The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (149 page)

It gave him an unpleasant little jolt to see that the name on the back of the envelope, scratched in spidery copperplate, was that of Miss Monroe herself.

‘I wonder what the old witch wants with me,’ he said out loud. His voice echoed in the enormous dining room. He didn’t sound as calm as he would have wished.

The envelope contained a single sheet of ivory writing paper on which five lines had been carefully inscribed. There was no opening greeting. Perhaps for the first time in her life, Miss Monroe had departed from proper form.

For six generations
, she wrote,
your family, sir, has been a stain on the parish of Trelawny. Of all of them, you have been by far the worst
.

Traherne felt the sweat starting out on his forehead. Of all the confounded . . .

I write to make you aware that you are about to be exposed for what you truly are. This will be unavoidable. It is therefore time for you to commit the first decent act in your reprehensibly long life, and bring it to an end
. The note was signed
May Alice Falkirk Monroe
.

Traherne tried to laugh. Muttering ‘Senile old fool,’ he tore the note into fragments. Then he tore the fragments into fragments, and scattered the pieces on the floor. His heart was racing. He could feel his face flaming.

It’s that Lawe girl, he told himself as he got to his feet and began to pace the dining room. She’s always been malicious. Tainted, like all the Durrants. You can see it in their eyes . . . Oh, yes. It’s her. She’s been biding her time, but now she’s enlisted the help of that old witch to do me down.

But what does she imagine she can do? Who would ever believe her? If it wasn’t so bizarre, it would be laughable.

You are about to be exposed . . . this will be unavoidable . . .

‘Nothing is unavoidable,’ said Traherne between his teeth.

He rang for the footman. ‘Have the motor sent round directly,’ he said when the man appeared. ‘I need to go to Burntwood. At once.’

The footman swallowed and shook his head and tried to speak all at once. ‘Motor car not working, Master Cornelius. The tyres—’

‘Then saddle my horse,’ snapped Traherne.

‘But the wind, Master Cornelius,’ hazarded the footman. ‘There’s a big blow getting up, and—’

‘I
said
, saddle my horse.’

When the footman had gone, Traherne turned back to the box which lay in wait for him on the table. His heart was still racing unpleasantly, although whether with rage at Isabelle Lawe, or something else, he could not have said.

But he was not afraid. Oh, no, not in the slightest.

Wiping his damp hands on his napkin, he lifted the lid.

Inside, on a bed of faded blue velvet, lay a silver-handled duelling pistol.

‘But he should have been here an hour ago!’ cried Mamma, pushing the twins before her down the corridor.

‘Mamma, he wouldn’t have set out in this,’ said Belle, raising her voice above the noise of the wind.

‘Yes he would,’ insisted Mamma. ‘It wasn’t as bad as this an hour ago.’

‘And Papa did promise,’ said Douglas and Lachlan in unison. They were keeping close together, now and then glancing up at their mother with big round eyes.

Burntwood was in a state of controlled uproar. Both the upper storeys had been evacuated, and the great inner shutters securely nailed shut. The men were preparing to take refuge in the cellars, while the female nurses – all nine of them – were feverishly laying in supplies of water and food in the cutwind, to make ready for a long, cramped stay.

Almost as soon as Mamma had arrived, the wind had strengthened alarmingly. The electricity had been the first to go. It was now so dark that they could hardly see to find their way along the corridors.

‘He might have set out and then had an accident,’ Mamma told Belle as she herded her children through the dining hall towards the west wing, where the door of the cutwind stood open. ‘You stay in there with the twins, and I’ll take the dog cart—’

‘
No!
’ cried Belle and Drum together.

‘Mrs Lawe,’ said Drum, pulling everyone out of the way of a large nurse hurrying past with a pile of blankets in her arms. ‘You cannot drive alone in an open dog cart for eight miles through the backroads in a hurricane.’

‘I’ll get there before it hits,’ said Mamma. ‘But I’ve got to find my husband. He’s still not up to his full strength, whatever he might think.’

At the other end of the dining hall, someone shouted for Drum, and he turned his head. ‘I’ll be back,’ he told Belle. Then: ‘Don’t let her go anywhere.’

‘Come along,’ said Mamma. ‘Into the cutwind with the lot of you. Quickly. The others are already inside.’

The great bulletwood door stood open on a shadowy interior that was dimly lit by a hurricane lamp hanging from the ceiling. A musty chill flowed from within. The twins eyed the entrance doubtfully.

‘Do we have to?’ said Lachlan.

‘Yes,’ snapped Mamma. ‘Right now. And be quiet, and do everything your sister tells you.’

The twins edged unwillingly into the gloom, where the nurses welcomed them with gleaming white smiles.

‘Mamma,’ said Belle, ‘I’m not letting you—’

‘Oh yes you are,’ said her mother. Her face was set, and in the stormy light Belle could see the effort she was making to keep her composure. ‘He should have been here by now,’ she muttered. ‘If he’s out there on the road – unconscious, or worse . . .’ Her voice trailed off.

Over her mother’s shoulder, Belle saw Drum reappear and start down the corridor towards them. He looked harried, but utterly capable. She thought quickly. ‘You are not,’ she told her mother, ‘going out in that dog cart.’

‘Belle, I told you—’

‘No,’ said Belle. Putting her hands on her mother’s shoulders, she pushed her bodily into the cutwind. ‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘You stay here with the twins.’

Her mother opened her mouth to protest, but Belle talked her down. ‘No arguments.’ Over her shoulder she spoke to Drum. ‘That’s everyone inside, help me shut the door. And don’t let my mother out till it’s over, whatever she says.’

Mamma clutched her hand. ‘Belle—’

‘I’ll find him,’ said Belle. ‘I promise.’

In the final moment before the door slammed shut, she reached into her satchel and pulled out the sky-blue envelope. ‘Here,’ she said, pressing it into her mother’s hands. ‘If anything happens, open it. You’ll understand.’

‘
Belle
—’

Belle slammed the door shut.

Drum leaned against it. ‘I won’t let them out till it’s over,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

Belle bit her lower lip hard. ‘Thank you,’ she said when she could speak.

She started for the main doors, but he held her back. ‘Belle, you can’t—’

‘Yes I can,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’m not mad, Drum. I know what I’m doing. If I take your horse and go by the backroads, I can reach Eden before it hits.’

‘But you don’t know that. I can’t let you—’

‘You haven’t got a choice!’ she cried. ‘Now stay here as you promised, and look after them! I’ve got to go and find my father.’

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Lightning flickered out at sea as Belle urged her mount past the Maputah works. The wind screamed in her ears. Palm fronds whipped past her. The sky was as dark as dusk, and she knew that it wouldn’t be long before the full force of the hurricane hit.

But as she bent low against the gelding’s neck, a strange, fierce exultation surged through her. Whatever happened now, she was free. She’d given the envelope to Mamma. She’d lanced the boil.

‘It helps so much that you know,’ Margaret had said. ‘That you don’t mind.’

‘Of course I don’t mind,’ Belle had told her. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

It wasn’t your fault.
How simple. How true.

She felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She felt powerful and ready for anything . . .

Now she had to find Papa.

She clattered into the works yard and skittered to a halt. ‘Papa!’ she shouted.

No answer. Urging the big gelding forward, she checked the boiling-house and the distillery, the steam engine shed, the trash-house, and the carpenters’ and coopers’ sheds. Nothing. Good. That must mean they’d already taken cover.

But as she turned to go, a horseman appeared at the gates, blocking her way. To her astonishment, she recognized Cornelius Traherne.

His face was chalky white, and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. A palm frond flew past his face, but he didn’t even flinch. His pale blue eyes were fixed on Belle.

She dug in her heels to ride past him, but he moved his mount sideways to block her.

‘I won’t let you do this,’ he said. His voice was oddly flat, and hardly audible above the scream of the wind.

‘What are you talking about?’ she cried. ‘Get out of my way. I have to—’

‘You could never bring me down. I’m too strong for you. I’ll always be too strong.’

‘Have you gone mad?’ cried Belle. ‘We’re in the middle of a hurricane! My father might be lying somewhere, injured in the road – and you’re worrying about your reputation?’

‘I won’t let you bring me down,’ he said again, still in that dead, toneless voice.

‘I don’t care about bringing you down!’ shouted Belle, fighting to keep control of her mount. ‘All I ever wanted was to be free of you!’

A furious gust of wind lifted a panel of zinc on the boiling-house roof, and Traherne’s horse squealed. ‘I’ll crush you,’ he said. ‘I’ll crush you like a cockroach.’

Belle reined in her mount. ‘Cornelius,’ she said, and the very act of speaking his name increased her sense of power. ‘Can’t you see that it’s over? Can’t you understand? It’s no longer our “little secret”. People know. I’m free. You don’t matter any more.’

For the first time something flickered in the pale goat eyes.

And as Belle faced him, she saw him with startling clarity: no longer the monster of her nightmares, but a lonely, vicious old man with a festering darkness at his core.

‘Now get out of my way,’ she told him. She dug in her heels and put her mount forward.

Traherne moved to cut her off, but her gelding was too fast, and she shot through the gates. As she thundered down the road towards Eden, she heard a grinding roar behind her, and looked back to see a part of the boiling-house roof peel off and go crashing to the ground. The works yard, the gates, Traherne – all disappeared in a choking cloud of dust.

She dug in her heels and rode on.

But behind her, as the dust thinned, Traherne staggered out of the gates: limping, dust-covered, but still grasping his horse’s reins. Yanking them savagely to bring the animal about, he reached into his saddlebag with his free hand and pulled out a revolver.

The giant bamboo was whipping about like grass as Adam urged his hired mount up the Eden Road.

Why
had Belle left Burntwood and started for Eden? The telephone line had gone dead just as Drum was about to tell him, leaving him with nothing but an overpowering dread, and the conviction that he had to find her, hurricane or no, before – as Miss Monroe had chillingly put it – she did something foolish, and took the law into her own hands.

Precisely why Belle might ‘do something foolish’ to Cornelius Traherne was a revelation the old witch had thoroughly enjoyed making just as Adam was about to leave.

‘Of course,’ she had said, her voice dripping with distaste, ‘in the case of my great-great-grand-niece, it is no more than conjecture. But conjecture based upon a lifetime’s observation of the man himself, and upon the girl’s visit to me many years ago . . .’

When she’d finished telling him, she’d sat very straight on her chair and watched him struggle to take it in.

Conjecture it might be, but he knew she was right.

Belle had been a child. A child of thirteen. And Traherne had done that . . .

In moments, everything fell into place. Her self-destructive streak. Her conviction that she belonged in the slums. Her fear of Traherne . . .

Miss Monroe had made him promise to bring down Traherne if she didn’t live to do it herself: a promise, he’d told her, that he hardly needed to give, since he would do it with pleasure. ‘Then be sure to act with despatch,’ she had told him, the blue gaze glittering. ‘I have not, as you know, been honoured with a visit from the girl herself, but from what I have gathered, I believe she may do something foolish. Perhaps even take the law into her own hands.’

What did she mean? Was she simply making more mischief, or did she know something, or think she knew something? Adam didn’t intend to take any chances.

A telephone pole flew past him, and he ducked just in time. Keep your mind on what you’re doing, you fool. The aim is to find Belle, not get yourself killed.

But as he urged on his flagging mount, he couldn’t help thinking back to that day on the beach at Salt River, seven years before. The dark, unsmiling child walking towards him across the white sand. The silver-haired old gentleman strolling beside her, holding a parasol over her head. Claiming his own. As they’d drawn nearer, the child had raised her head and looked at Adam, and he’d caught something in her eyes: an appeal? Or was his memory coloured by what he’d just learned? It didn’t matter. What he did vividly remember was that he’d just had an argument with Celia, and hadn’t wanted company – that he’d turned on his heel and walked away.

Well not this time, he told himself grimly.

As he galloped down the iron-hard road, a rider cantered out from a cane-track, leading a struggling grey mare behind him. He was riding fast, without looking where he was going, and it was all Adam could do to avoid a collision.

‘Watch where you’re going!’ the man yelled angrily.

‘Same to you!’ Adam flung back.

‘Good God,’ cried the rider, breaking into a wolfish grin. ‘Is that you, Palairet?’

Adam took another look, and recognized Ben Kelly, whom he’d last bumped into two years before at battalion HQ. Kelly was in shirtsleeves and covered in red dust, but, bizarrely, he seemed to be enjoying himself. With his black eyepatch he looked like a buccaneer.