HF - 03 - The Devil's Own

by Christopher Nicole

  'You have it, Meg. God knows ... but you have it.'

  'Then let Hodge go, Kit. Let him go. And know this. I die happier here, with your forgiveness, than I could in my own bed, with your hate. Remember that, Kit. Remember.'

  She said something in a low voice to the men around her,

  and they raised the litter and carried her back along the beach.

  ··

  She did not speak again.

  Night succeeded dawn, and dawn succeeded night, and the boat rocked gently in the swell, drifting up the passage between the island and the mainland, and being brought back to position by the slaves. At dawn they pulled to the beach where the rest of the slaves had gathered, a vast dark concourse, watching and waiting. Here they were given food, and water, and here Dag left them. He went without a word. There was nothing to say.

  Kit remained in the bow. Maurice Peter made him eat, and drink, but for the rest he crouched in the bow, and gazed at the island. On the third day it rained, but the watchers never moved. And now there were others, on the cliffs above. But Kit neither knew nor cared who they were. He had no certainty of time, was aware only that sometimes it was light and at other times dark. He was not even aware that the crew of the pirogue had been changed, although Maurice Peter did not go ashore. The slaves did not trouble him with this matter. They arranged it amongst themselves.

  On the sixth day the figures reappeared on the beach of the island.

  'Where is her body?' Kit asked.

  'It is buried, Captin,' one of the men said.

  'Buried? By God, but she must be buried on Green Grove.'

  'This island is a part of Green Grove, Captin,' the man said. 'And it was the mistress's wish that she be buried here, and that we do it. She said no white person was to look on her face, Captin.'

  'We can go home now, Captin,' Maurice Peter said. He was not asking a question.

  Kit sat down, and the boat was turned, and pulled for the shore. The slaves waited there, and some of them were weeping. He climbed the path, and found Dag, and Astrid, and Abigail, and Agrippa, and Barnee, waiting for him. And a little way away, Celestine Warner and Tony and Rebecca. And then Lilian, by herself.

  'The overseers have left, Captain Hilton,' Barnee said. 'With their people. They have even left Antigua. They fear your vengeance.'

  'But you will let them go, Kit,' Dag said. 'It was Marguerite's wish.'

  'Aye. I will let them go.' And Marguerite had had other instructions for him. 'You'll work with me, Barnee?' 'It would be a pleasure, Captain.'

  'Then burn the house. Burn it to the ground, and gut the cellars. Then summon Mr Wolff and have him design a new one.'

  He went to Celestine, knelt, put his arms round the children.

  'Is Mama dead, Papa?' Tony asked.

  He raised his head to look at the woman.

  'It was Marguerite's instructions, in her letter to me. Kit, that the children were to be brought to you, wherever you were, when she began to die. If only I had understood then what she meant.'

  'Aye,' Kit said. 'She is dead, Tony.'

  'And will Miss Christianssen be our new Mama, Papa?' Rebecca asked.

  Lilian's head jerked.

  'That is what Mama said, before we left her, Papa,' Tony said. 'She came out to see us go, wearing her veil, and she said, you are going to have a new mother, children. Miss Christianssen.'

  Kit released them, and stood up. Lilian waited, her skirt fluttering in the breeze. 'I loved her,' he said. 'I could not stop loving her, even when I fell in love with you. Can you understand that, Lilian? I cannot. But there is so little I can understand. Yet is it true.'

  'I understand that, Kit,' she said. 'I always did.'

  He sighed, and took her hands. 'But she'll not stand between us in the future. You'll be my wife. Although I could not blame you for refusing even that, after so much.'

  'Is it not what I have always dreamed, Kit? To act out of pride or pique, now, would be childish. And I hope Marguerite will ever stand beside me, Kit. To be the wife of Kit Hilton, with so much to do, can be no simple task.'

  Kit turned, to watch the slaves filing up the hill, and into the compound. 'I would say, looking at their grief, that they loved her too. And that also I cannot understand.'

  'Perhaps it is because they have known no better life,' Dag said. 'From what Agrippa told me, I doubt their existence in Africa was any less brutal, any less cruel. There they belonged to their kings, here they belonged to Marguerite. But Kit, do they not deserve something better?'

  Kit hesitated; Lilian's fingers were tight on his own. 'Aye,' he said. 'You'll build a chapel, Dag. In the slave compound itself.'

  'I cannot teach them Christianity, with all it implies, unless I also teach them to read and write, and think,' Dag said.

  'That has never been permitted,' Astrid said. 'The planters will hate you for it, Kit.'

  'They have ever hated me, for something, Astrid. They hated me for being a buccaneer, as they hated me for being Meg Warner's husband, as they hated me for revealing them as they really are, an oligarchy of treacherous scoundrels. But now they will have to love me. Now, now I am master of Green Grove.'