He was asking a question. 'It will,' Kit promised.
'Aye,' Mr Walker said. 'And it will be done this day, I do promise you, Captain. As I have said, we live in too confused and uncertain a world for credit.'
'Meaning that some rogue may seek to strike me down, before I leave town?'
'I doubt there is a man on this island possesses the courage to risk such an attempt, Captain. No, no, I merely suggest that the island is in such a state of flux, with family divided against family, with our Deputy Governor by now, no doubt, incarcerated in the Tower of London, with the owners of the richest plantation on the island at loggerheads, with the House of Assembly prorogued, why, no man may tell what tomorrow will bring.' He took the conveyance from his clerk; the ink was still wet. 'There is your deed, sir. The house is yours. You at least should be content.'
'You make me feel a villain,' Kit muttered. 'Who has extracted this document from you by force of arms.'
Mr Walker permitted himself a dry smile. 'Indeed, sir, were this bill not to be honoured, then you would have done nothing less. But we are entering the realms of speculation. That is ever an unsound practice for lawyers, would you not agree? Should I need to contact you about any small matter, no doubt I will know where to find you.'
'You will.' Kit went outside into the street. Passers-by averted their eyes and hurried on their way. There was no one in St John's would challenge him now. Philip Warner had been gone a fortnight, and memories were short. There was work to be done, and rum to be drunk, and lives to be led. Dominica was a long way away, and England even farther, and the war was done. No doubt there would be a stir, when the outcome of the trial was learned, but even that would cause little of a ripple at this distance, saving in the Warner family.
His family. He mounted, and rode for Green Grove, following the roads he knew so well. Already the fields were restored, the houses repaired and repainted. Save that the crop had been set back perhaps two months the raid might never have been.
And the sun was just beginning to dominate the sky. She would have returned from aback, and be in her bath.
Maurice Peter took the bridle. 'Welcome home, Captin.'
"Tis only a visit, Maurice Peter. Where are the children?'
'Here I am, Papa.' Tony stood on the verandah, staring at him with solemn eyes. 'Where have you been, Papa?'
'Away. Here, I've a present for you.'
It was a short sword, hardly more than a dirk. Tony took it even more solemnly, turned it over.
'It is very beautiful, Papa. Have you something for
Rebecca?'
'Aye.' He kissed the girl, gave her the doll. 'All for you.' 'Oh, Papa,' she squeaked. 'It has eyes, Papa. It has eyes.' None of Rebecca's dolls had eyes, after the first twenty-four hours.
'All the better to see us.' He entered the drawing-room, and Miss Johnson hastily stood up.
'We had not expected you, Captain Hilton.'
'Or you'd have dressed them in their best? Am I that much of a stranger?'
'Indeed you are,' Marguerite said from the top of the stairs. 'But none the less welcome.'
She wore her crimson undressing-robe, and her skin glowed; she must just have left the tub. And how beautiful, how arrogant, how confident she was. Because he had come home? But if ever he might have thought of staying, here was reason to leave again.
'Ellen Jane,' she called. 'Sangaree, for the master and myself. Will you come up, Kit?'
He slowly climbed the stairs. She did not wait for him, but turned and entered the bedroom. Yet was there still a memory; she did not take off her robe.
'Do you wish me to apologize?' she asked.
'Why should you do that?'
She sat on the bed. 'I lost my temper. I lose my temper too easily.'
'You had every reason, on that occasion.' He watched the maid bring in the tray, and fill the two glasses. He took his, and raised it. 'I wish good fortune to your father.'
She smiled. 'Oh, he will have that, never fear. You sailed with Morgan. You no doubt recall the terrible fate which overtook him, and you must also remember that his crime was far greater, in political eyes, at any rate, than Father's.'
'Indeed it was. Then you imagine that he will be returned here, in triumph.'
She poured some more sangaree. 'I anticipate that, Kit, certainly. But I do not suppose that you have come here to speak of my father. You have had a honeymoon with your Danish charmer, and you are purchasing her a house down in Falmouth. Capital. It is exactly what I suggested.'
'I signed the bill for that, and for some other necessaries, this morning,' Kit said.
'Very good,' she said. 'I am sure you were not robbed. Now, when are you returning here?'
' 'Tis that I come to see you about. I shall not be returning here.'
She set down her glass. 'Do not be a fool, Kit.'
'I think I have always been a fool, when it comes to expediency,' Kit said. 'Lilian has given up a great deal, for me. I will not have her nothing more than a kept woman.'
'I do not see how you can change her status,' Marguerite pointed out. 'There can be no question of a divorce between us. I have committed no crime against you.'
'That I know, and appreciate. I but wished to make my position clear.'
'Your position,' she said contemptuously. 'You are a man who carries deep grudges, and for a long time. Very well, then. Kit. Go to your blonde bitch. You will soon weary of her. You will soon remember where your rightful place lies. And then you will be back.' She smiled at him, but her mouth was twisted. 'And I shall have the coverlet turned down, for that day.'
'I shall not trouble you for money, after this bill is settled.'
'You will seek employment, in St John's?' she inquired. 'I know. You can be foreman of the stevedores. Oh, Kit, Kit, were you not so serious, so determined, so upright, you would be amusing. Your expenses are Green Grove's expenses, for you are master of Green Grove. What, would you suddenly decide not to be a man any more, but instead a dog, because you fancy a dog's life is more acceptable? Are you a magician, that you can throw off your humanity? You are master of Green Grove. I made you that, Kit. And the day you die, regardless of where it may be, in what stinking hole it may be, what stinking disease may be the cause of it, you will still be master of Green Grove.'
'I wish I could understand you,' Kit said. 'If it is a matter of pride ...'
'Pride,' she shouted, coming upright on the bed, her eyes molten pits of green hell. 'Pride? Fear? Avarice? Greed? Courage? Anger? Love? What have I to do with words? Do you think I rule the slaves because I am prouder than they? Because I am braver? Because I fear less? Because I love more? Should I ever stop to consider what emotion must govern my power I am lost. As you are continually lost by making just that inquiry. I am here, and they are there, because I accept no limitations, no puerile humanities.'
'By God,' he said. 'You do see yourself as a demigoddess.'
'And am I not, to them? To everyone on this island? To everyone in the world who knows of my existence? And I placed you beside me, Kit Hilton. After due consideration. So even I can make a mistake. But there you have it. I cannot make a mistake. Go to your Danish whore. Love her and love her and love her, until she makes you sick, and then come back here and take your place. I will not reproach you. For who should dare to criticize a god? Not even another god. Go. Hurry. The sooner you leave here, the sooner will you be tired of her.'
Be tired of Lilian. As if such an eventuality could ever be imagined, much less be considered possible. Lilian was not a tiring person. Where Marguerite had always exhausted, she sought only to soothe. Their love play was cool, almost restrained, in its beginning, and yet always with the promise of more, of the sudden overflow of passion which convulsed her as much as him. And yet even the passion contained a different quality. Lilian sought to please him, and in doing that found pleasure herself. She demanded nothing more, nor could he persuade her to accept anything more. But in pleasing him she was anxious to accep
t his every whim, his every mood, his every desire, and could any man ask for anything more?
But loving and possessing Lilian's body was no more than a part of it. On Green Grove, he was coming to realize, he had loved Marguerite, physically, or managed the estate, physically. When she had played the spinet it had been to consume the tireless energy of her own fingers; just as when he had opened a book it had inevitably been an account book. There was no stress, no goal in sight, with Lilian. She liked to walk, and they strolled for miles along the foreshore, holding hands. Marguerite had never walked anywhere except up a flight of steps in her life; it would never have occurred to her to do so.
And when she walked, Lilian talked, about Denmark, about the frost-bitten winters, about the balmy summers, fluctuations of climate which Kit had never known and found it difficult to appreciate. But she could talk of other places too, for her father had wandered for much of his life before coming to rest in Antigua. She spoke of Holland and of France and of England. And she grew excited when he told her of Morgan and Panama. She was a young girl in her mind, avid for tales of adventure and faraway places, unaware that she had more of a tale to tell than he, that she was in herself a more interesting person.
And she worked in the garden. This was a continually amazing sight, to watch her kneeling beside Abigail, tending some new plant with the care she might have bestowed upon a dying man, those slender white fingers stained with dirt, that golden glory starting to drop in disorganized wisps about her ears and over her forehead.
She revealed happiness, in herself, and in her being. To awake in the morning, and to inhale, was happiness, for Lilian Christiansscn. Whatever followed would also be happiness, she had no doubt, but she was content to have it follow in its proper course, at its proper time, and then to enjoy it as fully as she enjoyed merely stretching, and knowing her health, and her immediate comfort. She never spoke of her parents or her religion, beyond a tendency always to place his weapons out of sight when he took them off. When she prayed it was by herself, in a corner of the bedroom, on her knees, her face turned to the wall. He was not invited to join her. So, for what did she pray? For her forgiveness, or for his conversion? And indeed he was tempted, time and again, to kneel beside her. But in no religious spirit. Only to share the one part of her being which was barred to him.
And she did not speak of the future. The future was perhaps too uncertain even for her. She revealed this in her tears at Abigail's pregnancy. Agrippa was beside himself with joy, and Kit felt vastly complimented. His friends would not bring a child into the world they had known in St John's, but this world, the world he had created for them, was acceptable. But not for Lilian, yet. There was no permanence, in Falmouth, for a fugitive from family and convention. And for all the delights of a continual honeymoon, with nothing to do but eat, sleep, love and laugh, tend the garden and help Agrippa spread the nets for the fish which formed the main part of their diet, they both knew that he could not continue to stagnate for the rest of his life.
Yet he needed a crisis to stir him from his lethargy. The death of the King reminded him that time waited for no man. Still would he not leave Lilian's side. 'You will have to go, Agrippa, old friend.' he said. 'I will give you letters, and you will take the sloop from English Harbour, and go to Sandy Point, and request an audience of Sir William. He will grant it readily enough when he learns it comes from me. I wish a post, with the Government. The Government of the Leeward Islands, not the Government of Antigua, and preferably at sea, although I will command on land if need be. He promised me no less, and now I would ask it of him.'
'Aye,' Agrippa said, with satisfaction. For he too had feared that the sharpness of the blade which was his friend would be blunted by inactivity.
'Necessary?' Lilian asked, as they watched the sloop bobbing across the passage to the sister island. 'Why must men always do?'
'Because they are men. But I shall not be doing so very much, lover, or be so very far away from you.'
'I would like you, always, right here at my side, Kit.'
'Because when I am gone you begin to doubt.'
She glanced at him, frowning, surprised that he should be capable of that much understanding. 'I am not as strong as you would wish, perhaps.'
He laughed, and held her hand for the walk back along the beach to their little house. 'Allow me to have the strength, and you rest content with the goodness which bubbles out of you like steam from a volcano.'
Yet was she invested with more passion than ever in the past, at the thought of losing him, if only for a few days a week, and they resumed their honeymoon with more intensity than ever before, to awake one morning to the sight of Agrippa hurrying up the beach from English Harbour, accompanied by an officer of the St Kitts garrison.
Kit pulled on his breeches and ran down the stairs. 'Holloa,' he shouted. 'Am I then to be arrested for being happy?'
The officer panted, and removed his hat as he reached the cottage. 'Ensign Frankland at your service, sir. And right glad am I to meet you, Captain Hilton.'
'I am sure the pleasure will be mutual,' Kit said. 'Come in, man, come in. You'll take a glass of rum?'
'Indeed, sir, that would be most pleasant.' Frankland sat down without being invited, and mopped his face. Abigail hurried forward with a glass.
Kit glanced at Agrippa. 'There has been some mishap?' 'Well, that is hard to say.'
'We hope not, sir. We hope not.' Frankland drank deeply, and seemed to feel more in command of himself. 'First of all, sir, I am charged to say that you shall have whatever employment you wish, when the other matter is settled.'
'The other matter?'
'Your first duty must be to act as a witness for the Crown in the affair of Philip Warner.'
Kit frowned at him. 'Witness? I wrote out and signed my deposition before the Governor himself. What, would they have me travel to England?'
'No, sir, and there is the point. The English Government, having due regard to their distance from the alleged crime, and the distinguished services which are laid to the credit of Colonel Warner, have concluded that it would be invidious of them to try him for his life. He is being returned.'
'To St John's?' Kit could not believe his ears.
'No, sir. Even Her Majesty's councillors recognize that there would be little prospect of acquiring an unbiased jury here in the Leewards. His trial is to be held in Barbados. Before a jury of Barbadian planters. Yet, sir, is Sir William Stapleton determined to mount as firm an assault as he may upon this vicious murderer. He is despatching a ship from Sandy Point, which will call at St John's to take on board all the witnesses to the deed that can be found. And at the top of the list, sir, must necessarily rest your name.'
IO
The Trial
'The devil,' Kit said. 'Barbados.' He gazed at Agrippa. 'They bear Philip no great love.'
'He is a planter, as are they,' Agrippa said.
'You'd not contemplate refusing the Governor's subpoena?' Frankland demanded. 'By God, sir, coming from that quarter it is a command.'
'Aye,' Kit said. 'Nor did it cross my mind to refuse it.'
'You'll go to Barbados?' Lilian asked softly.
'I must, sweetheart. Agrippa will remain with you, and see to your every requirement. Will you not, old friend?'
'Of course, Kit.'
'And you'll pledge my credit, where necessary,' Kit said.
'It is not that that concerns me,' Lilian protested. 'It is the time. A trial of this nature can take weeks, perhaps months, and then there is the journeying to and from that distant land, and the dangers attendant upon it ...'
'Sweetheart,' Kit cried, taking her shoulders to hold her against him. 'I have spent my life surviving the worst that these Caribbean waters can attempt. And can you not see, this must be done? I was informed, by no less a person than Marguerite, that Philip had powerful friends working for him in England. She was under the impression that he would, indeed, be subjected to nothing more than an inquiry, like
Henry Morgan, and perhaps a month or two in the Tower, to make him aware of the King's displeasure, before being released and returned here, no doubt with a knighthood. But we also seem to have friends at court; if they will not try Philip there, at least they have not acquitted him. He is our responsibility now, and who knows, this may be a most important principle they concede. Yet must we carry the case to a proper conclusion. For should he be returned here, and the case against him go badly for lack of evidence, why, I had better have kept silent from the beginning.'
She gazed at him from those clear blue eyes. 'And suppose, despite all, he is acquitted?'
"That is not possible, madam, with the evidence Captain Hilton shall give,' Frankland said. 'He was there. He saw the deed. And it was his word pledged to the Caribs.'
HF - 03 - The Devil's Own Page 35