HF - 05 - Sunset (14 page)

'Bewitched,' Oriole screamed, ducking. 'Alma.'

The Negress caught one wrist, and when Meg slapped her across the face, got hold of the other. 'Now why you don' lie down proper, mistress,' she said. 'Like Mistress Oriole done say?'

'She will not listen to you,' Oriole said. 'Hold her down, doctor. We must know. I must know.' Her voice was so high as almost to suggest hysteria.

Meg's legs were free. She twisted and kicked, and Oriole gave a shriek of mingled alarm and pain as the bare toes caught her in the stomach. 'Aaagh. She's demented. Helen, help me.'

Helen McAvoy almost threw herself across the bed and Meg's legs.

'For the love of heaven, Meg,' she begged. 'We are only trying to help you.'

'He
lp m
e??' Meg snarled, and heaved again. But she was helpless under Helen's weight and Alma's strength.

Oriole had recovered her breath. 'You'll examine her, doctor.'

Phillips hesitated. 'I really do think
...
well, it is a matter of obtaining permission, Mrs Paterson.'

‘I
am
giving you permission,' Oriole told him. 'My cousin has seen fit to place Margaret's upbringing in my care, and I wish her physically examined. Now.'

'Yes, but
...'
Phillips glanced at Helen.

'Shouldn't we obtain a midwife, really?' Helen murmured.

'Midwife?' Oriole shouted. 'And have this shouted all over Kingston? All over Jamaica?'

'It will be in any event,' Phillips said.

'So we must
know,'
Oriole said. 'Now.'

Meg twisted again, as she thought she felt Alma's grip relaxing. But immediately the fingers tightened on her arms, which were extended above her head and becoming quite painful. One day, she thought. One day
...

'You'll excuse me, Meg,' Dr Phillips said, 'but I must do as Mrs Paterson wishes.'

'If you touch me,' Meg said, 'I
...
I'll kill you.' Phillips glanced at Oriole.

'Oh, that is her dementia speaking,' Oriole said. 'Why, it didn't even sound like Meg.'

'Ah
...'
Phillips was looking more and more embarrassed. 'Her legs
...
limbs will have to be
...
well.
..'

'We'll take one each,' Oriole said to Helen McAvoy. 'Careful now, or you'll likely get a kick in the head.'

'Bitch,' Meg shouted, wishing she knew a stronger word. 'Whore. If you touch me
...'

'Ignore her,' Oriole panted. 'Ignore her.'

Meg felt her legs being dragged apart, and a moment later Phillips, carefully turning his back so that he would not have to look at her face, was folding back her skirt and then her shift. She lay still, because to wriggle now would be even more humiliating, but could not stop herself panting; she could feel her belly inflating and collapsing with each angry surge of breath.

'Well?' Oriole demanded, bending close the better to see. Helen had closed her eyes.

'No bruising.'

'Then what is that?' Oriole demanded.

'A slight chafe on the buttock,' Phillips said. 'She was riding astride.'

'Astride,' Oriole complained at large. 'My God, what next.'

Fingers touched her flesh, and Meg wanted to scream. The last fingers to touch her there had been Cleave's. Or had she dreamed that? Now she was not at all sure. But those fingers, whether real or imagined, had caressed and driven her into a paroxysm of ecstasy. These fingers prodded and pulled, in a way at once more intimate than she remembered, and more horrible than she had ever known. She made herself lie still; the idea of moving her body while those fingers were inside her filled her with a physical horror. She even held her breath so that her stomach should not inflate while he was peering there, with Oriole peering beside him.

'Well?' Oriole demanded. 'Well?'

Phillips straightened, almost with relief, and rolled down her gown. 'I know it seems incredible, Mrs Paterson. But Meg is still a virgin.'

She lay on her face, the bolster hugged tight in her arms. She was exhausted, mentally as much as physically. Yet she could not sleep. Her mind seemed to be racing, like a galloping horse, through endless glades of overhanging fern which every so often debouched into huge open pastures, and then careered through narrow ravines and heavy, gloomy forests. Almost she could feel low hanging branches sweeping across her face, just as she could almost feel the movement of the horse's back, between her legs.

Between her legs. There was the fount of her excitement no less than her lurking misery, no less than her total confusion. What had happened between her legs ? Total ecstasy, to which her mind and her body reached in memory, again and again and again. And yet, not total. She did not know. She could not understand. No one would explain it to her. Yet from the heated exchange between Dr Phillips and Oriole there was no question that what had happened to her had not been what Oriole suspected. And yet, the ecstasy had been there. No doubt Oriole, with her peculiar point of view, had never known the ecstasy.

But what
had
happened? She had been drunk with the excitement of her surroundings no less than with the rum she had swallowed. So she could not remember clearly. She could only remember the ecstasy.

And now
...
she raised her head, at the sound of horses' hooves. Several horses. The posse returning. It was well into the afternoon, and she had lain here for hours. Oriole had locked the door and taken away the key, and she had had nothing to eat or drink. Her throat was parched and her belly was rumbling; she had had almost nothing to eat last night, either.

And now Father was home.

She lowered her head again, but rested her chin on her hands, the better to listen. Perhaps, with Father home, things would improve. The ultimate catastrophe had apparently not happened. She had not been raped. There was nothing to be hysterical about. Oriole was, as usual, overacting. And how she wanted to have that bath, and a hot meal, and then bed. She thought that after a bath and a meal she might be able to sleep. And if she could sleep, then no doubt she could also dream.

But suppose they had caught Cleave? And Jack? And the nameless others?

She sat up, sweating. But there would have been more noise had that happened. She could hear voices calling, asking. The replies were less audible. No triumph there. The men were thirsty and hot and tired.

She could hear booted feet on the stairs, and clumping on the porch. She got out of bed, stood at the closed jalousie, looking through the slats. Several women were gathered outside, and the horses waited patiently by the gate. More than that she could not see without opening the jalousie, and she could not bring herself to do that, to be stared at, by all those women who had known her since birth; by Jimmy Pilling, she could just see his feet, but from the way they constantly shifted they could belong to no one else. Thank God Alan was no longer here. But he would hear of what had happened soon enough. Helen would see to that.

But what
had
happened ?

Voices, inside the house, and the clink of glasses. She would be granted a few minutes more respite. Because she could not doubt that the moment of crisis was approaching. Oriole would not forgive her, for anything, but most of all for the names she had called her, and for kicking her in the stomach.

And the respite was going to be short lived. Already the feet were clumping on the stairs, and the voices had the sharpness of the open air. Oriole again. One drink, because

they deserved that for their effort, and then away. There were matters to be attended to.

Meg rolled on her back, listening. The hooves clip-clopped down the street, the sound of voices died. She listened to Oriole's voice, coming from the kitchen, telling the servants to go home to the Negro village. That was a surprise. Who would prepare supper? The thought made her even more hungry.

Doors, closing, and then again voices. Oriole's voice mainly, talking, lecturing, remonstrating. Father, answering in occasional monosyllables. Oriole, raising her voice, but speaking so vehemently it was difficult to be sure of exactly what she was saying. But there were words like 'honour' and 'punishment' and 'decision' and 'no alternative'.

And then feet again, in the corridor, and coming closer. The key, scraping in the lock. Meg sat up, the bolster still clutched protectively against her belly.

The door swung in, and Father stood there. He still wore his riding clothes, was stained with dust and looked tired. Oriole stood beside him, her face pale with suppressed emotion.

Meg licked her lips, got up, realized she was still holding the bolster, and put it down.

'This is a very serious matter, Meg,' Tony Hilton said. His voice was low, but clearly he too was under considerable emotional stress.

Meg licked her lips again. 'I'm sorry, Papa.'

'Sorry,' Oriole said. 'Ha.'

'I had supposed at first,' Tony Hilton said, 'and I know both Oriole and Dr Phillips felt the same, that you were under some kind of shock, a concussion, perhaps, a drug. Who knows ? If that were so, of course, your actions would be entirely excused.'

He paused, and gazed at her. Meg's tongue did another circle of her lips.

'But Oriole now feels that
it was nothing of the kind,
that you have been deliberately perverse, and indeed, terribly wicked.'

'I
...
nothing
happened?
Meg said. 'My God,' Oriole said.

'Dr Phillips said so himself,' Meg shouted. 'Nothing happened. I swear it, Papa. I spent the night with some
...
some people. That is all. I am sorry about it.'

Tony Hilton sighed. 'Being sorry is not enough. You spent the night with some black people. Is that not true?'

'Well
...
yes, they were black people.'

'After swimming, naked, in the river.'

'Well, I
...
I couldn't go in the water with my clothes on.'

'Insolence,' Oriole said. 'I have never heard such insolence.'

'That is not "nothing", Meg,' Tony Hilton said, still speaking quietly. 'This is disgusting. Horrible. For a young lady
...'

'A Hilton,' Oriole pointed out.

To go swimming by herself is quite unheard of. For a white girl to go off for the night with black men, why, I doubt we shall ever be able to hold up our heads in Kingston again.'

'Is that important?' Meg demanded. 'You have just told me, she is always telling me, that I am a Hilton. Hiltons do what they like, she tells me. Do we care what other people think or say about us ?'

'There is such a thing as common decency,' Oriole said.

'And to cap it all,' Tony Hilton went on, 'you return here in this mood of insolent defiance. You call your cousin, who has devoted two years of her life to caring for you and attempting to make you into a lady, quite unprintable names, you refuse to give us any help in apprehending these people, or to submit to an examination from your own doctor
...'

'Listen to me,' Meg shouted. 'Please listen to me.' Tony Hilton gazed at her. She dared not look at Oriole. 'I
...
I was upset,' she said, controlling her breathing
with an effort. 'Because
...
because Oriole sacked Prudence. Did you know that, Papa? Oriole sacked old Prudence.'

'For drunkenness, and lewdness,' Oriole said. 'She was quite disgusting.'

Meg continued to look at her father. Tony Hilton chewed his lip.

'You know she was disgusting, Tony,' Oriole said. 'I have spoken to you about her before. And you placed me in charge of the house.'

'Oriole is quite right, Meg,' Tony Hilton said, although his face had lost some of its grimness. 'She has convinced me that Prudence cannot be regarded as a good influence upon you. It is better that she should go.'

Meg felt panic rising into her chest. He was on Oriole's side. Nothing she could say or do would make any difference now.

But she had to try. She licked her lips. 'I was upset,' she said, surprised at the evenness of her voice. 'So I rode to the north of the plantation. I had never seen the river before. So I went swimming. I suppose I forgot how late it was. Anyway, when Jack
...'
She bit her lip.

'Ah,' Tony Hilton said. 'One of them was called Jack.'

'It doesn't matter,' Meg said.

'It matters a great deal,' Oriole said.

Meg sighed, and kept her temper with an effort. 'Anyway, he asked me back to his village for the night. That was all.'

'Why did he not bring you here?' Oriole demanded.

'Because
...
oh, because he had stolen one of the kids. There. That was his crime. He couldn't bring me back.'

'Stole a kid,' Oriole whispered. 'My God. Voodoo.'

'To eat,' Meg shouted. 'They have no meat in the mountains. He wanted to have something to eat.'