Sunset

by Christopher Nicole

  His mouth dropped open in sheer amazement. 'You speak to me like that?' he bawled. 'My father...'

  'Happens to be my guardian,' she said. ‘I had not forgotten that, or believe me, you would already have been thrown out of the house. You are my husband. 1 chose you, in my ignorance. You may remain my husband, and for longer than three years, if you behave yourself. But not otherwise.'

  He gazed at her for several seconds. She almost smiled. He was defeated, and he knew it. And she was at this moment all of a cripple. There would be no more crises.

  'You think you own the earth,' he said at last. 'Hiltons. Father always said they thought they owned the earth.'

  'I do own the earth, Billy, so far as you are concerned.'

  'You think so? You're my wife. You think I'm just a convenience, so you can be Margaret Hilton in fact as well as name. So you won't have to wait three years. Well, I'll tell you this. You're not being a whore. My wife isn't being a whore. If I'm not good enough for your bed, then no one is. If you so much as look at another man, I... I'll kill you.'

  Now Meg did smile. 'No you won't Billy,' she said. 'You had your chance last night, and you didn't.'

  But when he had stamped out of the room, she got up and locked the door.

  The pain began to ease, slowly, and Meg felt she could breathe again. Yet her lungs were exhausted; she had been gasping for breath for too long as it was. Now she just wanted to lie still, and allow her tortured muscles to relax, and feel... she tried to sit up. If the pain was gone, then the child was born.

  Helen smiled at her. 'We thought you had fainted.'

  'My baby?'

  'Is a boy. A handsome little fellow.' Meg lay back with a sigh. Your grandson, Helen, she thought. Will you not recognize him? 'He has your eyes,' Helen said. 'Where is he?' 'Being washed. Here he is.'

  Prudence waddled into the room. 'Man, Miss Meg, you got for be proud of this one. Oh, yes, man.'

  The tiny scrap of flesh was placed in her arms, and immediately began scrabbling with his gums at the bodice of her nightdress.

  'Oh, he is one hungry chil’,' Prudence declared. 'He going be big like he mummy. And you ain' glad you got big bubbies, chil', for to feed he?'

  'I have always been glad I have big bubbies, Pru,' Meg said, and smiled at John Phillips. 'Well, John?'

  'All done, Meg,' he said. 'Now you can start to live again.'

  Because he, more than anyone else, knew just how trying had been these last six months, for the most part trapped in the house, a daily walk to the cemetery her only outing. Unable to ride, unable even to take the carriage to Kingston for fear the jolting roads would have caused a miscarriage.

  And at home, living a solitary, private existence. She even ate alone; Billy took his midday meal aback, and seldom came home for supper until after she had retired. While as for entertaining ... but of course, whatever the rumours flying the length and breadth of Jamaica, no one would expect a pregnant woman to do any entertaining. But they would expect something now.

  John Phillips squeezed her hand. 'Helen and Prudence know what to do about feeding. Let him have a suck; your own milk will be in by tomorrow, I should say. And I'll be out to see you then. I must get back to town.'

  Thank you, John,' she said. 'And God bless you.'

  'God bless you, Meg.' He closed the door behind him.

  Meg eased the strap of her nightgown down, allowed the tight little hps to close their gums on her teat.

  'Well,' Helen said brightly. 'I've sent a messenger for Billy, of course. I expect he'll be here any moment.'

  'Do you really?'

  Helen glanced at Prudence, busily folding nappies in the corner. 'Well... he does mean to acknowledge the child?' 'I have no idea,' Meg said.

  'But ...' Helen sighed, obviously deciding it would be unprofitable to pursue that subject. 'Have you decided on a name? Anthony?'

  'Not Anthony.'

  'Oh... well, William?'

  'Certainly not William,' Meg decided. What would you say, Helen McAvoy, she wondered, were I to call him Alan? 'I shall call him Richard.'

  'Richard? Oh, of course. What a splendid name.' Helen turned as the door opened. 'Why, Billy. Just in time. Meg has chosen a name. Richard Hilton. What do you think of that?'

  Billy wore his riding clothes, and looked sweaty and tired. He always looked tired. Managing a plantation was much harder work than he was used to. 'Is that the name of its father?'

  'Well, I...' Helen gazed at Prudence in alarm.

  'It's the name of my grandfather,' Meg said. 'And my great-grandfather, I might add.'

  'Oh, yes, of course. The general,' Billy said. 'Can't let that memory die.'

  'You'll want to talk to Meg,' Helen said. 'Come along, Prudence.'

  'Do you want to talk to me, Billy?'

  The door closed. Billy gazed at her for a moment, then leant over the bed and kissed her on the forehead.

  'Why, Billy,' she remarked. 'Instructions from Daddy?’

  He straightened. 'Must you be so utterly hateful?' 'Give me a reason not to be.'

  'For God's sake ...' He turned away. ‘I am the wronged party. Me. Don't you realize that? Believe me everyone else does. You came to my bed, already pregnant ... there'll be no disguising the fact now. We've only been married seven months.'

  'The child could be premature.'

  'Oh, what rubbish. I met John Phillips outside. He tells me it weighs seven pounds. Premature? It'll be all over Kingston by lunchtime. Just as the story of what happened on our honeymoon was common knowledge in twenty-four hours.'

  'And that was my fault? You got drunk and behaved disgustingly,' she pointed out.

  'Aye, well, there are those say I was granted sufficient cause.' He sat on the edge of the bed. 'But I did not come here to quarrel. You'll agree I have been the perfect gentleman these past seven months ?'

  'I have no idea,' she said. 'I have hardly seen you these past seven months.'

  'I had supposed that was how you wished it. Anyway, they are done now. Your child is bora. I am glad that you are both so well. I would like to think that we can now begin our marriage.'

  She stared at him, for all that she had known this was coming for some seconds. The fact is, Billy, she thought, I do not love you. The thought of your belly pressed against mine, of your rod thrust into my hole, fills me with disgust. I married you to gain control of my plantation. And so far I have been prevented from doing that by my condition.

  But her condition was now at an end. And she was still only eighteen. Besides, she realized, having known no sex, not even the touch of a man's hand, saving that of John Phillips, for so long, she might even find Billy acceptable. And perhaps, after all, he did love her.

  'Do you really wish that?' she asked, allowing her voice to soften.

  'Of course I do.'

  'Do you love me, Billy?'

  'Of course I do, Meggie. Or I would not have married you.'

  She stretched out her hand, and he seized it, kissed it, pulled it against his cheek. 'Spite of all?'

  'It was the thought of that... that child actually in your belly,' he muttered. 'But it's gone now. You are you, not somebody else's. So perhaps you could be mine.'

  His eyes were filled with tears. But then, hers were sufficiently moist. If she had two and a half years to wait, they could be worse spent than in the company of someone who loved her.

  "When I'm a little stronger,' she promised.

  Because for you, Billy, she thought, I need all of my strength. And even that might not be enough.

  She stood on the verandah and looked down the hill. She wore a silk riding habit, in pale green, with a darker green scarf at her neck. Her hat was a straw with a dark green ribbon. She wore stockings and riding boots, and not another thing. The silk was hot in any event, but she loved to feel it against her skin. And she was Meg Hilton. It was terribly important to keep reminding herself of this, all day, and all night. Especially all night. Sharing a bed with Billy, sharing her bod
y with Billy, was an exhausting and distressing business. The fault was her own, she knew. Billy could not be criticized for lack of passion. The sight of her body acted on him in much the same way it had acted on Oriole. She understood, now, that his behaviour on their wedding night had been caused by sheer desire, mingled with some masculine distress that he was not the first. He delighted in fingering her, and there again, she could admit to herself, at the least, that had the fingers belonged to any other man she would have been driven into a frenzy of delight every night.

  But Billy's fingers disgusted her, no less than the way he spilled saliva during his ejaculations, dribbling it down her neck and into her ear. She did not love him. So the fool was her. How easy she had supposed it, in her innocence. Billy was a man, and a man had hands and lips and a rod, and could therefore make a woman happy. And Billy was the passport to freedom, to being Meg Hilton. To everything she wanted.

  So then, she had everything she wanted. Save the sex she wanted. Her gaze drifted to the right, to the mountains. The drums were still there. And a kid had been stolen only three days ago. There was what she wanted, what she craved as she lay awake, with Billy snoring in satiation beside her. That was what she could have, if she dared. She was Meg Hilton. So then, what was to stop her daring? Some deep-seated quirk of respectability, of awareness of herself as a white woman, of fear of what Billy might do then ? He would certainly have right on his side. She doubted he would even be convicted in a court of law, then, if he beat her within an inch of her life.

  So then, she did not have everything she wanted. She had, indeed, very little that she wanted. She did not even have her plantation. Yet.

  But that could be rectified. Washington waited at the foot of the stairs, holding Candy's bridle. She had not ridden Candy for eight months. And the groom had fixed a sidesaddle for her. She was the mistress. Even riding Candy astride must wait, for more courage, perhaps. For more certainty.

  He cupped his hands, and she settled herself in the saddle, gloved fingers stroking the mare's head. Candy gave a little whinny of pleasure.

  'You want me come with you, mistress?'

  'Not necessary, thank you, Washington. I am only going down to the factory.'

  Because the office, which in the old days had been situated in the Great House itself, had been moved by Anthony Hilton to a little building just outside the main factory gate.

  She touched Candy with her heels, walked the mare down the hill, gazed at the huge chimney, and through the gates at the machinery, the drums and the rollers and the crushers -for the sake of coolness the factory had no walls, the roof being supported on iron uprights. The machinery was idle, now; the estate had ground its cane three months ago. She had sat on the front verandah and listened to the clanking and watched the black smoke billowing from the chimney. Billy had been pleased, then. He had been able to prove himself a planter: William Hilton. And apparently it had been a successful crop, so he said.

  It was time to find out. At the sound of Candy's hooves a labourer hurried forward to hold the bridle. Meg slid to the ground, felt the folds of silk clinging to her legs; the sun was high and no doubt he could see her legs, through the thin material. It was part of the business of being her own woman, of being Meg Hilton.

  'Mrs Hilton.' Paul Simmonds waited in the doorway, polishing his spectacles. 'What a pleasant surprise.'

  'It's good to be out again, Paul.' She went inside, took off her hat, fluffed out her hair. 'I'd like to look at the books.'

  'The books? Oh, of course, of course. Have my chair.'

  'Thank you.' She sat in the cane-bottomed swivel chair, and Simmonds piled ledgers in front of her.

  'Where would you like to start?'

  'The shipping returns.'

  'Ah, here we are.' Simmonds opened the appropriate ledger, stood at her shoulder. 'It has not been a very good year, I'm afraid. Well, that was to be expected. With Mr Hilton dying, just as the crop was planted, you know, and then, well, Mr William had to learn, you know, and ...'

  "The yield is twenty per cent down,' Meg said.

  'There it is, Mrs Hilton. And the price is suffering, too. I'm afraid if they don't stop talking about it and actually convene this conference they are proposing to find a way to end the bounty system for beet sugar, well, the outlook is very bleak indeed.'

  'We shall have to increase our production’ Meg decided. 'There can be no other solution.'

  'Well... you see, Mrs Hilton, Meg.' Simmonds produced a handkerchief and wiped his brow. 'We have actually cut production, for this crop.'

  'What did you say?' She turned her head to look at him.

  He did some more mopping. 'Mr Hilton's decision.'

  'Billy's? What does he know about planting?'

  'Well, Meg, he is owner of the plantation now. And he reasons that it is the large number of blacks we employ, which involves supporting their women and children, that is eating away all our resources. So you see ...' He hesitated. Meg was staring at him with her mouth open, but he could see the colour gathering in her cheeks.

  'Go on.'

  'Well, he reckons that if we cut our labour force, even if that involves reducing the amount of acreage planted, it will reduce our overheads even more, the price of cane being what it is.'

  'And what has happened to the blacks he has decided not to employ ?'

  'Ah, well, they have been removed from the plantation.'

  'Removed from the plantation?' she cried. 'How?'

  'They were told to go. Oh, there was some objection. One or two insisted that they had lived on Hilltop for over a hundred years, that it was their home, and that sort of... rubbish?' he said hopefully.

  'Rubbish,' she shouted, getting up. 'Rubbish? They were saying the exact truth. Why wasn't I told about this?'

  'Well... Mr Hilton said not to bother you with the details of how the plantation was being run.'

  'The details,' she cried. 'Where is he now?'

  'Aback, I should say. But Meg ... Mrs Hilton ...'

  She was already banging the door behind her. She could not remember ever having been so angry in her life. She flung herself into the saddle, wrenched Candy's head round, slapped her with her crop. Candy's head jerked, and she bounded off towards the fields. Meg dared not allow herself to think, to consider an argument for Billy's action. It was essential to be angry. To stay angry. If that was how he intended to run her plantation ... She galloped along the path in between the still young stalks, came upon a band of East Indian women, sitting by the roadside, chipping away at the weeds. If anyone had to go it should be these, not the blacks. The blacks belonged here. 'Where is Mr Hilton ?' she demanded.

  The driver, also an Indian, was already on his feet, touching his forehead. 'Mr Hilton, mistress ?' He rolled his eyes.

  'Yes, Mr Hilton,' she shouted. 'My husband. Where is he?'

  'Well, mistress...' The driver turned his head and looked along the path.

  'Oh, go back to work.' Another thump in the ribs had Candy trotting along the path, round a bend and out of sight of the work gang, down the straight to another bend, a cross-road this formed by the junction of four fields. Meg pulled rein, looked left and right, and saw Billy's horse, waiting patiently, bridle hanging loose. Of his master there was no sign.

  She dismounted, left Candy also waiting, and walked along the path to the horse. There was cane to either side, shutting out the breeze as it rose above her now she was on foot. The morning was still. But not that still, she realized, hearing the stifled giggle.

  She peered into the canefield, reached forward and parted the stalks, gazed at the brown legs, the thick and long black hair, the aquiline features of the Indian girl as she sat up, pathetically trying to cover her nakedness, rather as she herself had once done, in the river north of the plantation, Meg remembered. Also sitting up, dust clinging to his shirt and his hair, for he had discarded only his riding breeches, was her husband.

  Meg entered Kingston at a gallop, extracting the very last o
unce of strength from the flagging Candy. By then she was exhausted herself, and her skirt and bodice clung to her body, soaked in sweat; it was four o'clock in the afternoon. Passers-by, just emerging from their siestas, stared at her in amazement as she dragged the tired mare to a halt outside the office of Reynolds and Son, threw herself from the saddle.

  She glared at them, and they turned away. She put up her sleeve to wipe sweat from her eyes and removed a layer of dust. She realized she must look a perfect sight. But that really did not seem relevant at this moment.

  She stamped up the stairs, hurled open the swing jalousies.

  'Mrs Hilton,' exclaimed the clerk, rising like a startled bird.

  'Where is Mr Reynolds ?'

  'In ... in ...' The clerk stared at the inner door with his mouth open. Meg strode across the room.

  'But... you can't go in there. Mr Reynolds is engaged.'

  Meg twisted the handle, threw the door open. Alistair Mottram started to his feet in alarm. Walter Reynolds leaned back in his chair.

  'Margaret, how good to see you. Margaret?' He began to take in the dust as well as her expression.

  'You'll excuse us, Alistair,' Meg said.

  'Oh, I...' He glanced at Reynolds. 'Of course.'

  'Oh, sit down, Mottram,' Reynolds said. 'Really, Margaret, you cannot just come breaking in here ...'

  'I wish to speak to you, Walter. Now.'

  'I really must be off,' Mottram said, getting up again. 'My business is not the least urgent, and I ... I can see that Margaret's is. You'll excuse me.' He hurried through the door, and Meg closed it.

  'You really are quite the most arrogant young woman in all Jamaica,' Walter Reynolds said mildly. 'In all the world, I suspect. What is so terribly urgent?'

  'I have just left your son,' Meg said, placing her gloved hands on his desk and leaning forward. He started to gaze down the neck of her habit and recalled himself with a jerk.

  'He is lying in a canefield with his pants off on top of an East Indian girl.'