HF - 04 - Black Dawn (15 page)

'They'll work, Mr Laidlaw. They'll work.'

'Aye,' Laidlaw said. 'We'll see how
they work, when it comes to grin
ding.'

'A toast.' Tony Hilton stood, and raised his glass. 'To the Hiltons of Hilltop. Long may they prosper.'

He slurred, very slightly, and swayed. At the opposite side of the table Harriet Gale gave a giggle of tipsy laughter. They had both drunk far too much.

But then, Dick wondered, had he not also drunk far too much? Without achieving the blessings of inebriation. He kept thinking how absurd they looked, the three of them, he and Tony in their black jackets and white socks. Harriet in a splendid evening gown in dark blue taffeta which seemed to hang from her breasts as if attached there, leaving shoulders and arms exposed; they were milky-white shoulders and arms, with a dusting of freckles, and plumper than he had first observed.

Now she tossed her head, scattering that long, straight dark mane, so that some fell behind and odd strands descended most entrancingly in front, trickling across the white swell of flesh, and raised her own glass, to squint through it at the light. 'Empty, by God. Vernon, you black devil, fill it up. Fill it up.'

Dick sighed, and watched the footman hastily reaching for the decanter. It apparently had been his uncle's humour to name all of his house servants after British admirals. But he also felt like another drink. It was a form of hysterical release, he decided. The bookkeepers, and their wives, and their children, and their dogs, had gone. The town stood derelict. No doubt it would soon fill again, as Reynolds advertised, as they obtained the right people. But what a remarkable day it had been. No, indeed, what a remarkable two days; he had not slept a wink last night. Now he could hardly keep his eyes open, and his head swung, at once with exhaustion and alcohol, and his brain seemed filled with nothing but the presence of Harriet Gale. He thought he could sit here the entire night, just staring
at the freckled flesh, just dre
aming.

The decanter crashed past his ear, struck the parquet and shattered into a hundred pieces of crystal.

'Ow me God,' cried Vernon, staring at the liquid spreading across the floor.

'Oh, Christ,' Harriet screamed, sitting up.

'God damn you for a bastard,' Tony bawled.

Dick rubbed his ears, watched Boscawen pounding in from the pantry.

'What is this?' cried the butler.

'It slip, man, it slip.' Vernon was on his knees, his napkin turning red as he swabbed at the wine.

'Ah, well, fetch another,' Tony commanded.

'Crystal,' Dick said. 'My God. What did that thing cost? Mistress Gale?'

'Ah, what does it matter. 'Tis a waste of good wine,' she said. 'There's the problem. They are crazy swine, these people, careless as devils from hell. ' 'Tis break this and smash that, all the while.'

'Crystal,' he muttered. 'There's pounds and pounds. My God.' His money. Supposing he had any. He hadn't seen a single entry in a book, so far, to prove he wasn't bankrupt. If they threw crystal around like snowballs
...
he sat upright at the sound of hooves. 'What's that?'

'See to it, Boascawen,' Tony commanded. 'And for God's sake bring on the meat, man.'

'Yes, sir, Mr Hilton, sir.' Boscawen took the commands in order, daintily stepped round the kneeling figure of Vernon, crunched some glass beneath his bare feet and paused, with a pained expression on his face, then continued towards the door, without even a limp. 'Absolom? But what you doing up here this time?'

The driver wore only his drawers; his huge chest heaved and dripped sweat. 'Is that Mary Nine. She screaming fit to raise Damballah.'

'Eh?' Dick raised his head. 'Screaming?'

'Well, is the child, see, Mr Hilton, sir? He pushing he head out and causing she too much pain. And is a fact Mr Roche done gone with them others.'

'Roche?' Dick asked, stupidly.

'The white dispenser,' Harriet said. 'This girl, Mary Nine, is too young to have a child, really. She will probably die.'

'Die?' Dick scrambled to his feet. 'We must do something, Harriet. Mistress Gale, you must help me.' He inhaled. 'I mean help her.'

'Me? Help a nigger girl give birth?'

'You must. You said you like to watch. Now you can do more. Horses, Mr Boscawen. Quick, now.'

Boscawen glared at Absolom. 'You seeing what you done, you stupid black man? You upset the master.'

'Well, she screaming . . .'

'Horses,' Dick said firmly. He seized Harriet's wrist and half dragged her from her chair. 'Please. Tony . . .?'

Tony was regarding the enormous side of beef being brought into the dining room by two other of the footmen. 'I'll just stay here and mind the house,' he said.

'For God's sake.' Dick pulled Harriet from the room. 'Horses.'

'You can use mine, Mr Hilton, sir,' Absolom said. 'Oh, thanks.' Dick gasped, and swung into the saddle. 'I will come whenever mine is saddled,' Harriet decided. 'Now,' he insisted, leaned down, grasped her under the armpits, and tried to lift her.

'Help me,' he shouted at Absolom.

The driver hesitated for a moment, then ran forward, seized Harriet's ankles, and pumped them upwards. A moment later she was sitting in the saddle in front of Dick, squirming to make herself comfortable, her hair flowing back to fill his mouth, while she gasped for breath.

He was already kicking the horse forward, sending it galloping down the hill, towards the hubbub which marked the slave village.

'Really, Mr Hilton,' she said, having got her breathing under control. "Tis no way to treat a lady, indeed it is not. I'd not remained on Hilltop to be midwife to a black.'

'I'd not know what to do without you,' he said, and rode into the street of the village, to find himself in the midst of the slaves, all clamouring at him, setting up a tremendous din, but mostly, he realized, in wonderment at his presence.

'Is the master, man.'

'Eh-eh, but you seeing that?'

'And Mistress Gale.'

'Man, but what is this?'

Harriet slid from the saddle, struck the ground rather heavily, and hastily adjusted her skirts. Dick jumped down beside her. 'Where is the hospital?'

'Hospital, massa? Hospital?'

'The dispensary,' Harriet shouted, possibly at him.

'Ah, yes, the dispensary.'

The unearthly scream which cut through the night was a better directive than any of the gabbled instructions. He thrust them aside and ducked his head to enter the building, slightly larger than the average hut, to recoil in horror at the foetid stench which swept across his nostrils. The dispensary was hardly less crowded than the street, and the flickering torches seemed to be licking at the very beams of the rafters. In the centre of the floor a space had been left clear, and here Joshua Merriman knelt.

'Joshua,' Dick gasped in relief, ran to his side, and again recoiled as he watched the blood trickling across the beaten earth floor, issuing from between the legs of the young Negress, she really was only a girl, who lay there, her head on Joshua's knees.

'Oh, my Christ.' Harriet stood beside him. 'She's gone.' 'Joshua?'

Joshua raised his head. He looked tired. But he held in his hands a tiny scrap of black humanity. 'It jammed up,' he said. 'I had to take it, hard.'

'Godalmighty!' Dick had to shake his head to clear his senses. 'And the child?'

Joshua sighed. 'That too, Mr Hilton, sir. That too. I done make a messup of this one.'

'And you needn't have called us at all,' Harriet said severely. 'Ugh. Me dress has blood on it. Really, Mr Hilton . . .'

'You can have another dress,' he promised. Wasn't that the attitude around here, and with lives no less than possessions? 'What do we do?'

Joshua laid the babe beside its mother. 'Well, we got for bury them, Mr Hilton. You there, take them out.'

Two of the men came forward, one to seize the wrists and the other the ankles of the dead woman, as if she had been a sack of coal. Another picked up the child by the ankles.

'My God,' Dick said. 'It can't be done now. There is no coffin, no priest. . .'

'Coffin? For a black girl?' Joshua was amazed.

'Well, at least let us wait until morning.'

'It warm, Mr Hilton, sir,' Joshua pointed out. 'Morning time she going be smelling high, and causing sickness.'

Dick scratched his head. The bodies had already been removed. 'But
...
a priest. . .'

'Mr Hilton, sir, that girl ain't no Christian. If you can pray like Damballah, now, then maybe you got cause.'

'Damballah?'

'He speaks of the voodoo gods,' Harriet whispered. 'These people are heathens, snake worshippers, most of them. For Christ's sake, Mr Hilton, let us be away.'

'Is a fact, Mr Hilton,' Joshua said. 'I am too sorry to interrupt your dinner, for nothing.'

'For. heaven's sake,' Dick said, 'you did the right thing, Joshua. I should be present whenever any one of them is born. Or dies. They are my people.'

'Christ,' Harriet remarked. 'You'd be down here all the time.' She ducked her head and gained the open air. The slaves stared at her.

Dick followed, gave her a leg into the saddle, mounted behind her. 'I am sorry, good people,' he called. 'It was an act of God.' Or should he have said, an act of Damballah? Clearly he must learn about this snake god. Mama had mentioned it, but in the warmth of an English parlour it had seemed a fairy tale.

The horse picked its way out of the compound, back up the hill. Harriet Gale lay against his chest with a sigh. 'You must alter the list,' she said. 'One thousand and fifty-two.'

'Eh? Just like that?'

'You must keep track of them, Mr Hilton.'

Like cattle, he thought. Count heads, every morning. 'Why was she called Mary Nine?'

'Well, think of it,' Harriet said. 'Better than a thousand. How are you to keep a tally? Your uncle decided it. Half a dozen names, male and female, and after that, numbers. Each field gang has a name, you see.'

'Absolom has no number.'

'Ah,' she said. 'When they get to be drivers, they get proper names, like the house slaves.' She nestled her shoulders against his chest. 'You've a lot to learn, Mr Hilton. But the sooner you start the better. Like the way to carry a lady on a horse is to hold her round the waist.'

'I am holding you round the waist,' he said, 'as my arms are on either side of you.'

'Pfft,' she said. ' 'Tis not what I meant at all.'

'Now really, Mistress Gale,'
he said. 'You were my uncle's ..’

'Housekeeper.'

'Yes, but you have yourself told me . . .'

'That I administered to his needs. But if you think a bit you'll understand I have not been penetrated by a man these nine years. 'Tis a long time.'

'For heaven's sake, a girl has just died.'

'Ah, you'd not confuse a nigger with a human being, now would you? That Merriman himself told you they're not Christian.'

He sighed. 'Anyway, I'm betrothed.'

'Are you now.' Her head half turned, her musk and her hair seemed to balloon around his face. 'To a girl in England?'

'Of course. She'll be joining me whenever I am settled. My God, I am settled.'

'You think so? You want to be sure,' she said.' 'Tis a mighty big business bringing a young lady all the way from England to Jamaica. Why think on tonight. She'd be fainting by now.'

He frowned into the darkness. Ellen? Somehow he did not think she would have fainted tonight. She'd be far more likely to have replaced Joshua on the floor, holding the dead child.

'Nine years,' Harriet said. 'Ah, 'tis a long time. I doubt not I'll have forgotten what it's like.'

The horse stopped in front of the steps, and Dick hastily dismounted. She fell from the saddle into his arms. 'Anyway,' he said, 'there is the matter of, well. . .'

'So I'm a year or two the older. A young man always wants to begin with an older woman. 'Tis a well known fact.'

He escorted her to the steps. What an incredible conversation to be having, with an incredible woman, on an incredible day. 'I'm starving,' he said, and stopped in the archway to the dining room, to gaze at Tony, asleep with his hair trailing in an overturned glass of port. 'For heaven's sake. Mr Boscawen,' he called. 'Where is that side of beef?'