The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (86 page)

She acknowledged the compliment with a stately little nod, then leaned towards him and whispered, ‘Our fellow diners probably think I’m your mistress.’

‘I wondered about that,’ he replied. ‘Do you mind?’

She put her head on one side and studied him. Then she smiled and shook her head. ‘Just so long as you explain yourself to the school governors if word ever gets around.’

‘I’m at your disposal,’ he said with a mock bow.

She took a sip of champagne and threw him a mischievous glance. ‘So what
about
that, Ben? Have you got yourself a mistress yet?’

‘You know very well that I haven’t,’ he said mildly. He should have known that she would ask. It seemed to offend her sensibilities to see him still unmarried at the age of thirty.

‘Cho!’ she said, lapsing into
patois
to tease him. ‘You fooling me up, boy? What are you waiting for? You must be the despair of every Society matron on the Northside!’

‘Very sad, I agree,’ he said drily. ‘Now what about you? When am I going to be introduced to your mysterious sweetheart?’

Evie snorted. ‘Never, if I have my way.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’d grill him like a snapper and chase the poor man away. Sometimes you act as if you’re my big brother.’

He shifted his water glass a fraction to the right. ‘Sometimes that’s how I feel.’

‘But Ben,’ she said gently, ‘I don’t need a big brother. I’m twenty-eight years old.’

And of course she was right. She had done extraordinarily well for herself. She had an excellent teaching position in one of the best girls’ academies on the island, and a pretty little house in a leafy, respectable street in Liguanea, on the slopes above Kingston. She even spoke differently: in an Anglicized Creole accent which only occasionally lapsed into
patois
for fun.

It was all a million miles away from the old slave village. And Ben knew better than to remind her of that. In seven years, she had never been back to Trelawny. She never mentioned her mother, or the visions she’d had as a girl.

Shortly after his arrival, he had asked her about that. She’d turned on him. ‘That’s over,’ she’d snapped, her lovely face ablaze. ‘I’ll thank you never to mention it again.’ Judging from the strength of her reaction, it wasn’t over at all. But he’d refrained from pointing that out.

The waiter came and refilled their glasses, and Evie applied herself to her pineapple ice, stabbing at it delicately with her spoon. ‘So why’d you buy it, Ben?’ she said suddenly. ‘Why’d you go and buy Fever Hill?’

He took a cigar from his case and turned it in his fingers. ‘I felt like it,’ he said sharply.

If she noticed his tone she gave no sign of it. ‘But you could’ve had any estate in Jamaica. Why Fever Hill? Is it because of S—’

‘I don’t know,’ he snapped. ‘Can we talk about something else?’

She studied him for a moment, and her long almond-shaped eyes were impossible to read. Then she put down her spoon and took a sip of champagne. ‘You bought it because it belonged to Sophie,’ she said calmly.

‘Evie—’

‘– because you can’t forget her. Because she broke your heart.’

‘I bought it’, he said between his teeth, ‘because it came on the market, and I liked the idea of annoying Cornelius Traherne. Now can we please talk of something else.’

She put down her glass and looked at him, and smiled. ‘Annoying Cornelius Traherne. Now that’s something with which I can truly sympathize.’

He pretended to be amused, but she wasn’t fooled. She had spoilt the day, and she knew it – although she seemed unrepentant.

They finished their lunch with a strained attempt at good humour, then he drove her back to Liguanea and dropped her off at her pretty little house. She made him promise not to leave it too long before he came back to town, and when he told her that he was busy at Fever Hill she only smiled and wished him luck. He didn’t ask her what she meant.

Back at the hotel, he found a note from Austen.
Complications re shipping have sent me back to Port Royal. Irritating, but capable of resolution. Should be back by six. A.
Ben cursed under his breath. He didn’t want to be on his own just now. He didn’t want a chance to brood on what Evie had said.

He went out onto the verandah and ordered tea and a newspaper, and stood with his hands in his pockets, gazing at the peaceful little groups of tourists strolling beneath the royal palms, and beyond them the fishing-boats bobbing in the harbour.

The Myrtle Bank Hotel was the best in town, and occupied a magnificent position on Harbour Street with far-reaching views of the sea. Like much of Kingston, it had been destroyed by the earthquake three years before, but had since been lavishly rebuilt. Everything about it was new and rich and recently established. Rather like me, thought Ben. The idea amused him, and made him feel a little better.

The tea arrived, and with it the
Daily Gleaner
. He sat down and forced himself to read every item on every page, determined to keep the black mood at bay. He ploughed through the foreign news which had come in over the wires, and the local happenings. He learned whose horse had won the King’s Purse at the Spanish Town meeting, and that the Jamaica Coloured Choir was successfully touring England, and that the Governor’s daughter was leaving on the
Atranta
for a holiday in the Mother Country.

Underneath that, there was a small paragraph which he nearly missed, for a waiter came up and asked if he needed anything more.
Arrived by the mail steamer yesterday morning
, he read as he waved the man away,
Mr Augustus Parnell the noted City financier, travelling with Mr Alexander Traherne of Parnassus Estate, Mrs Sibella Palairet, and Miss Sophie Monroe, latterly of Fever Hill Estate. The party will be staying at the Myrtle Bank Hotel for a fortnight before travelling on to Trelawny. It is with great pleasure that this correspondent has learned that Mr Traherne and Miss Monroe have recently become engaged to be married.

Dinner was over, and golden light streamed out onto the hotel lawns. Fireflies spangled the hibiscus bushes. Ratbats dived after moths besieging the electric globes on the terraces. The waters of the harbour shimmered in the cool blue moonlight.

It was a peaceful sight, and Ben, standing with Austen on the balcony of his suite, wished he could take pleasure in it. But his sense of enjoyment had drained away like water into sand. First Evie’s cross-questioning; then half a dozen lines in a newspaper.

So much for peace, he thought, if that’s all it takes to destroy it.

He lit a cigar and studied the little pools of yellow light on the terraces below, where dress-coated gentlemen and bejewelled ladies murmured over coffee and liqueurs. He couldn’t see anyone he recognized. He despised himself for looking.

At his side, Austen asked if anything was wrong. Ben shook his head. ‘Just run through what you were saying again?’

Austen hesitated. ‘You mean, about the – er, arrangements?’

‘Well of course,’ snapped Ben. ‘What d’you think I meant?’

Austen did not reply.

Ben ground out his cigar and reached for another. ‘Just run through it again, will you?’

The waiter came and cleared away the dinner things, and set out coffee and brandy. Austen waited till the man had gone, then went through the arrangements again. Ben turned back to the terraces, and failed to hear a word.

They had dined in his suite because he disliked the idea of bumping into her in the public rooms. He hated himself for his cowardice – and even more for his stupidity. Why had it never occurred to him that she might return to Jamaica? Why had it never occurred to him that she might marry – and that when she did, she would be bound to pick that most appropriate of suitors, Alexander Traherne?

Half a dozen lines in a newspaper, and his peace was gone. Was that all it took?

But why should it matter where she was or what she did? Half a dozen lines about someone he hadn’t seen for years? Why should it
matter
?

He smoked his cigar and paced the balcony, aware of Austen’s scrutiny. He felt heavy with anger – and with something else: a kind of fear.

Fever Hill was only four miles from Parnassus. Would she live at the great house with her new husband, or would Cornelius give them the house at Waytes Valley? Would he be faced with breathless little bulletins in the
Falmouth Gazette
about the wedding celebrations, and – the christenings? Would the young Mrs Traherne force him out of Fever Hill as she’d forced him out of Jamaica?

No.
No.
He wouldn’t let her do that.

Behind him Austen stopped his recital, and asked if he’d care for a brandy. Ben shook his head and continued to pace.

And yet when you think about it, he reflected as he watched a mongoose slipping silently across the lawns, you’ve had a lucky escape. If it hadn’t been for that piece in the
Gleaner
you might have run into her anywhere. At least like this you can pick your own time, and get it over with in your own way.

Put like that, it didn’t sound so bad. In fact, it might even be fun.

He ground out his cigar under his heel and turned to Austen. ‘The arrangements sound fine,’ he said. ‘And on second thoughts, I think I will have that brandy.’

Sophie had been dreading her arrival in Jamaica.

The
Atranta
had been due to dock on the Friday at seven in the morning, and two hours before she was on deck with a scattering of sleepy American tourists awaiting their first glimpse of Kingston harbour. Neither Alexander, Sibella, nor Gus Parnell was awake yet, which was just as she’d planned. She needed to be by herself. When the sharp green mountains first rose above the horizon, she had to struggle to hold back the tears.

The sun climbed higher, burning off the haze. The colours grew so intense that it hurt to look. She saw searing emerald peaks against a sky of fierce tropical blue; a dazzle of white sand and shining red roofs, and tall, spiky royal palms; along Harbour Street, a flame-coloured blaze of poincianas. She felt a shock of painful longing, and a strange kind of dread: as if she’d woken from a grey, unthreatening dream which had lasted for years.

Later she stood on the quay with the others, engulfed in the familiar chaos of Kingston on a weekday morning. She smelt incense from the Chinese parlours, and spiced coconut from the hominy pots; dust and horse-dung and wangla nut brittle turning sticky in the sun. She was assailed by the din of the West India Regimental Band which had come to greet the packet, and the thunder of street cars and trams and drays. She picked her way past iridescent piles of snapper and parrotfish, and higglers’ handcarts laden with the last of the June plums and the first of the oranges. In a haze of red dust she saw self-conscious tourists in new cork helmets and tropical whites, and businessmen in morning coats and black top-hats; Chinese men on bicycles and east Indian girls in brilliant saris; fishermen in blue dungarees and jippa-jappa hats. Pickneys darted about between people’s legs. John crows hunched on telegraph poles, surveying the scene with the gravity of undertakers.

For the first time in seven years, the richness of
patois
filled her ears.
‘Fippance a ride to hotel, me genkelman! Fippance, ongly fippance a ride!’ ‘Basket around, me lady! Fish-kind, all sorta fish-kind!’ ‘Paradise plum! Tambrin balls! Mango, ripe mango gwine past!’
She felt bruised and raw. She was only too glad to let Alexander take the lead.

He’d been taking the lead for the past two months, and after the initial strangeness she had discovered that it was a glorious relief. He’d seen to everything. He’d placed the engagement notice in
The Times
, and made arrangements with Mrs Vaughan-Pargeter about packing up her things; he’d even conspired with his sister over the trousseau. Finally, he’d booked their passage to Jamaica, and gently told Sophie that of
course
she must stay at Parnassus, she needn’t think of going anywhere else.

They both knew that ‘anywhere else’ meant Eden, but that she couldn’t face it yet. In her brief letters to Madeleine she’d avoided the question of a visit, and she noticed with a pang that her sister did the same, confining herself to expressions of slight surprise at the suddenness of the engagement, and cautious approval. Bizarrely, Madeleine said nothing about Fever Hill. And after her first letter announcing the sale, Sophie didn’t have the courage to allude to it again.

But how extraordinary to be a tourist in Jamaica. To take rooms at a grand hotel on Harbour Street, instead of simply running up for the weekend and staying with Mrs Herapath’s sister-in-law at Half Way Tree. To her surprise, Sophie found that she liked it very well. After all, a tourist is transient. A tourist can leave whenever she wants.

It was Monday afternoon, their fourth day in Kingston, and she and Sibella had just returned to the hotel after a day’s shopping. They’d been to Dewey’s in King Street for India gauze underthings, and Joseph’s in Church Street for canvas shoes and galoshes, and half a dozen other shops which had merged into a blur. But now the streets had become unbearable, for the sea breeze which in Kingston they call ‘the Doctor’ had dropped, and the land breeze wouldn’t start up for another couple of hours.

Both Alexander and Gus Parnell had taken themselves off ‘on business’, and Sibella had declared herself absolutely
finished
, and gone upstairs to lie down. Disinclined to do the same, Sophie wandered out into the grounds and found a little table in a shady corner, and ordered tea.

After the dust and din of the streets the gardens were deliciously cool, with only a sprinkling of well-bred tourists quietly admiring the views. She sat back in her chair and fanned herself with her glove, gazing up at the wild almond tree overhead: a shifting pattern of enormous dark green leaves and small pale green blossoms, and little chinks of hot blue sky.

A pair of yellowbacks chased each other furiously in and out of the branches, then flew away across the gardens. A doctorbird arrived to feed on the blossoms, its tiny wings a blur of dark green iridescence, its long, slender tail feathers floating on the faintest of breezes.