The Devil's Own

by Christopher Nicole

  Was that, then, to be the eventual fate of Kit Hilton? By God, he would turn back to piracy, first.

  He dismounted at the foot of the steps to the Great House, and a slave immediately ran forward to take his bridle. Philip Warner sat on the verandah, eating the late breakfast in which most of the planters indulged after spending the cool dawn hours in the fields, supervising the day's work plan, before the heat of the sun made such exposure prohibitive for Europeans. With him were his three senior overseers.

  'Kit?' Philip asked. 'What brings you to Goodwood? Not trouble, I hope?'

  'Trouble,' Kit said. 'We encountered the government frigate from St Kitts.'

  'By God,' Philip said. 'And gave her the slip, I see?'

  'We exchanged fire to do so.'

  'You fired on the man of war?' demanded one of the overseers.

  'It was that, Mr Haley, or a rope around our necks.' 'By God,' Philip said. 'But she'll not identify you?' 'I trust not, Colonel Warner. The sloop is in Falmouth now, and I have given orders for her to be unloaded as rapidly as possible. The warship will not make here before she has repaired the damage.'

  'If she bothers to come at all, in the circumstances,' Philip mused. 'You're a man of spirit, Kit. I never doubted that. But we'd best lie low for a while.'

  'And find yourself a new captain while you are about it, sir,' Kit said. 'I'll have no more part in this business. I'd not anticipated having to go to war with the Navy.'

  'What? What?' Warner demanded, getting up. 'You knew the risks.'

  'Maybe I had not weighed them properly. My mind is made up, sir. I shall seek employment elsewhere.' 'Not on this island,' Philip shouted.

  'Well, then, I shall leave this island,' Kit said, keeping his temper under control with difficulty. 'By God, sir, I'll tell you what I will do. I'll take myself to Sandy Point, and ask Sir William Stapleton for a position. I’ll sail on the revenue frigate, sir, not against it. Then we'll see how your smuggling ventures fare.'

  'By God,' Warner said. 'A Hilton who is at once a coward and a turncoat. Aye, your family was ever a scurvy lot, you bitch's bastard. And frightened with it. You can see the yellow bubbling through the white.'

  'You'll take back those words, sir,' Kit demanded.

  'Will I? Or you'll make me?'

  'By God, sir, I will, even if I doubt it will be worth wasting time on a cur such as you. You seek to impugn my family, sir? What of your own, with your treacheries and your feuds, and your cannibal brother?'

  'Take him,' Philip shouted, and a heavy stick crashed across the back of Kit's head. Yet it did no more than stun him. He found himself on his hands and knees, turned, dragging his sword from its scabbard, and was met by a kick in the face which sent him rolling down the steps. He gazed up at a crowd of black men, all armed with staves, and realized that he had lost his sword and was in some danger of being beaten to death. He threw up his hands to protect himself and was struck a sickening blow on the arm which left it paralysed. He attempted to roll on to his face to protect his groin and belly, and felt a succession of blows crashing into his back and legs. Dimly he heard voices shouting, women's voices as well as men's, and the beating stopped. But he could not move, he could feel nothing but the surging pain which ran through his body like a continuous thread, above the blood which kept surging into his mouth. I am dying, he thought. Oh, God, I am dying.

  Hands gripped his legs and arms, and he attempted to scream with pain, but only blood ran out of his mouth. Then he was thrown down in another excruciating jolt, on to wood, which immediately commenced a whole series of jolts, each one sending his tortured brain screaming away into the recesses of consciousness, but never so far as to bring merciful oblivion.

  Time no longer had meaning. The jolting was neverending, he was taking a journey down to hell. Perhaps that was how all men went to hell, bouncing in the back of a cart. Until without warning it stopped, and the hands seized him again. For a moment he hung in the air, then the ground rose up to meet him with another mind-shattering impact, and he rolled, arms and legs flopping helplessly and painfully, until he came to rest. His face and eyes and ears and nose and mouth filled with dust to coagulate the blood, and he coughed and spat, supposing he would choke. Then he lay still, knowing only the pain which gripped him like a living enemy, tearing at his legs, his arms, his bowels, his head. Movement was impossible, nor did he see how it would ever become possible again. He was lost, at the bottom of a pit of agony, an eternity of misfortune which had been his since time began.

  And was not yet over. For there was a voice, a voice he had heard before, and movement around him, and hands once again touching his body and bringing moans of agony to his lips. But these hands were strangely gentle and made more so by the insistent voice, commanding and instructing. With a tremendous effort Kit forced open his eyes, gazed at the morning through a welter of blood, at more black men; he could not tell if they were the same as those who had first beaten him into the ground.

  And then at a white face, strangely pale, inexpressibly beautiful, set in a framework of straight, long, dark brown hair, undressed save for the bows which secured the strands.

  The face which, angry or smiling, had lured him onwards for so long. Marguerite Warner.

  5

  The Devil's Honeymoon

  Now at last did consciousness depart. Or did it? He could never be sure. He seemed to exist in a world of dreams, in which pain dominated, certainly, but in which there was also light and pleasant voices, and occasionally even laughter, and sweet scents and quiet, and acres of softness. He found it confusing, and chose to focus on the essentials, on the pain itself, on one voice more than any other, because of its familiarity, and on one physical object, a vast glow which seemed to hover in the sky, a million miles away.

  The bright object gradually came to replace all else, even the soft voice and the gentle hands. He tried to reach it, and watched it take shape, slowly and indefinitely, but with gradually sharpening edges. It hung, at the foot of the bed. The bed? He turned his head, from side to side, amazed at the effort it cost.

  And amazed, too, at his surroundings. For he lay in the centre of a vast tent-bed, beneath linen sheets of a whiteness he had not suspected to be possible. The mattress scarce seemed to exist below him; it and his pillows were stuffed with feathers.

  The bed occupied the centre of an equally vast room, at once wide and square and high-ceilinged. And the bright object was a chandelier, just visible beneath the roof of the tent, a mass of gleaming facets of light although none of the candles were lit. What miracle was this? But then he saw the windows, huge open doors of glass, through which there drifted at once a cooling breeze and the morning sunlight, playing on the chandelier, having the effect of a flaming signal.

  And through the window there came the smell of sweetness.

  Or was it all around him? Certainly it seemed to soak the bed on which he lay, the nightshirt in which he was dressed ... the nightshirt? Another magnificent cambric garment, as softly limp as the sheet, and as clean.

  The scent made him drowsy. The scent, and the breeze, playing gently on his face, and the silence. A strange silence, because his instincts told him that he was surrounded by sound, that he could even hear it, if he tried hard enough to listen. If he could summon the energy. But why should he do that? Why should he do anything, except lie here, in the softness and the breeze, and the quiet? If he had died, and this was heaven, then he was truly content.

  Except that there was no possibility of Kit Hilton, the man who had been at Panama, ever attaining heaven.

  The door opened, and he turned his head again, more easily this time. A black face stared at him, smiling, and then came across the room to look more closely. She was a young girl and wore a white dress; her hair was concealed beneath a cap.

  'Where am I?' Kit asked. How thin and soft his voice; it seemed no more than a whisper.

  'Well, glory be,' she said. 'You's awake. Now you wait so, Captin. I got food for you
.'

  She disappeared. Kit tried to push himself up, and found that he could not. He raised his right hand, with a tremendous effort, gazed at it in horror. That hand, which had grasped a cutlass or a musket to such terrible effect, which had been feared even when he had been beachcombing in Port Royal, was no more than a mass of bones and veins, held together by a bag of thin skin.

  The door was opening again, and now there were several girls, but led on this occasion by a tall and dignified black man, who wore a deep crimson coat over white breeches, and carried himself with an air of authority. The girls each bore a tray, and these in turn were placed on the table next to his bed. Here were morsels of broiled tuna, cups of soft green avocado, broth made from die pulpy okra, and a glowing, dark red liquid in which floated lumps of ice.

  The butler bent over the bed. 'You must allow me, Captin.' He raised Kit's shoulders, and one of the girls pushed a mass of pillows under his back, while another held the cup to his lips. It seemed to him as the liquid reached his parched throat that he was tasting pure nectar. It reminded him of that first gulp from the stream in Hispaniola, how many centuries ago. He swallowed, and smiled at the girl, and sighed. 'What is it called?'

  'Sangaree, Captin,' the butler said. 'Red wine, with some brandy, and fruits, and ice added. Now you must eat. You must put the strength back into those muscles.'

  The food tasted scarcely less pleasant than the drink. But Kit was too tired to consume very much, and after a few mouthfuls he sank back on the pillow.

  'Enough,' said the butler, and the girls hastily carried the trays from the room. There will be more when you are ready.'

  'Where am I?' Kit asked again.

  'Plantation Green Grove, Captin.'

  'Green Grove. Green Grove? Then where is ...'

  'The mistress is aback, Captin. But she will return at eleven of the clock. Now you must rest. I will tell she that you is awake.'

  He withdrew, closing the door, but leaving Kit propped up on the pillows. The mistress. Now memory came flooding back, of the faces standing above him when he had been picked from the ditch. Marguerite? Marguerite Warner? No, Marguerite Templeton, now. Rescuing him from the anger of her father? That was unbelievable. It was also magnificent. It made him tremble, brought tears to his eyes. It made him want to get out of bed, and make his way to the window, and see if he could find her in the canefields. But that was impossible. So he must lie here, and wait. Marguerite. For how long had his life been devoted to just that object? Marguerite.

  He dozed, and the food and the wine stretched out from his belly to dull his brain, to send him back into his dream world. Only this time he did not dream. Now he was to awake, from all the dreams, and from all the nightmares, too. So perhaps buccaneers did, after all, attain heaven.

  Voices, outside his bedroom door, and one raised in protest. Now he must strain his ears to hear the muted sounds of the house. It was nearly noon. He could tell that because the sun no longer played on the chandelier, and the very breeze, which had not abated, was hot as it stroked his face and arms.

  Ridiculous, Mrs Templeton?' demanded the man. 'When I heard, why ...'

  'Tell me, Mr Spalding, when last did you visit me?' Marguerite. He would have remembered that quiet tone anywhere.

  'Why, I ... I had gained the impression I was not welcome here.'

  'Oh, indeed you were right, Mr Spalding. I detest criticism in any form. Of myself, of my plantation, of the way I operate my plantation, or of my habits, which seem to be your present occupation.'

  'Why ... why ... really, Mrs Templeton.' Spalding would be going red in the face. Kit remembered he was the vicar of the St John's Anglican Church, a man who avoided him; Spalding always crossed the street to walk on the other side when he saw Kit Hilton coming. 'I felt it my duty. This man is a pirate, madam. He has murdered people with his own hands. Far worse. He was at Panama. Can you imagine what he must have done there? Women, girls, why, madam, the imagination boggles.'

  'And your voice sounds positively envious,' Marguerite said.

  'He is also known as a friend of black people and Quakers,' the parson said, dropping his voice so that Kit could hardly hear it.

  Marguerite laughed, a sound as softly contemptuous as her voice. 'A far more serious crime, I do agree, reverend. Would you like to leave now, or will you attend me in my bath?'

  'You ... you astound me, madam. Be sure that I shall be to Colonel Warner this morning, with this sad news.'

  'Then I should certainly hurry, if I were you. Maurice Peter, will you show Mr Spalding to his horse?'

  There was a short silence, while Kit stared at the door, and then at last it opened. She had removed her hat, and was untying her hair, so that it fell straight to her shoulders. She wore a pale green riding habit, but had unbuttoned the long, masculine coat to reveal the cambric shirt beneath, tucked into the divided green skirt. And beneath that? His eyes were too weak to be sure, but he would have said nothing. Christ, what a thought for an invalid with too many crimes of lust already on his shoulders.

  She moved quietly; she had taken off her boots and thrust her bare feet into slippers. She looked as far removed from the splendid lady who had climbed the hill in Tortuga as it was possible to imagine. And now she paused, six feet from the bed, and gazed at him, her face breaking into a smile. She had not smiled in Tortuga, and he had found her entrancing. But entrancing was nothing, when considered against the context of her face smiling. The small mouth became large, and the firm chin softened, and the green eyes glowed with little facets of light, almost like her chandelier. 'Kit Hilton,' she said. 'There were times when I thought I would have to bury you. And then I remembered, he has crossed Panama. He will survive a beating.'

  She came closer. Her hair was free, and now she took off the coat. The sweat-wet cambric clung to her shoulders, as it stuck itself to the high breasts and outlined the dark aureoles. A lady, sweating. That surely reduced her to no more than a woman. There was sweat on her face, beading her forehead and her upper lip. And surely, therefore, there was sweat in other places as well.

  'They told me you were able to speak,' she said, standing beside him.

  'How long have I been here?'

  'You are at least direct, Kit. A week. Do you remember what happened?'

  'I quarrelled with your father.'

  She nodded. 'And he set his slaves on you. Do you hate him?' 'Perhaps I was hasty.'

  Her eyebrows raised. 'Hardly a piratical sentiment. You'd do well to hate him. You may be sure he hates you. And will hate you more when Spalding reaches Goodwood.'

  'Then why did you bring me here?' His hand moved, and touched hers as it lay on the coverlet. 'You refused me admittance, but a week gone.'

  'It had taken you three weeks to call upon me,' she reminded him. 'Besides, should a lady succumb to the first advance made by a gentleman?' Her smile was back. 'And you are not even a gentleman, as I am reminded time and again.' She half turned her head as there came a gentle knock on the door. 'My bath is ready. Now you must lie there, quietly, until I return.'

  She moved to the door.

  'I thought you hated me,' he said to her back. She paused, but did not turn her head, then continued through the doorway.

  Christ, how slowly the afternoon passed. How frustrating to lie in bed, unable to move, to know that that beauty, that smile, that confidence, was in the house with him. Being bathed. His brain was filled with the sweat-soaked shirt, with the beads of sweat on her lips—he had wanted to kiss them all away, one after the other. And for all the sweat, she had moved in the middle of that aura of sweet-scented perfume.

  Marguerite Warner. Marguerite Templeton. By Christ, he had to be dreaming, after all.

  She wore a crimson undressing-robe, secured at her waist by a wide pink sash. She filled the room like an explosion. And she no longer sweated. Her skin glowed, from the bath, and she looked rested. Her hair had been piled on top of her head, to leave her face exposed, and beautiful.

&n
bsp; 'They hanged your grandmother,' she said, looking down at him. 'I doubt I could ever have liked her, but it was not the fate for a woman. And so you took to piracy, so unsuccessfully that you finished working for my father.' She smiled, and shook her head. 'You will have to practise success, if you are to remain at Green Grove.'

  He licked his lips. 'And am I, to remain at Green Grove?'

  'Perhaps you would rather be handed over to the Quakers?'

  So she was, after all, no more than a woman, and given to jealousy. But, Marguerite Templeton, jealous of Lilian Christianssen? Over Kit Hilton? That seemed incredible.

  'I had supposed you hated me,' he said.

  Marguerite moved away from the bed, and four maidservants entered. Two carried enormous towels, a third a huge basin, and a fourth a pitcher of steaming water. The butler came behind, and he placed the rocking chair for Marguerite to sit down, close to the bed, but far enough away so as not to interfere with the girls.

  'What is to happen?' Kit asked.

  'You are going to be bathed. I demand cleanliness, at Green Grove.'

  'To be bathed? But…’

  'These same girls have bathed you every day since your arrival,' she pointed out. 'And I have sat here and watched them do it. They are slaves, and of no account; I am a widow, and perfectly accustomed to the male body. So pray stop twitching and rolling your eyes. Although,' she added with a smile, 'it is a relief to find that you are rediscovering your manhood.'

  For the sheet was already removed and so was his nightshirt, all by the softest and most gentle hands he had ever felt.

  Marguerite rocked, gently, to and fro. Her gaze never left his body. But how thin and pitiful he was, with bones jutting out from every pouch of skin.