The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (45 page)

She turned her head and gave him her unblinking stare. The sedatives were wearing off and she’d lost that comatose look, but she hadn’t said a word since they’d left the sanatorium. He was beginning to wonder when she would.

Soon after leaving Burntwood, he had realized the impossibility of taking her all the way to Fever Hill on horseback. No matter how slowly he rode, it would still be too rough on her knee. So instead he’d stopped at the first settlement they reached: a straggling little slum village called Simonstown. He knew the people there, and it wasn’t too far from old Mowat’s place, and Mowat – clever, over-sensitive, and vilely unlucky – had always been civil to him, and would probably lend him his trap.

He’d forgotten that it was Free Come eve until he rode into the village and found it heaving with preparations. Men were stacking green pimento wood by the barbecues for tomorrow’s jerked hog, and bringing in baskets of breadkind and chochos from the grounds; pickneys were racing about under everyone’s feet; and the women were hurrying to put the finishing touches to their new gowns, and making piles of hard-dough, and stoking the fires beneath great bubbling yabbas of fufu and gungo peas stew. The whole village smelt of cloves and thyme and wood smoke and anticipation.

They welcomed him like a holiday novelty that had arrived a day early, and crowded round to see the little cripple girl from Fever Hill. A man ran off to petition Mowat for the pony-trap, and another took Pilate to be fed and watered. Cameron bought a tumbler of rum punch for himself, and watched in relief as Sophie worked her way with painful concentration through a beaker of guava syrup and a bowl of stewed okra and yam. Then he paid a young woman a month’s earnings to bathe her and dress her in her daughter’s Sunday best: a flounced pink drill affair which must have looked delightful on a healthy little Negro girl, but transformed Sophie into an incongruous and extremely bony wax doll.

She submitted to everything with unnerving passivity, and only seemed to notice her surroundings at all when a very small pickney sidled up to inspect her, clutching his plaything to his belly. The toy was a little mule of plaited cane-trash, and Sophie stared at it with such intentness that the pickney took fright and ran away.

Cameron wondered what the straw mule meant to her. What had she been through in that place?

He could still smell the Lysol and the hopelessness. He could still see her sallow little face on the pillow, her eyes unfocused and frighteningly blank. She had been there for – what? Four days? Five? Surely that wasn’t long enough for permanent harm?

And what if he was wrong about that? What if her lungs were already affected, and he could have prevented it if he’d acted at once, instead of delaying until a Cockney street Arab taught him a lesson in ethics?

He shot her an anxious glance. She was watching the cane-pieces whip past, her lips slightly parted, her eyes dull.

Ainsley’s daughter. He still couldn’t believe it. And yet all the evidence was before him. That fair hair. Those straight, intelligent dark brows. That hint of her grandfather in the determined set of her chin.

He remembered what Madeleine had said as they’d stood together outside the church.
She’s his daughter, Cameron. Think about that. For eight years you’ve been up there in your self-imposed exile, having those nightmares and wondering why. You say you’ve forgiven him, but have you? Don’t you think that if you’d really forgiven him, you wouldn’t have visited his sins on his children by denying their very existence?

I have forgiven you, Ainsley, he told the rippling cane-pieces. Look. Here’s your daughter. I’m bringing her home.

It had been ten years since he’d driven up this carriageway. Ten years since he’d been anywhere near the house. Why so long? What had prevented him from simply riding up one day and making his peace with Jocelyn? He had wasted so much time.

I think you’ve become accustomed to living like this
, she had told him. Separate. Isolated.
It’s become a way of life.
She was right.

He passed a weeding-gang walking home across Bullet Tree Piece. They raised their hats to him, and turned their heads to watch his progress. Soon word would be all over the estate.
Mas’ Camron try for come home.

God, why was this carriageway so infernally long? Everywhere he looked, he saw the ghosts. Every tree, every cane-piece, was familiar as only a land learned in childhood can be. Off to the right was the guango tree which he’d climbed when he was nine, and lost his footing, and nearly throttled himself on a strangler fig. There to the left was Congo Walk, where they used to race their polo ponies and hold jousting tournaments. Beyond that was the Old Pond, where Jocelyn had taught them to swim. And up there on Clairmont Hill were the marl-pits, where a sixteen-year-old Ainsley had made himself into a luminous spectre for the Boxing Day masquerade – incensing his father, appalling May, and delighting Aristide Durrant’s mischievous young daughter Rose.

They swept past the New Works, and suddenly the great house rose into view. Cameron caught his breath. The dilapidations were cruelly apparent: the broken louvres, the peeling paint; the great copperpots flanking the steps, which used to overflow with oleander, but now held nothing but thistles. But none of that mattered. This was still the only place he could remember calling home.

He wondered what sort of reception he would receive. Jocelyn was safely in Kingston, but what about May? And Clemency? He and Clemency had once been close; or as close as two people of vastly different natures could be. When Ainsley had run off, they had helped one another to cope. And when she’d lost her child he had watched her take refuge in a kind of deliberate madness, with her constant illnesses and her secret plans for the ‘journey’ that only he was allowed to know. He had pitied her, but he hadn’t interfered, for behind the breathless little laugh and the propitiatory smiles there was a single-mindedness about Clemency which he couldn’t help but admire.

The carriageway in front of the house was empty, except for Remus dozing at the foot of the steps. The mastiff recognized Cameron from his visits to the Burying-place, and heaved himself up to make way.

A harried-looking groom ran round from the servants’ quarters, and opened his mouth to exclaim when he saw who it was, and thought better of it, and took charge of the trap. Cameron carried Sophie up the steps and into the gallery.

He was shaken by the wave of emotion which swept over him. The gallery hadn’t changed at all. The same slatted amber light. The same battered old rattan chairs with their throws of the red and green Monroe tartan. The same never-to-be-forgotten scent of cigar smoke and orange-oil polish.

This gallery had been his first experience of Fever Hill, and the centre of his world when he was growing up. When he’d had nightmares, he would come out here and curl up with the dogs. When there was a storm, he would stand with Jocelyn on the steps and watch the rain sweeping the cane-pieces. And on his sixteenth birthday, the old man had poured him his first whisky and soda, and raised a toast. ‘
By fire and sword
,’ he had declaimed, ‘that’s for the Lawes.
Death before dishonour
. That’s for the Monroes.’

He put Sophie in the nearest armchair, and fetched a footstool to support her splint. As he did so, he realized that he’d put her in Jocelyn’s chair. Here was the aged tapestry cushion, and the old throw of the McFarlane tartan, its heathery mauves and sage greens tempering the red. He remembered a stiff old gentleman settling a six-year-old boy on this same throw, and introducing him to a pair of mastiffs, and sending the helper for a bowl of red pea soup. If he shut his eyes, he could still taste that soup.

From the shadowy ballroom, the grandfather clock brought him back to the present. Half-past seven. It would be dark soon. Even by moonlight, it would be slow going up into the hills. He would be lucky to reach Providence by midnight.

As he was straightening up, a woman hurried round the corner of the gallery, feverishly searching for something.

She was elaborately dressed in a modish travelling-costume of crisp white brocade, and laden with all the accoutrements of a fashionable outing. In one hand she clutched a pair of white kid gloves, in the other a card-case, a scent bottle, and a handful of pearl-headed hatpins. Dangling from one wrist was a sumptuous hat brimming with white chiffon roses, while over the other arm hung a carriage-cloak of snowy silk damask, and – curiously, given the impending dusk – an ivory-handled parasol of white satin and lace.

Cameron saw with a pang that she had hardly aged since he’d last seen her. Still the same delicate, pretty features beneath the startling chignon of dyed grey hair. ‘Hallo, Clemmy,’ he said.

She gave a violent start, and her face froze guiltily, as if she’d been caught in some crime. Then guilt gave way to round-eyed astonishment as she recognized him. ‘Cameron? Is that you?’

He went to her and reached for her hand, then – mindful of the accoutrements – awkwardly withdrew it. ‘How are you, Clemmy?’

She opened her mouth, but no words came. The carriage-cloak slid off her arm to the floor, quickly followed by the gloves, the scent bottle, the card-case and the hatpins. Cameron stooped to retrieve the cloak, and put it over a chair. ‘I got your message,’ he said.

She looked blank.

‘The boy? D’you remember?’

There was such bemusement in her china-blue eyes that he wondered if she’d heard.

He tried again. ‘I went to Burntwood. I’ve brought S—’

‘I can’t find my purse!’ she burst out. ‘It was here a minute ago, I know it was, and now it’s simply vanished!’

‘Clemmy—’

‘Oh, it’s all such a
muddle!
I had everything perfect, perfect! But just as I was about to put on my hat I heard the carriage outside, so unexpected, I never thought he’d be back so
soon
. And now here I am discovered with all my special things, absolutely
discovered
. . . and May will be so
vexed
!’ Her lips quivered, as if she might burst into tears.

Still the same Clemency, thought Cameron with exasperated affection. Plainly she was far more exercised over the loss of her purse than by his own unexpected arrival.

Knowing it was useless to rush her, he helped to retrieve the rest of her belongings from the floor and put them on a side table. She still hadn’t noticed Sophie, who was gazing at her gravely from the depths of her incongruous pink flounces.

Cameron gestured to her and said, ‘Look, Clemmy. See whom I’ve brought back.’

At last Clemency saw her. Her face crumpled, and her hand flew to her cheek. ‘Oh, now I really don’t know what to do! I prayed and prayed for this to happen – but May will be
so
vexed!’

Cameron suppressed a flicker of impatience. ‘Forget about May. I need you to look after Sophie. Can you do that?’

‘What? But you can’t go yet! What about my purse?’

‘You don’t need your purse.’

‘Yes I do. I—’

‘Clemency, what would you do with a purse? You never go out.’

That brought her up short. ‘I wasn’t going out,’ she said stubbornly. ‘I was – practising.’

‘Practising? For what?’

Frowning, she shook her head, as if she’d already said too much.

Then he remembered. The journey. The practice sessions. Oh, Clemmy, not now. ‘Clemency,’ he said firmly, ‘it’s time for you to give that up. You’ve got to stay here and look after Sophie. Surely you can see that?’

She shook her head, and two more hairpins clattered to the floor. A lock of grey hair came loose and tumbled over one shoulder.

‘The fact is,’ he said none too gently, ‘there’s no point to your journey. There never was. Your baby isn’t in hell. Why should he be in hell? He didn’t do anything wrong. He’s in heaven. He’s been there all along.’

She looked horrified. ‘But that can’t be right! May
told
me. She knows all about it. She—’

‘May knows nothing about it. She isn’t a priest. She’s just a wicked old woman who likes to hurt people.’

She flinched. After decades in semi-darkness, reality was clearly too much for her. He wished he’d had the sense to tell her this years ago.

‘Listen to me,’ he said with mounting impatience. ‘I don’t have time to explain everything now, but I’ll send Reverend Prewitt to you, and he’ll tell you all about it, and you can ask him whatever you like, and then you’ll know that I’m telling the truth. But just for now you’ve got to put it out of your mind, and think about Sophie. She needs you. She’s had a bad time of it. Don’t let her down.’

Her face worked. ‘I don’t know what to
do
. May will—’

‘May will what?’ said Great-Aunt May.

Oh hell, thought Cameron.

Great-Aunt May stood at the entrance to the ballroom, her hands serenely clasped at her waist. Despite the heat she wore a high-collared evening gown of iron-grey moiré, and long, narrow-fingered gloves of pewter kid. From the silver chain at her waist hung a collection of keys like those of a medieval châtelaine.

Her inflamed blue gaze flickered over Clemency, lingered briefly on Sophie, then locked with Cameron’s. ‘What’, she said, ‘is the meaning of this?’

‘I should have thought that was obvious,’ he said. ‘I’ve brought Sophie home.’

May permitted herself the slight tightening of the lips that was her version of a smile. ‘Against her guardian’s wishes, no doubt.’

‘Well, of course.’

May inclined her head as if he had paid her a compliment. ‘Then she shall be returned in the morning.’

He opened his mouth to contradict her, but Clemency got there before him.

‘Oh no!’ she exclaimed. ‘No no
no
! I absolutely will not allow that!’ She rustled over to Sophie and plumped herself down in the adjacent chair. Then she realized whom she had just countermanded, and her jaw dropped.

‘That will do, Clemency,’ said Great-Aunt May, keeping her eyes on Cameron. ‘Now go to your room, remove that preposterous attire, and dress yourself appropriately for dinner.’