'You do not know this girl, Mr. Hilton,' Janet Hodge declared. 'She's an absconder, who got away to England. Aye, she's a villain. She should have been flogged when she first returned, but Jamie would have his way with her first. Well, he's done that. Now I'll have the skin from her back. And there's no man alive will stop me. It's no business of yours. You have no business on Nevis at all.'
'Be sure I have, Mistress Hodge,' Robert Hilton said. 'And be sure I know this girl. She is indeed my business.'
Pie walked in front of Gislane, and she stared at him, watched his eyes move up and down her body. 'By God,' he said. 'But there is not a part of you less than magnificent. Do you remember me, girl?'
'Oh, God,' she whispered. 'Mr. Hilton. You have come for me. Matt has sent you. Oh, God, Mr. Hilton.' She could hardly see him for weeping.
But Robert Hilton was frowning. 'You aim too high, Miss Nicholson,' he said. 'Too high.' He turned to James Hodge. 'I want the girl removed from Nevis.'
Hodge's turn to frown. 'You wish to buy her, Mr. Hilton?' Then that thin face broke into a smile. 'Aye, well, she's easy on the eye, you can swear to that. And easy on the body too. She's born to be someone's housekeeper, Mr. Hilton. I'd be sorry to lose her and there's a fact, but you'll see she's upsetting to Janet here. Now a man like yourself, lacking a wife ...'
'Would find her comforting, no doubt,' Robert Hilton agreed. 'But she's not for my bed, Hodge, much as I'd like her. I want her sold, by you. I want her taken away from Nevis, away from the British Islands. I'll not have her harmed. Christ knows she is innocent of anything save her beauty and her white skin, and there was no reason for punishment. Yet she must be removed. You'll sell her to a Dutchman. Someone from the Main, will be best. Place her on a sloop for Demerara.'
Hodge scratched his head. 'I am totally confused, Mr. Hilton. You have travelled from Jamaica to Nevis, in time of war, merely to endeavour to have me sell a slave?'
'You're impertinent, sir,' Janet Hodge cried.
Robert Hilton looked at her for some seconds and she flushed, and lowered her eyes. 'You'll do as I ask, mistress,' he said. 'You'll lose nothing. Here is an order against my agent for five hundred pounds. There's no slave in the world worth that. You'll be the gainer, because you can also keep whatever you make from the auction. But she's to go where she cannot return, ever. Demerara or Essequibo or Berbice.'
'And you think a Dutchman will spare that white flesh?'
Janet Hodge demanded contemptuously. There's no slave would not rather die than belong to a Hollander.'
'Oh, God, Gislane whispered. 'Mr. Hilton, please take me away from here. Please take me to Matt. I only want to be with him, Mr. Hilton. I'll be his servant. I'll be his slave. Just take me with you, Mr. Hilton.'
Robert Hilton gazed at her in turn. Then his hand left his side, slowly, as if impelled by some force he could not resist. It gripped her chin, moved on the line of her jaw, stroked her cheek. 'By God,' he said. 'You would be a prize, girl. But you're not for us. You'd split my family from one end to the next, and God knows, it clings too precariously to itself as it is. Demerara, Mr. Hodge. You'll not gainsay me, or I'll have every hogshead you produce refused here and in England. I'll be away now. I'm for Antigua and Green Grove. But she'll be gone before I stop here on my way back, or by God I'll see to you.'
He walked round Gislane, and she listened to the sound of his boots scuffing the earth. Oh, God, she thought. Oh, God, she wanted to shout, to shriek. No, no, no. You cannot play such a trick on me. Dear God, you cannot send him and then take him away.
'God damned arrogant bastard,' Janet Hodge remarked. 'You'd think he was descended from royalty, you would, the way he gives himself airs. Well, let him flash his ugly self. We'll see him in hell, eh, Jamie?'
Hodge licked his lips. 'We'd best do as he says, Janet. God knows we've trouble enough selling our sugar with this damnable war dragging on, without having the Hiltons as enemies. And he's paid well. You'll get a new gown out of this.'
'A new gown?' she demanded. 'God damn you for a snivelling cur, Jamie Hodge. You're afraid of the man.'
'I'm a sensible man, you mean,' Hodge insisted. 'And the girl will only cause trouble between us, darling. 'Tis best she goes.'
'She'll go when I'm done with her, what's left of her,' Janet Hodge said.
'You'll not flog her, Janet. She'll command no price at all after she's been flogged, this one. She hasn't the hide for it. And Hilton will be sure to find out.'
There was a moment's hesitation on the part of the woman, while Gislane held her breath, held back the tears which were hammering at her consciousness, demanding to be released. Then the white woman smiled. 'You're right, of course, Jamie. I'll not flog her and ruin a good carcass. I'll make her know herself better, that's all.' She stared into Gislane's eyes. 'Eunice. You've red peppers in the kitchen. Bring them to me. Maybe, given time, the bitch will beg me for the whip.'
chapter eight
THE SEAMAN
Forever. If only there could be such a word, such an existence. Two months, four months, eight months, time had no meaning, existence became as unchanging as the very tropical seasons, with Suzanne to lie in his arms. There was more to it than physical possession, for indeed, he did not possess her at all. It was she who owned, who commanded, and who disbursed, and he who received, anxiously and passionately. The very sight of her was sufficient to bring him up hard and wanting, and he saw her every day. He remembered every second of their first embrace, the promise of her body as she had slowly removed her clothes, never once ceasing to gaze at him, as if she would mesmerize him to insure that he did not, that he could not, change his mind; the magnificent contrast of heavy, slightly sagging breasts and utterly slender thighs, the perfect symmetry of the strangely dark 'V of her groin, of the muscular legs, the tempting, fine-spun gold of the hair which lay so lightly on her shoulders, separating into invisible strands whenever she moved, and yet always presenting a gauze-like curtain of magnificent colour around her head. Georgiana had made him think of silk, but here was finest damask and about to be his.
This indeed had been a terrifying thought. Where he was a virgin she had known three years of marriage, and whatever his faults no one could doubt that Dirk Huys knew how to play the man in bed. And his terror had been justified. The compelling mixture of desire and fear had left him unable even to fill her hand. Yet had she been not the least disturbed, as perhaps she had anticipated such a possibility.
She had put her arms around him and kissed him, slowly and for several seconds, sdll gazing into his eyes, saying not a word but leaving no doubt that she was repeating her terms, that if he took her now he must take her forever. And he could still remember the heaven induced by that first touch, the velvet-like quality of the tight drawn flesh which encased her ribs, the sudden swell of the breasts, so soft and yet so firm, which had left him trembling like a babe, the gentle smile with which she had retreated to the bed, drawing him to her as she had drawn him into the room.
After eight months he could still remember the feeling that he would burst when he had felt himself against her belly, the desire to scream with joy as her hands had in turn slipped down his thighs to seize him, to caress him to her satisfaction, to guide him. Then memory failed, but it returned to his feelings only a few seconds later, when he had known the bitter thought that no doubt, each night, she did a similar service for Dirk. But Dirk possessed her, and she possessed him. For he would have heard the suddenly loud gasp of pleasure, had there been pleasure, the tumultuous creaking of the bed, even above the rain which had filled his ears. And from thence forward there had been no failing of memory. He had wanted again and again and again, until she had been forced to escape him, leaving the bed and pouring water into the china basin to wash her face, while her hair drooped on each side of her cheeks; the sight had yet again drawn him from the bed to hold her round the waist, feel the magnificence of her buttocks against his belly, bring his mouth nuzzling into her shoulders.
How loud had the rain been that day, beating on his brain, repeating endlessly, Suzanne, Suzanne, Suzanne. 'Then you will leave with me?'
She had frowned. 'Now you are being foolish. Dirk would kill us both. There is nowhere we could escape him. He would certainly be aided by Robert.'
'But...'
She had kissed him, and resumed staring at him. 'I can only say, would you had happened back into my life, three years ago. But life is there, Matt, and we must make the best of it. Perhaps I never loved Dirk. Indeed I did not. I was informed that I was to marry him, because he and Robert were boyhood friends. Does it not amaze you, the way our lives are preordained by events that happen before we are even conceived? When Robert first returned from Oxford, he was, like you, sweet Matt, considered too young to manage a plantation, and so was given command of the sloop. He spent a good deal of each year in this town, this very house. So it never crossed his mind to refuse Dirk anything. And Dirk, has, I think, loved me from the first day he saw me.' 'But ..
'So there is an end to it. I am Dirk's wife, and must remain so until the day he dies. For both our sakes, now. But you must remain with me, Matt, as long as possible. No one need ever know. But without you, having known you, having held you in my arms, my darling, I should go mad. You must stay, Matt. Forever.'
Forever. And ever. And ever. And now it rained again, and it was November rain, not February, and she lay in his arms, her head pillowed on his shoulder, her soft golden strands lying across his chest and tickling his chin as she breathed. Without moving his head he could look down the long pale curve of her back to the mole which waited immediately above her left buttock, and beyond, to the endless delight of her legs. Perhaps she slept. She often did, in the middle of the afternoon. Her breath was even, and she was absolutely still, replenishing the exhausting passion which had consumed her but minutes before. One arm was round his neck, the other rested on his chest.
And if he was hers, then she was his, equally, now. If he still had to lie abed and listen to Dirk's grunts, he could be sure that she was thinking of him, and would be more eager for his embrace the next day. She was, indeed, Georgiana's sister, but with a cloak of maturity and restraint Georgiana had never possessed, a cloak perhaps of deceit and, as she would have it, criminal purpose, which could be thrown off as she chose, and donned again as she chose, which could send her so entrancingly from naked, sweatstained, tempestuous lover to serene distant cousin, placed to look after him, in a matter of seconds.
And Dirk suspected nothing. Perhaps there was the more serious crime, at least from his point of view. That he had lived here for more than a year, had celebrated his twenty-first birthday, had attained manhood and apparently become content to remain no more than a clerk at the warehouse, eating Dirk's food, drinking Dirk's wine, sheltering beneath Dirk's roof - and possessing Dirk's wife. There was crime.
But was that, even, the extent of his crime? He shut his mind to all else. He dared not think, of anyone or anything save Sue. To allow his brain to wander, even twenty miles from this house, was to damn himself forever. Sometimes, in his darkest moments, he wondered if he was not indeed the victim of some desperate conspiracy. He knew Georgiana. He knew Robert. He was not sure he knew or understood Sue at all, but she was their sister, and no doubt as capable as them of pursuing an objective with the single-minded determination of the Hiltons. When they were alone together he could not gainsay her love. But when they were in the company of others she was cool and even disdainful of him. No doubt this was a necessary part of the continuous deception they practised, as she constantly reminded him. But could he swear that she loved him as she pretended? That she was not really only interested in bedding a young man, as opposed to her husband? That she did not, indeed, know that this was the true way to keep him on Statia, to make him forget Gislane?
And could he deny that she had succeeded? Not in making him forget. But how easy to explain to himself. He had tried, to make his escape in February, and failed. It had been made clear to him, then, even had Suzanne not happened into his life, that his departure from Statia was going to take a great deal of patient endeavour, and perhaps even require the audacity of the stowaway, with no guarantee as to the attitude of the captain when he was discovered, or the thief, with no guarantee that he would be able to navigate his craft successfully to Nevis. No doubt he was in many ways a coward; he could not imagine this situation daunting Kit Hilton. Or Tom Warner and his vigorous, determined son. They had built this empire; he was no more than the heir.
And then, having failed to escape in time to greet Gislane's arrival in Nevis, what was there left? She had now been the slave, the chattel, the plaything of James Hodge for nine months. Long enough indeed for her to have been delivered of a child by that foul brute. She would have no defences against him. And before that she would have been the plaything of the crew of the ship which had taken her from Bristol. Once that thought had filled him with rage; now he knew better. To love, to be loved, was to share, to be possessed. One could retain nothing, and he could not see that it would be possible to retain anything even supposing one was an unwilling partner. He could not envisage life without Sue; he was not prepared to envisage life without Sue, even should she truly be playing no more than Robert's game in her own way. So then, what could Gislane have left for him, or him for her?
Unless she had rejected everything, had submitted no more than was necessary, to the lash, to the constant humiliation, to the business of being a slave. And of course Gislane would have accepted nothing more than this, and would put all her trust in him, and his promise of freedom from the dreadful fact that overshadowed her life. Then indeed was he criminal, was he damned.
And even now he had not reached the end of it. For what of the Nicholsons? What misery had he brought on them by his blind passion? And theirs was the increased misery of not knowing, for being guilty of breaking West Indian law they could not even seek their foster child themselves.
But could that alter the fact, that it was impossible for any woman to have undergone the fate of Gislane and remain unchanged? That the girl with whom he had fallen in love no longer existed? That to seek to marry her now, after Hodge and after Sue, would be to make a mockery of both their lives? Easy to think. There was the rational man of the world solving the problems of the world with lofty disinterest.
Then why did he lie awake at night, and know nothing but misery, when he should have been the happiest man in the world? But perhaps misery was the lot of man. And did he not have a part to play? As the master of Hilltop, and the master of Green Grove, did he not have to take his place in the world, in history? Dare he have the effrontery to throw all that away? Was he not, indeed, very much in the position of a Crown Prince? There were sufficient kings in the world with less patrimony than Robert Hilton. And could a Crown Prince ever afford to give way to the demands of his own heart, when set against the demands of the state? The West Indies was his kingdom, and his responsibility to the numberless human beings who would in time depend upon his prosperity, his justice, his influence, must surely outweigh all others.
There was the most insidious consideration of all. And yet, not quite. For the woman at his side was stirring, drawing her legs up, contracting her muscles, and then releasing them in a long stretch, and her fingers were sliding across his belly to remind him that Dirk would not be back for another hour, at the least.
'You are a lazy fellow,' she whispered. 'Or have you grown tired of me?'
He turned her on to his chest with a heave of his left arm. She smiled at him, her hair dropping on either side of her face to tickle his chin. 'There was not a possibility, sweetheart,' he said. 'But I lie here, and wonder, what is to become of us.'
She pouted and let her lips brush his. 'You are too young to worry so about the future.'
'And you?'
'Yet eventually Robert will arrive, and pronounce me fit to leave.'
'That must depend upon my report of you.' 'And what will you say? Can you believe I dream of any woman but you?'
Suddenly she was serious, with that long stare which seemed to paralyse him. 'I do not know. I do not know what to believe about you. I only know that while you are here, with me, you can want no other woman.'
'So you will keep me here forever?'
The glorious smile broke through the solemnity, and she reached forward to bite his chin. 'I suppose not. I suppose I must let you go, eventually.'
'And will you not come with me, then? On Green Grove Dirk can have no terrors for us.'
HF - 03 - Mistress of Darkness Page 21