The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (40 page)

‘I know. I never blamed you for it.’

He put his hands behind his back and studied the ground. ‘You see, if that were true, I think you’d have told me sooner.’

Oh God, she thought. He doesn’t believe me. She said, ‘You think I’m saying it now to persuade you to help Sophie.’

‘I think you’d do anything for your sister. Yes.’

‘Cameron—’

‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘why did you marry him? I mean really. Why?’

‘What does it—’

‘It wasn’t some kind of – I don’t know, some kind of revenge? Revenge against the family?’

‘Of course not. You asked me before, don’t you remember? And I told you the truth. I married him for money. For Sophie.’

He looked unconvinced.

‘We had no money, Cameron. Can’t you understand? Oh, I know there was a trust, but Septimus took it all, and when he died there was nothing left. Then Sophie fell ill, and suddenly we needed a great deal of money, very soon, or she wouldn’t survive.’ Again she snapped open the reticule: open, shut, open, shut. ‘What was I to do? If I’d been a man I’d have got a job, or robbed a bank or something. As it was, the only plan I could come up with was to become a prostitute.’

She saw his shock, but it was too late to pull back now. ‘Then Lettice told me where Sinclair lived, so I went to borrow money from him instead. It all happened just as I told you. I wanted to borrow money, but he asked me to marry him. So I did.’

‘You were planning to sell yourself?’ he said.

‘Yes, but I never—’

‘How could you even think it?’

‘Well my God,’ she flashed out at him, ‘what was I supposed to do, let Sophie die? Do you
know
how much a sanatorium costs? Do you
know
what a “respectable” position for a lady actually brings in? And it’s no good looking at me like that, you won’t make me feel bad about it, I’d do it again if I had to. What choice did I have? And has it occurred to you’, she added, unable to stop, ‘that if you and Jocelyn hadn’t been so damnably eager to slough off the black sheep’s monumentally inconvenient bastards, none of this would have happened? But it did happen, and I was left to sort it out on my own, so I did.’

She drew a deep breath, and forced herself to be still.

An Indian rattled by on a bicycle, trailing a plume of red dust. A black woman and her daughter went past in their Sunday best: ruffled pink parasols in one hand, polished Sunday shoes in the other.

‘You’re right,’ said Cameron. ‘This is our fault, not yours.’

She shut her eyes. ‘I didn’t mean to blame you. That’s over, it’s in the past.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

She turned her head away. ‘I lied to you. I admit that. I lied to everyone. I married a man I despised for his money. But Cameron – women do that all the time. We marry for money, or position, or because some man tells us to, because we’re not allowed to do anything else. Look at Clemency. I don’t see you condemning her.’

‘I’m not condemning you,’ he said quietly.

‘Are you sure about that?’

He did not reply.

A planter on a glossy bay mare trotted towards them and raised his hat, then replaced it with an uncertain look when he received no response.

Cameron said, ‘What about the old man? Does he know?’

She shook her head. ‘Not unless Sinclair told him; and I don’t think he has. I was going to tell Jocelyn myself. When the time was right.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘As you were going to tell me.’

She shot him a look, but his face gave nothing away. She said, ‘Try to understand. The only reason I lied was to protect Sophie. Is that so different from what you did at your court-martial? You kept quiet to stop my father’s story coming out.’

He studied her for a moment. Then he said, ‘We should turn back. They’re waiting for you.’

Madeleine began to feel sick. None of this mattered next to Sophie, and he had brushed that aside as if he didn’t care.

They turned and started walking back, and she saw that while Great-Aunt May was waiting in the carriage, Sinclair was still in the churchyard, standing slender and straight with one gloved hand on a tombstone, watching them.

In a few minutes they would reach the carriage and Cameron would leave, and nothing would have been achieved except damage and more damage, and Sophie still at Burntwood.

‘All right,’ she said, ‘don’t forgive me. Forget about me. But don’t make Sophie pay for what I did. I’m the one who lied. Not her. She doesn’t know anything about this. She doesn’t even know that she’s Ainsley’s daughter.’ She paused. ‘His daughter, Cameron. Think about that. For eight years you’ve been up there in the hills in your self-imposed exile, having those nightmares about him and wondering why. You say you’ve forgiven him, but have you? Don’t you think that if you’d really forgiven him, you wouldn’t have visited his sins on his children by denying their very existence?’

‘Madeleine—’

‘Because that’s what you did, isn’t it? You sent off a cheque and made sure that we’d never trouble you again. You washed your hands of us.’

He looked appalled.

‘She’s his
daughter
, Cameron. She’s eleven years old, she’s never done anything wrong, and she’s stuck in that dreadful place among a whole lot of dying people. And you’re the only one who can get her out.’

They were almost within earshot now. She could see Great-Aunt May sitting rigid and straight in the carriage, and Sinclair standing beside it, waiting to hand her in.

‘For God’s
sake
, Cameron. Here’s your chance to make amends. Don’t throw it away.’

He rubbed a hand over his face, and gazed about him at the churchgoers moving in the street. Finally he shook his head. ‘What do you imagine I can do?’ he said in a low voice. He didn’t meet her eyes, but she could see the emotions warring in him. Pain and frustration, and anger at herself, and pity for Sophie.

She said, ‘You could get her out. You could—’

‘He’d only put her back again. He’s her guardian, Madeleine. He has the law on his side.’

‘But—’

‘No.’ He put up a hand as if to ward off some imaginary blow. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I can’t help.’

Chapter Twenty-Seven

So this is Fever Hill, thinks Ben. Bugger me, what a pile.

It gives him the jitters all right. All them shutters peering down at him. And so sodding quiet.

This is where the parson lives, actually lives. He could be in there right now, writing sermons at his big gold desk. What if he gets wind that Ben’s out here? What if he has him chucked in the clink? Then how’s he going to even things up for Robbie?

Evie hisses at the guard dog to ‘sit’, and it sits, sweeping the grass with its tail. Big brown guard dog with big yellow fangs; it scared the hell out of Ben when it jumped out the bushes and followed them up from the river. Only right now, the big brown guard dog’s turned into a big brown puppy, and Evie’s wagging her finger at it and telling it to ‘stay’.

She cocks her head at Ben to follow, and he’s only too glad to get up the steps and away from all them fangs. In the gallery he looks out for Sophie, but she’s not there. Oh well. Maybe she’s having her tea. Besides, she’s not why he come. This ‘Miss Clemmy’ has got a job for him; that’s what Evie said. And a job at Fever Hill gets him closer to the parson, and that’s the point.

It’s been three days since he seen Madeleine, and he’s still narked when he thinks about it. Ben Kelly crying in the road. Crying like a baby. It makes him want to spit.

Bloody Madeleine. And it’s all very well her telling him what Robbie would of wanted. ‘Get on with your life,’ she said. All right. But how?

He’s thinking on that when Evie pulls him into this sitting-room and hisses at him to wait while she fetches ‘Miss Clemmy’, and not to take nothing while she’s gone. Ben gives her a look. She think he’s daft, or what? Rule is, you do a click, and you cut the lucky straight off. You don’t pross about while they see what’s missing. So he’s not likely to click nothing yet, is he? Not till he’s on his way out the door.

Queer sort of room he’s in, and all. Golden couch and lots of silky cushions, but they’re all just purple and grey, like in a coffin. And everywhere these little black bows, hundreds of them, even round the photos on the walls. He goes and takes a look at the biggest photo, over the couch. Curly golden frame with all curly letters at the bottom.
Secure the Shadow Ere the Substance Fade; Let Nature Imitate What Nature Made.
What the sodding hell’s that supposed to mean?

Hang on. They’re all photos of babies. No – just the one baby. And come to that, it’s just the one photo, too. Oh,
all
right, now we’re getting somewhere. Baby’s dead, that’s why all the black bows and the coffin colours and that.

He wanders through into the bedroom. More black bows and coffin colours, and this great big bed, and in the middle of the bed, this cat. Fat little marmalade job. Cat glares at him, he glares back, and it knows when it’s licked, and shoots under the bed.

Then he sees this frilly little desk with all silver pots and brushes on top, and he perks up a bit. Nice little something to click, when he gets the chance.

Footsteps, and in a trice he’s back in the sitting-room, and in comes Evie with this old lady. No, she’s not old – buggered if she isn’t
young
– or at least, youngish. No wrinkles, nice figure on her – but she’s gone and dyed her hair
grey
, he can see the actual yellow growing through at the roots. Now why would she want to go and do a thing like that?

And it’s not just the hair, neither. She’s got this necklace of pearls that loops all the way down below her waist, and this floaty white frock that makes him think of something drowned. And her face is all waxy yellow; and them eyes. Big, staring blue eyes that go right through you, and then skitter away.

‘You must be Ben,’ she whispers, with a queer little smile that’s more like a wince.

He whips off his hat.

‘I’m Mrs Monroe,’ she whispers, ‘but you shall call me Miss Clemmy.’ She shoots a look over her shoulder, like she might of been followed. ‘I take it that no-one saw you come in?’

He swallows and shakes his head.

‘Good. Good.’ Another painful little smile. ‘Because you see, Great-Aunt May doesn’t care for me to have visitors, oh no, not at all. It would never do if she were to learn that you were here.’

That whispering’s giving Ben the jitters. Has she got a slate loose, or what? But then he thinks, well I suppose you’ve got to whisper in a place like this, if you want to keep a secret. All them holes in the doors and windows. It’s like the whole sodding house is listening in.

Which don’t do much for his jitters, neither.

So Miss Clemmy’s peering at him with her barmy blue eyes, and behind her he can see Evie lounging against the door. So to give hisself a lift, he catches her glance and rolls his eyes, but she just glares at him, like he’s done something wrong. He’s narked about that, till he remembers that her brother was the little darkie that the parson killed. Course, Evie don’t
know
what the parson done to her brother; the less people know about that the better. But still. It’s no wonder that she’s not up for a laugh.

Miss Clemmy sits herself down on the couch, like she thinks she’ll be safer down there, and grabs this big pale-green china jar from a table, and holds it out to him. ‘Ginger bonbons,’ she whispers with her scary little smile. ‘Take as many as you wish.’

He don’t know what to do. In the end he just grabs the jar and mutters ‘thanks’, like Kate used to go on at him about.

She tells him to ‘be seated’, so he looks round and picks this little footstool. It’s better than one of them golden chairs with the coffin cushions.

So he’s sitting there with the jar between his knees, munching away on a sweet, and she’s watching him and twisting her hands in her lap.

Then it comes to him. She’s scared. Miss Clemmy of Fever Hill, grand lady with all pearls and that, and she’s scared out of her wits. But scared of who? Not of Ben Kelly, she can’t be. He’s too far beneath her for that.

He’s puzzling this out when she takes this deep breath and tells him what she wants. Well, more or less she does. It’s in a right old muddle, all rushed and that, but after a bit he gets the picture. The parson’s put Sophie in a san. A san for lung jobs; the kind where they carry you out in a box. Sod it.
Sod
it.

‘Of course,’ whispers Miss Clemmy, leaning towards him so that he can see deep into her skittery blue eyes, ‘I’m
convinced
that Sinclair only meant the best for her. Oh yes, to be sure.’

Oh, I’ll bet, thinks Ben. It’s plain as a pikestaff what’s going on. Somehow, the parson’s got wind that Sophie knows about the little darkie, so he’s packed her off to the san. So no more Sophie.

‘. . . and there’s a doctor’s certificate and everything,’ goes Miss Clemmy, ‘and Great-Aunt May
thoroughly approves
, and she says that Jocelyn does too, so there can be no conceivable objection . . . And yet,’ she bursts out, ‘I cannot
bear
to think of that poor child in that dreadful place!’ She beats her soft white hands in her lap, and her face goes pink.

So now he knows why she’s running scared. She’s gone behind their backs. Got a bee in her bonnet about Sophie – and good for her – but she’s frightened silly of this Great-Aunt May, who must be the scary old cat with the gloves that Sophie told him about.

Oh, she’s scared witless, she is. Red spots on her cheeks, and her eyes all skittery; and she keeps looking over her shoulder, like she’ll be put away just for talking about it. Bloody hell, he thinks. All them pearls and silver brushes and that, and she’s in bloody clink. Only difference is, you can’t see the bars.

‘What about Madeleine?’ he pipes up, going red for talking out of turn. ‘She got something to say about this, or what?’

‘That’s the
thing
,’ whispers Miss Clemmy. Then she tells him how the parson’s taken Madeleine off into the hills, and she’s not coming down again for months and months. ‘Sinclair says she’s neurasthenic’ – Ben guesses that’s posh for mad – ‘but I don’t know what to think, for you see, he once said the same about me, and I’m rather sure that I’m not.’