. Robert says so in his letter. He charges us with the responsibility.'

  'And of course, you always do what Robert requires,' Matt remarked.

  It was Dirk's turn to flush, but his colour was caused by anger, not embarrassment. He glanced at his wife.

  Suzanne got up. 'Robert is the head of our family, Matt, and you at the least would surely find it best to oblige him. Now I think you should accompany us ashore. You have not visited Statia before, have you?'

  'No, madam, I have not.'

  She smiled at him. 'Once you called me Sue, Matt. I should be happy were you to do so again.' She swept past him, leaving the faintest fragrance of musk in the air and gave her hand to Captain Caiman, hovering in the doorway. 'You'll dine with us, Captain. I'm sure there are other messages. And I would know of Aunt Rebecca's health. I'd visit her, but Dirk will not have it.'

  'What, suppose you taken by a privateer, Sue? By Christ, I'd not sleep a night with worry while you were away.'

  Once again she smiled, with pleasure at his so evident devotion and then went to the gangway, where the seamen were eager to assist her down to the boat. Matt picked up the bag containing the few clothes he had brought with him from England and followed, sat beside her on the transom as they pulled for the shore. ' 'Tis precious small,' he commented.

  'Not four miles long,' Suzanne agreed. 'Beside Statia, Antigua must seem a very continent. Nor is there a great deal of entertainment. No horse-racing, not even this cricket of which Robert writes so disparagingly in his letter. Although this last is surely nothing more than ignorance. Perhaps you will teach us.'

  ' 'Tis not a sport for women.' Matt searched his mind for some other verbal assault with which to penetrate the armour of confident reserve in which she seemed encased.

  'Then you will have to make do with our national pastime,' Dirk said, with a bellow of laughter. 'We drink, Matthew boy. We drink.'

  Now the flush did reach Suzanne's cheeks. 'As Dirk says, Matt, there is scarce more for a man to do, than find convivial company.'

  'And a woman?'

  She shrugged. 'I think we occupy our time in a satisfactory manner.'

  'She sews,' Dirk said contemptuously. 'Morning and night, she works on her tapestry. By Christ. I sometimes think she is working on my shroud.' He stood up as the boat came into the side of the dock, and caused it to roll dangerously, then jumped ashore with the complacent energy of a boy. 'You'll take Matt to the house, Susie. I'm for the warehouse. You can join me tomorrow, Matt. It's there you'll spend most of your time.'

  Matt gave Suzanne his hand: she wore no gloves, and he noticed how remarkably warm and dry was her flesh. The fingers squeezed his, for a moment. She was attempting to reassure, to welcome. Georgiana's sister.

  A gig waited by the dock. Ashore all was hustle and bustle, far more than even in Kingston, and indeed, there was so much activity in the harbour, with ships arriving and leaving or preparing to leave all the time, that no notice at all was taken of the Hilton sloop; nor were there any touts around seeking business - a new arrival in Statia, lacking friends, would have to fend for himself and not find it so very easy, unless his pockets were jingling with gold coin. Everyone looked prosperous. Black and white, their cheeks were rounded with good food and drink, their clothes were clean and new, their faces contentedly smiling, yet always the smiles were guarded by the hardness of acute businessmen.

  Suzanne was already seated and her husband had disappeared into the throng. Matt sat beside his cousin and the Negro driver - he wore no livery, but plain white cottons and a straw hat - flicked the whip.

  'It will be cooler at the house,' Suzanne said.

  Matt gazed at the rows of warehouses, and the goods being unloaded on the beach, at the other goods being loaded into lighters for conveyance to the waiting ships, listened to the multiplicity of tongues which rose into the still morning air, dominated, surprisingly, by English. 'So I am to be a clerk,' he remarked.

  'That could be a blessing,' Suzanne said seriously. 'For a season. Did more plantation owners understand the intricacies of book-keeping and accounting, less of them would be robbed by their attorneys.'

  'And you think I will ever own a plantation, now?'

  'Can there be any doubt of that?'

  They had already left the little town - there were far more warehouses than dwellings - and were following the white dust road between the inevitable fields of sugar cane, but here also the fields were smaller than anywhere else; those who cultivated sugar in St. Eustatius did so for a hobby. Trade was the island's life-blood. And there was no cane at all surrounding the Huys property, but instead rows of flowerbeds reaching up to the house, situated on the lower slopes of the hill, where it looked down over the town and the anchorage. The house itself was two-storied and square, with gabled upper windows and a steeply sloping roof; it might have been removed bodily from Hoorn or Amsterdam and transported across the sea. Only the great wooden jalousies and heavy storm shutters suggested there was a great deal too much sun and occasionally even more wind, to be contended with.

  But the sloping roof was as necessary here as in Holland. Even as they turned into the drive, the black clouds which always gathered around the mountain peaks at noon swept lower and the rain began to fall, great heavy drops which ploughed into the road and left deep pits in the dust, splashed on the backs of the horses and came flooding on to the hats and shoulders of the passengers.

  'Ow me lord,' shouted the slave, and whipped the horse into a faster trot.

  'Soaked again,' Suzanne cried and burst out laughing, for all that her straw hat was collapsing about her ears, and her gown was starting to take on a sorry appearance. But the gig was sliding to a halt before the wide front verandah, and she was getting down without waiting for a hand from her slaves, who came running from the building to assist her. She hurried up the steps and into the shade of the roof and stood there, panting and laughing, suddenly a quite beautiful picture, for there was deep colour in her cheeks, and her hair was scattered as she removed the sodden hat. 'You'll change your clothes, Matt,' she said as he joined her. 'We cannot have you taking ill on your first day here. Come along.'

  She left her hat on a cane chair, led him through the front door and into the house itself. The rooms were surprisingly small, and in the sudden gloom induced by the lowering clouds looked almost poky: there seemed a great deal too much furniture and everywhere there were paintings, drawings, miniatures of Holland, and of large-featured, stern but friendly looking people who were clearly the Huys family. A quick glance did not discover any Hiltons amongst them.

  Suzanne was already climbing the stairs, and opening the door to a bedroom on the left of the landing. 'I'm afraid even the bed isn't made,' she said, 'as I had no idea you were arriving. But the servants will see to it. Now please take off those wet things.' She smiled at him, and left the room; a Negress was bringing in his clothes-bag and this she placed on the bed, also with an apologetic smile. Then the door closed, and he was alone.

  In his prison. He walked to the window as he took off his coat, to look at the teeming rain; his room was at the back of the house, and the hill climbed steeply, allowing very little view save of tumbled rocks and scattered scrub.

  He pulled off his soaked shirt, massaged his shoulders with a towel.

  'And how is Georgy?' Suzanne asked.

  His head jerked. But he was sti
ll alone in the room; for the sake of coolness, as in most "West Indian houses, there was no ceiling, only the rafters and then the sloping shingles of the roof itself, on which the rain drummed with monotonous regularity. But the walls of the rooms ended at the rafters, leaving a space of several feet in the centre, to permit the air to circulate freely. Thus Suzanne's bedroom must be next to his, he realized, and the wall was no more than a screen between them.

  'I know that at the moment you bear her no love,' Suzanne remarked. 'But you could at least reassure me as to her health.'

  'I am sure she is as well as ever in her life,' Matt said. 'And no doubt enjoying herself to the utmost, now I am not there. I do not really see Mrs. Partridge being able to play much of the chaperon.'

  'Not for Georgy,' Suzanne agreed, and he heard a door close. Hastily he buttoned his shirt and went outside, to discover her waiting for him on the landing. She wore a deep crimson undressing robe which began at her neck and trailed on the floor; her hair remained loose, although she had dried and apparently brushed it. 'I imagine you are at once hungry and thirsty,' she said. 'So let us dine. It will make a change, having company.'

  He followed her down the stairs, where the butler was waiting with a tray and glasses of hot buttered rum. 'Does Dirk not come home during the day?'

  She shook her head. 'He usually eats, and drinks, at the Ice House,' she explained. 'As will you, from tomorrow, no doubt. So today I must enjoy you while I may. No, no, Augustus,' she said, entering the dining-room, less than half the size of that at Hilltop. 'I have not seen my cousin for six years. You cannot seat him in the distance. I wish him next to me.'

  He held her chair for her, and then sat on her right hand. 'Six years,' he said. 'Do you know, I had forgotten your appearance?'

  She smiled at him, and sipped her drink. 'I doubt I have greatly changed. And you have not changed at all, unless it has been to fill out. Robert also declares you are an expert at fisticuffs. No doubt you must keep yourself in very good health.'

  He did not suppose she required an answer, and in any event, Augustus the butler was placing avocado halves in front of them. Georgiana's sister. But could anyone be less like that bundle of lascivious evil than this cool woman, who lived in these unexciting surroundings, married to a man twice her age and fitting herself to his life exactly?

  And she was his gaoler. He must not forget that.

  'Six barrels of wine. Four sides of salted pork. Twelve boxes of cheese. That seems to be the sum of it.' Dirk Huys scratched his ear with his pencil. 'Oh, and that perfume. General Dalling likes his ladies to smell sweet and he has enough of them.'

  The Negroes loaded the last of the boxes on to the cart, and Matt ticked them off on his pad. And wiped sweat from his neck. But the sun was at last starting to droop towards the west and the heat to leave the day. Another day, soon to be followed by another night. Why, in a few days it would be Christmas. And what would happen then? They would sit clown to dinner, and drink more wine than usual, and after dinner some of Dirk's friends would come in for punch -men friends only, for punch - while Suzanne would retire to her sewing, and Matt ... Matt would be invited to join the men. Dirk was scrupulous about treating him as a member of the family. But Matt would decline. Supposing Matt were still here.

  He waited for the signal. But Dirk must walk slowly round and round the cart, checking and rechecking the goods. He was a careful man, which no doubt accounted for his prosperity. And now at last he was nodding. ' 'Tis the official sloop, Matt.' He grinned at the boy. 'A sorry world, would you not say, where the Governor of Jamaica himself plays his part in smuggling his requirements. Ah, well, I am off up the hill. We'll expect you in an hour.' He went for his horse, while his Negro foreman began shutting up the warehouse. Matt nodded to the driver, and the mule was given a crack of the whip; slowly the cart rumbled down the road towards the docks, Matt walking behind.

  Even at dusk the harbour was as busy as ever. It was impossible to imagine the waterfront of Orange Town as other than busy, an ant heap of anxious prosperity. And General Dalling's jolly-boat was waiting alongside the dock, with Plummer the first mate impatiently flicking his leg with his stick. 'Haste, Mr. Hilton,' he shouted. 'Haste. This wind will not stay east forever.'

  'You'd not spoil his excellency's wine, now would you? Or his perfume.' Matt nodded to the driver, who began to unload, with the help of the seamen.

  Plummer strolled across. 'You've a manifest?'

  'All checked. Have you ever found any shortages from Huys?

  'No. That's true enough.' Plummer squinted at the carefully formed letters; he was a seaman rather than a clerk, and did not find reading a simple matter.

  Matt lowered his voice. 'And what have you for me, Mr. Plummer?'

  The mate sighed, still pretending to read. 'No cheer, Mr. Hilton. No cheer. My captain bids you be patient.'

  'Be patient?' Matt cried, and glanced at the Negro. Then dropped his voice again. 'He wants more money, no doubt.'

  'Well, sir,' Plummer said, 'of that I cannot say. It would have to be a great deal to make him risk Mr. Hilton's wrath. It would certainly cost him his position. And me mine, no doubt; your cousin plays at cards with the Governor every Saturday night.'

  'And who would know it was you?' Matt demanded. 'I am not asking you to anchor in Charleston Road. I am but asking you to find yourself within a mile of the beach. I can swim.'

  'And no doubt you are too tough for the sharks, Mr. Hilton,' Plummer said sadly. 'But they would know, sir. As we know you have approached every captain sailing from Statia south or west. Why, sir, your machinations are all the joke on the waterfront.'

  Matt flushed. 'And to you as well, I perceive.'

  'I am trying to assist you, sir,' Plummer insisted. 'You are too hasty about the matter. My advice to you would be to pretend to abandon all idea of leaving Statia. Set to with a will to play your part with Huys. Pretend to like the place. Pretend to have no more desire to leave. Only that way will you make them lose interest in keeping you here. And then, who knows, it may be possible for us to assist you.'

  'And how long, do you think, will that take?' Matt inquired sarcastically.

  Plummer shrugged. 'Who knows, Mr. Hilton. Perhaps if you were to give it a month or two ...'

  Matt turned away in disgust. A month or two. That would be February. Caiman had estimated that Gislane would scarce arrive in Nevis before then, so he was really losing no time by taking Plummer's advice. He could not assist her while she was in mid-ocean. It was the inactivity, the fact that he was living here, in total comfort and even some luxury, while she ... but his imagination could not frame the necessary pictures. He had too little experience of men and the world. He had seen female slaves ill-treated as a boy, and had thought nothing of it. The idea of Gislane being submitted to the lash was inconceivable, and like to drive him mad. But what about the alternatives?

  Matt stamped up the steps, discovered Suzanne and Dirk seated in their rocking chairs on the verandah, sipping punch.

  'You look hot and careworn,' Suzanne said with her usual gentle smile. 'Augustus, fetch some punch for Mr. Hilton.'

  'And are the goods delivered?' Dirk asked.

  Matt nodded, and sat down with a sigh, fanning himself with his hat, watching the sun sinking into the ocean, beyond the ships, listening to the buzz of the insects rising out of the garden.

  'And was Mr. Plummer no more co-operative than everyone else?' Dirk asked, and burst into a roar of laughter as Matt's head turned sharply. 'Do you not think we are well aware of your scheming, boy? By Christ, you have made it necessary for me to have a word, personally, with every master who visits Orange Town. Oh, you are a deal of trouble. But surely now you will give it a rest.'

  Augustus stood at his elbow with a tray, but Matt ignored him. 'You have known?'

  Dirk gave another guffaw of laughter. 'Do you take us for

  fools? But what was I to do? Load irons on your ankles? You know, Robert might have done that. I be
lieve in promoting just sufficient force to achieve the object. In your case, why, none was necessary. I had but to sit back and allow you to exhaust every possibility of escaping Statia. And I think you have done so. I trust you will now allow yourself to enjoy life to a certain extent.'

  Matt stared at him, and then glanced at Suzanne, who flushed. 'Dirk has always possessed a direct manner, Matt. Yet is he right.' She reached across to take his hand. 'It has been most difficult for us, to watch you consuming yourself with misdirected energy. You fell in love with a face, a smile, a voice, perhaps. Many a young man has done that, Matt, and lived to rejoice that fate intervened to save him from the consequences of his own folly, however miserable it may have left him at the time.'

  Her fingers rested on top of his, and he looked down at them. And what of you, sweet Sue, he wanted to ask. Did fate intervene to save you from lying nightly beneath this great oaf, as Georgiana so aptly put it, and as the evidence of my own ears testifies? Is that the best fate, in her wisdom, has to offer?