'Instead of being the whore we all know you are,' Georgiana said. And then sat up. 'Oh, Sue, I'm sorry. It's just that... it's not what he does to me that I mind. It is his selfishness. A ball... how I have longed for a ball, so often. And he would not have one. Now he is having a ball, and I am confined with this wretched burden. How could ever a man be so cruel?'
'Will he not be condemned for it, in Cap Francois society? Perhaps no guests will come.'
'Not come, to Rio Blanco, to a ball? Condemned? Oh, he will be talked about. But that is all he seeks, to be talked about. Nor will anyone condemn his treatment of me, tonight. The things I could tell you ...'
'The things you must tell me,' Sue said. 'Listen. I will make my way back up here, early, tonight. This night, at the least, that coloured woman will scarce be present, and we shall be able to talk, and tell each other ...' she paused, at the expression on Georgiana's face.
'Monsieur Corbeau desires your presence, Mistress Huys. The guests are arriving.' Gislane wore her ordinary gown, and her hair was loose. She waited, holding the door of the bedchamber open, and the noise was louder.
'Do you not attend the ball, Gislane?'
'No, madame. I am cafe-au-lait.'
Sue hesitated, glanced at Georgiana again, and went into the antechamber. The doors were softly closed behind her.
'Do you not stay, to torment madame with your presence?' Sue asked over her shoulder. 'Or do you suppose you can torment me the more, with your presence.'
'I do not torment the madame, Mistress Huys. In many ways I am her only support, as we have suffered, and continue to suffer, in much the same way.'
Sue stopped before the outer doors to the apartment, waited for the mustee to draw level. 'Yet you must hate her.'
'I could say that your sister destroyed my life, madame.'
‘You have survived, after your own fashion,' Sue said. 'And I would say that I played a greater part in your destruction, by distracting Matt from your search. Because you may believe me, he was bent upon finding you, and marrying you, even if it caused his own ruin.'
Gislane smiled, for the first time that Sue had noticed. 'Then you have made me very happy, madame. I would not have liked to suppose that he forgot me in a minute.'
'And me?'
'Oh, I imagine I hate you as well, madame. But then, is it not reasonable for someone in my position to hate everything and everyone which is purely white? Especially someone as remarkably white as yourself.' She continued to smile. 'I really would go down now, madame, or the master will become angry. And when he is angry he is capable of the most remarkable acts of violence, regardless of the company.'
Sue hesitated for a moment longer, then opened the door and stepped into the corridor. Gislane followed, but did not go down the stairs. She remained, standing outside the closed door to Georgiana's apartments, listening to the music for some seconds. Another blessed night of freedom. Another blessed night.
She turned left, hurried along the corridor, down the inner stairs and through the pantries. There was no need for concealment. The servants, busy with their bowls of punch, their trays of canapes, waiting to be refilled by the perspiring cooks, carefully averted their eyes. No slave on Rio Blanco would dare suppose where their mamaloi might be hurrying while the white people danced. No slave on Rio Blanco would even dare remember that they had seen her, come morning.
She made her way through the rose garden, taking deep breaths of the cool fresh air, reached the marble wall which surrounded the chateau, and opened the postern gate. She stood for a moment on the edge of the rushing water of the white river, and then made her way along the bank, beneath the shade of the huge trees, gently rustling, the night to her right a blaze of sound and light and laughter as Mistress Huys was displayed to Cap Francois society. Now there was some need for caution. The petit-blancs from the overseers' village always gathered at the foot of the drive when the master was entertaining, to admire and to envy. Usually the cafe-au-laits also did so, but this night they were absent. The mulattoes had kept very much to themselves since the dreadful deaths of Oge and Chavannes. And was she not a mulatto? Or were they not merely as much outsiders as the whites themselves, because as they would ape those with fairer skins they went to mass and believed in the Christ, instead of the true master of their souls, the Great Serpent, Damballah Oueddo?
And beyond the gates there waited the noirs, also watching, and envying. And hating. But, like the house servants, they would not acknowledge her passing even if they saw her. Nor were all of them there this night, for now that the music was dominating the night as it issued from the chateau, it was time for the drum to start.
Gislane paused beneath the trees, to change her gown for her blood-stained, sweat-stained, earth-stained, semen-stained, red gown, to wrap her hair in her red turban, to feel the night air caressing her body, to know what she was about. And this night would be like no other. She waited, for those who would approach her, took her place with them, close to Boukman, gazing with wide eyes at the wizened figure of the coachman, for who had not heard of Toussaint, and at the short, squat, immensely powerful figure of the bull man, for who had not heard of Dessalines, and then smiled at the tall, strong, young figure of Henry Christophe. For he she counted her friend.
'There is a woman,' he said, as they walked through the night, following the drum, following the dancers, following the sacrifice. 'A woman with yellow hair.'
'She is sister to madame,' Gislane said. And glanced at him. "You have seen her?'
'In Cap Francois, when she first came,' Christophe said. 'For a moment. And she looked at me, and saw me.'
'And now you wish her,' Gislane said. 'When the time comes?'
'No,' Christophe said. 'No. I have little time for women. And none for white women. My fate is to serve my people. But she noticed me, and looked at me, and felt my eyes upon her. She is not as others.'
‘Yet she is one of them,' Gislane said, her voice hardly more than a whisper.
And now Christophe's head turned, and he looked at her. 'How you must hate,' he said. 'How you must hate, Gislane.'
They reached the clearing, and were taking their places. Christophe remained behind, with Toussaint and Dessalines, dropping to his knees on the earth, away from the guttering oil-filled coconut shells, from the swaying believers, already prepared to lose themselves in the chaotic ecstasy of the coming minutes, away from the sacrifice, seated cross-legged between his attentive maidens, away even from the hougan and his swaying, tossing mamaloi. He glanced at his two companions. Did they believe, in what they were about to see? Did he believe himself? He did not know. He sometimes wondered what he did, with these two mighty men. He was so much the younger, so much the less known. Yet they valued his words, valued his presence, valued his service.
The drumbeat quickened, the mamaloi danced in the centre of the gathering, threw her arms to heaven, called upon all the great spirits of the universe to come down this night and visit their people.
'There is news, from the English islands,' Toussaint said. 'A planter is dead. He has been hanged, by his own people, for murdering a slave.'
'They fight amongst themselves,' Dessalines growled. 'As they fight in France. In France it is said the king himself is a prisoner.'
The mamaloi was finished, and the hougan advanced into the centre of the clearing. Christophe felt his heartbeat quicken. At what would now happen? Or what would happen later? He did not know. He watched the mamaloi, kneeling close to her priest, watched the cutlass flying through the air, watched the blood spurt.
'Then it is now,' Dessalines said. 'All the signs are with us.'
'Not all.' Toussaint also watched the hougan, offering the severed head to the heavens. Did he believe? Could he, the old one, who was so wise and so thoughtful? 'Do you not understand what we do, Jean-Jacques. Have you thought?'
'I think of nothing else,' Dessalines said. 'I know what we do, coachman.'
'I doubt that,' Toussaint said. 'We declar
e war, not on the planters, Jean-Jacques. We declare war on the world, for there are only white people, in our world. No one will come from Africa to be our allies. It will be a time for killing, yes, for being avenged, yes, but it will also be a time for dying, and for suffering. For all of our people. Have you thought of that, Jean-Jacques?'
The head had been replaced, and the drumbeat was quickening. The corpse rose slowly, stiffly to its feet, pulled the red cloth from its head. The mamaloi was naked, and dancing, posturing and shaking, her turban unwinding and her hair following it to flail the night. And now she looked for her hougan.
'So we will wait,' Toussaint said. 'For the day the prophecy is fulfilled in every way, for the day Damballah comes to us, dark as night and yet covered in shining light.'
'Then look,' Christophe shouted, rising to his feet. 'Look and bow your head to the Serpent.'
For as Boukman danced, the moon came through the trees; pin-pointing his blackness, and gleaming from the sweating white body of the woman as she twined herself around her lover, leg with leg, groin with groin, arm with arm, mouth with mouth.
'It is there,' Dessalines whispered. 'White shrouding black, moving, alive. It is there. Now Toussaint. Now. The hour will not come again.'
'Yet must it be prepared,' Toussaint said. 'We will need time. A month. Perhaps two.'
'But you have seen the god,' Christophe said. 'It will happen. Swear that it will happen.'
'I will give the signal,' Toussaint said. 'It will happen.'
'And the leader?' Dessalines demanded. 'Who will lead?'
Toussaint stared at the dancing figures, the gleaming white and the impenetrable black. 'The god will lead,' he said. 'In the beginning.'
Daylight filtered through endless opaque atmospheres, and was followed by sound. Plantation sounds, house sounds. And memory. This was not Hilltop, as she might have first supposed, but Rio Blanco, a strange world. An alien world. Which had finally engulfed her in its tentacles.
Suzanne sat up, dragged hair from her eyes, looked across the room at the discarded ice-pink gown, the scattered gloves, the shoes. And then down at herself, for she had kicked off the sheets in the night. The spider and the fly. And now the fly belonged to the spider. Oh no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That was childish talk, and she was no child. She wondered if she had ever been a child. If she had, her youth had ended with her marriage, with her sudden transference into a world of masculine adultness. Dirk had been brutal, selfish, domineering, without considering the matter. He was a brutal, selfish, domineering man. And he had valued her. Matt was still in many ways a boy. But he was such an attractive boy, filled with romantic, idealistic, energetic quests and fancies. And Louis?
How easily she thought the name, how easily she slipped into the way of accumulating another man. There. She had accumulated him, and not the other way about. As long as she remembered this, there was nothing to fear.
So then, was she not ashamed of herself? She drew back the mosquito netting and walked across the room, still scooping sweat-stained hair from her face and eyes, holding it clear of her neck with both hands, arms up to stretch her muscles and raise her breasts. She stood before the full length mirror, gazed at herself, and then smiled, at herself. Suzanne Marguerite Hilton. The name had never meant anything before. Now it meant everything. She had been christened after the two most famous Hilton women; should she not then expect herself to take after them? Because it was dawning on her that she had indeed accumulated. She had known that she would find herself in bed with Louis Corbeau from the day of their first meeting. As from that moment he had wanted her. And she had known that too. That she had resisted the temptation for so long was entirely out of loyalty to Matt.
So then, what of Matt? He would have to forgive her. As she had forgiven him for Gislane. Because she was realizing, too, that it was meeting the mustee which had brought her to the point of doing more than dream. No doubt it was femininely childish, to need such an excuse, to require such an excuse. But all evening, as they had danced, oblivious of anyone else in the crowded room, oblivious of heat and noise and even movement, smiling at each other as they whirled in front of each other, knowing that this was their night, she had thought of Gislane. She gave another little pirouette in front of the mirror, still holding her hair away from her neck and shoulders.
And watched the door opening, and stopped turning, to look at him in the mirror, in some surprise, for he wore an undressing-robe, although the morning was well advanced.
'Why are you not aback? Have you taken ill?'
He crossed the room, slowly, stood behind her, cupped her breasts in his hands as he brought her body against his, nuzzled the back of her neck. 'I have given myself a holiday. Why, should a man not give himself a holiday, after a ball such as last night's. After a night, such as last night?'
She turned in his arms. It was incredible what a thrill his fingers gave her, and she had been thrilled often enough. She kissed him on the mouth. 'I am undecided whether to hate myself or adore you.'
'Perhaps you should do both. But be sure of the second, sweet Sue. Last night ... I feel like a lovesick boy. I must undertake a great many things, usually to feel satisfaction. I must beat, and bite, and scratch. I must hurt. I must even hate. Have you a bruise on your body?'
She shook her head, slowly.
'Last night,' he said. His hands, which had slid from her breasts to her shoulders as she had turned, suddenly bit into her flesh. 'No one has ever satisfied me as you, Sue. Saving only Gislane. And I know she accomplishes her miracles from fear. But you ... you do not fear me, Sue.'
She shook her head once more.
'And you do that, for Matt?'
'It is my lot on this earth, it seems, to make men jealous.'
'Aye,' he said. 'Aye. That is your lot. But you will stay, here with me, and let other men suffer.'
Yet again she shook her head.
'I do not accept arguments from women,' he said.
'And will you then beat me, Louis? Be sure you will lose me. I am not Georgy. I am not even your Gislane. I am Suzanne Hilton.'
'By Christ,' he said. 'By Christ. Georgy was no less arrogant when she came to me. And now...'
'Georgy never knew the meaning of the word,' Sue said, still not moving, still feeling his fingers leaving their red marks upon her pale flesh. 'I will not be bullied. I will not be dominated. You would have the best of me. Well, so you shall, for a season. As I am here, I will stay, until Georgy is delivered.'
'That is only a few months,' he cried.
'And then I shall take myself and my children back to Jamaica.'
'Back to Matt.'
She nodded.
'Why, for Christ's sake? Why?'
'I love him. I shall marry him. Now.'
'Marry that... that agitator? He belongs on the streets of Paris, leading a mob. Not sharing a bed with you. And if you meant to marry him, you would have done so long ago.'
'I did not know for sure that I would marry him, before,' Sue said. 'Now I am sure.'
'But... you love me,' he cried, his confusion almost amusing to behold.
Sue kissed him on the nose. 'I adore you. But I would prefer to do so from a distance, most of the time. And I do not fear your dominance, if that is what you are thinking. You appeal to the bitch in me. There is some, you know, in every woman. You bring out my bitch's desires. I am not proud of those desires, Louis. Coming here was a mistake. But as the mistake has been made, I will enjoy it, and have something to remember, for the rest of my life. I will not make the mistake the rest of my life.'
'By Christ,' he said. 'By Christ. You think I'll let you go?'
'You will,' she said. There is a condition on which I will stay even for Georgy's deliverance.'
'You make conditions?'
'Indeed I do. I wish to write Robert. And I wish to write Matt. Be sure that if I do not they will be here quick enough. Do not be afraid. I shall not tell them of Gislane. Not even of what you have done to Georgy.'
'Afraid?' he shouted. 'Me? Of those two?'
'Be sure they will kill you, Louis, should you force them to it. And be sure too that you will lose everything you have planned and apparently gained, should you force them to it. They have discovered that after all their quarrelling they are both very much Hiltons, and that is good enough for each of them.'
'By Christ,' he said. 'You know all this?'
‘I have eyes, and ears. I can guess what you planned, by what you have accomplished. But Robert is perfectly capable of making another Will. So I will write. And you will see the letters are placed on a ship for Jamaica, Louis. Because if I do not receive an answer to my letters within the month you will again lose me.'
His hands fell away and he gazed at her. His eyes were so angry she almost thought he would strike her, and wondered in fact what she would do then.
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