Mistress of Darkness (26 page)

She had turned in his arms. 'Forever,' she had said. 'Together we have murdered a marriage, Matt. There can be no gainsaying that, now or ever.'

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?'

Again the slow, happy smile. 'Perhaps I am too old. I sometimes imagine that I was born old. Or perhaps it is because I have spent too much time in the company of older men, and women. There is no future, Matt. There is only the present. The future is now, a minute from hence. No farther.'

'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.'

The smile was gone again, as if it had never been. 'I do not know. What would Robert say?'

'Robert. Robert. Is all the world afraid of Robert?'

'All of the West Indies. You worry too much about the future, Matt. When it comes, it comes, and you and I will face it then. For the moment we are here, you and I, and no one else. Don't waste these moments brooding on possibilities.'

Now she was anxious, demanding, and the pressure of her body on his had restored his own vigour. She panted in his ear, and surged her body to and fro. She was the only woman he could ever contemplate, as perhaps he was the only man for her. Now there was, as she claimed, nothing but the bed, and the room, and the rain and two people. And a sudden, looming roar which rumbled up the hill from the harbour, battering across even the pounding of the water on the roof.

Suzanne was on her knees, still between his legs, head turning from left to right.

'Thunder?' he asked.

'Cannon. Perhaps the French assault St. Kitts.' She snatched her robe, ran to the door. 'Do not come out for five minutes. I will be downstairs by then.'

The door closed behind her. Matt sat up in turn, reached for his clothes. If it had been cannon, it had been closer than Basseterre. And now he heard another sound, a confused babble of people shouting, drifting across the still afternoon. He pulled on his shoes, ran down the stairs, joined the servants and Suzanne on the front verandah, gazed at the throng on the street, and below at the town, where wisps of white smoke were already rising into the air from those of the warehouses which had been set on fire; beyond were the clustered ships in the roadstead, but some of these were also burning, and they seemed huddled, like a flock of geese suddenly assailed by the fox. Because the fox was there. Many-foxes, great three-deckers, some twenty of them, sailing slowly into the bay, the foremost already bringing up to anchor, but not ceasing their firing as they did so; their sides constantly exploded into red-tinged black and the watchers could see the sea and the beach, and the wooden docks, scattering as the ball ploughed into them.

'Oh, my God,' Suzanne said. 'A fleet of war? But...'

Matt had seized the telescope from the desk, and was levelling it. 'They fly the Union Jack.'

'English?' she stared at him.

'To horse. To horse.' Dirk came running down the street from the Schotters' house, followed by several other warehouse owners. 'Fetch my horse, Augustus, you black devil. Matt, mount up. They are bombarding the warehouses. Sue, get inside. Dress yourself and seek the cellars.'

'But what does it mean?' she asked.

'Mean? Mean? Why, unless all the English have turned to pirates, it must mean that those fools in Amsterdam have entered the war on the side of the Yankees. And delivered us into the hands of Rodney.'

Augustus was already bringing the horses from the stable, and Dirk leapt into the saddle. Suzanne gazed from her husband to Matt, her mouth slowly opening in an expression of bewildered dismay he had never noticed before. He could not meet her gaze. Whatever misfortune the arrival of the English might bring to the Dutch, it provided him with a means of leaving here, if he chose. And how could he do other than choose, and remain a man?

'I'd best see what can be done,' he muttered, and ran down the steps. . .

'Take care,' she shouted. Who was to know whether it was after her husband or her cousin.

He kicked his mount, sent it charging after Dirk and his friends. The bombardment had ceased; the fort guarding the anchorage had scarce replied. And now boatloads of blue-jackets accompanied by red-coated marines were swarming at the beach. The horses thundered down the road, pulled up in a flurry of sand and foam.

'By God, sirs,' Dirk shouted. 'But what means this invasion?'

The officer he addressed saluted. 'Why, sir, it seems that St. Eustatius has been taken for the Crown. If you gentlemen would be good enough to assemble in your town square, you will be addressed by the admiral in due course.'

'And leave our goods to be looted?' Hugo Schotter demanded.

'Why, sir, your goods are in any event forfeit, as contraband of war,' the lieutenant said. 'Now, gentlemen, will you disperse, or must I use force?'

The Hollanders stared at him, and muttered amongst themselves, but there was nothing they could do. Matt slipped from the saddle and went forward. 'And I sir?' he demanded.

The officer frowned. 'You do not speak like a Dutchman.'

'Indeed sir, I am not. My name is Matthew Hilton, of Plantation Hilltop in Jamaica.'

'By heaven,' the officer cried. 'A West Indian, and a smuggler at the least. We were warned there'd be some of you gentlemen to be found skulking ashore here. Well, sir, as of this moment you stand accused of treason. Place this fellow under arrest.'