The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (52 page)

He threw her a glance, and saw that he had guessed correctly. He thought, well, one can hardly blame her for that; not after Sinclair. He cleared his throat. ‘You said something once’, he went on, ‘that’s stayed with me. You were talking about Sinclair, and you said, “He’s the husband. He has all the power.” Is that what’s troubling you? Do you fear that as your husband I might have too much power?’

‘No,’ she said quickly, ‘it isn’t that. I do – trust you.’

He caught the hesitation in her voice. ‘But I’m not far off, am I?’

She turned her head and studied the tombstones in the grass. He saw her fingers tighten on her black kid reticule, and open the clasp, and snap it shut. ‘When two people marry,’ she said at last, ‘neither of them has any real idea whether it will work. And if it goes wrong, there’s no way out. It’s irrevocable.’

‘True,’ he said slowly. ‘But I don’t see what—’

‘That’s what happened when I married Sinclair. We made each other miserable, but we were trapped.’ She caught her lower lip in her teeth. ‘I couldn’t bear it if that happened with you. I just couldn’t—’

‘But why should it?’ he broke in. ‘Why should we make each other miserable? I’m not Sinclair.’

She glanced up at him and gave him her quick wide smile. ‘Of course you’re not.’ Then the smile faded. ‘It’s not you I’m worried about.’

‘What do you mean?’

But she shook her head, and turned away.

He had never felt so mystified. She seemed to be blaming herself for something: something that she couldn’t even bring herself to name. And how was he to counter that?

‘Madeleine,’ he began, ‘I don’t pretend to have understood Sinclair. But I do know that whatever went wrong between you, it wasn’t your fault. There was something in him that wasn’t – that would never be right. And it began a long time ago. Long before he met you. I don’t think we’ll ever know what it was, but—’

‘I’m not sure about that,’ she put in, startling him.

‘What do you mean?’

She dug at the gravel with her heel. ‘After he was killed, I thought I knew what had gone wrong.’ She glanced about her to make sure that no-one could overhear. ‘I thought’, she went on in a whisper, ‘it was because of Victory. Because he – Sinclair – believed that I might turn him over to the authorities. But then I realized that it wasn’t only that. It couldn’t have been.’ She paused. ‘He had a horror of me from the very first night we were married. No, don’t interrupt. I know it’s true. There was something about me that truly horrified him.’

That was so absurd that he nearly laughed. ‘Well, I can assure you that there’s nothing about you which “truly horrifies” me.’

‘But you don’t know that, do you?’ she said quickly. ‘You don’t know that for sure.’

‘Yes I do. I—’

‘And you
won’t
know for sure until we’re married. And then it’ll be too late.’

Now he was well and truly adrift. He had thought that he was following her at last, but she had lost him again and headed off into unfathomable water.

She was still opening and closing that wretched reticule. He wanted to snatch it from her and throw it into the bushes. Then he saw her taut face, and felt contrite. Whatever the problem, it was making her just as unhappy as it was him. He longed to help her, but he didn’t know how.

‘With Sinclair’, she went on, twisting the reticule in her fingers, ‘it went wrong from the very first night. I didn’t perceive that to begin with. Or – perhaps I did, and I just didn’t want to admit it. But I’ve thought about it a great deal since, and I know that I’m right. It went wrong because—’ She broke off.

‘Yes? Because of what?’

She flushed. ‘Because of – that.’

Oh, dear God. This was going to be even harder than he’d thought.

They walked on a few paces in silence, neither of them looking at the other.

He cleared his throat. ‘So your – concern’, he said, ‘is that the same sort of thing might happen to us.’

She turned to him, and he saw that she was fighting back tears. ‘Well, it might, mightn’t it? I mean, how do you
know
, absolutely
know
, that it won’t?’

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. ‘Well,’ he began awkwardly, ‘as regards – um, that side of things – one can usually sort of – I mean, if there’s real regard, if there’s love . . .’ Now it was his turn to colour.

‘But there’s no guarantee,’ she insisted.

‘Well – I suppose not, but—’

‘I won’t take that risk. No, not with you.’

‘But Madeleine—’

‘What, and have you look at me the way he did? As if I were some sort of monster? No. I can’t. How can I do that?’ Her tone was decided.

His heart sank. Once again he stood at the edge of the cliff. ‘Then what do you suggest we do?’ he said. ‘You can’t possibly want to end things between us simply because of some theoretical risk that it might go wrong.’

She didn’t reply.

‘Tell me that’s not what you want,’ he said. ‘Look at me and tell me that.’

She raised her head and met his eyes. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s not what I want.’

He drew a shaky breath. ‘Then what the devil are you talking about?’

They had reached the end of the path, where the silk-cotton tree towered overhead. She came to a halt, and turned her parasol in her fingers, and stood there stabbing at the gravel with its point. He sensed that she was nerving herself to say something, but that she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

‘Madeleine,’ he said. ‘Whatever it is, you’ve got to tell me—’

‘I’ll only marry you’, she broke in with peculiar intensity, ‘if we find out beforehand whether it’s going to be all right.’

He blinked. Then understanding dawned. Jesus Christ.

‘Wait a minute,’ he said when he’d got his breath back. ‘Are you telling me that you’ll marry me if we – if we sort this side of things out first?’

Again she stabbed at the gravel. ‘And
only
’, she added, ‘if it turns out that it’s all right.’

He raised his head and looked up into the branches of the silk-cotton tree: at the vivid emerald leaves and the creamy white flowers against the brilliant, tender blue of the sky. How beautiful, he thought. The most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

He turned back to her, and reached out and took her hand in his. Then he met her eyes, and gave her a slight smile. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘I can agree to that.’

The End

Acknowledgements and Author’s Note

First and foremost, I owe a special debt of thanks to my cousins Alec and Jacqui Henderson of Orange Valley Estate, Trelawny, Jamaica, for their unfailing help, hospitality and good humour when I was researching this book.

I’m also most grateful to my aunt, Martha Henderson, for the loan of many invaluable old books on Jamaican history and folklore – and to my uncle, Ian Henderson (who sadly died before the manuscript was finished) for his insights into life as it used to be lived in Jamaica.

I’d also like to thank the following for their very kind help: Mary Langford and Enid Shields, both distinguished members of the Jamaica Historical Society, who gave so generously of their time in taking me round Kingston and its environs; David and Nicky Farquharson, who showed me over their beautiful estate at Hampden (after a never-to-be-forgotten rainstorm); Diane and Mark McConnell, who were so friendly and welcoming at their gloriously situated great house at New Hall; and also Christina Mantle, Patricia Gould, and David Wiggan. In addition, I must also mention Abigail the mastiff, who took time off from her duties to follow me about at Orange Valley, and graciously allowed me to include her in the story.

Finally, I should deal with a few points concerning the narrative itself. The principal Jamaican families and properties featured in the book are entirely fictional, and I have taken some liberties with the local geography around Falmouth in order to accommodate the estates of Eden, Fever Hill, Burntwood and Parnassus. As regards the
patois
of the Jamaican people, I haven’t attempted to reproduce this precisely, but have instead tried to make it more accessible to the general reader, while retaining, I hope, at least some of its colour and richness.

Michelle Paver

To find out more about Michelle Paver and her novels, visit her website at
www.michellepaver.com
.

She enchanted you with
Wolf Brother
. She chilled you to the bone with
Dark Matter
. Now, prepare to have your heart stolen away to another place and time. From the carnal pleasures of Ancient Rome to the grim battlefields of Flanders… you will live many lives, love many loves – brought to life so convincingly you will wonder where reality ends and fiction begins.

Yes, the past is another country. Let Michelle Paver take you there.

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FEVER HILL

Part two of the
Daughters of Eden
trilogy

Michelle Paver

Digitally published by