Mistress of Darkness (35 page)

Corbeau pretended to frown. 'Surely you do not mean to quarrel, Robert?'

Robert threw himself into a chair, and was immediately surrounded by his terriers, crawling over his feet to scramble on to his lap. ‘You think you'd take me, boy? Over-confidence is a great weakness. I'd killed my first man when you were still sucking.'

'I meant, sir,' Corbeau said, 'that I should have to kneel and beg your forgiveness. I could quarrel neither with my host, my captor, nor my future brother-in-law.'

'What? What? Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha.' Robert sat up, scattering the dogs. 'You've spoken to her?'

'Indeed I have, if you will forgive me.' Corbeau collected a half-empty bottle of wine from a passing tray, and dragged up a chair.

'And she is willing. Oh, yes, she is willing.'

Corbeau drank, and offered the bottle. 'I think she will accept my troth, subject to your approval of course, Robert.'

'Then I approve, by God. Oh, yes, I approve. With her safely married, I can breathe again. I'll have the lawyers draw up the contracts tomorrow.'

'There are matters to be discussed.'

'Details,' Robert said. 'You wish a dowry? Take what you will.'

'A dowry interests me not in the least,' Corbeau said. 'I mean, firstly, that there must be some delay in the affair.' 'Oh, yes?'

'Well, sir, I will not take Georgiana as my wife while I am a prisoner in your house.'

^‘
A prisoner, by God.'

‘Nor can I really ask her to engage in the perils of a voyage back to Rio Blanco, at least until I have returned there myself, and made sure the plantation is ready to receive her. She understands this herself, and is happy to agree.'

'Once the betrothal is official,' Robert said, 'you can wait as long as you like.'

'It will be official by the time we finish this discussion,' Corbeau said, getting up and pacing the floor, while the servants hurriedly got out of his way. 'You'll understand, dear Robert, that mine is a very old family in these parts.'

'Ha ha/ Robert said. 'Ha ha ha ha ha. You seem to have forgotten that I am descended from the very first Englishman ever to plant a colony in the West Indies.'

'There was a Corbeau with d'Esnambuo.'

'A quartermaster, I believe. At that time Sir Thomas Warner was already governor of St. Kitts.'

'I'll not quarrel, Robert, and there's an end to it. I would merely say that while the Corbeaux have renewed their blood time and again with the best Paris can offer, the Warners and the Hiltons have had their mishaps.' He held up his hand. 'Hear me out, I beg of you. The past is the past, and there is an end to it. 'Tis the present and the future that concerns me. I understand that Matt is to be your heir.'

'Aha,' Robert said. 'I begin to get your drift. I have hopes of placing that pair in a slightly less compromising position, given time. Dirk has not yet replied to my letter, but he is a reasonable man.'

'As to whether or not their children are bastards, means very little to me,' Corbeau said. 'I admire, indeed I love them both. I am concerned about the other shadow in Matt's life.'

Robert frowned at him. 'Other matter? By God, that wretched sister of mine has been gossiping as usual.'

'You are speaking of my future wife, sir,' Corbeau said coldly. 'In my opinion she but did her duty.'

'And has your family no skeletons in its closet?'

'Oh, indeed we have, Robert. But none, at the moment in any event, like to overshadow our future prosperity.'

'Nor do we.'

'Indeed? I understand that young Matt, a very positive fellow, I have observed, even if he has not yet learned that constancy of purpose which can lead to a successful life, fell deeply in love with a mulatto girl, some two years ago, am I not right? She was removed from his reach by Georgiana, greatly to her credit, indeed, and in pursuit of her he comes chasing back to the West Indies. That is certainly an evidence of love. Now, you in your wisdom sent him to Statia, and there, being a young man with red blood in his veins who has just tasted the delights of the feminine world for the first time, he seduces your other sister, and she, being married to a man she does not love...' he held up his hand. 'Oh, come now, Robert, you cannot persist in that fiction any longer, surely? Suzanne chooses to fall in love with this handsome young man. And so she in turn chases behind him all over the Caribbean, and now they are preparing to settle down in happy sin. Again I repeat, they are welcome to it. But I would like to hear what proof you have, firstly, that Matt will not fall out of love with Sue as easily as he appears to have fallen in, and then revert to his passion for Gislane, which still taxes at the least his honour, I know; or worse, what is likely to happen should Gislane reappear in his life. The Caribbean is not so large an area that this is impossible. Or even, in my opinion, unlikely. And you will agree, dear brother-in-law, that either such eventuality will bring the utmost disaster upon your family. Which I now have the honour to call
my
family.'

'Ha.' Robert got up, paced the room, waved his arms and the servants disappeared. 'I understand your concern, Louis, truly I do. I can only reassure you as best I may. As for the vagaries of Matt's heart, I can offer no opinion. But even should he manage to recreate his first passion, which will be a very unusual experience, I can tell you, he will not find the girl again. And for that same reason, she is unlikely to encounter him again by chance.'

Corbeau frowned. 'You have not done away with the girl?'

'I am no murderer, sir.'

'But... how can you be so sure? Georgiana says she was sold to Hodge of Nevis. My God, that is but ten miles from

Antigua. Do you not see the peak from Green Grove's front verandah?'

'Oh, indeed you do. But Gislane is no longer on Nevis.'

'I must ask you to be more explicit.'

Robert glanced at him, then sighed, and sat down again. 'You'll understand this is a most secret matter, Corbeau, which has hitherto been known only to myself.'

'I'll respect your confidence. But I have a right to know.'

Again Robert sighed. 'I suppose you do. Well, you may suppose I was well aware that Nevis is altogether too close, to either Statia or Antigua. I visited Hodges privily, oh, more than a year gone - the girl had only just arrived - and convinced him that he should sell her again.'

'Convinced him, by heaven. I like that. Sell her where?'

'To a Dutchman.'

'My God. A planter?'

Robert nodded.

'My God,' Corbeau said again. 'Knowing their reputation?'

'Knowing their refusal to countenance any restrictions on their treatment of their slaves, if that is what you mean. Nor do your people, Corbeau.'

'Yet are we somewhat more refined. You have a heart of stone, Robert.'

'I have a duty to protect my family, you mean. As you were just insisting.'

'Aye. Oh, I admire you. Yet am I not convinced. A Dutch planter? Not from Statia, obviously. And there is little enough planting on Saba. Where did you find this man?'

'She was sent to Essequibo.'

Corbeau stared at him. 'The River Coast? That great swamp, where Europeans die like flies?'

Robert shrugged. 'She is only part European.'

'My God,' Corbeau said again. 'And the man's name?'

'I have no idea,' Robert said. 'I thought it best.'

Corbeau nodded. 'Smartly done, to be sure. You are to be congratulated, sir. However, I am afraid I must press you just a shade further. You have done, I admit it freely, everything in your power, short of that murder which repels you, to your honour, to ensure that this girl never again threatens the future of the Hiltons. Yet are there very many strange coincidences in life, some good, some disastrous. It is at least possible that she might escape the Guyanese swamps, or that Matt may learn what happened to her, and chase behind her. What then?'

'The idea is impossible.'

'If it is so impossible you can at least consider it.' 'What would you have me say?'

Corbeau sat beside him. 'Listen to me. I am thinking now of my children, Georgiana's children. No matter what happens, you'll agree they will be the only truly legitimate heirs to your estates. Dirk Huys will never divorce Sue, and you know that as well as I. Now Matt is entitled to his inheritance, so long as he acts the part. God knows, I would stand between no man and what is rightfully his. But should he act less than the part, why, then, the Hiltons of the future must be protected.'

Robert gazed at him for some seconds. 'You're a cunning fellow, Louis. Yet I cannot gainsay your point. Very well. Should Matt ever introduce Gislane into this house or Green Grove, he shall forfeit his inheritance, should I still be living, and I shall insert a clause to that effect in perpetuity, into my Will. In which case the Hilton estates will devolve upon the children of Georgiana.' He sighed. 'And a famous name will quite disappear.'

Corbeau laughed, and clapped him on the shoulder. 'You take altogether too gloomy a view of the situation, Robert. As you say and hope, perhaps Matt is indeed in love with Sue, and we worry needlessly. But to have taken the proper precautions, that were the sensible thing to do. Now I am for bed.' He went to the archway into the hall, stopped, and looked over his shoulder. 'Tell me, Robert. This Gislane, Georgiana even has to admit that she is quite the most beautiful creature she has ever seen. Is that a fact?'

'What? Oh, aye. Entrancing. Do you know, I last saw her, naked and triced up to a bar. Indeed I saved her from a flogging. And she had then spent four months on a slaver. And yet... by God, Louis, I nearly took her for myself. Try to imagine every bit of high yellow you have ever known, take each of their very best points, from toe to tit, and put them all together, and you'd have that girl. As to what she'd be like now, after a year of Dutch company, well, I cannot say.'

'An intriguing thought,' Corbeau agreed. 'But between Georgiana and yourself, you almost make me understand Matt's point of view. 'Tis an odd world we live in, to be sure.'

CHAPTER TEN

THE PLANTER

G
REEN
G
ROVE
was the largest plantation on Antigua, and yet was by some degree smaller than Hilltop. It was far more beautiful; its compactness gave an impression of tremendous fertility - seen from the gentle hill which overlooked at once the canefields and the Great House and the slave village and the beach beyond, and the Leper Island, it was simple to understand how it had first obtained its name, even in the month after grinding.

It was also the most evocative of the Hilton possessions. Here Kit Hilton the buccaneer had come courting, and here he had wooed the beautiful Meg Warner, despite the opposition of her family and indeed of all Antigua society. Here they had lived their stormy lives, loving and hating each other with equal intensity, and here Meg had contracted the leprosy which, had left her even more notorious in death than she had been in life. Her bones still lay on the Leper Island, even if the island was now deserted, shunned by all as a place of evil spirits; the Government had itself taken over the segregated treatment of the disease and built its own lazaretto close to St. John's.

But it was Meg Hilton's spirit which dominated these fields, and this house. And Meg, with her single-minded determination to have what she wanted, regardless of legal or moral impediment, would surely be smiling on this latest example of Hilton perversity, Hilton disregard for convention. Matt felt it in his bones, knew it in the swelling of his heart, as the gig started its downward journey. He glanced at Sue, and found her watching him.

He closed his fingers over hers. 'Happy?'

'If you will be happy. Matt.'

He pursed his lips to blow her a kiss. 'I am happy whenever I am near enough to touch you.'

Now at last she smiled. 'There is a challenge no woman should resist. I shall always be near enough to touch, Matt. Until you grow tired of me.'

'There is an incomprehensible thought.' He watched the drive unfolding in front of the horses, the muscles flexing in Thomas Henry's shoulders as he tightened the reins; the slaves on Green Grove had always retained the double names invented by Marguerite. But there were so many incomprehensible thoughts, chasing about his head, demanding to be exposed. He had spoken no more than the truth; when Sue was within an arm's length he knew no doubts, no fears, would accept no self-condemnation. Yet was she also right. Their love depended on their physical joy in each other, and it was difficult to see that lasting a lifetime, through sickness and inevitable separation, even if neither of them doubted it would at least survive the current scandal.

But there was the sum of her problem. She had acted as a Hilton, thrown up husband and respectability for the company of a man she had chosen to love. Her business must be to keep him, if only to justify herself. But what of him? How simple to say, why, I am the same. I saw, I loved, and now my existence is controlled from embrace to embrace. Except that he had used those thoughts, enjoyed those emotions, once before, and in so doing brought catastrophe upon a girl who had done no more than respond. Perhaps, he thought, this is what truly frightens me, that having destroyed Gislane, merely by loving, I am now in the process of destroying Sue. But Sue could never be destroyed; no matter what happened to her, she would face life, and treat life, and conquer life, as a Hilton. Not a slave.

So, then, every moment he sat here, or rode the dams at Green Grove, or drank his punch and sangaree on the front verandah, he was compounding his crime. He had, to all intents and purposes, committed murder, and was taking his ease while his victim still died.