Cash would not let himself be side-tracked. ‘Is it true?’
‘Of course it’s not true.’ Jack smiled slyly. And laughed. ‘Twasn’t the answer you were looking for, was it?’
‘If it’s the truth …’
‘But is it? Or is it …’ he snapped his fingers suddenly, making Cash’s strained nerves jump, ‘… a lie? You don’t know, do you? So you see, questions don’t serve.’ He went on without a change of inflection, without, it seemed, so much as a change of breath. ‘I had to do it, Cash.’
Realisation was like a muslin cloth cutting him off from Jack’s words, from the external world. He felt pain and an overwhelming sense of shock.
‘Why?’ A croak, barely recognisable.
‘Because God willed it. All these years I was telling myself it was wrong. I prayed to God. I begged him to take away the need, to preserve me from the sins of the flesh.’ Jack laughed, frenetic and shrill and sudden, and Cash stared at him in mounting horror. ‘You can see that, can’t you? That I should want that? But God never answered me. And then I realised I had been wrong. All the time I had been doing God’s will. He wanted me to carry on, to destroy evil, all the wicked people who lived their lives in defiance of his will. Sinners for the fire,’ Jack cried, gabbling.
He had taken hold of Cash’s arm and Cash could see spittle beading his lips. His voice was rising, his hand on Cash’s arm tightening, and Cash, looking at the brother whom he had thought he knew as well as himself, saw blackness looking out of the blue eyes. Blackness and a gibbering evil.
Unable to prevent himself, Cash wrenched himself free. Abruptly Jack stopped, staring at him, and Cash saw a dawning awareness surface in Jack’s eyes. The madness seeped away.
Jack covered his face with his hands. ‘Dear God,’ he whispered, ‘dear God.’
His heart bleeding for his brother but determined nonetheless to probe horror to the bottom, Cash asked, ‘How many were there?’
‘Six. Not including Cuddy. I lied, Cash. I’m sorry. I forced her, as she said.’ He spoke in a dull, exhausted voice. ‘Thornton knows.’
‘Thornton? How?’
‘Most of the girls worked for him.’ Jack’s lip curled. ‘He sent his man Duggan to threaten me. Wanted me to spy on you. I told him to go to the devil.’
‘I’d like to kill that man.’
‘That’s not the question, is it? The question is, what are you going to do about me? Hand me over? Or …’
‘I’ve considered the options.’
‘And?’
‘I don’t know.’
Tension sang like a tortured wire between them. Jack said, ‘You could kill me.’
‘I thought of that, too.’
‘You can’t simply ignore it, can you?’ He seemed to be goading him. ‘Perhaps I should solve your problem for you.’
Cash looked up at him. ‘How?’
‘It can’t go on, can it? Not with Thornton knowing. And now you. You see, I don’t seem to be able to control myself. Or perhaps I don’t try. I’ve always been a man of no courage. Either way, there has to be an ending.’
‘Perhaps a doctor …’
Jack shook his head, smiling. ‘I have seen them in action too often to have any faith in doctors.’
‘I’ll help you.’
Jack shook his head. ‘How? And for what? So that I can survive? Only that? I think it would be better to go on, don’t you?’
‘Go on where?’
‘That’s the question, isn’t it? If it’s a form of death to stay perhaps, if I choose death, I may find life. Who knows?’ He smiled. ‘I wonder how things would have worked out, with Gwen.’ He shrugged, turning. ‘Too late, now. Say goodbye to Father for me.’
‘Wait …’
Cash was scrambling to his feet.
Too late. Without another word, as Cash flung himself forward, arm outstretched, Jack stepped forward over the edge.
A rush of air. A scream, bursting from the belly, the heart, the brain, torn soundlessly from him as he fell.
All over. His first bird, snow, woman. Sunlight on the fresh leaves in spring, the feel of good soil between his fingers. Fear, doubts, regrets, hopes and what-might-have-beens: all gone.
God forgive me my sins. God forgive. God forg …
Into the consuming dark.
Running forward, Cash was in time to see the plummeting body strike the cliff halfway down, bounce outwards, strike again and fall at last on to the bed of scree at the foot of the cliff.
THIRTY-FOUR
After Cash had gone blundering into the night, Maud came silently into the living room.
Gough was sitting, big hands on his knees, long black hair with the first grey in it framing the swarthy, pirate’s face. He gave no sign of being aware of her presence. She ached to go to him, to try to share with him whatever it was he was feeling, but something held her back. He was alone with Jack, wrapped in a communion with who knew what memories. If she went to him now, she would intrude. She stood in the doorway, watching him, the two of them wrapt in a contemplation of sorrow, of the futility of a life gone from them.
Gough sat staring into the past. He did not notice the passing of time. Sometimes he talked to his son.
A bundle wrapped in a white shawl, black wisps of hair and crumpled face. A toddler running unsteadily through sunlight to meet his father’s horse. A boy, grave-eyed, black-haired, greeting the man, older now and wracked by illness, returning from the American war. The two of them holding each other, united against the anguished loss of a wife, a mother. A son he had not understood, who had allowed himself to be swayed by concepts of religion and morality out of touch with the realities of life in a convict settlement. Now he talked to him softly, sitting at his side before the empty fireplace. He tried to explain to him about the convict girl Gwen whom he had sent away to protect Jack from himself. He had tried to protect him against the world. In the end, he had been unable to protect him at all.
The darkness covered his eyes and he could see him no more.
At last Gough came to himself to discover the candles burnt down and Maud standing in the empty doorway. He smiled at her, lifting his hand from his knee. She came to him at once and raised the hand to her cheek. He turned his head, kissed the soft underside of her wrist.
‘So,’ he said.
He released her hand, stood and walked to the window to stare out at the dark world. She saw his shoulders grow firm beneath his jacket. This, like other things, would be endured, defeated, in time.
There was still Cash.
*
Eyes stark, face white and wet with tears, Cash came bursting out of the night into the house where the candle flames fluttered their welcome.
Cuddy was alarmed. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Jack …’ His chest heaved.
‘What abaht ’im?’
‘He’s dead.’
‘OhmyGod!’ She came to him. ‘’ow?’
He could hardly speak. His hands did the talking, flapping and flailing. ‘That bluff on the farm,’ he managed. ‘He jumped.’
Her first fear was that he would blame her, that he would think, if she had said nothing, Jack would still be alive.
Silently, she fetched him a drink. He ignored the glass, drank deeply from the bottle. The raw spirit struck like a blow, making him shudder. He sank into a chair, bottle swinging loosely from his hand.
‘I told Dad he slipped,’ he said. ‘An accident.’
Not knowing how to comfort him, not sure she should even try, she knelt at his feet.
‘You were right,’ he said presently. ‘He did kill that girl. And beat the others … It was a … a sickness.’
Tears were flowing down his face. She had never seen a man cry, except in drink. Still she said nothing, her breath choking in her throat at the sight of his distress.
‘He said he was killing himself to … to save me from having to make a decision. What to do, I mean. About him.’ Cash’s voice creaked like a
rusty hinge.
She looked up at him. ‘You were there?’
‘Close as I am to you. One minute he was there. The next … Gone.’
She said, ‘I’m sorry …’
He looked at her carefully. ‘Are you? Yes, I can see you are. It was the best thing, of course. Wouldn’t you say?’
He got to his feet and began to pace furiously to and fro about the tiny room. The candle flames leapt with the air of his passing, throwing gigantic shadows flapping black about the room.
‘He couldn’t have … gone on. I couldn’t have allowed it. I had a choice, he said. To turn him in or … or kill him. So he killed himself instead.’
His despairing voice beat against the walls like the wings of birds.
‘Saved me a job,’ he said. His face was wet, his eyes staring, seeing horror. He looked wildly at the bottle that was still in his hand. He lifted it with a violent gesture, then checked. ‘No,’ he said, as though to himself, ‘that won’t help.’
He put the bottle down with elaborate care on the table.
‘I wish I could help you,’ Cuddy said helplessly.
‘No one can help.’
‘I know that. I wish, that’s all.’
‘Of course it was the best thing.’ He spoke in the same quiet, well-modulated voice, reasonably, and yet in a way that seemed to blame her – or himself – for everything that had happened. ‘This way, people are … safe. And no one need ever know.’
She went to speak but checked herself. Now was not the time to say that people did know, as she had known, that this sort of thing could never be kept quiet.
‘But if that is the case,’ he said, desperate smile, desperate voice cracking the shell of calm reason, ‘why does it feel so … terrible?’
She went to him then. The despair in his voice unlocked her emotions at last and she wept – for Cash, for herself, even for Jack, for all the suffering world.
She held him to her. Presently, she said, ‘Come …’
He looked at her. A spasm – of anger? disgust? – moved across his face. ‘What good will that do?’
She could not answer him. This offering of herself to him was the only way she had of telling him what she could not put into words – that she understood him, the loss he felt, the guilt, the anguish. It was all she knew or could give.
Later, their tears mingling, she held his head to her breast, gentling him as she would a child, while together they sought an easing of their pain.
*
The next morning at eight o’clock, as arranged, Seamus Duggan called on Birkett to escort him to Carter’s house. Thomas’s face was white, whether from booze or terror Duggan couldn’t be sure. Both, probably.
The two strolled down the road, Duggan chattering cheerfully, Thomas maintaining a sullen silence at his side. The sun shone. A fresh breeze had blown away the humidity. The tide was in, masking the stench of sewage from the mud flats which had grown considerably since the Tank Stream had started to silt up.
‘Beautiful day,’ Duggan said. ‘Good enough for a wedding.’ And winked.
When they reached the house Duggan knocked briskly on the door.
‘I’ll wait here,’ he said to Thomas when the servant opened the door. ‘No sense in crowding the man.’
Inside the house, Birkett was made effusively welcome. Mrs Carter beamed as her husband escorted the young man into his study. She went to her own room thinking fondly that the poor boy was looking white. Must be suffering from nerves already.
She was therefore quite unprepared for what happened next – a sudden bellow of rage, the slamming of doors. Within seconds, her own door was thrown open. Archibald irrupted into the room. His face was stark-white with bloodless lips, his eyes ablaze with fury.
‘My dear …’ Mrs Carter’s hand fluttered to her breast. ‘Whatever is the matter?’
‘I’ll tell ye what’s the matter.’ His agitation was so great he sprayed spittle as he spoke. ‘Yon wee cockerel’s changed his mind.’
THIRTY-FIVE
That night, when Cuddy heard that the marriage between Virginia Carter and Thomas Birkett was no longer to take place, she went to see Maud Clark.
‘A good thing,’ Maud said.
‘Good for who?’
‘For everyone. Good for the girl. Good for Cash. Good for you.’
‘Why is it good for me?’
Maud said, ‘My dear, Cash was never for you.’
Resentment flashed its blade. ‘You’re a fine one to talk …’
‘I know. Me and his father. It’s not the same.’
‘Because of what I was.’ Bitterly.
‘That’s nothing to do with it. Because Gough is older. He would never have wanted me twenty years ago.’
A kettle was boiling on its trivet on the edge of the hearth. Maud took a cloth and moved it off the fire.
‘Nobody cares what I want,’ Cuddy said.
‘That’s nonsense talking. You think you’d be happy, married to Cash Tremain?’
‘Why not?’
‘Going to all those receptions? At the governor’s? At the Hagwoods’? Always worrying about how to behave? Having the old cats talking about you behind your back? About what you used to do? You think you got it hard now, be ten times worse, you do that.’
‘’e marries ’er, I’m not stoppin’.’
‘What would you do, go back to your old life?’
‘Yair. No. Not that,’ she wailed. ‘Why did it ’ave to ’appen? We was ’appy before.’
‘Tell you what I’ll do,’ said Maud.
‘What?’
‘Gough’s thinking of building a big house over the river from Hagwood’s place.’ She paused. ‘House as big as that’d be too much for me to handle by myself.’
‘You mean …?’
‘Why not come with us if it happens? Like you say, you wouldn’t want to stay on here if Cash gets wed. Let me have a word with Gough tonight. See what he thinks.’
*
Two days after Thomas Birkett broke off their engagement, Virginia Carter met with Cash Tremain, not entirely by accident, on the corner of the wharf.
‘I was so distressed to hear about your brother,’ she said.
His face, she thought, looked drawn, older.
‘It was a tragedy. He slipped when he was doing some work on top of the cliff.’ He looked about him. ‘You’ve come out alone?’
‘I hope you’re not scolding me?’
Coming out unescorted was something she had never done before. It would vex her mother but she found herself caring less and less about such things: ladylike behaviour had done nothing to protect her during the past month, and where had her mother been when she needed her?
She had given up all hope and then been granted a reprieve. She had spent weeks in dread of the marriage, hating her parents and her bridegroom for it, hating herself most of all for lacking the courage to withstand the lot of them. Very well. The miracle had happened. She was free. She would never allow herself to walk in such a shadow again. If it meant going out alone in order to prove it to herself, so be it.
Cash looked down at her. ‘You’re your own agent now. Far be it from me to interfere.’ The blue eyes flashed a smile. ‘It’s the custom to congratulate someone when they get engaged. I wasn’t here when it happened and I would not have congratulated you, anyway. But I’m more than happy to congratulate you now you’re no longer engaged to … that man.’
‘I prayed. But I hardly dared believe it, even when I heard he’d changed his mind.’
He could sense relief running through her in a torrent. ‘You never learned why?’
‘I don’t care. Just that he’s done it is good news enough.’
‘And your parents …?’
She smiled. ‘They were furious.’
‘No danger there may be another change of plan?’
She shook her head decisively. ‘Definitely not. My father … I have never seen him so angry, so … humiliated. I truly
believe he would kill him if he could.’
‘He’s not alone in that.’ He nodded to her, ready to walk on. ‘Well …’
‘Don’t go.’
He looked at her, eyebrow raised.
‘There is something I wish to say to you,’ she heard herself say. It was what she had been waiting here to do, yet she still found it hard to believe she had summoned up the courage. Once she had been docile and obedient but the trauma of the past month had changed all that.
‘Say it, then,’ he told her.
‘I want to apologise to you for what happened.’
That opened his eyes. ‘Apologise? There is no need …’
‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘there is a great need. For me if not for you. You see, I never loved Mr Birkett. I did not even like him. I thought he was detestable. The whole business was a nightmare yet I still agreed to marry him.’
‘Your parents were in favour. I can understand that, in a sense. It would have been a good match for you.’
‘Good?’ she said. ‘To that?’
‘The way society looks at these things …’
‘Society,’ she said. Her contempt scalded the word. ‘I find it hard to forgive myself for being so weak. But it has served one good purpose. I am not weak now.’
He looked uncomfortable. ‘In any case, it’s none of my business.’
‘It is very much your business,’ she told him. ‘That is why I am so ashamed. If I had not cared for another man …’
Now he was certainly looking at her. ‘And did you?’
She looked back at him, thinking that if she scared him away now, there was nothing she could do. ‘I cared for you. I still care for you. That is why I have been waiting here to see you. To tell you that. And to ask whether you, perhaps, still feel something of the same …’
‘Here and unescorted,’ he said, grinning. ‘What would Mama say?’
A lop-sided smile. ‘She would say I was behaving like a street walker.’
‘Have you had many offers?’
‘None. I am ashamed of that too.’
‘The clothes,’ he explained. ‘They’re too good. They have frightened away your customers.’
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