'Madam?' The clerk sprang to his feet. 'Madam? My God. Miss Hilton?'
'Where is Mr Reynolds?'
'Meg.' Billy emerged in the inner doorway, very much the embryo lawyer, with a stiff collar and a black coat. 'Meg.' He ran forward to take her hands.
'Billy. I saw the flag. Your father isn't dead?'
'Papa? Good Lord, no. Meg? Didn't you know?'
She checked, allowing her hands to be taken, staring at his flushed face. 'Know what?'
'Why ...' He hesitated, then the words came out in a rush. 'It is your father who is dead.'
Meg sat down; fortunately the clerk had hurried forward with a chair.
She stared at Billy, and past him at his father, coming out of the inner office. 'Papa?'
'Meg.' Walter Reynolds knelt before her. 'Where have you been, Meg?'
'Papa?' she whispered. 'Why wasn't I told?'
'You were. We tried,' Walter Reynolds explained. 'We used the cable service. Six days ago. When it happened.'
'But why wasn't I told he was ill?' she cried.
'No one knew he was ill, Meg,' Billy said. 'He went aback as usual on the morning he ... well, it happened. And just fell from his horse as he was returning for breakfast.'
'Heart, John Phillips says,' Walter Reynolds said.
'Papa,' she whispered. 'Oh, Papa.' She had pretended he was ill, to gain a place on the Wanderer. She had pretended. Oh, God, she thought.
'But Meg,' Walter Reynolds was saying. 'Where have you been ? We received an answer to our cable, yesterday, from Mrs Paterson. Shall I read it to you?'
She raised her head. Billy had hurried back into the office, and now returned with the piece of paper.
MEG ABSCONDED STOP BELIEVED JAMAICA STOP ARREST AND HOLD ON ARRIVAL STOP AM FOLLOWING BY FIRST AVAILABLE MEANS STOP PATERSON
'Absconded ?' she asked.
'It means run away. You did run away, Meg?'
'From her. I had to, Uncle Walt. I had to.' She could feel the tears now, lurking behind her eyes, awaiting their moment to come flooding out.
'Now, Meg,' Walter Reynolds said, heaving himself to his feet. 'There is nothing for you to worry about, now.' He rested his hand on her shoulder.
She looked up at him. 'You won't send me back, Uncle Walt. Please. You won't let her near me again. Not ever again. Please, Uncle Walt. Send another cable, please, Uncle Walt, telling her not to come.'
'Meg...'
'Please,' Meg shouted, getting up. And staring at him as a terrible fear crossed her mind. 'She's not... Papa didn't make her ...'
'I am your father's executor, Meg, until such time as you come of age, of course; the entire plantation, as well as Green Grove in Antigua, belongs to you. Well, for the period of your life, at least. It's an unusual will, mainly because these are unusual circumstances; you are the first female Hilton ever to inherit. So, both to protect you and the estate, I imagine, your father has in effect left both plantations to your eldest son, with the proviso that you have complete control until you die. The only thing you cannot do, ever, is sell or bequeath to anyone else. You'll know that has always been Hilton custom. Primogeniture, and not another thing considered.'
Meg's head flopped up and down. But she had hardly listened to the details. They were hers. Everything. She was Mistress of Hilltop. Or she would be, in three years. Every playful dream, every arrogant boast, had suddenly become true. And Papa was dead. Oriole had done her best to make her hate him for what he had done, even while pretending to insist on her forgiving him. For what? He was her father. He had a right to touch her where he chose, surely, regardless of the law. He was her father. He had been her father.
The tears came hard now, flooding down her face, soaking the collar of her already sweat-soaked jacket. Her knees gave way, and she sat while the two men looked at each other uncertainly.
'And of course you need not go back to Mrs Paterson's care, if you do not wish it’ Walter Reynolds said. 'To be frank, I never did care much for that woman, at the best of times. But Meg, we shall have to find someone to look after you. I mean ... well ...' He hesitated, obviously decided not to pursue the matter at this moment. 'What would you like to do first?'
'I would like to see Papa,' she said.
'Yes, well..
'I want to go to Hilltop,' she insisted. She knew he would be already buried. In the heat of the tropics bodies could not be kept for longer than twenty-four hours.
'Of course. Billy, see to the carriage. Meg ...' He knelt beside her again. 'You know you will not be able to live there. I mean, by yourself.'
She found her handkerchief, and mopped at her face. There is nowhere else I want to live, she thought. Why shouldn't I be given my inheritance now? I am as much of a woman as I am likely to be at any future time in my life. I know as much about planting, or about growing bananas, as I shall ever know in my life.
But she knew too that Walter Reynolds, the very epitome of legal rectitude, would never even consider it. In fact, to suggest it might throw him back in Oriole's direction, and that she was determined should never happen, even if she was forced to run away again.
'Could ... could we speak of it later, Uncle Walt?'
'Of course, my dear. Now, while Billy is getting the carriage, wouldn't you like to change your clothes? Have a bath? Something to eat?'
She shook her head. ‘I have no other clothes, Uncle Walt'
'My God. You've worn these for three weeks?'
As if he couldn't tell, merely by looking. And smelling.
'I had a change of linen,' she explained. 'I will have to have some made, I suppose. Uncle Walt ... am I rich or poor?'
'Ah, well... that is something we shall have to discuss, at a future time. Your father, I am happy to say, was a very careful man with his money. Of course, your cousin, Mrs Paterson, persuaded him to spend a great part of his reserve capital on this trip of yours to England. Against my advice, I may add. But you are certainly solvent, and Hilltop is doing as well as it has done at any time for the past fifty years. That is to say, you'll never be a millionairess, like, shall we say, your great-great-great-grandmother, Robert Hilton's stepmother, for example. But I do not think you'll ever want. And as for having some new clothes made, why, that is a simple matter.' He gave her a bright smile. 'What you need is a husband.'
The earth was still freshly turned, and there was no stone; it was in the process of being carved. Meg stood and stared, afraid to look around her. The carriage had driven straight to the cemetery, and yet the message had spread, and she could feel the presence of people, hear the scuffle of their feet; the evening breeze was already sweeping down from the Blue Mountains.
She turned, slowly, gazed first of all at the shutters of the Great House, rising above her. Then looked down the hill, at the houses in the white compound, the huts in the Negro village. And between her and the houses, people. White and black and brown, drawn up the hill by the knowledge that their mistress had returned.
She walked towards them, Walter Reynolds and his son flanking her protectively, and Helen McAvoy ran forward.
'Meg. Oh, my poor, sweet child.'
Meg allowed herself to be embraced, looked past Helen at Harry, and then the other book-keepers. 'Where is Alan?'
Helen released her. 'Alan ?' She frowned.
'I came back on his ship. Didn't you know that?'
'Good heavens. I knew he was due into Kingston sometime this week. But...'
He hadn't come out, Meg thought bitterly. Although he would certainly have discovered by now that Anthony Hilton was dead. But he hadn't even troubled to come out.
'Where's Hannibal?'
'Hannibal?' Helen looked over her shoulder at her husband.
'Hannibal... ah ...' Harry McAvoy came forward. 'He pined, Meg. He just pined away, and died. Oh, several months ago. I'm surprised your father didn't write and tell you.'
Meg gazed at him. Perhaps he did, she thought. And Oriole saw fit to suppress the news. So what have I come back t
o? An empty shell. Then a shell I shall have to set about reviving. But I am not even to be allowed to do that for three years.
Or until I find a husband?
'You'll come to our bungalow,' Helen said. 'We'll have tea. And ... talk.'
Meg allowed herself to be guided down the hill. The people parted to let her through, and she smiled at them, white and black and East Indian. She did not see Prudence or Percy in the crowd, and she would not ask about them. She had had enough tragedy for one day.
'Oh, sweetheart,' Meg cried, and held the mare's head to kiss her on the nose, while Candy pawed the ground in pleasure. Of them all, Candy had shared most; it had been Candy who had accompanied her that night into the mountains, that night, when it seemed her life had truly begun. That night, which, perhaps, had caused all this, everything that had happened since. Then was Candy her partner in sin.
Helen McAvoy recognized the closeness of tears. She held Mag's arm again, steered her towards the white compound, while whispers and rustles commenced in the people behind her. 'You'll stay with us,' she said. 'I have a room all prepared for you. In fact...'
Walter Reynolds drew level with them, took the other arm. 'It seems to me, and Helen agrees,' he said, 'that if you are determined to remain on Hilltop, it would be best if you boarded with Helen for ... well, for a while. Until other arrangements can be made, perhaps. There is a great deal to be done, as you may imagine.'
'And who will manage the plantation, Uncle Walt?'
'Well ... I have already placed an advertisement in the Gleaner, as a temporary measure, certainly, and there will be one in the London Times, as soon as it can be arranged.'
'Harry has been looking after things here this past week,' Helen explained. 'And he would be happy to be your attorney on the estate, but he knows nothing of bookkeeping or the financial side of the business, and in fact... well...' She glanced at her husband, and flushed.
Harry McAvoy's face was also red. 'Your father specifically stated in his will,' he said, 'that the post of attorney of Hilltop was to be advertised, and the best man found for the job. No mention was made of me.'
He was bitter. Well, he should be, Meg thought. But she realized that it had not occurred to her either that Harry McAvoy, a man who regarded black people as sufficiently unimportant to be carelessly killed, should manage her plantation. What a contrast between him and his son. But perhaps the son was inevitable, given the father.
'I am quite capable of running Hilltop,' she said.
They had reached the palings which surrounded the compound, and stopped, while Billy opened the gate. But Meg realized they would have stopped anyway.
'You ?' Harry McAvoy demanded.
'Of course you shall, in the course of time,' Walter Reynolds said soothingly. 'In fact, again referring to your father's will, it specifically states that an attorney shall be found only for that period of time until you attain the age of twenty-one, at which time, I think I can quote from memory: "Meg will no doubt wish to make her own arrangements.'"
'But you are only seventeen,' Helen pointed out.
'It is September,' Meg said. 'In three months I shall be eighteen.'
'I think we should go upstairs,' Walter Reynolds recommended. 'And sit down and have a chat. You see, Meg ...' He held her elbow, escorted her up the steps to the porch of the McAvoy bungalow,'... think what is involved in the management of a sugar plantation. The manager must decide what is to be done every day. That means he must not only be able 'to read through the necessary reports from the Field Manager and the field overseers, but he must be personally acquainted with every problem which can occur on the plantation. That means he must spend a great deal of each day in the saddle. Then there is the accounting side of it. Oh, the donkey work is done by the bookkeepers, but it is the manager who must decide what funds should be allotted to what project. I'm afraid the great days when a Hilton could sit back and spend whatever he liked whenever he liked are gone, perhaps for ever. And then there is the grinding. The manager generally supervises that himself. Oh, I know Maurice Pilling is a first-rate engineer, and quite capable of operating the factory on his own, but we have to think of the blacks. One reason why Hilltop is still a viable economic unit is that it has always been traditional that the Master has taken part in every activity to do with planting or grinding, no matter how difficult, or indeed, how dangerous, and thus the blacks have learned to expect and accept leadership, which is why they are prepared to work at all. God knows they get paid little enough. Now really, can you see a young girl spending a fortnight in the factory during grinding? Can you imagine what it would do to your complexion? And then ...'
They had reached the top of the steps. Meg shrugged herself free. 'And yet,' she said, 'if I were twenty-one, when I shall look no different from how I look now, Uncle Walt, and have the same problems with my complexion, and still, no doubt, seem to you as a young girl, you would permit me to manage this plantation as if I were a man.'
'Well ...' He glanced at McAvoy. 'I would, unfortunately, have no say in the matter. That is the law. I would still think it a mistake. Managing plantations is not women's work. And there are yet more aspects of the situation you haven't considered. The Master of Hilltop is magistrate for this county.'
'Is there a law against a woman magistrate?'
'I have never heard of a woman magistrate. The idea is unthinkable. He is also an appointed member of the Governor's Council by tradition. That is certainly not a woman's province.'
'But suppose I married?'
'Ah... well... in that case, of course, I... we, would all hope your husband would be a man both eager and capable of running a sugar plantation and playing his part in the life of the community. Of course you would be there to give him your advice, and make no mistake about it, young lady, I ... we ... all understand that you are probably as knowledgeable about the workings of a sugar plantation as anyone in the world. Oh, indeed. It is a pure misfortune that you were born a girl and not a boy. But when you marry, why, then, you will have the best of both worlds, eh ? A husband to carry out your projects, and to see that they are carried out, and none of the heat and sweat ... perspiration, and discomfort of having to do them yourself.'
Meg gazed at him for some seconds.
'Tea,' Helen McAvoy said brightly. 'Let us all sit down and have some tea.'
A white linen tablecloth had been spread, and the dining table was laden with bread and jam and cheese and cake and cups and an enormous pot of tea. Meg discovered she was, after all, very hungry, having refused lunch.
And she further discovered that she had been seated next to Billy Reynolds. Poor Billy. He had been quite overawed by her return, by the events of the past few days. He had been quite overawed by her, she supposed. But then, he had always been overawed by her. He had always been quite pathetic in his worship of her.
The best of both possible worlds, Walter Reynolds had said. Was it not possible to have the best of all possible worlds, she wondered? 'Nothing like a good tea,' Helen McAvoy said, and rang the little brass bell to summon Miriam to remove the debris.
'I feel much better, Aunt Helen,' Meg agreed. She had said little during the meal, had hardly listened to their frantic attempts at conversation. Was she mad, or merely desperate? But then, what she was proposing to herself was no different to what Oriole had proposed, or what, indeed, Walter Reynolds and Helen McAvoy would soon enough propose for her. There would be no question of Meg Hilton hanging around until she found someone with whom she could properly fall in love. Besides, she had tried that, and it hadn't altogether been a success.
And even more besides, she dared not wait until she was twenty-one. Three years was a terribly long time, and throughout that period Oriole would be practising her wiles, attempting to regain control. She did not know how reliable Walter Reynolds would be when it came to resisting the sort of pressure Oriole would apply. For all she knew, Oriole was on her way out to Jamaica at this moment, to descend upon her like an avenging a
ngel. And Oriole would have a quite different tale to tell of what had happened in England. She might easily be able to persuade Walter Reynolds that Meg was a totally irresponsible young woman who needed the care of an older person, preferably a relative.
But if she was married, or about to be married, Oriole would be defeated before she could even deploy her troops. And if she was going to marry, then it should be someone
who loved her. There was the decisive point. Of course, Billy was himself not yet twenty-one. But he would be in six months. And he was then in any event going to become a partner in Reynolds and Son, which would in effect make him her guardian as much as his father.
'I think I would like to take a little walk,' she said. 'May I, Aunt Helen? Just to look at the place again? It seems so very long since last I was here.'
'Why, of course you may, Meg.' Helen gave one of her bright forced smiles. 'It is your home, after all. But I wonder...'
'Perhaps Billy would walk with me.'
'Eh?' Billy nearly overturned his teacup. 'Oh, I say, of course, I'd be pleased to, Meg, really I would.'
'Well, then, if you'll excuse us.' Meg attempted to get up, and Billy hastily seized her chair to pull it away.
'Best thing for you, a walk,' Walter Reynolds said benignly.
Meg smiled at her future father-in-law, secured her parasol. Billy was already holding the door for her. She filled her lungs to the maximum. Hilltop air, drifting all the way down from the mountains. From the land of the drum. She wondered if she would hear them tonight.
'It is absolutely top hole, having you back.' Billy held the gate for her. ‘I mean, I'm so terribly sorry about your dad, but you were coming back, anyway.'
'Yes,' she said, and raised her parasol.
'Where would you like to go?'
'Ah ...' She pretended to think. 'Why not let's walk across to the Grandstand?'
'What a topping idea. Yes, indeed. The Grandstand.' He fell in at her side. 'It's nearly three years since I was over there. Do you remember? You got a thorn in your foot.' He frowned.
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