HF - 03 - Mistress of Darkness

by Christopher Nicole

  But he was, indeed, learning to dissemble. He slipped his hand from beneath hers and stood up. 'I feel like a small boy caught with his fingers in the jam jar.'

  Dirk guffawed, yet again. 'An apt simile, by Christ.'

  'Therefore must I be punished,' Matt said. ‘I will retire without supper.'

  'Oh, Matt,' Suzanne said. 'Don't be absurd. We are not here to punish you. Only to prevent you ...' she hesitated, glancing at her husband, 'making a mistake.'

  'You would, I think, have preferred to say, making a fool of myself,' Matt said gently. 'In truth, it seems that I have been making a fool of myself, in my frantic approaches to all and sundry, without realizing that they listened only to you, Dirk. And to the far reaching insistence of Robert. So I am ashamed, and have lost my appetite. As you say, by tomorrow I shall have recovered. I will bid you good night.'

  'Matt ...' Suzanne began, but Dirk silenced her with a shake of his head. Matt climbed the stairs to his bedroom, stripped off his clothes and crawled beneath the mosquito netting. He lay on his back and stared at the white mound which hung above him, listened to the ceasless buzz of the frustrated insects seeking a way through the restricting gauze, absently brushed trickles of sweat from his neck. How they must have laughed, at his futile, frantic endeavours this past month. How they must be laughing, now, at his equally futile anger, which had done no more than deprive him of his supper.

  Did they laugh? He frowned into the darkness. Dirk laughed, certainly. Constantly and vigorously. He could not say the same for Suzanne. She smiled and endeavoured to maintain an atmosphere of tranquillity in her home. No doubt this was what Dirk wanted. But shedid not laugh. She does not love him, Georgiana had said. Well, no doubt Georgiana was right. Yet had she accepted her position as his wife with resignation. And regardless of what she was as a wife, she was Robert Hilton's eldest sister as a woman. There was the sum of her character. Her sympathy could be no more than pretended.

  As if she, or Dirk, mattered. He had indeed been foolish. Of course Robert would have issued instructions that every shipmaster must be warned off carrying Matt; there was the power of the Hilton name, which could rob a man of his command, of his very livelihood, if driven to it. There had been his mistake, a mistake of youth, of inexperience. Nevis, and Gislane, were not be gained that easily.

  But there were men on Statia who had no position, no commands to lose. Who could only gain, from accommodating the Hilton heir. There were Negro fishermen, who put to sea in the small hours of the morning, and returned at noon to sell their catches. No one knew, or cared, where they went at dawn. So perhaps Nevis was a long carry for an open fishing boat. But they could set him ashore on St. Kitts, only a few miles to the south. Thence he could walk to Basseterre, and find another fisherman to ferry him across the Narrows.

  There was his course of action. He felt almost contented, and only a little impatient. As from tomorrow he would seek his freedom in a more subtle manner, and match the patient secrecy of his captors. And this time he would succeed.

  But now he regretted having forgone his supper. He lay in the overheated bed, listening to the rumblings of his belly, and listening too, to other sounds. Sounds to which he had become used, which roused his manhood as they revolted his imagination. Dirk Huys was a vigorous animal, married to a young and beautiful wife; he had to be very drunk not to seek to renew his physical devotion in the room beyond the partition, with grunts and sighs, and murmured caresses. He called her his poppet, and the bed creaked as he heaved his weight about, and no doubt hers as well. Yet she uttered not a sound. At least, not a sound that Matt could interpret, and the odd whisper which reached his room might as easily have been uttered by Dirk as by her. But she submitted, no doubt, time and time again. And the thought of it made him sweat. With desire, for Sue? How could it be otherwise. But it was a strange, perverse sort of desire, compounded of the knowledge that she lay, only a thin wall away, naked in the arms of another man. He had only Georgiana's word for it that she was a reluctant lover, and even had she been, in the beginning, no more than a reluctant lover, she had now been married three years, and had certainly become reconciled to her fate. And perhaps more than reconciled.

  And perhaps she was silent merely because she knew he could hear and would be listening, and knew too that she must meet him in the morning, and smile at him in that reassuring fashion, her face unmarked by passion, even if her body still retained the bruises caused by Dirk's fingers. Another reason for escaping this place, lest he go mad with confused emotion, lest the purity of his determination to regain Gislane, to live with her in honour and in love, become diluted with the ambition only to achieve woman.

  'Man, Mr. Hilton,' Lancelot said, 'you know we can't do that.'

  Matt's horse pawed the sand, and he, himself, felt like stamping, to relieve his angry frustration. 'I am offering you all I possess,' he explained. 'At this moment. But in the years to come I will have more money than you can ever have dreamed of. And where is the risk to you? You take your boat farther afield than that.' From the beach, St. Kitts looked no farther than a stone's throw. Close enough, indeed, to be reached by swimming. But he knew better. It was several miles of open sea, with a fierce current boiling between the islands and sufficient sharks and barracuda to bring him down before he was a hundred yards from the shore.

  Lancelot removed his battered straw hat and scratched his head. He was the recognized king of the Statia fishing fleet, his black face gnarled by years of sea breeze and flying spray. Matt had not meant to begin with him, but none of the others would contemplate taking him to St. Kitts; it had to be Lancelot, or it would be no one. And now, he was realizing, it would be no one. Statia was too small, and the combination of Robert Hilton's name, even in a Dutch island, and Dirk's physical presence, was too all pervading.

  'Man, Mr. Hilton,' Lancelot attempted to explain. 'Man ...'

  Matt wheeled his horse, walked it up the gully between the cliffs, leaving the beach and the sea behind. And Gislane, yet again. It was February, and by now no doubt she had arrived, beaten and outraged, but still waiting, and praying, for him to come to her. What would she think of him, of all mankind, of all white mankind, certainly. And to suppose that she might be twenty miles away, and he unable to reach her, was next to unbearable. Well, then, he possessed his last resource. He did not know enough about the sea and even the fishing boats generally required a crew of at least three. But if he had to, he would manage on his own. Certainly navigation should prove no problem, and with the wind steadily from the east he should make good progress. And become a pirate, as well as a vagabond.

  He reined as he approached the road, and saw the trap. It contained a single figure, in a rose-coloured gown with an enormous white hat. And this day, as it was Sunday, she had come straight from church; as this day, it being Sunday, he had supposed it safe to leave the house while they were at service, and make his way to the beach.

  A touch of his heels, and the horse approached the trap. 'Am I spied upon all the time?'

  'Are you angry, all the time?'

  'No doubt I am,' he agreed.

  She smiled; she possessed an utterly entrancing smile, which raced away from her mouth, spreading to the dimples in her cheeks, expanding her nostrils, reaching up to send slivers of light into her normally cool eyes. Perhaps she did not need to laugh.

  'Then I too must be honest. Of course you are spied upon, all the time. Can you imagine what Robert would say were we to let you escape us?' She patted the seat beside her. 'Would you like to drive? Caesar becomes awfully hard on my arms.'

  Matt hesitated, then dismounted, and tethered his horse to the back of the vehicle. 'And where is Dirk?'

  A faint shrug. 'Taking a glass of punch with Meinheer Schotter.'

  'As usual.' He climbed up to sit beside her, inhaled the musk of her perfume.

  'As usual,' she said gravely.

  She was studying him, and it was impossible to decide the expression in her eyes, the thou
ght in her brain. Except that no doubt she was amused at his feeble squirmings, his indecisive actions, his inability to do more than flutter his wings, like a trapped butterfly. But perhaps, if she could hurt him by her very presence, he could retaliate.

  'It seems to me,' he remarked, 'that the only time you really see you husband is in your bed. Or do you see him even then?'

  'You were going to drive me home,' she suggested, and waited for him to flick the whip. 'I imagine he finds me dull.'

  'There is a remarkable thought.'

  Again the faint shrug. 'I do not like to drink myself insensible. I am unable to reminisce sadly or happily about Holland. And I am an unlucky, as well as an incompetent, card player. The fault is obviously mine; by now no doubt I should have been totally preoccupied with the business of motherhood.'

  Was she baiting him? The road debouched from the cliff path and the town was below them. 'So then, are you also totally dull in bed?'

  This time he did succeed in inducing a faint flush. Yet she would still not take offence. 'In his letter, Robert suggested that part of your problem was a complete ignorance on that subject.'

  'Oh, indeed,' he agreed. 'Which makes me, in Robert's eyes, at the least, a totally dull fellow.' He smiled at her. 'We share then, our dullness, Sue.'

  She pointed, at the heavy black cloud chasing them down the hillside. 'You'd best hurry. I'd not like this gown to get wet.'

  He whipped the horses into a trot, and they scattered gravel as they charged up the drive. The yardboy waited for the reins and Suzanne got down by herself, ran up the stairs as the first drop of rain began to fall. 'My congratulations, sir.'

  He took off his hat, threw it on the chair. The midday rain was almost the principal event of his day; it not only cooled the air, it blanketed the senses, in its dull, rhythmical pattern of sound.

  Suzanne frowned at his silence, and then smiled at Augustus. 'We shall dine now, Augustus. The master will be staying at Meinheer Schotter's.'

  He sat, as ever, on her right hand; they ate boiled fish, with eddoes and yams, and drank sangaree, red wine to which brandy and various fruits had been added, and finished their meal with halved sapodillas. West Indian meals had less than half the content and thus consumed less than half the time, of an English dinner, but this was not merely because delicacies were in short supply; the appetite itself was not so demanding in the unending heat, while strong liquor in the morning was liable to render a man totally unfit for business for the rest of the day.

  As indeed were even a few goblets of sangaree. He stretched, and yawned. They had not spoken at all; the rain drummed on the roof, and on the ground outside, with a deafening consistency. 'I had hoped for a letter from Jamaica,' Suzanne said, half to herself. 'But there has been no wind for days.' She smiled at him. 'We must be patient. All life is a matter of being patient.'

  He got up, held her chair for her. 'Until it becomes a matter of waiting for death.'

  'Sombre words, for a lad of twenty, who will soon be twenty-one. I imagine, when you attain your majority,

  Robert will be content to allow you to go your own way. Providing of course you reveal some sense by then.'

  She was already on her way up the stairs. He followed, gazing at her shoes. 'Perhaps, when I achieve my majority, I shall no longer be prepared to be afraid of Robert. It puzzles me why you and Dirk should be. What power can he possess over you?'

  She waited for him on the landing. 'I merely suppose him to be acting in your best interests, Matt. Given time, you also will come to that conclusion, I have no doubt. If you do not propose to at all, why wait until you are twenty one.'

  'I am endeavouring not to.'

  'And we are endeavouring to save you from yourself.' She opened her bedroom door, turned her head to look at him. 'I would like to think you will eventually come to your senses.'

  'I love the girl, Sue. Perhaps you have no concept of that. Perhaps you have never been allowed to love. You'll not pretend you can love Dirk.'

  Now at last he had penetrated her reserve; she flushed. But would not speak.

  'If you did love him,' Matt said, 'you'd have become that mother, of which you spoke.' Now why, he wondered. Why pursue the matter? Why keep her standing here, embarrassing her, and surely, in time, angering her. Except that he had never seen Sue angry. He could not envisage the possibility.

  'Love has nothing to do with childbirth,' she said, and surprisingly, her colour had faded. 'As you point out, Matt, he lies on my belly as he chooses, and would do so whether I was bound hand and foot, did the mood take him. The fault lies either in him or in me.'

  And still she waited, where she might have ended the conversation and closed the door. And still the rain drummed on the roof, immediately above their heads now, enclosing them in a cocoon of sound from which the servants and the rest of the house were excluded. Save that they could be overlooked from the bottom of the stairs. And still he did not know why he also waited. But, oh yes, he knew, without knowing whether he really wished it, whether he would know how to go about it, whether he dare contemplate the consequences.

  'But you do not love him,' he insisted, with the inanity of youth.

  Her face seemed to close. 'Dirk is my husband, to whom I swore certain oaths, Matt. Now I would retire.'

  The door started to close. But she had waited, for a while. To see what he intended? Or if he intended?

  She looked down at his foot, blocking the entrance. Had she been Georgiana, now, he thought, there was no problem. But had she been Georgiana, the problem would not have arisen. And yet, she was Georgiana's sister. She raised her head, and the pink was again gathering in her cheeks.

  'I lie there,' he said. 'Every night. And listen. I can do nothing else.'

  'And dream of the coloured girl?' Her voice was so soft he hardly heard the words.

  'In the beginning. Now ...' he sighed. 'Perhaps dreams need some physical substance on which to exist.'

  Her gaze was the steadiest he had ever known, seeming to be penetrating his skull, to be reaching down to his very heart. 'And no doubt they will feed upon that which is nearest.'

  'I do not know,' he said. 'I ...' slowly he extended his hand, touched her cheek, allowed it to rest on her shoulder. 'As Robert truly says, I know so little, of these matters. I only know that I have two reasons for wishing to escape this place.'

  She did not even seem to blink. But she stepped backwards, and he went with her, and the door swung quietly to behind his back. He had only been in here once before. It was the largest of the bedrooms, and contained a great deal of the comfortable, functional furniture which was the mark of this house. But he was aware only of the giant fourposter, close behind her.

  'But if you do not leave me now,' she said, 'you must stay. Forever, Matt. I am not to satisfy an idle urge. I had not even supposed that I would ever be an adulteress. If you encourage me to such crime, you must share my guilt forever.' She gazed at him, her mouth slightly parted. And then she closed her own fingers round his wrist, lifted his hand from her shoulder, and rested it on her breast. 'But I, too, have dreamed.'

  chapter seven

  THE SLAVE

  With a tumultuous roar which sent a cloud of rust scattering across the pale green of the water, the Antelope's anchor plunged to the bottom of the shallow bay; a moment later the ship once more came to rest. After six weeks, Gislanc thought. The stillness seemed uncanny. But immediately a boat was despatched for the shore, to inform the authorities of the cargo.

  She stood on the poop deck and watched the Negroes being brought up from below. They chattered amongst themselves in sudden high good humour, the horrors of the voyage forgotten at this fresh proof that they were not, after all, doomed to sail across an endless ocean until the last one of them had died of heat and starvation. But indeed their spirits had begun to rise two days ago, when the mountain tops of Dominica had been followed by the cloud of Guadeloupe and then the clustering peaks of the British Leewards. She had gazed at the
distant shores of Antigua last evening; there the Hiltons and the Warners had come to greatness, just as the next island on the horizon, visible only as the enormous skyward-pointing lava finger of Mount Misery, had been St. Kitts, site of the original Warner settlement, a century and a half in the past. She had wondered then why she did not throw herself over the side, and swim and swim and swim. And drown and drown and drown, even were she not eaten by sharks.

  'Well glory be to that,' Runner remarked. ‘I feel I can breathe.' For in the last two days they had twice altered course to avoid suspicious-looking sails which might have been French men-of-war or Yankee privateers. 'I've a mind

  to unload the entire cargo here, if I can find a buyer, rather than risk the passage to Jamaica. You'll dress yourself, girl.'

  Gislane watched the slaves, clustering the deck, guarded by a party of armed sailors. It was simple enough to identify Dinshad, even had he not turned his head to find her. 'And why do you not take me with you to Kingston, Runner?' she asked. 'I will guarantee you twice as much as you were already paid, as your reward from the Hiltons.'

  Runner grinned at her. 'You're an innocent child, Gislane, and that's a fact. The Hiltons won't be rescuing you, girl. And even if they would, I told you, I must trade in these parts again. So I'll keep my part of the bargain. Now get yourself dressed.'