The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (58 page)

That’s what Sophie needs to understand. The way she’d looked at him yesterday. Sort of puzzled, and maybe a bit hurt that he wouldn’t stop for a word.

But then – oh, how she’d glared at that Mrs Dampiere, when her knee went, and they laughed at her! So she’s still got a temper on her, just like the old days.

One time back in London, they were in the kitchen of that Cousin Lettice’s, and he was standing by the door, ready to cut the lucky at the first sign of trouble, while Madeleine and Sophie and Robbie were sitting at the table, eating soup. And all of a sudden Sophie twisted round in her chair and hiked up her pinafore dress a few inches, and peeled back her stocking. ‘Look, Ben, I’ve got a bruise.’ And she pointed to a tiny pink swelling on the cleanest knee he’d ever seen.

‘That’s no bruise,’ he’d snarled.

‘Yes it jolly well is,’ she’d flashed back.

Oh, she had a temper all right. But the rum thing was, she was also easy to hurt. Like when she give him the picture-book and he snapped at her, and for a moment her honey-coloured eyes filled with tears.

So had he hurt her yesterday, when he walked away? Had he? Ah, sod it. Who cares?

Once there was this old bloke in London, Mr McCluskie, and he said, ‘You know, Ben Kelly, you’re better than you think you are. Why not give yourself a chance?’ But that’s just bollocks. And the sooner Sophie works that out, the better.

He puts Trouble into a canter, and they cross the Coast Road and go up through the gates of Parnassus. The lodges are big stone affairs with blind windows and a Latin motto on the front.
Deus mihi providebit
. Danny’s brother Reuben, who’s a preacher at Coral Springs, says that means ‘God will provide for me’.

Well, that might be true if you’re Alexander Traherne or Madeleine Lawe or Sophie Monroe, but it don’t mean a sodding thing if you’re Ben Kelly. God leaves the Kellys to shift for themselves.

So what? It’s the way of the world. But the point is, you don’t want to go mixing things up.

It’s midday when he gets back, and the stableyard’s silent and still beneath a hammering sun. Nothing but the red dust shimmering, and the crickets loud in your ears.

He gives Trouble a rub-down, and now she’s leaning over the door of her loose-box, all happy and relaxed.

She’s all right, is Trouble. In the morning when he brings her her feed she nickers at him. The first horse he ever met, actually met, so to speak, it nickered at him too. Till he got the job in Berner’s Mews he’d never given much thought to horses. But on his second day there, this ratty old bay nickered at him. He asked Mr McCluskie why it did that, and he said, ‘It’s because you fed him last night, lad.’

‘So?’ said Ben. ‘That don’t mean I’ll do it again.’

‘Yes, but he don’t know that, do he, lad?’

That’s horses for you. Not much in the upper storey, but they never forget. Not ever. What a way to live. To remember
everything
. Everything about Madeleine and Sophie, and about Robbie and the others, and – and Kate. Bloody hell. He’d sooner top himself.

So now it’s the afternoon, and the ladies are going out calling. They always like Ben to drive, as it adds a bit of class to have a white groom instead of a darkie, so he’s got to get all poshed up in his buckskin breeches and topboots, and the tight blue tunic with the high collar. All to drive the quality about, so they can leave their little bits of pasteboard on each other.

This afternoon it’s just Madam doing the rounds, so he’s back in time for tea. Only there’s a riding party going out, and four horses wanting tacking up, so no tea.

Master Alex and Master Cornelius are taking that Mrs Dampiere up to see Waytes Lake. They’ve both got the hots for her, and they’re dragging Miss Sib along to keep it respectable. So off they go. But an hour later Master Cornelius is back again, all hot and cross. Miss Sib’s mare’s gone lame. Ben’s to take her a fresh horse, and then walk the lame one back.

So off he goes on Samson, heading south-west through the cane-pieces of Waytes Valley. It’s good being on his own. Nothing but the creak of the tack and the wind in the cane. To his right he can see the vast flat acres of the Queen of Spain’s Valley, that Master Traherne bought from Sophie’s grandpa; to his left, far in the distance, the giant bamboo along the Fever Hill Road.

He finds them up the southern end of Waytes Valley, and swaps round the saddles, and helps Miss Sib up onto Samson. The mare’s lame, all right. It’ll be a long walk back.

But now the quality are having a squabble. Miss Sib’s got a headache and wants to go home, but she don’t want ‘the groom’ taking her, as that’d be too slow; she wants her brother and Mrs Dampiere. Master Alex isn’t having any of that, he wants to take Mrs Dampiere to the lake by hisself. Well he would, wouldn’t he?

In the end, of course, Miss Sib wins, and Master Alex has to do the gentlemanly thing and take her back. That’s when Mrs Dampiere puts in her oar. ‘I’d so set my heart on seeing the lake,’ she goes, all apologetic. ‘I wonder, Alex dear, would it be too much trouble – could the groom possibly show me the way?’

She’s a pretty bit of muslin. Very young and very meek, with pale gold hair and surprised grey eyes, and a little soft pink mouth. The sort that always gets their way.

And Master Alex grits his teeth and smiles at her, and says, ‘Why, of course.’ Then he tells Ben to walk the lame mare up to the house at Waytes Point, pick up a fresh horse, then take the lady on to the lake.

‘Yessir,’ goes Ben. Like he hasn’t thought of that already.

Master Alex shoots him a look. He’s got the Traherne eyes: pale blue, with the centres black and bottomless, like a goat’s. ‘Make sure you’re back before dark,’ he goes, with a hint of a warning in his voice. ‘There’s a good lad.’

So now they’re off to Waytes Point, him and Mrs Dampiere. And pretty soon they’ve left the lame mare grazing in the paddock, and Ben’s up on Gambler, who’s fifteen if he’s a day, but only too glad of an outing. Mrs Dampiere rides behind and don’t say a word, which is fine by Ben. He’s not sure about her. Why did she have to go and laugh when Sophie nearly took a tumble?

He slams the lid on that, and in half an hour they get to the lake. It’s not much of a lake. Just a cut-stone dam to catch the runoff from the hills, with a sheet of slimy green water behind. Not Ben’s favourite place, neither. That dead water, smothered in waterlilies. The big flat sickly yellow leaves. The whole place stinks of rottenness and graves.

But Mrs Dampiere don’t seem to notice. They stop beneath a clump of trees by the dam, and she tells him to help her down. It’s the first thing she’s said to him all afternoon.

While he’s seeing to the horses, she walks out onto the dam wall. It’s smooth underfoot and over a yard wide, but on one side there’s a nasty drop into some thorn bushes, and on the other that swampy green water; so he goes after her, to see her all right. Master Cornelius would have his hide if she took a tumble.

Halfway along she nearly does, and he offers her his arm, and she takes it without a word.

She’s wearing a dark blue riding-habit, very nipped in at the waist, and long black gloves with black pearl buttons, and a glossy top hat with a dark blue spotted veil. He can see a wisp of pale gold hair escaping at the nape.

For some reason, that puts him in mind of Sophie when she was a kid. Her hair wasn’t fine like Mrs Dampiere’s, but thick and coarse like a horse’s mane, and strawberry blonde. Only now that she’s grown up it’s darker, sort of light brown.

Apart from that, she hasn’t changed much. She never was a beauty, not like Madeleine. She’s too skinny, and she looks like trouble. Them straight dark eyebrows, and that mouth of hers. Little shadowy dents at the corners, that get deeper when she’s in a sulk. No, she’s not a beauty. But she’s grown up into the kind of girl that you’d give a second look.

Shut
it, he tells himself angrily. You just shut it about Sophie Monroe. She’s not your mate, she never was. She’s sodding quality.

‘So this is where you go swimming,’ says Mrs Dampiere, cutting across his thoughts.

He shoots her a look. ‘I spose some people do, ma’am.’

‘But not you?’

‘Ma’am?’

‘You do not care to swim here?’

‘No, ma’am.’

She leans over the edge and studies the waterlilies. ‘What is your name?’ she says, without looking round.

‘Kelly, ma’am.’

‘Kelly. So you’re Irish?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘But your colouring is Irish – or I should say Celtic. Although I don’t suppose you know what that means. But Kelly is an Irish name.’

‘My pa was Irish, ma’am.’ And may the bastard burn in hell for eternity.

‘Ah. So you take after your father?’

‘No,’ he goes quickly, before he can stop himself.

But she can see that she’s got to him, and her little soft mouth twists in a smile.

That’s when he understands what she’s about. It’s simple. She’s a flirt.

Lots of the ladies are. It’s just a game they like to play. They give you orders, and you obey, and it’s all very right and proper; but now and then, they give a little hint that they know you’re also a man. They only do it because they’re bored, and nine times out of ten they leave it at that, so there’s no harm done.

Across the pond, a big blue heron hitches itself off a log and flies away. Mrs Dampiere watches till it’s just a speck in the sky. ‘They beat their women,’ she says, without turning round.

‘Ma’am?’ he goes. It give him a bit of a start.

‘The Irish. They beat their women. Or so I understand.’ She turns and looks up at him. ‘I wonder, Kelly, do you beat yours?’

He stoops and flicks a grass seed off his boot. ‘It’s time we were starting back, ma’am,’ he says. The perfect groom.

She gives him a wry smile. ‘Just so, Kelly. Just so.’

So they start back towards the horses, and he’s well relieved, because she’s acting like nothing’s happened. She’s pointing out the trees with her riding-crop and asking him the names. She says she’s new to Jamaica, and it’s all a bit unfamiliar.

So of course he goes along with it. ‘That’s a guango, ma’am.’

‘And the one with the feathery leaves?’

‘Poinciana. And the one beside it,’ he adds on the spur, as he’s still narked at her for taking advantage, ‘that’s a mimosa, ma’am. What the darkies call shame o’ lady.’

That makes her laugh. She’s got some brass, all right.

When she gets to the shade of the poinciana tree, she stops. He thinks she’s waiting for him to fetch her horse, but then she unhooks the little pearl buttons on her glove, and starts drawing it off.

Oh, shit.
Shit
. She means it. Not here. Not now. Not with Sophie still in his head.

‘You know, Kelly,’ she says, as she gives each narrow finger a sharp little tug, ‘you’re something of a favourite with Master Cornelius. Are you aware of that?’

He don’t say nothing. Why should he? Why the sodding hell should he?

Tug, tug, tug. Off comes the first glove. She drops it in the grass.

‘In fact,’ she says, starting on the second glove, ‘he tells me that you can ride anything. Is that true?’

Still he don’t reply. But then, she’s not expecting him to.

She drops the second glove, then puts up her veil, and unpins her hat, and lays it on the ground. ‘I should perhaps explain that Master Cornelius was paying you a compliment.’

He gives her one of his blank stares. ‘I wouldn’t know about that, ma’am.’

She puts her head on one side and looks at him. ‘You don’t like to show your feelings, do you, Kelly?’

‘I don’t have any, ma’am. I’m a groom.’

‘Oh, indeed?’ She puts out her hand and runs her finger slowly across his bottom lip. ‘No feelings? I don’t believe you. Not with a mouth like that.’

He clears his throat. ‘I’ll fetch your horse, ma’am. It’ll be dark soon. We should—’

‘If you don’t do as I say,’ she cuts in, ‘I shall tell Master Cornelius that you were impertinent. I shall have you dismissed.’

For two pins he’d say to her, Well go on then, you slimy little bitch. But why should he let her get him sacked? Besides, if he left Parnassus, who’d look after Trouble?

Anyway, why is he even hesitating? She’s beautiful. And it’s not as if he don’t know how.

She comes up close to him, and tilts back her head to study his face. Her eyes are shining, her lips parted so that he can see her little pink tongue. He wants to take her by the shoulders and shake her till her teeth rattle; till she knows what it’s like to be used.

She puts up her hand and unfastens the top button of his tunic. Her nails scratch his throat, and he flinches. ‘Headshy,’ she says with a smile. Headshy, like a horse. Like he’s a sodding animal instead of a man. Anger thickens in his gut.

She unfastens the next button, and the next. Then the buttons on his shirt, and then his undershirt. Then she puts her manicured hand flat on his belly. He tenses as the little cold half-moons of her nails dig into his skin.

Her smile widens. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you. Although I’m very much hoping that you’ll hurt me.’

It’s long past midnight and he’s down at the beach, washing off the smell of her in the sea. The night wind’s sharp and the water’s cold, but it’s clean and salty, and it’s what he needs.

They were late getting back to Parnassus, and of course she blamed it on him. She said he lost his way. Master Alex made fun of him in front of the others, and Master Cornelius tore him off a strip, then docked him a week’s wages.

She stood there watching until she got bored, then tossed him her reins and walked away. The same woman who’d lain beneath him in the grass, moaning and clawing at his back, and screaming for more.

She got him into trouble because she could, and because she knew she’d get away with it, and he can’t pay her back. Well, so what? That’s people for you. They’ll do anything if they know they can get away with it; if they know you can’t ever pay them back.

For a moment he shuts his eyes and fancies himself a millionaire, paying back the quality. But the trouble with that is, Sophie’s quality, too. And he can’t pay her back, can he? Because she’s never done him any wrong.