Nightsong

by Valerie Sherwood

  It would be easy, Gilly was thinking. Easy . . . Jarvis, her lover, had told her it would be easy, and she had not believed him. Now she knew that she could pull it off, all by herself. Jarvis was impatient, but now that she thought about it, there was no hurry. She would bide her time, she would become a trusted servant, and in her own time she would pick a quarrel and leave the house with the necklace - and someone else would take the blame, for she would be far away. She would be smart this time - not like that time in Bristol when she’d stolen the gold and jet mourning ring and got herself thrown in jail and then been transported for her pains. If the ship hadn’t foundered and her papers been lost, she’d be slaving away as a bondservant at this very moment! As it was, she was but one of a handful rescued from the sea - and none of the others knew about her. She’d made up a story and it had been believed. After that she’d drifted.

  But now she saw her future clear. She could buy herself a golden world - with the necklace. Just the gold links would take her any place she wanted to go. And the rubies and diamonds, why, they could buy her a new life! And why should Jarvis share in that future? Oh, she needed time to think, to plan.

  ‘You should have thanked our French guest for saving you today.’ Carolina tossed the words over her shoulder.

  Gilly paused in her unhooking. ‘He may be French,’ she said scornfully, ‘but he’s lying if he says he comes here from New Providence! I’d have remembered him!’ Carolina turned slowly around. ‘You came here from New Providence?’ she said in an altered voice.

  Too late, Gilly realized her error. ‘I was shipwrecked,’ she said hastily. ‘I come from Bristol, like I told you.’

  Those silver eyes were contemplating her now, seeing her more clearly. ‘Were you there long, Gilly?’ Carolina asked almost casually.

  ‘Not so long,’ mumbled Gilly. Carolina’s scrutiny made her nervous. ‘I thought to do you a good turn by telling you he ain’t what he said he was,’ she defended.

  ‘And so you may have . . .’ murmured Carolina, asking herself why a man would claim to be from New Providence when he was not. New Providence was the sinkhole of the western world. Surely there was no credit to be gained by claiming acquaintance with such a place!

  Encouraged by Carolina’s words, Gilly rushed on, determined to ingratiate herself. ‘And he didn’t describe Rouge right either. Rouge ain’t no - whatever he said.’

  ‘Amazon,’ said Carolina absently. ‘It means a warrior woman.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know as I would call Rouge that either,’ said Gilly in an injured voice. ‘It’s true she’s tall and she wears men’s clothes, and I’ve heard tell she could fight with a cutlass, but I never seen her do it. Rouge is beautiful/’ she burst out. ‘She has more red hair than I ever seen and when her eyes flash, there’s not a man on New Providence that doesn’t turn to look at her!’

  ‘Indeed?’ Carolina’s brows elevated at such heat from Gilly. ‘And what is Rouge to you, Gilly?’

  ‘Nothin’,’ mumbled Gilly. ‘But,’ her voice flared up, Rouge was good to me. When Ace and Blackboots wanted to throw dice for me, Rouge said she’d have Fletch kill the pair of them if they didn’t let me alone.’

  ‘I see.’ Carolina gave her new serving girl an odd look. ‘It would seem that you are perpetually being saved, Gilly. First by the famous Rouge and now by the Silver Wench.’ Her voice held a scathing note. ‘But that hardly explains how you got to Port Royal, does it?’

  Gilly swallowed. She hadn’t realized Carolina would ask her that.

  ‘You came here on some pirate ship out to survey the local shipping, out to watch the merchantmen who came here to trade with the buccaneers and catch up with them later after they’d left with their goods, didn’t you?’ asked Carolina in a hard voice. ‘Didn’t you?'

  Gilly was looking at her in panic. ‘Yes, I did,’ she cried. ‘But I run away - leastways I tried to run away, and they caught me and put me in Sadie’s house. She dressed me up in Tilly’s petticoat and her own chemise and said it was enough for me to wear. I’d look juicier to her clientele!’ She began to sniffle. ‘And I managed to get my dress back and put it on over the top of them, and I jumped out the window on to a cart and slid off the cart, and I was running away with them chasing me when I tripped and fell - and that’s when I looked up and saw you!

  It wasn’t true, of course. Jarvis had indeed taken her to Sadie’s brothel, and while there she had idly filched the chemise and petticoat. She had been dancing around the front room, showing off. Jarvis had come in at that moment, muttering excitedly that the Silver Wench in a yellow dress had left her house and was strolling towards High Street. Gilly had hurried outside and Sadie and Tilly, noting their clothes disappearing with her, had given chase. Whereupon Gilly had thrown herself down at Carolina’s feet.

  But to Carolina, Gilly’s story was believable. Terrible things happened in this part of the world, worse yet in New Providence. It was entirely possible that Gilly had been spirited here to wear away her youth in a brothel, and had run from the place in terror.

  ‘I’m sorry, Gilly,’ she said in a softer voice. ‘It was just that when you mentioned New Providence . . .’

  ‘I know,’ Gilly said quickly. ‘It’s an evil place. I never been anywhere so evil.’ Her curiosity got the better of her. ‘Have you ever been there?’ she asked.

  ‘No, thank God.’ Carolina shuddered. She turned as Betts knocked softly and entered. Betts gave Gilly an affronted look. ‘Never mind, Betts, I’m all unhooked,’ Carolina told the girl. ‘Find Gilly a place to sleep, won’t you? I think Nell’s old room would be best.’

  Betts started to protest because Nell’s old cubbyhole of a room lay directly between hers and Cook’s, and she didn’t relish having Gilly as a neighbour! But the mistress seemed bent on favouring the street girl, even though she and Cook had both recognized Gilly for a bad one at first sight!

  Gilly was smirking as Betts led her away.

  4

  Carolina’s mind as she undressed for bed was not upon the handsome stranger who had devoured her with his eyes at dinner - nor even with her adventurous husband who was gone up the Cobre so unexplicably often of late: her mind was on Level Green and the world she had known in Virginia’s Tidewater country. She sat long at her dressing table combing her long fair hair, but her troubled eyes did not see her beautiful reflection in the lovely bevelled French mirror Kells had bought for her when they had first moved here: she saw instead her mother’s reckless face, and the dark blue eyes seemed to hold a restless appeal.

  She had run away from the Tidewater angry at them all, but now they were in trouble. Deep trouble. And Virgie had written to her, she guessed, in the hope that she would help them out. She could of course ask Kells to send them money; he was very rich, and he would do it if she asked him. But - Kells had no reason to love her family; they had near got him killed the last time he was there.

  No, if she did this thing she must do it herself. With her own resources.

  Moodily she went over and took out the diamond and ruby necklace the buccaneers had once awarded her. It was really the only thing she owned that Kells had not given her. She toyed with it wistfully, for the de Lorca necklace meant something to her. In a way it was a symbol of love regained when she had thought all was lost.

  With a sigh she put it away in its usual hiding place. It was worth a fortune; if she sent the necklace to her mother at Level Green the Lightfoots would have money to burn. They could pay off Fielding’s debts, they could give handsome dowries to their younger daughters, they could live their extravagant life forever.

  She slept restlessly and dreamed that from somewhere a great voice was saying: You can have the man or the necklace - you cannot have them both! And the Cobre River was in flood and she was on a crazily built raft, floating down the river and hanging on for dear life. And suddenly, on one side of the raft, in the water just ahead, she saw Kells - and he looked dead, with his dark hair floating in the riotous wat
er. And on the other side of the raft just ahead she saw a hand reach up holding the de Lorca necklace, its rubies sparkling like splashes of blood, its diamonds catching the light brilliantly. She heard herself give an anguished cry and snatch at Kells’s dark hair, trying desperately to drag him on to the raft. And about her at that moment she seemed to hear the Devil’s laughter, and her head jerked about and she saw the hand with the necklace disappear beneath the foaming water.

  She woke with a scream and found her fingers were twisted not in Kells’s heavy shining dark hair but in the lace of her chemise, and that she had ripped the delicate fabric. She lay there, shaking, still under the spell of her terrible dream. And then she tried to laugh at herself for there was no question of her ever having to choose between Kells and the necklace, nor was she ever apt to raft down the Cobre.

  She got up restlessly and walked to the window to let the trade winds dry her hot face, damp in the heat. Outside the velvet night was sparkling with stars. She heard a bawdy song and looked out to see Hawks come down the street with a rolling gait and an unsteady walk.

  He had doubtless been visiting a brothel, possibly Sadie’s place, for Hawks - dour fellow that he was - loved the wenches. He was obviously very drunk and he fell against the door downstairs and banged for admittance.

  Carolina sighed and threw on a light robe, then went down and unbarred the door to let him in. Hawks looked abashed to see her.

  ‘I'm sorry,’ he said in a slurred voice. ‘I’d expected Cook to let me in.’

  ‘Cook sleeps like the dead,’ said Carolina, and for a moment wished she did, instead of dreaming terrifying dreams. ‘No matter, I was awake. And I feel safer now that you are back in the house, Hawks.’

  He gave her a wide drunken smile and tried to bow. The gesture almost toppled him over on his face. ‘I promised the cap’n I’d protect you and protect you I will!’ he said with a loud hiccup.

  ‘I know you will, Hawks,’ laughed Carolina. ‘But I’m hoping that we’ll neither of us be put to the test this night! Good night. Hawks.’

  She turned and went back upstairs and to her surprise met Gilly, just coming down from the attic where the servants had their cubbyhole rooms.

  ‘What are you doing up, Gilly?’ asked Carolina in surprise. ‘Couldn’t you sleep?’

  Gilly started guiltily at sight of Carolina. Actually, she had been about to dart into Carolina’s room while Carolina was downstairs talking to Hawks. ‘Why, I’ - suddenly she could not think of a good lie - ‘I heard voices and I wondered if there was trouble,’ she said weakly.

  Carolina felt ashamed of what she had been thinking. She had wondered uneasily if Gilly had crept down to spy out the house, and now the girl, flustered, seemed to have been worried about her. ‘Come down to the kitchen, Gilly,’ she said in a warm voice, ‘and we’ll have a bite to eat. You can tell me more about New Providence,’ she added kindly. ‘It must have been terrible for you there.’

  ‘Oh yes - just terrible,’ Gilly agreed hastily.

  ‘And you can tell me more about Rouge - that woman fascinates me. Tell me, how did she get her name?’

  ‘I asked her once and she said it was her red hair - a French pirate named her that.’

  ‘If she’d been a brunette, I suppose he’d have christened her Noire or if a blonde he’d have called her Blanche!’ laughed Carolina, trying to set Gilly at her ease as they went downstairs.

  But although Gilly ate heartily, her answers were not very responsive. She had hoped to have a quick look at the trunk in Carolina’s room while her mistress was downstairs, but she had missed her chance.

  She ate glumly and Carolina put it down to the sharpness of her voice that had told the girl she didn’t quite trust her.

  The next morning after breakfast she again put on her yellow dress, added a sweeping straw hat to shield her fair complexion from the hot tropical sun, and again ventured out into the town. Hawks disapproved of these ventures; he would have preferred to keep her safe inside the house, and besides he had a pounding hangover, but he accompanied her without comment, slouching along with his hand ever near his big cutlass.

  Carolina glanced curiously about her as they passed the place where the stranger had vaulted from a window to her side, but she saw no familiar faces. Indeed, John Daimler, relieved that the pinnace with his dangerous guest had departed the night before, had closed his shutters, shut up the house and taken himself off to visit a friend who lived past Portland Pitch to the east - a friend whom he hoped might be willing to take in the Spaniards when they arrived, and thus get them off his hands.

  He had been attractive, had Raymond du Monde, thought Carolina, glancing curiously up at the closed shutters of Daimler’s house, and he had given her an interesting evening. She wondered suddenly if he had really gone, and she found herself hoping in an unguarded moment that he had not.

  With Hawks shouldering a way for her through the crowd, she made her way down to the market in the heart of High Street. A cart lumbered past, carrying huge turtles to market. Carolina felt sorry for the great sad-looking things, so awkward out of water - but they were the staple of the island diet. Five steady-eyed buccaneers, all armed to the teeth, were carrying a small heavy chest into the goldsmith’s shop and the goldsmith was beaming, nodding his head to greet them and rubbing his hands. Seabirds screamed overhead, then streamed on by, spying some garbage being dumped into the harbour. Two sleek, gleaming Maroon women swayed by, each steadying a stalk of bananas on her head. An old man trudged by, barefoot, carrying a huge straw basket of chochos, a vegetable much like squash, and nearby an Indian woman with a singsong voice was melodically calling out the virtues of akee, displaying the big red pods with their black seeds and yellowish flesh.

  ‘Don’t never eat that before the pod bursts,’ cautioned Hawks. ‘It’ll poison ye!’

  Carolina nodded. She knew that, but Hawks never failed to caution her. She supposed Hawks was trying to make up for one of his rare excesses in getting drunk last night.

  A group of traders whisked by for the great market bell had just sounded. Slaves from Africa with gleaming black bodies would soon be auctioned off - for the English had taken over the slave trade from the Dutch, and Port Royal, with its convenient location for ships coming from Africa and its marvellous harbour that could accommodate five hundred great ships, had become the busiest slave mart in the Americas. But it was neither slaves nor the latest merchandise that Carolina had come to view.

  She made her way through piled-up stalks of bananas, mountains of oranges and avocados and lemons, rosy gold mangoes and rich green limes, weaving her way through the crowd and the stacks of fruit until she came to another part of the market. Here were native palm leaf fans and delicate flexible straw hats, finely woven leather sandals and belts - a whole array of crafts native to the islands.

  Laconic as always, Hawks made his way beside her with his big cutlass never far from his hand, for he knew there was no treasure ashore or afloat that Captain Kells valued as much as he valued this slim girl with the silver-gold hair. He was perplexed when Carolina came to a halt before a display of cheap wooden pattens - for the sand on which the city of Port Royal was built stretched down so deep that no piling had yet reached bottom and there was no mud to speak of. Why would Captain Kells’s lady be wanting pattens in a town where there was neither mud nor snow? he wondered. But he made no comment when she carefully selected and bought a pair. Curious as to what she was up to, he accompanied her home.

  She stopped before their front door.

  ‘Hawks,’ she said in a low voice, ‘I need a favour. Do you think you could hollow out the sole of one of these pattens - and then put the leather back so cleverly that no one would ever know? And’ - she hesitated - ‘do it privately, Hawks. Mention it to no one and let no one see you do it.’

  Hawks gave her a flashing look of understanding as he took the pattens from her hand. He was always whittling things, and it would be no great job to make a little
strongbox of this patten if that was what the captain’s lady wished. Quickly he set about it and brought it to her bedroom when it was done.

  Carolina thanked him and closed the door. Once alone she opened the trunk and took out of it the fabulous ruby and diamond necklace set in gold and weighed it in her hands. It was very heavy - far heavier than the wood it had replaced. She put the necklace back and went down and asked Hawks quietly to insert a small amount of lead in the other patten. Hawks obliged.

  Back in her bedroom she sighed as she wrapped the necklace in a small silk kerchief and slipped it into the thick hollowed-out sole of the patten, then she went down and silently handed the patten to Hawks. She watched as he put it back together so cleverly that no one would guess it had ever been tampered with.

  Hawks looked after her speculatively as she left. He was the soul of loyalty and devoted to both Captain Kells and his lady. He assumed that Carolina had set up a small private bank of her own for coins in case, some rainy day, she found herself without funds.

  Early that morning Carolina had sent word to Captain Banks, who plied his ship, the Morning Star, between the islands of the West Indies and the Virginia coast. Her message said that she knew the captain was sailing tomorrow and she would be pleased if he would do her the honour of dining at the home of Captain Kells tonight before he left.

  Captain Banks accepted with alacrity and arrived promptly - for invitations to the home of the Lord Admiral of the Buccaneers were much sought after. Besides, he liked the captain’s lady and was one of the few who were privileged to know that she was really Carolina Lightfoot of Virginia’s Tidewater. He was dazzled when she received him wearing a diamond and ruby necklace above a vivid green gown - and wished he’d bought that new suit today that he had passed by as much too expensive. He cleared his throat, rose to his full five feet, and beamed his small dancing blue eyes at the captain’s lady.