'Well, I ain't knowing about that, mistress. Now you got for he down.'

She held Meg's shoulders, and Meg allowed herself to be pushed flat on the bed.

'But he's a sailor,' she said. 'You must know that, Madge.'

'Well,' Madge said. 'He got for be a sailor.'

Oh, my God, Meg thought. Oh, my God. She closed her eyes, because she could feel the tears start. How to explain it? Alan had been killed in the jungles of Cuba, fighting the Spaniards. No, he had not been killed. The colonel had asked her questions, about his name and his whereabouts. She had assumed that he must have been killed, because she had heard no word. In all the time she had been in prison, in all the months she had spent in the American hospital, she had heard no word. If Alan had been alive, he would have come looking for her, surely.

But Madge said he was coming looking for her now, and thus she was to be confined here in darkness, unable to communicate with him, until he was gone again. Well, they would see about that. They ... her door opened, and she sat up again violently.

It was Oriole. 'You may draw the blinds, Madge,' she said. 'And how are you this morning, my dear?'

Madge drew the curtains. Meg stared at her cousin. 'Where is he?' Oriole frowned at her. 'Where is who?'

'Alan,' Meg shouted. 'Alan McAvoy.'

Oriole looked at Madge.

'Ow me God,' Madge said. 'But she asking why she locked up in here ...'

'And so you told her, you stupid nigger.' Oriole came closer.

'Was it Alan?' Meg begged. 'Was it?’ Oriole's face twisted, then she smiled. 'Yes, it was your lover.'

'But... I had thought him dead.'

'He is dead, so far as you are concerned.'

'But tell me what happened. Please, Oriole. Please.'

Oriole hesitated, then shrugged and sighed. 'It appears he was very badly hurt in that battle you seem to have had with the Spanish authorities. Do you remember anything of that?'

'Yes,' Meg said. 'Yes. Please go on.'

'Well, his friends, if you can call them that, apparently took him away to a place of safety ... I am merely recounting what he has told me, you understand; I have no idea of how true it is.'

'Yes,' Meg said. 'Please go on.'

‘Well, after some time they managed to nurse him back to health. And then, he claims, he tried to find you, and was told that the Spaniards had sunk his schooner, and that you had gone down with it. He says he nearly went mad with despair, abandoned Cuba, and sailed away in some American ship. He spent several years trading in the South Seas, would you believe it, hobnobbing with cannibals, and then returned here, just on passage to England, oh, six years ago. And discovered you were still alive. Well, it was during your breakdown, you know. He came rushing out here. But of course Billy and I had him sent off the plantation. I mean, the idea of it, your lover trying to see you in your husband's home.'

Meg bit her lip. My home, she wanted to say. My home, she wanted to shriek. My home, she wanted to yell, as she tore Oriole's face to shreds. Why, she had not felt like doing that in six years. Her hate had been too deep-seated.

'And then would you believe it,' Oriole said, 'he wrote you a letter. Quite the most disgusting thing I have ever read.'

'Oh, please, may I have it ?'

'Good heavens, no, I burned it. Obscene it was. I thought then we had seen the last of him. But here he is back again. Well, I have convinced him that you have no desire ever to see him again. And of course that it is doubtful you will ever fully recover your senses. For which misfortune he must accept a large measure of responsibility. Oh, indeed, he may come to Kingston as regularly as he likes; I imagine we have seen the last of him at Hilltop.'

Meg stared at her, her entire brain seeming to have frozen into hate.

'So now, you had better spend the rest of the day in bed,' Oriole decided. 'You are looking quite pale. You'll keep an eye on Mistress Meg, Madge. And don't hesitate to give her the potion should she begin to be restless.'

The door closed behind her, and the two black women came to stand by the bed. Meg shut her eyes. She did not wish to look at them, and she did not wish to have the potion inflicted upon her. She wanted to think, as she had never thought before, as she had never had reason to think before.

First of all, to understand. Alan was alive, and well, and still in love with her. Else why come out here twice?

But he supposed her mad, and beyond his reach.

Therefore it was up to her, to find him again, to convince him that she was nothing more than a prisoner. Alan would know how to help her free herself, how to help her regain control of Hilltop.

But how to reach him? She had no hope of escaping Madge and Lilian at this moment. And they were with her every moment of the day.

Well, then, at night. But soon Alan would have left, and she did not know when he was coming back to Jamaica, or indeed if he was coming back to Jamaica. But oh yes, he was coming back. Oriole had suggested that. He was coming back. Oriole had suggested that. He was coming back. Well, then, escape when he returned. Except that she might never know when he returned.

So, then, escape as soon as it was possible, and ... how? The stables were patrolled by watchmen all night, as was the main road leading to Kingston. And even if she tried to go on foot, and evaded the watchmen, it was better than twenty miles. She would be missed and overtaken long before she could gain the town. And supposing she did gain the town ? Who would help her? They all believed her mad. They would be eager to return her to the loving care of her cousin.

She felt so despairing she wanted to shriek her agony. But she kept her eyes closed, made herself lie still. There was no such thing as an insoluble problem. Not for Margaret Hilton. How many years was it since she had thought that?

Be rational, she told herself. Escape Hilltop Great House. There was the first priority. That could be done, at night. She was sure of it.

Escape the plantation itself? That could be done, on foot. But then what? And supposing that was accomplished, somewhere to live until Alan returned. Somewhere safe, where she could never be found.

In Jamaica?

The tears were starting to come again, seeping out from under her closed eyes, dribbling down her cheeks. Madge grunted, perhaps in sympathy, and moved away from the bedside. It was close now, and the maid threw open the windows. Faintly filling the room, drifting down from the mountains. Meg heard the beat of the drums.

 

 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

THE MAMALOI

 

HOW they filled her head, all night, rhythmic beats of hope. If she dared.

But did she dare? Throughout the great days, when she had followed her own whims, her own decisions, her own impulses, with a total disregard for anyone else's feelings, she had yet never really contemplated crossing the river and making for the mountains. She had feared the implicit surrender in such an act, and then she surely could have feared no surrender.

This trembling creature feared everything.

But there was even more. When last Cleave had seen her, she had been a girl of sixteen. Now she was thirty-five, and perhaps older than that. She remembered the ceremony with a continuing thrill of pleasure, because it was a memory. How could she be sure she would not be disgusted by the eroticism of the dance, by the primitivity of her surroundings ? And what of Cleave himself, when he came to touch her? The last man to touch her, sexually, had been the twelfth sailor on board the Spanish guardacostas; Jaime's rumblings had been no more than fumblings. But the sailor had not been the last thing. That had been the seething rope, the feel of which still had her awake in the small hours, often enough. Could she stand the touch of man's hand? Or would she immediately break into an uncontrollable screaming?

And what of Cleave? She had been sixteen, he had been older. He would now, perhaps, be forty. He would have

changed, and not only in appearance. Besides, as he had never come to her at the river, why should she even suppose he still wished her, would be prepared to help her?

Why should she even suppose he still remembered her? That night in the mountains might have been the most dramatic, the most important of her life. It could have been no more than an episode in his, and it had been nineteen years ago.

But Cleave, and Jack, had said come back when you know you want to. Come back, they had meant, when you know there is no one else to whom you can turn. And now there was no one else to whom she could turn.

But there was the dream again. Snap her fingers, and find herself in the mountains. She listened to Lilian snoring, sitting in the chair by the window; she and Madge took turns. But there was little difference between them. Meg rolled over violently, causing the bed to creak, and instantly the nodding head came upright. Escape could be nothing more than a dream while Madge and Lilian shared her room.

She rolled on her back, gazed at the white gauze mosquito netting with which the bed was surrounded; another innovation of Oriole's, because it had become fashionable - and it certainly afforded protection from the insects which swarmed to the glow of the lamp. She was going to dream no longer. How could she, if she would ever regain her freedom, regain Hilltop, regain Alan? And he was there. He had come out to see her, only a week ago. He still loved her. He would help her.

So why should she be afraid of a black woman? They did not both sleep in here. They were here one at a time. She was at least as big, and surely as strong. Was she so afraid of violence? They were authorized to use violence to her.

So then, think, but think carefully and accurately, and above all, honestly. The maid could be dealt with, if she had the strength, at least of mind as well as body. And if it turned out that she did not, well then, what had she lost? She would no doubt be given a sleeping potion and put back to bed. That had happened often enough in the past.

Then what of afterwards ? Hilltop Great House was never locked. Leaving the house would be simple enough. But the surround and the garden were patrolled all night by a watchman. Only a watchman. How one's sins came home to roost. Oriole did not like dogs, would not have one near the house. Only a watchman.

More violence ? Against a man ? Or stealth. Or subterfuge. That too could only be tested at the time. But afterwards. They would suppose she had made for town, which would be to her advantage. But there was her weakness for self deception, for dreaming, once again threatening to bring her down. Oriole would know where she had gone. Oriole would know there was only one place she could have gone.

But would Oriole dare to follow? Would Billy? They would turn out the police, and the police would follow. But by then a good twenty-four hours would have elapsed. By then she would know whether Cleave would help her or not. Once again, failure could only be followed by a sedative, a confirmation of what everyone already knew, that she was mad. There was nothing to lose, there.

But supposing Oriole followed, right away. How long would she have? Be honest, she shouted at herself in her mind, be realistic. One hour? Surely more. She did not propose to kill her watchdog. So, stunned ... an hour. No more. She could not expect more than an hour. Then they would be behind her, and Washington would track her down. Washington could track anything. Well, then, was there anything which could prevent Washington tracking?

Rain. Torrential Jamaican rain. There it was. The wet season was only a month away. A month was no time at all, when one has been imprisoned, in various cells, for eight years. A month would merely give her time to build her strength, and plan. She wanted to smile. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to shout for joy. As in the past, the solution to her problem was so simple she was amazed she had not thought of it before. It required only patience. And determination.

It required her to say, perhaps for the last time, I am Meg Hilton.

She lay on her back, and listened to the rain. Driven by the wind from the mountains, it struck her jalousies like handfuls of pebbles thrown by a gang of roistering giants. And the wind was high, too; the gusts almost seemed to shake the old house. It was a good night to be in bed.

But it was the third such in a row. The weather had broken, and the mountain trails would be hardly recognizable. Not even Washington would be able to track up those. Supposing she ever left this warm bed. Supposing she dared.

Because, having made the decision, this last month had been comparatively easy. She had even smiled at Oriole. She had a secret. And the secret would take her back to where she belonged, and send Oriole back to where she belonged.

But it was so easy to say 'tomorrow', and lie here, in the warmth and the comfort. Suddenly, when it came to the point, it no longer mattered whether or not she was Margaret Hilton, whether or not she was Mistress of Hilltop. Suddenly it no longer mattered who she was, or what. But what a dangerous thought. No doubt it was how ninety per cent of the people in the world felt. So long as they were fed, and clothed, and housed, they were perfectly willing to exist, moving from one simple pleasure to the next, allowing others to make their decisions for them.

But they were not Hiltons. It had to be now, now, or it would never be at all.

She rolled over restlessly, and Madge's head jerked. 'I am so thirsty,' she said.

Madge signed, and got up, and rescued the pitcher of water from its cooling position in the windowsill, poured a glassful, still sighing, and waddled across the room. Meg had already lifted the mosquito netting, was waiting for her. She drank, greedily; she was thirsty. Her throat was parched with fear of the coming moments.

'Now you go to sleep,' Madge said. Just as if she were fifteen again, she thought, and Prudence was scolding her. It helped to make her angry, to reinforce the decision.

'I must go to the toilet.'

'Eh-eh? But you just drink the water,' Madge commented. But she raised the net higher, and waited. Meg got out of bed; the lamp on her bedside table had burned right down, and there was only the faintest glow of light in the room, but she had rehearsed in her mind so often what she must do that she had no doubt she could have carried out her plan in utter darkness. For Madge now stooped to tuck the mosquito netting under the mattress, to make sure no insects could get into the untended bed.

Meg sucked air into her lungs, turned down the wick, and in the same instant picked up the lamp and swung it against the back of Madge's head. The Negress gave a gasp and fell forward, hands flapping out to grasp the netting, and with her weight tear it from its wires and bring it down in a cloud of white gauze. She struck the bed, and lay still.

Meg found herself gasping. Had she meant to hit quite that viciously? She bent over the woman, heart pounding so hard she could hear nothing else for a moment. Then Madge breathed stertorously. But she did not move. And there was no time to be lost. Again it had all been rehearsed, time and time again, in her mind. She dropped her nightgown on the floor, scooped up her pale green day gown from the chair where she had placed it last night. She needed nothing else. She was going to Cleave.

She opened the door, stood there for a moment. There was no lantern in the gallery, and the house was utterly dark. Nor could she hear a sound above the pounding of the rain on the skylights, and the booming of the wind as it got under the eaves. She closed the door behind her, tiptoed to the stairs, hurried down them. Perhaps they creaked, but if the rain drowned them to her ears, then it drowned them to all other ears.

At the foot she hesitated again, looking through the gloom towards the portraits, towards herself, hanging there smiling at her. Jeremy Spender had apparently been instructed by Billy to finish the painting, when she had been supposed dead. And it was a fine likeness. Margaret Hilton. The Hilton. It smiled at her, saying to her with those confident lips, 'Come back to me, Meg. Come back to yourself.'

She pulled the front door open, and a gust of wind got inside and whistled up the stairs. Oh, my God, she thought; that would certainly wake them. She stepped outside, closed the door again, thought she had banged it but could not be sure, flattened herself against the wall while she got her breathing back under control, looked out at the garden and the pasture beyond. All utterly black. There could not be a better night for escaping, supposing she did not lose her way.

She ran across the verandah, reaching the top of the stairs, and heard feet, squelching in the wet ground. She dropped to her hands and knees, then lay flat on the floor, body pulled in against the verandah rails. But the watchman was not really worrying with anything that might be happening, save the rain. He huddled beneath a waterproof cape, head bowed, as he walked round the house. He was required to do this at least once in every hour. Nothing more. Within seconds he would have found himself some shelter under the verandah.

She got up again, went down the steps. Now she had only to guard against losing her way. But her eyes, growing accustomed to the darkness, could make out the tower of the chimney. As long as she kept the bulk of the House over her right shoulder, and the chimney over her left, then she was going north, going the right way.

The front stairs faced south, and while descending them she was almost sheltered from the rain. But at the foot it struck at her with all its force, pounding on her hair, plastering it to her scalp, thudding right through the thin cotton of her gown, while her feet were immediately soaked to the ankle. And equally, she was cold, chilled to the marrow, flesh rising in goose pimples, great shudders hurrying through her muscles.

I am Meg Hilton, she told herself. There could be no stopping now. She went round the building, began her trek across the pasture. She was aware only of the discomfort, the cold, the slashing of the rain into her flesh, the terror which constantly welled up into her throat, and her repeated exhortations to herself: I am Meg Hilton.

She stumbled up the pasture, occasionally stepping into a hole and falling, rising again immediately. To stop for even a second would be to remain there for ever, or until they found her. She walked into the midst of a herd of sheep, huddled close against the storm. They bayed plaintively at the violent arrival of this alien, but she pushed them aside and attempted to stumble through them, tripping and falling in their midst, and regaining her feet in a flurry of mud and streaming water.

On the far side, where the pasture began its dip to the banana trees, she looked back, and nearly choked with fear as she saw lights flickering in the windows of the Great House. She had gained not a mile, and they were already awake and preparing to follow her.

She gathered her skirt around her waist and ran for the trees, arriving beneath their shelter quite out of breath. She sank to her knees and panted for some seconds, before getting up again and driving herself onwards. Now she had some slight protection from the teeming rain, but at the same time she was surrounded by noise as the branches swung to and fro, every so often catching her searing blows across the head. She panted, and fell, and got up again, and ran again, and fell again, and knew she had torn her gown.

How big the plantation was. She had never been farther than the Grandstand, except on horseback. Now it seemed to last for ever, so that she was sure she was running round and round in circles, although that was impossible, because the groves were numbered and signposted, and she could keep a track of her progress. But the noise of the rain and the swaying of the branches obliterated all other sound, and she could not tell how close her pursuers might be, until she suddenly heard the report of a rifle, booming through the night. Were they calling to each other, saying they had found her trail ? Or were they calling to her?

But the report had been distant. A moment later the banana groves ended, and she gazed at the slope which led up to the cluster of cedars which marked the river.

She wondered what time it was. It had been just after midnight when she had made her escape from tie house. She seemed to have been stumbling onwards for ever. Her head hurt and her back hurt and her belly hurt and her legs felt like lumps of lead; she dared not think of her feet - it seemed every pebble and every thorn on the plantation had attacked her insteps. And however dark it was, it could not now be far off dawn. And her pursuers were close behind.

She climbed the slope on her hands and knees, looked down on the river, and felt her heart give a great lurch of dismay. Three days' rain had been sufficient to turn the always fast-running stream into a tumbling, foaming torrent. And it would have increased the depth as well. She forced herself to her feet, half ran and half fell down the slope, once again sank to her knees as she gazed at the rushing water. She was so tired. To attempt to cross here would be to commit suicide. And why not, she wondered. Could there be a better place to die than here, where she had known so much happiness? And was there really any point in continuing to live?

She was Margaret Hilton. There was Richard and Aline to be thought of, to be regained. And there was Alan.

She followed the stream, looking for the ford. But the ford itself was flooded with rushing water, and from a few inches deep it had risen clearly to a few feet. She turned her face up to the sky, allowed the water to flood her cheeks and eyes and ears, opened her mouth to allow it to trickle down her parched throat. And heard the rifle again, and closer.

She stumbled into the water, gazing at the darkness which was the farther side. Only there mattered. The river thudded into her ankles and then her knees, and she lost her balance, regained it with a desperate surge of strength. Then she suddenly sank to her waist and lost her footing altogether. Instantly the water picked her up, threw her over, seemed to toss her into the air with playful malevolence, before sucking her down. She struck the bottom even as she lost the last of her breath, then forced herself back to the surface, gasping, arms flailing, rolling over and over and taking water in through her mouth and nose, striking out with her arms in desperation, and slashing her fingers across a series of branches.

Desperately she clutched, and felt the sodden wood tearing through her fingers. Then they lodged again, and her back struck something, and she was wedged, the water still pulling at her and seeming to be driving right through her, but able to keep her head free and to breathe, and to wait, while the exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her, and while she gathered her mind for one last mighty effort to free herself or to he there until she drowned.

She awoke to a feeling of blessed warmth seeping through her bones. For a moment she did not know where she was, then the memory came flooding back and she frantically grasped at the trailing branches yet again, discovered she was digging her fingers into the earth. She was on dry land. At least, the land was rapidly drying as the sun rose noon high; for the moment the clouds had cleared.

Then she did not know where she was. She raised her head, scooped hair from her eyes, found that her fingers were also coated with mud, and gazed at feet. Black feet, naked, and mud stained. Oh, God, she thought. They had, after all, caught up with her. Her head flopped forward, nestled into the rain-softened earth. She was so tired. Every muscle in her body seemed to be weighted with lead, and her head swung, while her empty stomach ached for food.

And they had caught up with her. She would be returned to Hilltop, in ignominy, to have her guard no doubt doubled in the future, while the rumours would be spread all over Jamaica of how the Madwoman had attempted to escape.

Someone knelt by her head. 'Miss Meg?' a voice asked. 'It is really you?'

Meg's head jerked as if he had pulled her hair. She blinked tears from her eyes, gazed at Cleave. Was it really Cleave ? There were scattered grey hairs on his head as well, but his face had not changed, except perhaps to grow firmer, grow harder. And grow more confident. Not that Cleave had ever lacked confidence.

'We heard them rifles,' Cleave said. 'In the night we heard them. And we knew they was looking for someone. But who they going be looking for, if it ain't Miss Meg?'

Meg licked her lips, slowly and painfully. Cleave snapped his fingers, and one of the other men also knelt beside her, holding a bottle. She drank greedily, hoping it would be rum, but it was water, and tasted like nectar.

'Where are they?' she whispered.

'They stop by the river,' Cleave said. 'That water running too hard, and they stop there. But how you manage to cross, Miss Meg?'

Again she licked her lips. 'I swam.' She attempted to push herself from the ground, found she lacked the strength, lay still again.

"They mus' be thinking you drown,' Cleave said, half to himself. 'You coming to us, Miss Meg?'

Meg made a great effort, rolled on her back. 'Yes,' she said. 'I am coming to you, Cleave.' Her eyes flopped shut again.

When she awoke she was being carried on a rough fitter, and someone's shirt had been thrown across the upper half of her body because her gown was in rags. The sun was still high, but no longer exactly overhead.

Cleave walked beside the litter, and now he looked down. 'Is not far,' he said.

They were in the stony ravine. How memory flooded back. Nineteen years, and she could remember this place as if it were yesterday.

She licked her lips. ‘I am so very hungry,' she said.

He nodded, and gave her a banana. Perhaps one of her own, she thought, stolen from Hilltop. But nothing had ever tasted so good.

The men carrying the litter stopped, in the shelter of the cliff, to rest. She was laid on the ground, and Cleave squatted beside her.

‘I am sure I can walk,' she said. "There is no need to carry me any more.' 'You can' walk,' Cleave said.

She lay back, and gazed at him. You are here, she thought. So what happened now ? Is it up to you, or up to him ? Did she feel passion? She did not, at the moment; she felt only weariness and anxiety.

'Them people done saying you are mad,' Cleave said.

'Do you believe that?'

'For truth, I ain' knowing what that is,' Cleave said. 'It means that I am unable to think. That I have the mind of a child.'

Cleave's mouth widened into a slight smile. 'You ain' no chil’, Miss Meg, and that is a fact.'

'I am not mad, Cleave,' she said. "They have been keeping me a prisoner, for seven years they have kept me a prisoner, so that they could have the plantation to themselves.'

Cleave thought for a while. 'You wan' another banana ?' he asked at last.

She took it greedily. No doubt bananas would be her main diet for a while. Bananas and their cousins, plantains.

'So what you doing now?' Cleave asked.

'Well...' She swallowed. 'There is someone who will help me. He is a sea captain. If I could stay with you until the next time he is in Kingston, I am sure I will be all right'

Cleave thought again. Then he got up and snapped his fingers, and the men picked up the litter.

Oh, my God, she thought. What have I done ? Suppose he will not help me ? Nineteen years. It is too long.

'I... I don't mean to inconvenience you in any way,' she said.

He looked down at her. Ts good to have you with us, Miss Meg,' he said.

Which was sufficiently non-committal. She chewed her lip. 'Is ... is Jack well?'

Again the sombre glance. 'Jack done dead, Miss Meg. Oh, four year' now.'

'Oh. I... I'm terribly sorry.'

'Well,' Cleave said, 'he was old.'

Voices, and people, the women and children she remembered. But no, she thought, these are the children and grandchildren of the people I remember. Why, one of these heavy-breasted matrons is probably the girl who danced.

But the drums were still there. Surely. She had heard them often enough. Yet she could not see them tonight, and there was no kid bleating as it went to execution. Only the stake to which it had been tethered still waited. She wanted to scream for joy. The stake was real, therefore it had all been real.

'But what is this?' a woman asked as the litter was put on the ground.

'Is Mistress Hilton,' said one of the men. 'You ain' knowing that?'

'She?' asked a woman. 'That is she? Why she naked so?'

'She mad,' said another. 'You ain' knowing that? Is what they saying in Kingston. That she mad.'

Oh, my God, Meg thought. Oh, my God.

Cleave held out his hand, and she grasped it to rise to her feet. The shirt started to slip, and she hastily clutched it against her breast. Her legs felt weak, and she would have fallen if Cleave had not supported her.

'What you got there, Cleave ?' asked one of the men.

'Hush up your mouth,' Cleave recommended, leading Meg away from the litter and towards the hut. 'This woman sick. You ain' seeing that?'

She had to duck her head to get under the troolie-palm roof. Within the shade there was a hammock, hung from two of the uprights, a roughly carved wooden table, with a bench to each side, and some cooking utensils. Cleave guided Meg to the hammock, and she sank into it. But her brain was seething.

'I am not mad, Cleave,' she whispered. 'Please believe me. I am not mad.'

'I say you is sick,' Cleave pointed out. 'You been out all night in the storm. Man, Miss Meg, if you ain' restin, you going be sick bad.' He raised his head to gaze at the people clustered outside the house. 'You all ain' got business?'

'Man, Cleave,' said one of the men. 'You knowing she can' stay here. Them white people going come looking. They going send them nigger policemen.'

'How they goin' know where she is ?' Cleave demanded. They done give up the trail, anyhow.'

'They goin' come again,' the man insisted. 'They mus'. Man, they ain' going leave no white woman in these mountains.'

Cleave chewed his Up, looking down at Meg. 'Help me,' she whispered. 'Oh, please help me.'

'We goin' let the mamaloi decide,' Cleave said at last.

The watchers exchanged glances.

'Yeah, man,' said the man who had objected to Meg's presence. 'That is the thing. The mamaloi going know.'

'So that is what we goin' do,' Cleave said. 'When the mistress done get better, and can walk. Then the mamaloi going decide. You all gone now, and leave she.'

They hesitated, then drifted away, about whatever business occupied their time. Meg leaned back in her hammock with a sigh. The first crisis had been surmounted. But there were others, looming close at hand.

'I do not understand,' she said. 'Who is going to decide my fate?'

'I got for take you to the mamaloi,'' he said. 'When you can walk. Is the mamaloi going decide. Is the mamaloi must tell us what to do. Is the mamaloi what is our mistress.'

And therefore, she reflected, by implication the mamaloi was her mistress, if she would seek shelter here. The mamaloi. She knew the meaning of the word well enough: A mamaloi was a voodoo priestess. She knew the legend of how her great-great-grandfather, Matt Hilton, had fallen in love with a mamaloi, had nearly wrecked the entire West Indies in his hunt for her. That mamaloi had been sold into slavery by Robert Hilton, to prevent his cousin destroying the family in his, to Hilton eyes senseless, passion. And yet, so the story went, she had borne no hatred, where certainly she had sufficient cause. And when the slaves in the French colony of St Dominique had risen in revolt in a long orgy of rape and murder and mayhem, it had been the good offices of the mamaloi which had saved the life of Great-Great-Grandmother Suzanne, Matt's wife.

So, mamalois were not necessarily evil things. But at the same time, Meg remembered with a shudder, it had been that same mamaloi who had ordered Suzanne's sister, Georgiana, to be torn to pieces while she still lived and screamed.

So then, mamalois were creatures of instinct. Or creatures able to communicate with the gods, and tell their wishes. That was what Cleave would believe. And believing that, he would do as the mamaloi commanded him, however much he might wish to keep the white woman in his village.

However much. It was late afternoon, and he was back beside her hammock, bringing her cassava bread, and some baked fish, and avocado pear, and bananas. She was so hungry it tasted like a banquet. And why should it not be a banquet? she wondered. She was free of Hilltop. It was all but twenty-four hours since her escape. Oriole would be desperate with anxiety, that she might be dead, that her rule of Hilltop might be imperilled. But when her body was not left stranded on the rocks where the river debouched onto the beach before finding its way into the sea, they would know that she had to be alive. And as the villagers had warned Cleave, they would resume their search.

'Will you not eat with me ?' she asked.

He hesitated, then broke off a piece of fish, slowly conveyed it to his mouth, sucked his fingers.

Meg licked her lips, masticated slowly and painfully. 'I wish you to know,' she said, 'that whatever the mamaloi decides must be done with me, I am grateful to you for having brought me here today. I will never forget that.'

Cleave ate some more fish. What was going on inside that mind, she wondered. Where was the boy who had sought her body?

She ate her avocado. 'Did ... did Jack bring me here because the mamaloi told him to ?' she asked.

'Jack didn't listen to no mamaloi,' Cleave said, 'Jack was a hougan.'

A voodoo priest.

'And now there is no hougan in this village?' Cleave shook his head.

'Why are you not the hougan? Meg asked. Oh, she thought, if only he could be the hougan; my troubles would be over.

'I ain' knowing that,' Cleave said. 'You wan' some more?'

'No, thank you.' She finished the last of her food.

Cleave stood up. 'You wanting a drink? I got rum.'

Her turn to hesitate. But how she wanted to drink that rum again, to feel her mind go whirling up into the mountains, perhaps to regain the tempestuous confidence of her girlhood. Perhaps to want his fingers, again. She could not be sure, now.

'Yes,' she said. ‘I would like a drink of rum.' She smiled at him. 'It may do me good.' He nodded, left the hut. It was growing dark now, and the mosquitoes were starting to buzz. She slapped one, watched the splodge of blood on her arm, looked out at the clearing and the village. Wherever the people went during the day, they were mostly home by now. They sat around and smoked pipes or primitive cheroots, and drank, rum she supposed, and sang to themselves. A fire had been lit, and flickered in the centre of the clearing. Why wasn't there a feast, and a dance, in honour of her coming? she wondered. Because they did not wish her here, now. They had changed, after all. They were no longer Jack's people. Now they belonged to the mamaloi, and wished no white woman to complicate their lives.

She watched Cleave walking across the clearing, carrying a bottle by the neck. People spoke to him, and he answered. She looked for the flash of their smiling teeth in the gloom, but saw nothing. They were not smiling tonight.

He ducked his head, stood beside the hammock. He held out the bottle, and she took it. It was three-quarters full. Stolen, no doubt; even rum cost more money than these people possessed. She raised it to her lips, drank slowly, afraid of what she would taste, afraid of what she would feel like, having tasted.

And there it was. The heat filled her mouth, seeped down her throat, exploded in her chest in that well-remembered way. She dilated her nostrils as she inhaled, felt a dropping away of her cares and her fears, held out the bottle in turn.

Cleave hesitated, then took it.

'Won't you sit?' she asked.

He drank, while hesitating, then slowly lowered himself to the hammock beside her. It sagged beneath the added weight, so that their bottoms almost brushed the ground, and they slid towards each other, their thighs touching.

Cleave offered the bottle once again, and this time she drank even more deeply. It is going to be all right, she thought. Always before she had endeavoured to remain sober when making love. Alcohol dulled the senses, those that mattered, anyway, left memory uncertain. But for the first time, alcohol was essential, to relax the nerves, quieten the fears. And this was the first time. She was a virgin again, the passionate excesses of her youth disappeared into the limbo of uncertain memory.

She returned the bottle, and his fingers touched hers. Now it was quite dark, the only light provided by the flickering of the fire, and that did not penetrate in here. No one could tell what they were doing, here in the darkness.

Which was nonsense, because everyone knew what they were doing. Except her. The darkness was necessary, for her. For this last time, she wanted the darkness, to hide from herself.

She shrugged away the shirt, let it fall to the earth beneath the hammock. She could see his face, dimly, in the gloom; the firelight glinted from the bottle as he held it out. She took it, set it on the floor beside the shirt. Still he hesitated. Perhaps he needed more than just a drink. Perhaps he needed the impetus of the drum and the blood and the erotic cadence of the dance.

But if she lost the magic of the rum, then she would lose all else. She was sixteen again, uncertain what was going to happen, what she would feel like, during and even more, after. To think, now, would be disaster.

Meg reached out to take his hand, place it on the naked flesh of her shoulder.

His fingers seethed. Or was it her flesh which was seething? She turned into his arms as his fingertips stroked across her shoulders, trickled down her spine. She wanted to shriek with joy, and not only because of the delight induced by his touch. Because she could feel the passion building in her belly. Because she knew, after so long, that she was still Meg Hilton, that not the Spanish sailors, not the Spanish prison, not even Oriole's imprisonment, had robbed her of herself.

And when Cleave's hand moved slowly round her ribs, to hold her breast from underneath, and slowly slide his fingers forward to find the nipple and very gently squeeze it while thrusting it away from her flesh, she exploded into the quickest orgasm she had ever known, twisting on to his lap, searching his pants with her hands, sliding them down, finding what she wanted and cramming it into herself while she pushed him back on the hammock. He had never entered her before. He had left her a virgin. Now he must make her a whole woman again in every way.

He seemed longer and harder and more powerful than anything she had ever known, himself included. And possessed of greater control. She could raise and lower herself to her heart's content, each descent accompanied by that tremendous surge of utter ecstasy. Exhaustion returned, made itself felt in flooding sweat which dripped from her hair and coated her flesh, and still she sought orgasm after orgasm. It was more than eight years of enforced chastity. It was a clearing away of every man who had forced her, of every indignity to which she had been exposed, of the very last memory of the sawing rope. And when at last she collapsed on his chest, unable to move, aware only of her own gasping breaths, dimly feeling his fingers still exploring her back and her bottom, she could think again, at last I am Meg Hilton.

She became aware that it was daylight, and that people were stirring all round her. She lay on her side in the hammock, her knees drawn up almost to her chest, curled up like a child. All her years seemed to have dropped away. She had slept with utter soundness for very nearly twelve hours; her head was clear, her muscles were active, and her belly seethed with passion. But the passion was muted.

A little boy stared at her over the side of the hammock. He picked his nose with one hand, scratched himself idly with the other. Instinctively she reached down to find some covering, and then realized there was no need. There was no need to do anything she did not wish. She was Meg Hilton.

'Hello,' she said. 'What is your name?'

The boy gave a shy smile, then turned and ran out of the hut. And Cleave came in.

Meg sat up. His face was again sombre. 'Is something the matter?'

'We must go,' he said. 'To the mamaloi’ She had forgotten the mamaloi. But surely, after the night they had just spent, the mamaloi was unimportant. 'But first, you must eat.'

He held out the cassava, the fish, the bananas. Staple diet. She gazed at his pants, found the bulge. 'Will you not sit beside me?'

He shook his head. 'Now is not the time, Miss Meg.' He hesitated. 'You ain' sorry?'

'Sorry ? Why else do you think I came here. I should have come back here long ago, I think.'

'Them white people ain' goin' like what happen,' he pointed out.

'Them white people ain't going to know,' she said, and smiled. 'Unless I choose to tell them. And when I do that, it will be because I won't care whether they like it or not. I don't care now.'

He gazed at her for some seconds.

'You eat,' he said at last. 'Come outside when you is ready.'

She ate slowly and carefully; she was hungry, but her stomach was also churning with suppressed excitement. She finished her meal, stood up. She knew they looked at her, every man, every woman, and every child, whatever they were doing. Cleave's woman. All that tall, powerful, uninhibited voluptuousness was Cleave's. She felt the excitement building. She did not want to consider the future. It would be weeks before Alan could return to Jamaica, and in that time she must remain here, as Cleave's woman. Now was not the time to consider what Alan would think of it. Now was only the time to be Cleave's woman.

She found her tattered gown, dried now, and put it on. She ran her fingers through her hair, smoothing some of the tangles, then stepped outside, into the morning light. The people looked at her, but did not speak. Only Cleave got up, came towards her.

'Is this way,' he said, and led her into the trees which clustered north of the village.

Meg hesitated, for just a moment, then went behind him. She wished he could be a little more demonstrative. A little more possessive, perhaps. How strange to hear Meg Hilton wishing that of any man. Save Alan.

But the strangest thing was that she no longer found any great pleasure in reminding herself that she was Meg Hilton. Or had she ever found pleasure in that?

They walked, it seemed for a long time. Meg's feet were sore from her escapade of two nights before, and now they were soon sore again, but at least there was little undergrowth with its inevitable carpet of thorns and bristles. Here there were mainly loose pebbles, and occasional slabs of flat and surprisingly smooth rock. And the trees provided some shade from the sun which soon came swinging low over the mountains which surround them.

'Why does not the mamaloi live with you in the village?' she asked.

Cleave did not turn his head. 'She is not the mamaloi of my village, Miss Meg. She is the mamaloi’

'Ah,' Meg said. But she didn't really understand. Probably no one down by the coast, even as close as Hilltop Plantation, really understood anything about the mountain people, she thought, or even realized that they did possess some kind of social order, some kind of cohesion.

Cleave stopped, so suddenly she nearly ran into his back. The trees clustered more thickly in a little valley immediately in front of them, and there was a whisp of smoke.

'You mus' be quiet, Miss Meg,' he said. 'Unless she asking you.'

Meg nodded. I go to meet my superior, she thought. What a topsy-turvy world it was. But who was she to decide which was real and which was fantasy? More important, which was good and which was evil ? To Alan, every Hilton since Tony Hilton the first had landed in St Kitts had been a creature of evil, following his or her ambition to wealth and power regardless of who had to be thrown aside or trampled underfoot in that quest. This old lady did nothing more than give a law to a village of outlaws.

'Come then,' Cleave said, and went forward again, but slowly now. He reached the trees, parted branches, looked into the small clearing and the hut, like those of his village, but possessing walls, and indeed, much more strongly built. Amazingly, the smoke issued from a hole in the roof, whatever the fire risk. The morning was still, and the plume of grey rose straight into the air. The faint tang of it came to Meg's nostrils, titillating them with an unusual odour, unlike any woodsmoke she had smelt before.

The door stood slightly ajar, and the interior was dark. Cleave did not knock, but stood immediately outside the aperture, motioning Meg to stand beside him. They waited there for perhaps several minutes, while the sun continued to climb into the skies, and a bird called, far away in the trees. There was no other sound.

Then a voice spoke. 'Who waits?'

'Is Cleave.'

'And the woman is with you?'

Meg's head swung in amazement, but Cleave frowned her into silence. 'The woman is with me.' 'Then enter.'

Cleave stepped back, gestured at the doorway. Meg ducked her head beneath the low beam, pushed the door to one side, stepped into the darkness, hesitating and blinking, her nostrils assailed by the same smell she had noticed outside, but now immeasurably stronger, a smell which suggested untold ecstasies to her imagination, but at the same time untold filth. It rose from a small fire in the centre of the earthen floor, and in her immediate violent inhalation she choked in the smoke which filled the room before finding its way out through the roof. In a fit of coughing she collapsed on her knees, close by the fire.

Dimly she realized Cleave had also entered the hut and closed the door.

'What she want with us?' the woman's voice demanded.

Meg raised her head again, gazed at the red gown, the slender, hunched body on the far side of the fire. And then sat up straight in surprise. She had expected an old woman, but this mamaloi was no older than herself. Indeed, she supposed her younger. And there was something familiar about her face.

'She got trouble with her people,' Cleave said. 'She come to us for help.'

'Us?' the mamaloi asked. 'Her skin is white.'

'We got for help she,' Cleave said. 'You ain' remembering? Is Jack bring she here the first time. Is Jack saying she mus' come back.'

'I remember she,' said the mamaloi, and suddenly Meg remembered her. It was the girl who had led the dance, nine years before. Never could she forget those eager, passion-consumed features. And now? The face seemed close, almost asleep. 'I remember she does own Hilltop,' the woman said. 'I remember she father and he people kill our boy, one time.'

'Long ago,' Cleave said. 'She did be a chil’ then. Now she wanting our help.'

'I remember she come here,' the mamaloi said. 'I remember you did put a sweetness on her. That is what she came for.'

Meg decided she was panting. It was incredible that she should be kneeling here, in a noisome hut, listening to her fate being decided by two black people.

'I got sweetness for her,' Cleave said. 'But is Jack bring she here.'

'And Jack say she goin' come back soon. Jack sayin' after she come one time she mus' be our friend. Why she ain' come until now ? Why them Hilltop people still shoot at we ?'

'She ain' able,' Cleave explained. 'She ain' able, until now. But now she here, and she wantin' to stay.'

The mamaloi stared at Meg for several seconds. 'Then I goin' ask Jack,' she said.

'Now?' Cleave asked in terror.

'Soon,' the mamaloi said. 'Soon. This night I goin' come. You beat the drum.'

Cleave hesitated. 'We can' get no lamb,' he said. 'Them white people hunting for she. They got rifle.'

Once again the dark eyes gloomed at Meg. 'Then it can be fowl cock,' she said. 'Tonight. And Jack goin' say, then.'

They returned by a different route, which took them by a bubbling stream. 'You want to bathe?' Cleave asked.

Perhaps, she thought, he was remembering their first meeting. But she did want to bathe. She nodded, took off her gown, stepped into the surprisingly cold water, waded out to its deepest, where it came to her thighs, crouched there and scooped it over her shoulders, pushed her head back to wet her hair, felt her nipples start away from her chest.

'Won't you join me?'

He hesitated, then took off his pants and came into the stream himself.

'It is good here,' he said, scooping water over his head. 'You mus' stay here.'

'I would like to, for a while,' she said, misunderstanding his meaning.

'My people, they do not understand,' he said. 'They forget that Jack ever lived, think of him only as a jumbi. But once he has spoken, they will be your friends. Until then, it would be best for you to stay here.'

'You mean, here?’

'It is quiet, and there is water. I got for go back, to tell them to prepare for the mamaloi coming, but I goin' come to you with food.'

'Oh. All right.' She realized she had been dreading her return to the village, the glances, some sly and some hostile, to which she would be subjected. But as Cleave said, after Jack had spoken, they would be her friends.

Cleave stood up. 'There ain' nobody goin' trouble you here,' he said reassuringly.

She watched water draining down his shoulders, hanging from his buttocks and his penis before dripping into the water, and held out her hand. He hesitated, then squeezed her fingers, left the water and pulled on his pants. A moment later he was gone.

And Meg had a sudden fear. She remembered that morning on board the Margarita. The same lazy loneliness, the same feeling of well-being, which had been about to be torn apart, for ever. It had seemed.

She stood up herself, left the water, felt the sun, high now, scorching her skin as it dried it. She could not spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. It had been that fear-induced memory which had kept her subservient to Oriole for so long. It must not happen again. Besides, there were differences. This time she had actually had her swim. And this time she was in no danger from anything. Save perhaps the spirit of Jack. And Jack had been her friend.

She found a smooth piece of rock, brushed it free of dust and leaves, and lay down on her back. The sun seemed to shroud her, warming her and reassuring her at the same time. Around her the mountains and the forest were quiet, only the occasional wailing bird breaking the silence. She could be happy here. Were she not Meg Hilton, were she able to sit back and be Cleave's woman, she could be happy. She need never wear clothes, she need do no more than lie in the sun, and grow old in peace.

Then why did she not, even as Meg Hilton? Did not Meg Hilton do whatever she wished, whenever she wished? No, she thought. That Meg Hilton drowned with the Margarita. That Meg Hilton had defied convention once too often, and suffered dreadfully as a consequence.

It rained, suddenly, the sun disappearing behind the fast-moving clouds. But Meg continued to lie on her rock, allowing the heavy drops to bounce from her skin, awaiting the return of the sun. And in time it came again, warming her and drying her.

So, she wondered, what did this Meg Hilton wish? Did she really wish to be Mistress of Hilltop, ever again? Or was she just being driven by the weight of her ancestors, the circumstances of her heritage? She really did not know. Her first objective must be to escape Oriole and Billy, and regain Alan. All else waited upon that.

And to accomplish that, she was prepared to use Cleave and his people. Oh, indeed, she had not changed so very much. She was Meg Hilton.

Useless to remind herself that she had always wanted to return here, that, indeed, she had always intended to return here. That had been a delicious dream to relieve her hours of boredom. Useless to remind herself that she had always wanted to know more than just his fingers. That was Meg Hilton the courtesan speaking again. But also Meg Hilton the woman. Because Cleave was the most accomplished lover she had ever known, without being in the slightest accomplished. When making love he was doing what came naturally, not shrugging off all the inhibitions of his upbringing and imposed by the society to which he belonged.

And he loved her. At least, she thought he did. She would never find a better man. But she was using him, to get back to the side of the man she loved.

She opened her eyes, gazed at him, realized she must have at some stage fallen asleep. Her body was roasted pink but she felt lazily well, and lazily passionate, as well. She held up her arms, and he dropped between them. She realized with a start of delighted surprise that it was the first time he had lain on her belly; last night she had been on his. And once again her first orgasm came at his first touch, so long had she waited to know a man again.

But today he too was perhaps lazy, or perhaps troubled. When he had ejaculated and she went back to the stream to wash, he lay on his side, his head propped on his hand, and watched her. She came back to him, dropped to her knees at his side. 'Your people are not happy?'

'They mus' be happy, Miss Meg, when Jack comin' to them.'

'But you are not happy. Jack is my friend.'

'Is a fac', he did like you too much, Miss Meg. He was too sorry when you didn' come back.'

She bit her lip. 'Well... I got married, and ...' She gave a quick smile. 'I used to go swimming in the river. Often. I hoped that one day you might be there. And Jack.'

'Jack say you got for come here,' Cleave pointed out.

'Ah.' She squeezed water from her hair. 'I'm sorry.'

'It was because you are white and we is black,' Cleave observed.

Meg sighed. 'Yes. I'm afraid it was. My people are very ... very ...' She could not decide on a word.

'They don' like black people, and that is a fact,' Cleave said.

'Yes,' Meg agreed. 'But ‘ like your people, Cleave.'

'Yet you goin' go again,' he pointed out. 'When this man is comin'. He does be white.'

'Yes.' Once again she chewed her lip. She had never expected Cleave to be jealous. But why hadn't she expected Cleave to be jealous? Had she then, been unable to think of him as a person like herself, for all her pretence? 'If I could make you understand,' she said. ‘I have children. I have my plantation. I ... I owe a responsibility to them. I could be happy here, Cleave. I know that. But 1 cannot stay. I cannot shrug off everything I am, everything I was born to be, just to lie back and be happy. It is not possible.'

My God, she thought, Tommy Claymond. And her brain had scorched white with anger.

Was Cleave angry? He pushed himself up. 'I hear the drum,' he said.

The noise shrouded the mountains, rumbled through the valleys, hung on the air. It was nineteen years since she had heard it so close, and she did not remember it as being so loud. It was dusk, and the people of the village were already assembled, seated around the clearing. And at the stake three fowl cocks were tethered by the neck, eyes darting, heads attempting to dart, plainly already mad with fear, with a sense of doom.

Cleave made Meg sit on the far side of the clearing, exactly opposite the drummers. As on her first visit here, she was ignored by her neighbours. So would they again hold her down should she wish to dance ?

Because the tempo was increasing, the rhythm rolling around their heads like incense, clogging their senses, reaching down into the recesses of their minds and their bellies to drag every primitive urge they had ever known to the surface. They swayed, and hummed, and Meg found her fingers and even her toes moving in time to the music.

And then a girl stepped out, naked, a future mamaloi, perhaps, and with a boy, and once again Meg was riveted to the erotic posturing of the dance. Her own body became alive, and she dared not look at Cleave, sitting beside her. But she wanted to dance, how she wanted to dance.

Supposing she dared. Supposing they would let her. She rose to her knees. Cleave was still there. He had not moved. She released her gown, stepped out of it, stamped her right foot and then her left, raised her arms in the air and sank to her haunches, and then regained her feet again, aware that her breasts were trembling and moving by themselves, aware of all the people seated around her and staring at her, and yet caring nothing for any of them, swaying and stamping, thrusting her belly towards the nearest erected penis, knowing her mouth was open and that she was screaming, unaware of what she was saying, coming to a halt with a dreadful gasp as the sound of the music stopped without warning.

She stared at the mamaloi, wearing her red robe, and wondered irrelevantly if it was the same robe that Jack had worn, nineteen years before. And slowly realizing that the black people were shrinking away from her side, leaving her alone and exposed in the centre of the clearing.

The mamaloi’s arm was extended, the finger beckoning. Meg licked her lips, shook her hair back from where it had clouded across her face and her eyes, slowly moved forward.

The mamaloi stooped, picked up one of the cocks, held it out. Oh, my God, Meg thought. But she was surrounded by silence, by people, waiting.

The extended arm jerked, the cock flapped its wings, attempted to escape. And Meg herself extended both her arms, wrapped her fingers around the bird's neck. The mamaloi's hand fell away, but she remained staring at Meg, while a low moaning chant arose from the people surrounding them.

Now, she thought. Now. All I have to do is twist this neck. Do I not eat chicken often enough on Hilltop? But the necks there were twisted by other fingers, other hands. Yet this had to be done. She sucked air into her lungs, willed the strength to flow from her shoulders down her arms to her fingers, willed her mind to give the command, to twist her hands ... and lost her balance as the earth shook, seeming to tremble immediately beneath her feet, while a low rumble drifted through the mountains, as if all the evil spirits in the world were laughing together, and she found herself on her knees, scrabbling at the dirt as if she would slide along it.

The cock was gone.

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE HUSBAND

 

 

SLOWLY Meg raised her head, looked around her. The trees still stood, although they still seemed to sway, and there was no breeze. Even the huts of the village still stood, although in one an upright had collapsed and the palm-thatched roof had caved sideways, leaving the hammock trailing on the earth.

But the people had fallen. Like her they had thrown themselves on the ground, clawing at the dust in their terror. Only the mamaloi remained standing, eyes wide, as if expecting another such seething movement to seep across the land.

Meg got to her knees, looked over her shoulder. Cleave was also on his knees, gazing at her, and beyond her at the mamaloi. For the priestess was now also staring at her, she realized, and as she watched her, her heart beginning to pound, she saw that long, red-robed arm come out, the finger pointing.

'You hear what Jack say?' Meg scrambled to her feet. 'No,' she said. 'That wasn't Jack. That was an earth tremor. Nothing more. There have been such tremors before.' She turned, looked to right and left, looked to Cleave. 'You must remember them. There is nothing supernatural about an earthquake.'

'You hear what Jack say ?' shouted the mamaloi, and this time she was not addressing Meg. 'When this woman did be born, the earth shake so. Jack tell me this. He say he did shake it himself, because one more bad Hilton coming.

Then he try for to make friends with she, but she ain' coming back, until now. And he shaking the earth again.'

The Negroes nodded their agreement, sidled away from her, gathered by the drums. The jumbi of their hougan had spoken, and that was enough. They would never accept her now. She didn't know if she could accept herself. One more bad Hilton. They had laughed about the tremor at her birth. Even Percy had laughed. But had he meant to laugh ? Had not all the Negroes known there was one more bad Hilton amongst them? She gazed at Cleave, standing by himself, his entire massive frame a picture of uncertainty.

'She must go,' the mamaloi hissed. 'She must go, now.'

Meg sighed, and walked towards Cleave, stooped, and picked up her gown.

'It is dark,' he said.

‘I must go.'

'Where?'

She shrugged. ‘I will try to reach Kingston. Perhaps ... perhaps Dr Phillips will help me.' She could think of no one else. She wanted to think of no one else. She was crushed. On top of everything else, this last rejection, by the gods, seemed to leave her with nothing to hope for. Perhaps she thought, it would even be better if I went back to Hilltop, surrendered to Oriole and Billy, and accepted imprisonment for the rest of my life.

'I going take you,' Cleave said.

Her head jerked.

'She must go,' the mamaloi said again. She had crossed the clearing, stood immediately behind Meg. 'If she stay, Jack goin' destroy us all.'

Meg licked her hps. But she didn't know what to say.

Cleave was not looking at her. ‘I goin' take she out,' he said to the priestess. Then he looked at Meg. 'Come.'

She stumbled down the path behind him, into the darkness. She would not look back. However she might have dismissed it as superstition, those people believed she had all but brought them disaster. She could not look back.

The sound of the dogs and the chickens and the slowly recovering people died behind them, and her feet were already hurting; in the darkness she could not see where were the sharp pebbles which scoured her insteps.

'Cleave,' she said.

He stopped, waited for her to catch him up.

'I am sorry,' she said.

'I got for be sorry, Miss Meg,' he said.

'Will you be all right, when you go back?'

'I got for be all right, Miss Meg. I am the head man.'

He was moving on again. She had become a duty. She had not the heart to beg him to stop.

They walked, it seemed for an eternity. The pain in her bruised feet soon became secondary to sheer exhaustion. And they had not yet regained the river. Then it was another twenty miles to Kingston. She suddenly realized she would never make it. She lacked the strength, and after what had just happened, she lacked the determination. She was beaten. Meg Hilton had finally been beaten into the ground, not by Spanish soldiers and sailors, not by unthinkable conditions, not by Oriole's hate or Billy's ambition, but by the people of the drum, poor people, who wished only to live their lives in peace, and wanted none of the problems she would bring.

She found herself on her knees.

'Cleave,' she wailed.

He stopped, and came back to her.

'I must rest,' she said. 'I can go no farther.'

He sat down beside her. For a few moments he left her there, listening to her panting breath. Then he stretched out his hand, took her shoulder, pulled her over. She fell, half into his lap, and felt his arm go round her. There was no sexual urge. There was only the comfort of a strong man protecting an exhausted woman. This, she thought, was all she had ever wanted from any man. Her eyes were shut before her head reached his chest.

She slept, deeply and dreamlessly, and came awake with a sudden shock, to the crack of the rifle.

She rolled over, landed on her hands and knees, mind instantly awake; she thought that sound would haunt her for the rest of her life. And it had been very close.

Cleave also sat up, scratching his head. He must have been as exhausted as she, she realized.

It was just dawn, and the mist still clung to the trees. Sleepy birds had also been disturbed by the report and noisily called to each other as they wheeled overhead.

'Hilltop people,' Cleave said.

Meg stood up, pushed hair from her eyes.

'Close,' Cleave said, also getting up.

She looked down the trail, saw nothing. They were in a wooded copse, and the great trees shut them in behind a wall. 'We must hide,' she said. ‘I do not want to see Hilltop people.'

He nodded, chewed his lip. 'But they goin' know we was here,' he said, pointing at the underbrush where they had lain, and where the twigs were broken and the ground sagged under their weight. 'We got for get away.'

He held out his hand, and she seized it, followed him into the bushes. Now the going was much harder than last night; branches scattered the earth, thorns reached out to seize her hair and tear her gown. And she thought they must be making a noise like a herd of elephants.

But Cleave went on, leading her downhill, cutting across the side of the mountain and stopping, at once to flick sweat from his forehead and to listen, as the rifle exploded again, from above and behind them now.

'Here,' someone shouted, and Meg instinctively dropped to her knees. The voice had seemed to come from almost alongside them.

Cleave also knelt. His face was grim. He knew they could not escape.

'What is it?' bawled another voice, this from in front of them; the path made a U-bend. And this voice belonged to Billy. Oh, my God, she thought. Oh, my God.

'They close, Mr Hilton, sir,' Washington said. 'They close.'

'Listen, Meg whispered urgently. 'It is me they want. They do not even know you exist. Get away. Climb this slope. You can do it.'

'And what goin' happen to you?'

'Nothing will happen to me. I promise. They will merely take me back.'

'And lock you up,' he said. 'We both got for climb this cliff, Miss Meg.'

She shook her head. 'I'll never make it. And they'll follow. But if they capture me, they won't bother with you.'

Cleave hesitated, then shook his head in turn. 'I can' leave you, Miss Meg. I say I would take you to Kingston. I mus' be doing that.'

'Cleave ...' She bit her lip.

'Here,' shouted Washington. 'They does be in these bushes, Mr Hilton.'

She gave Cleave a stricken look, but it was too late for him now. There was only one thing left to do. But how memory came back to her, of crouching in the hold of the Margarita, listening to the Spanish bullets ripping into the wooden timbers, listening to the squealing of the rats. How memory flooded her system with what had happened afterwards.

She sucked air into lungs, stood up. 'Well done, Washington,' she said. 'I think you could track a devil down to hell.'

The groom peered at her, and took off his hat. His face twisted with embarrassment. 'Well, mistress, I had to do ...' He checked, looking over his shoulder.

There were four other black men, standing on the path and peering into the bushes. And there was Billy, carrying the rifle.

'Meg?' he said. 'My God, but you had us worried.'

‘I can imagine, Billy,' she said.

'Well, come on out of there,' he said. 'You have torn your dress. You are a most annoying girl, really you are.'

He was trying to treat her like a child, like a madwoman, in fact, for all that his face twitched with suppressed emotion. Fear that she had died ? Anger that she had yet again disrupted his peaceful existence?

'Very well, Billy,' she said, and parted the bushes.

'Eh-eh,' Washington said. 'But what is that?'

Cleave stood up, and Meg caught her breath.

'My God,' Billy shouted, forcing his way forward.

This man was guiding me out,' Meg said, keeping her voice even with an effort.

'Guiding you out?' Billy shouted. 'Guiding you out?'

'I know he,' Washington said. 'Is one of them mountain people.'

'Mountain people,' Billy snarled. His face was so suffused Meg thought he might be about to have a fit. He pushed his way close to her, seized her shoulder with his free hand, shook her like a rat. 'Mountain people,' he said. 'You went to them ?'

'Let me go,' Meg said, still speaking quietly. 'Yes. I went to them.'

'To your lover,' Billy said. 'Your black lover. You bitch. You whore. You crawling thing.'

Meg stepped away from him, faced Cleave. 'You had better go home now, Cleave.'

'He ain' goin' beat you?'

'No,' Meg said. 'He is not going to lay a finger on me. Go home, Cleave.

Cleave hesitated, then turned.

'You,' Billy shouted. 'You're not getting away. I may not be going to beat her, by God, but I'm going to beat you. Washington, tie that fellow up.

'Me, Mr Hilton?' Washington gazed at the rippling muscles in Cleave's back.

But Cleave had checked, and half turned at the threat.

'No,' Meg said. 'Do not stop, Cleave. Go home. No one is going to touch you.'

'Touch you,' Billy screamed. 'Touch you,'

Meg sensed the desperation in his voice, began to turn herself, saw the gun muzzle coming up, gasped in sheer horror. The noise of the shot, for the muzzle was not six inches away from her shoulder, knocked her over so that she thought for a moment she had been hit. Still lying in the bushes she watched Cleave's back explode in a splash of red, watched his arms come up, watched him take half a step forward, and then collapse on his face, crackling through the bushes to strike the earth.

Meg started forward, but checked before she reached him. The bullet had struck at a range of not more than six feet, and Cleave hardly seemed to have a back any more. What his chest would look like where the bullet had come out did not bear consideration.

'Oh, God,' Billy said. 'Oh, God.'

Branches cracked, and Washington stood beside her. 'He mus' be die right away, Miss Meg.'

Meg turned, to face her husband.

'All right,' Billy said, his face suffusing. 'A man has a right to kill his wife's lover. Especially when...' He glanced at Washington.

He loved me, she thought. And once, I said to him, they shall not shoot you; I will stop them doing that. And he had said, 'When you are Mistress of Hilltop.'

He had loved her, and had died, because of that love. As Alan had all but died, because of that love. So, what could be worse than death ? What could she possibly fear while she breathed ?

'Especially when he is a nigger, you were going to say,' she said, quietly. 'Give me that rifle.'

Billy's head jerked. 'Eh? Give you ... you must be mad. You are mad.'

'I am not going to shoot you with it, Billy,' she said. 'I am placing you under arrest for murder.'

He stared at her, his jaw slowly sagging. Then he gave a nervous laugh. 'You are mad, after all, you know. A wife can't arrest her own husband.'

'Watch me,' Meg said. 'Or do you propose to shoot us all?'

Billy looked at Washington, then at the four other black men waiting on the path. His fingers trembled.

'You,' Meg called. 'Massie, is it? Fetch the horses, Massie.'

Massie hesitated but a moment. 'Yes, sir, Miss Meg. I goin' do that.' He hurried down the path.

'Now you listen to me,' Billy shouted. 'All of you. Mistress Hilton is mad. You know that. You've been told it often enough. So you are to take no notice of anything she says. Now, we'll just bury this fellow, and then ...'

'We been told it often enough,' Washington remarked, half to himself.

Billy swung towards him. 'Now, what the devil do you mean by that ?'

'Give me the gun, Billy,' Meg said again.

Billy hesitated, looked down at the other three men, saw the hostility in their faces. He snorted, and threw the rifle on the ground. 'Take the damned thing. I didn't mean to shoot the bastard. I lost my temper.'

Meg stooped, picked up the rifle. 'Do you think I am mad, Washington?'

'No, man, Miss Meg. I ain' never think that,' Washington said.

'Thank you, Washington. I would like you and your companions to place Cleave on one of the horses. We shall not be going to Hilltop, but direct into Kingston. You know how to join the road ?'

'Oh, yes'm, Miss Meg. But... we only got six horses.'

'We will have to double up,' she said. 'I can ride with you, Washington.'

'With me? You?' Washington was plainly delighted. 'Oh, yes, man, Miss Meg. I going see to that right away.'

Meg pointed the gun. 'We'll go back to the path, Billy.'

'You are joking, I suppose, Meg. Kingston? What, would you make more of a spectacle of yourself than you are already?'

'I have nothing to lose, have I, Billy ? I have only my freedom to gain.'

'Your freedom? Everyone in Kingston knows you are mad.'

"Then I will have to prove that I am not mad. Here is Massie with the horses.'

'Anyway,' he said. 'It simply isn't on, you know. A wife cannot arrest her own husband. It is unheard of. Why, a wife cannot even testify against her husband. I suppose you hadn't thought of that.'

'I think,' Meg said, 'That a wife cannot be forced to testify against her husband, Billy. No one is going to force me to do anything. Not ever again. Mount up.'

It was nearly dusk before they reached Kingston, as Meg insisted upon going right round Hilltop, which involved nearly double the journey. Fortunately, Billy had set off prepared for an all-day search, and the men carried flasks and bread and bacon, which enabled them to stop for a brief luncheon.

'This really is an act of total folly, Meg,' Billy said, seating himself next to her. 'Listen to me. There is no court in all Jamaica will convict me for shooting that man. Not on your word.'

'There will be five other words,' she said, staring at the blanket-covered mound which was Cleave. The sun was high, and it was impossible to keep away the insects.

'Black men,' he said contemptuously. 'Everyone knows they hate the whites.'

'Your own employees? Are you admitting you are that hard a master ?'

He chewed thoughtfully. He was clearly wondering who she was, having never known her in such a mood before. But then, it was a long time since she had known herself in such a mood, either.

'Meg,' he said at last. 'Listen to me. All right. I have been beastly to you these past few years. It was Oriole's idea, believe me. She is the most grasping, the most vicious woman I have ever met. Meg, I'll send her away. I promise you. I'll send her away and we'll go back to how we were before ... well, before you went away. Roberts will agree that you have recovered. He knows we've been practising a fraud all this time. God knows he's been paid enough to take part in it. Meg, these chaps will do as you tell them. Let's bury that man and go back to Hilltop. Things will be different, you'll see.'

'You are utterly contemptible, Billy,' she said. 'I always knew you were. I never expected to hear you prove it.' She got up.

'Meg,', he said, his voice urgent, reaching for her hand. 'If ... if I were to be convicted, they'd hang me. Don't you realize that?'

She evaded his grasp, looked at him over her shoulder. 'There has never been a Hilton hanged,' she said.

'Well, then ...' He was on his knees, perhaps as part of getting up.

'But the family has experienced everything else,' she said. 'Even having one of them declared mad. I don't think a hanging would be very amiss.'

The road round Hilltop took them down to the coast, and they encountered people. By the time they reached Kingston itself they had accumulated a following of black people, men, women, and children, gossiping with each other and with the Negro drivers. 'Well, is a fact, man,' Washington explained, 'there is trouble all right. But the mistress is goin' to see to it. Oh, yes, the mistress will see to it.'

He was being very careful. But he was her man, as long as she deserved it.

'Meg,' Billy said for the twentieth time.

'Be quiet, Billy,' she said. 'I shall remember everything you say, and may well repeat it.'

He chewed his lip, and they rode down King Street, the size of the crowd now attracting several policemen, one of whom stepped in front of the procession with his hand raised.

'Mr Hilton?' He peered at Billy. 'But what is this?' His gaze turned to Meg. 'Mistress Hilton. Eh-eh. But we is hearing...'

"That I was ill, constable,' Meg said. 'I am well again now.'

The policeman appeared to notice the blanket-covered body for the first time.

'Ow me Gawd,' he remarked. 'But what is that?'

'It is a dead man,' Meg said. 'Shot by my husband, who wishes to give himself up. Will you lead us to the station, please ?'

The policeman pushed his white helmet forward the better to scratch his head. He looked at Billy.

Who licked his lips. 'It... it can all be explained, constable,' he said. 'My wife feels we should do it properly, don't you know.'

The policeman replaced his helmet. 'You men,' he said to his fellows. 'Watch the crowd, eh? You coming with me, Mr Hilton, Mrs Hilton.'

Meg looked to left and right. Windows were opening, jalousies were being thrown back, verandahs were suddenly crowded. Whenever Meg Hilton came to town, there was a sensation. But this would be the sensation to end all.

They followed the policeman, the procession behind them now accompanied by the other constables, but it was perfectly well behaved, although the rumours were spreading even wider and ever more extravagantly. They walked their horses through the gates of the Central Police Station, and Meg's heart gave a lurch; it reminded her too vividly of the Spanish military camp, nine years before, although these buildings were in much better condition and the paint was fresh. And above all, the Union Jack fluttered from the flagpole.

Washington and the other drivers were allowed in, and then the gates were shut. But a constable had been sent ahead and a young white police officer was waiting for them. 'Mr Hilton? Mrs Hilton? My word. Allow me, Mrs Hilton ...' He hurried forward to assist Meg from the saddle.

Billy dismounted. 'I think this is a matter for the Inspector General, Hardie,' he said.

'Oh, eh, well, yes, of course you're right, Mr Hilton.'

'And I would be obliged if you'd send for my father, as well,' Billy said.

He was regaining his confidence every moment.

'Of course. Yes, indeed. But you'll come inside. Mrs Hilton...' He offered Meg his arm. 'We had heard you weren't very well.'

'I am perfectly well, thank you, Mr Hardie,' she said. 'Will you send for someone for me as well, please?'

'Oh, of course, Mrs Hilton, of course.' He escorted her up the stairs. 'But your gown ... will you allow me.' He took off his uniform jacket.

'Why, thank you.' Meg allowed herself to be wrapped in the heavy drill. 'I'd like ...'

'Let's get you somewhere private.' He escorted them through a charge room filled with uniformed constables, all hastily clicking to attention at the appearance of Jamaica's most powerful planting family.

'I would like to see Dr Phillips, please,' she said.

'Now, Meg,' Billy protested.

'Will you send for him, Mr Hardie?'

'Oh, I, well ... of course I shall. If you'll come in here ...' He opened a door, showed them into an office, furnished with two desks and three comfortable chairs, and with an opened window which looked out over the compound. 'I'm sure the colonel is on his way.'

"Thank you, Hardie,' Billy said, and himself closed the door. 'Now look here,' he said. 'The sooner we call a halt to this farce the better.'

Meg sat down. Her legs felt weak. It was very many years since she had spent almost an entire day in the saddle.

'I am speaking to you, Meg,' Billy said.

'I would save what you have to say for Colonel Waite,' she suggested, and watched the door open.

The Inspector General was a heavy-set man with a ginger moustache. He had spent most of his adult life in the Colonial Police Force, and the previous fifteen years in Jamaica. He peered at them with a frown, and then closed the door and came into the room. 'Meg? Billy? But Meg... they said ...'

"That I was mad, Cyril? I assure you, I am not.'

Colonel Waite took off his uniform cap, held out his hands. 'Well, it is absolutely splendid to see you, and to see you looking so well.' He squeezed Meg's hands. 'Billy?'

'This is a dashed unfortunate affair, Cyril,' Billy said.

'I have been hearing some garbled reports,' Waite agreed. There is a dead man downstairs. Shot in the back, so far as I can make out. I have also been given a rifle registered in your name, Billy, which is reputed to have been the ... ah ... weapon used.'

'Well,' Billy said. 'If I can explain ...'

'You are sure you wish to ? I shall have to have a secretary in here, to take down what you say.'

'Well,' Billy said. 'Couldn't we, well, discuss this privately first?'

Waite looked at Meg.

'I think we should have a witness, Cyril,' she said. 'It is a very serious business.'

Waite scratched his head, turned to the door at a knock. 'Yes?'

Walter Reynolds hurled the door back as he entered the room. 'Billy? What on earth ...' He stared at Meg, and his jaw dropped. 'What is she doing here?'

'I am accusing my husband of murder, Walter,' Meg said.

'My God,' Waite remarked, at large.

'You...' For a moment Walter Reynolds seemed to have lost the power of speech. 'She's mad, you know, Cyril. Quite mad. You do know that? She has had to be kept under restraint these past seven years.'

'I have been imprisoned by my husband and his paramour these past seven years,' Meg said, still speaking very quietly. "That is another charge I shall be preferring in due course. For the time being, murder will do.'

'My God,' Waite said again, and sat down behind one of the desks. Then hastily rang the bell.

'Now look here,' Walter Reynolds said. 'I demand ...'

The door opened, and an orderly came in. 'You rang, sir?'

'Yes. I want someone in here with a notebook.' Colonel Waite glared around the room. 'No one is to say another word until that happens. And when it happens, I wish you to consider very carefully what you do say.'

'Dr Phillips is here,' the orderly said.

Waite sighed. 'Well, you had better show him in.'

Then I wish Dr Roberts summoned,' Walter Reynolds said.

'Oh, very well,' Waite agreed. 'Send for Dr Roberts, constable. And get that secretary in here.'

The orderly wisely left the door open, and a moment later John Phillips came in, clearly dragged straight from his surgery. 'Walter? Billy? Cyril? I was told this was a very urgent matter.' He saw Meg. 'Meg? They told me ...'

'Don't say it,' Meg said, 'or I am liable to be very rude. I sent for you, John. I wish you here while I make my deposition. Is your man ready, Cyril ?'

The police secretary had sidled into the room and taken his seat, notebook poised on his knee.

‘Well, ah ...' Waite looked from one to the other of the men.

'You surely aren't going to listen to her,' Walter Reynolds protested. 'She is quite mad. That is an established fact' He turned to his son. 'Billy?'

'Well, I'm afraid it is, you know.'

Colonel Waite looked at Meg. 'She seems perfectly sane to me,' he said.

'I think that is something we should clear up before we go any further,' Meg said. 'Ah, Dr Roberts.'

The door had opened again; the room had become quite crowded. 'Mrs Hilton,' Roberts said. 'I must protest at your behaviour. I heard how you had absconded ...'

'From my own house, my own plantation?' Meg demanded.

'Well, in view of your health ...'

'My health? Colonel Waite has just congratulated me on how well I look. But then, he was not informed of what he should say. I am perfectly fit in body and in mind. Cyril, I wish to state that I have been kept a prisoner in my own house for the past seven years, by my husband, by my cousin Oriole Paterson, and by this so-called doctor, who signed all the necessary certificates.'

'Meg,' the colonel begged.

'I'd like to finish,' she said quietly. "The basis for their confinement was my behaviour in running off with my lover for what I supposed was a few days in Cuba. This no doubt makes me a very wicked woman in some people's eyes, but not necessarily a mad one. I hope your man is taking all of this down. As you know, my adventure turned out badly; I was taken by the Spanish, considered to be a guerrilla, and subjected to quite inhuman treatment. As a result of that I contracted malaria and returned here in a generally weakened state, and, I admit it quite freely, then suffered a breakdown in health, physical as well as mental, which caused me to be confined to bed for several months. Upon my recovery, however, I was informed by my husband, by his paramour and by Dr Roberts here, that I had been certified insane and that they had no intention of ever allowing me to resume a normal life again. Let me finish, Cyril. The reason behind all of this, the reason, I even suspect, that I am still alive, is that by the providentially thoughtful terms of my father's will, I do not own Hilltop, but only hold it in trust for my son Richard. Therefore, were I to die, the entire estate would pass to him. But while I am alive, I have the complete running of the plantation, so that anyone who controls me, controls the whole.'

She paused, to catch her breath. There was a moment of utter silence in the room.

Then Colonel Waite said, 'My God.'

'Now,' Meg said, ‘I have managed to make my escape with the help of some friends. That these friends happen to be black is neither here nor there. They are my friends. My husband followed me, with five Hilltop drivers, and having caught up with me as I was being escorted into town by one of these friends, shot him dead. I therefore accuse William Hilton of murder.'

'My dear Meg,' Waite protested. 'Think what you are saying.'

'Mad,' Walter Reynolds declared. 'Quite mad. She will have to be locked up.'

'She cannot be mad, legally,' John Phillips said. 'She has not been certified.'

'But...' Meg said.

'No one can be certified,' Phillips said, 'by a single doctor. I think Roberts has acted very irregularly if he has had her confined for seven years without a second opinion.'

Roberts flushed. 'Well, we wished to avoid a scandal.'

'But why did no one come out to see me ?' Meg asked.

Phillips flushed. 'Well, we did, from time to time. But Mrs Paterson merely said you did not wish to see anyone. We thought it was odd, but then ... well, there were all those rumours about what had happened to you in Cuba.' His flush deepened. 'What were we to do, Meg, short of breaking in?'

Meg drew a deep breath. ‘I also accuse William Hilton, and Oriole Paterson, and Peter Roberts of having, feloniously confined me to my bedroom over a period of seven years,' she said, 'and of spreading a rumour that I had lost my senses. And in defence of my claim never to have been the madwoman they claim, I am willing to submit to any examination or test that any doctor in Jamaica or anywhere else in the world can devise, providing only that the test is carried out in the presence of impartial witnesses.' She turned to John Phillips. ‘I place myself in your hands, John.' Then she sat down again. Her legs would no longer support her.

 

'What shall we do today?' asked Anna Phillips brightly. She asked this every day, with increasing desperation. A small, dark, busy woman, in the strongest possible contrast to her husband, she clearly, found the waiting, the uncertainty, an even greater trial than Meg herself. 'I know, we shall take a drive into the country.' Meg finished her afternoon tea.

'Wouldn't you like a drive in the country, my dear?' Anna asked.

Meg forced a smile. It was necessary, all the while, to act as normally as possible. At least until the case was decided. 'It sounds delightful. Are there an awful lot of people out there?'

Anna Phillips got up, peered through the gauze curtains at the window. 'Not more than a dozen, today.'

The unemployed blacks had clustered outside the Phillips' house from the day she had brought Cleave and her husband into town. That had been two weeks ago now, and still the arguments had gone on. Cleave had been buried, Dr and Mrs Phillips, Washington, Colonel Waite and herself his only official mourners, but even then they had been accompanied to and from the cemetery by a vast crowd of blacks, and the Reverand Keslop had shifted his feet uneasily, sure he had been burying a heathen. Well, of course he had been burying a heathen.

But what were Cleave's friends and brothers and sisters up in the mountains thinking ? They must hate her more than ever before, for being the cause of his death. Once she had driven herself mad supposing she had caused Alan's death. And she had been mistaken. Now she had caused the death of a man who had loved her. And she felt no madness, now. Only a burning determination to be avenged.

But even that must wait upon the courts.

And what did Oriole think of it all ? John Phillips, having been given custody of Meg while the question of her sanity was debated, had sent out to Hilltop for her clothes, and these had been delivered. But the coachman had apparently not seen Mrs Paterson, who had retired to bed with a headache. Nor had he seen Mr Hilton, freed pending further investigations as Colonel Waite had decided.

It came down to one single point. The presence of Washington, the testimony of Massie and the other four drivers, meant absolutely nothing beside hers. And hers was not to be accepted if she was mad.

'Well, then,' Anna Phillips said brightly. 'Shall we get our hats?'

This afternoon she was more nervous than ever before. Yesterday Meg had undergone her very last examination. Today the decision would be taken, one way or the other. And in the meanwhile the telegraph wires had been busy, flashing the news of the latest Hilton scandal to England and America and all over the world. So, she thought, what did Lord Claymond think of it all ? What a lucky escape he had had ? Or that none of this need have happened had he married her?

And what did Captain Alan McAvoy think of it all? Surely he would have heard by now. Surely he should have been here by now. Or had he decided that Kingston was not the place to be right this minute?

'Hats,' Anna said, a touch of firmness coming into her voice. She professed to be sure, because her husband was sure, that there was nothing at all the matter with Meg. But she also knew just how introspective was her charge, just how subject to fits of depression, just how she had to be jollied along as much as possible.

'Oh, I'm sorry, Anna.' Meg got up, and faced the door, her mouth open. John Phillips stood there. And he was smiling.

'John?' Her heart gave a leap, it seemed into her throat.

'It is the verdict of the court, in the first place, that Margaret Hilton is sane,' he said.

'Oh, John.' She sat down again. The tears were beginning to hammer against her eyes.

'It is the verdict of the court, in the second place, that for the past seven years she has been wrongfully kept in custody by her husband and her cousin, and wrongfully excluded from her rightful place as Mistress of Hilltop Plantation.'

Now the tears did come, slowly welling into her eyes and then trickling down her cheeks. She felt Anna's hand on her shoulder.

'And it is the verdict of the court, in the third place, that there has been presented sufficient evidence to warrant the arrest of William Hilton on a charge of wilful murder. The police are on their way to Hilltop now.'

Meg's mouth clamped shut. Somehow she had never really expected that to happen.

'And,' John Phillips added, his smile widening, 'there is a young man out here wishing to see you. A sea captain, I believe.'

Meg leapt from the chair, ran to the door, hesitated. Alan had not changed at all; he was tall and broad and sunburned, and his moustache was carefully trimmed. He wore blue shore-going clothes and carried his cap in his hands.

'Meg,' he said. 'Oh, Meg, my darling.'

His arms were wide, and she was in them, her own arms going round his back, hugging him close while he in turn squeezed her so that she lost her breath.

'Alan,' she whispered. 'Oh, my dearest, dearest Alan. But, my sweet, when ...'

'Over a week ago,' he said.

She released him, stepped back to stare at him.

'But John thought it best for me not to call until this business was settled.' He drew her close again. 'Had it been settled any other way, I'd have pulled Kingston apart to get you away from those leeches.'

'Oh, my sweet.' Her eyes were closed, and still the tears came welling out. Nothing else mattered. She was free, and he was here. Everything that had afflicted her in the past, every torment she had undergone, was really as nothing.

'Ahem,' John Phillips said.

'Oh ...' Meg stepped away, hugged him in turn. 'I am so happy, John. There is so much I want to do. Hilltop ...' She hesitated, glancing at Alan.

He smiled. 'If you wish to go out to Hilltop, Meg, then I shall accompany you.'

'I knew you would.' But she hadn't been sure. And yet, why go jumping at those fences until they were actually immediately in front of her. 'Can we borrow the trap, John?'

'Of course.'

'And the children. I'll be able to have the children back?' They are your children, Meg. To be done with as you see fit.'

As she saw fit. She remembered how she had felt when she had learned of her inheritance. But how long ago was that simple girl who had wanted only to be Mistress of Hilltop. Well, then, what did this woman want, if not that? But she wanted so much more.

'I have your hat,' Anna said, holding it out.

She gave Alan a shy smile. 'Are you sure?'

'I am sure, at this moment, that I wish to do whatever you want to do.'

Then ...' She held his hand, turned to the door, and checked. 'Roberts?'

'Is giving up his practice and returning to England. He will have no more patients here, anyhow. And there will certainly have to be an inquiry by the British Medical Association.'

Was she glad, or was she sorry? Was she going to be vindictive, or was she going to be magnanimous ? Was she going to be Meg Hilton, or Marguerite Hilton's descendant?

'We'd best be on our way,' Alan said. 'We'll hardly make the plantation before dusk, anyway.'

'Oh, dear,' Anna said, flushing scarlet. 'Will you ... well, will you be back tonight?'

Meg gave her a happy smile. 'No, Anna. We shall not be back tonight. Or tomorrow either.'

'But... what about clothes?'

'Who needs clothes. I'll be in touch.' She hurried down the steps, Alan at her side; John Phillips' yardboy already had the trap waiting, and at the sight of Meg the little crowd by the gate gave a cheer; the news had already spread.

Alan helped her up, took the reins, and the crowd parted to let them through. He flicked the whip and the pony increased its speed, to go trotting up King Street, while the motor cars pulled into the side to allow them through while their drivers smiled and waved at Meg. What hypocrites, she thought, happy enough to believe her insane when told to believe that, over-anxious to greet her now she was again Mistress of Hilltop.

'Mistress of Hilltop,' she breathed, leaning back and allowing the breeze to fan her face.

'Aye,' he said. 'I know how important it is to you.'

She sat up again. 'Not so important any more. It's just that I didn't know if I'd ever see you again. I had to have a dream, an aim in life, or I'd never have challenged them at all.'

'Aye,' he said again. 'I have to explain.' 'No,' she said. 'Oriole told me.'

'Why I didn't break down the door and force my way in?'

She squeezed his arm. 'To rescue a madwoman?'

'To rescue the woman I love. The woman I so carelessly exposed to such torment. Meg ...'

'I exposed myself, Alan. And I thought I had caused you to be killed. I don't really understand why I wasn't executed.'

'Because of me,' he said. 'They knew I had escaped. They didn't really want you. But they were using you as a bait to bring me in. They offered your freedom in exchange for my surrender. Can you imagine how guilty I feel?'

'But

'Oh, aye, I never even knew. My friends smuggled me out of the country, so wounded ‘ was out of my mind. Then they told me you had gone down with the schooner. I nearly went wild. Instead I did the only thing I knew, went back to sea, and got as far away from Jamaica and Cuba, and the entire West Indies as I could. There was cowardice for you, Meg. If only I had stayed. I would have learned about you, I would have ...'

'Surrendered and been hanged,' she said, squeezing his arm again. 'Whereas now we are both alive and well, and we are going to be happy.'

'Can you be happy again, Meg? After nine years of such torment?'

'Yes,' she said fiercely. 'I can be happy. I shall be happy. Perhaps ... perhaps it needed something like that to make me realize what constitutes happiness.'

'Hilltop?' he asked, but he smiled gently as he said it.

'Hilltop is Richard's. It is my responsibility to see that he inherits. Happiness for me is standing on the deck of a ship, with you at my side. I know that now. I knew that the night we crossed to Cuba.'

'Meg,' he said, leaning across to squeeze her. 'Are you sure?'

'If you are sure you still want me on your ship.' 'Want you?' he cried. 'Why .. .’

'You'll no doubt have heard Billy's reasons for shooting Cleave.'

'The black fellow ? Well...' He gazed at the road, stretching into the mountains ahead of them.

'He was my lover, Alan,' she said, quietly.

'You're Meg Hilton,' he said. 'I don't think any man will ever have the right to be your master.'

'And you?'

'I don't want to be your master, Meg. I just want to be near you.' 'Spite of all?'

'Spite of all. But I do remember you saying that you could only come to me, the way you did, as Meg Hilton. Mistress of Hilltop.'

'As Meg Hilton,' she said. 'I sometimes think Hilltop has been a gigantic millstone hung around my neck. Hung around all of our necks. I sometimes wonder if people, even people like old Tom Warner or Kit Hilton, really understand what they do when they set out to achieve wealth and fame and fortune. If they understand exactly what they are bequeathing to their descendants.'

'Philosophy,' he said. 'But I like this new Meg Hilton. Sure it isn't a passing fancy ?'

He pulled on the rein as he spoke, and they looked down at Hilltop, glowing in the evening sunlight, the banana trees waving in the gentle breeze, the chimney pointing at the sky, the Great House standing foursquare on top of its man-made hill.

'No passing fancy, Alan. But I want to make love to you, at least once, in my own bed.'

He flicked the whip, and the trap raced down the narrow road, past the Negro village and the white town, bringing people onto their porches and their verandahs to see the return of their mistress, rattling to a stop before the front steps.

Which were already occupied by servants carrying Oriole's boxes and bags down to the waiting carriage. And Oriole herself stood at the top of the steps.

'Meg,' Alan begged.

'There will be no scene, I promise you.' Washington was there to help her down.

Oriole waited. 'A triumphant return,' she said. Her face was twisted.

'A return, Oriole.' Meg climbed the steps. 'A happy return.' 'For you,' Oriole said.

'I would not make it unhappy for you,' Meg said. 'If I can. Where is Billy?'

'My God,' Oriole said. 'What ignorance. Billy has been arrested, Margaret. By your command.' Her smile was bitter. 'He is presently on his way to a Kingston cell.'

Meg gazed at her. 'He is guilty of murder.'

Oriole met her stare, but lowered her voice. 'Think well what you do, Margaret Hilton. He is your husband, and he is a Hilton. Hiltons have always done what they thought best for the Hiltons. You are the one who would break that pattern, for your own satisfaction. Billy did nothing more than act the Hilton, and you know that. Your children will know that. The world will know that. And every Hilton waiting in the shades will know that. Think well what you do, Margaret Hilton.'

 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

 

THE VERDICT

 

THINK well what you do. Think well what must be done.

But for the moment there was so much to be done. She had forgotten the amount of work involved in managing the plantation. And these were new people she was dealing with, white people who had been selected by Billy, with Oriole at his shoulder; she half expected them all to give notice on her very first day. They didn't. Jobs were scarce, and there was no plantation quite so solvent as Hilltop. And of course, they had never supposed her to be mad. But what could they do? It is not possible to defy William Hilton the Hilton. Only his wife could ever do that.

So then, was she going to be vindictive or magnanimous ? Marguerite Hilton or Meg Hilton? She had no desire to be vindictive to them. She wanted only to have Hilltop running as smoothly as it had in the past. She wanted only to enjoy her plantation.

So then, think well what you do. Think well about the house, about the servants. Again, Oriole's creatures. Madge and Lilian had to be dismissed; she could not possibly exist in their presence. Search again for Prudence. But Prudence had died during those lost years.

Her new personal maid was named Muriel, a large dark-skinned woman, anxious to please. And Lawrence was still there, desperate to make amends for the years when he had been Oriole's butler, and not hers.

Think well about the children. Her immediate desire to bring them back to Jamaica had quickly been tempered by discretion. Richard was all but seventeen, and had but a year more at school. Then, hopefully, Oxford. It would be senseless and it would be irresponsible to take him away for her own gratification. Aline was but a year younger, and also just about finished her schooling. And for seven years they had lived with the fact that their mother was mad, just as for two years before that they had lived with the fact that she was dead. So, however eager she was once again to hold them in her arms, they must be approached with caution.

John Phillips helped her here, wrote to them both, told them that their mother was again herself, and that she would be with them soon. Her decision was taken to visit them the moment the trial was over; it was too close to Christmas for it to be held this year, but the court would sit on the 12th of January, 1907, and the trial was not expected to last more than a few days. Then she would be free to visit England, and see them again.

But would they want to see her? Billy was their father, so far as they knew. And she was contemplating sending him to the gallows. Think well about that.

And above all, think well about Alan. To lie in his arms again, after nine years. To know only the utter joy of his embrace, the experienced strength of his masculinity. She had been terrified. There was so very much between them, around them, hanging above them; the memory of their last night together, on board the Margarita, the memory of what had happened since, the realization that they were both nine years older, the understanding that she had fled to Cleave, the understanding that she was seeking the condemnation of her husband for killing her black lover.

And yet, none of those things mattered, as they had never mattered before, once she found herself in his arms. She had even supposed that the fact of their being in her bed, and beneath the roof of Hilltop Great House, might inhibit him. But Alan had survived too much, experienced too much, learned too much, to be inhibited. By anything, she suspected, but certainly by a house and a bed and a memory.

He loved her. Nothing else mattered. And she loved him. So that, physical needs satisfied, they could lie together, her head on his shoulder, and share their thoughts.

'He committed murder,' Alan said. 'He deserves to be hanged.'

'He shot my lover,' she said. 'My black lover.'

'He did not know that for certain, Meg. He shot a black companion, nothing more. He is no different from those men in Cuba, Meg. He is nothing to you. He is not even the father of your children.'

Alan could hate, still. Alan could look at Billy only as the man who had robbed him for all those years. But had he not, in reality, robbed himself?

She wanted to go into the mountains, to try to explain to the people of the drum. But they never heard the drum nowadays. Perhaps the people had moved, taking their mamaloi with them. Their leader had been killed, because of his love for a white woman. Perhaps they would remain no longer in proximity to Hilltop. To a bad Hilton.

Anyway, Alan would not allow her. 'You say they would not let you stay with them,' he pointed out. 'Therefore they are already hostile to you. Now that Cleave is dead, you would probably need an armed expedition to get there and back in safety.'

It was her thirty-sixth birthday, and they dined alone, served by an eager Lawrence, drinking Hilltop wine and eating Hilltop food. The Mistress of Hilltop, entertaining her lover. But she wanted more than that

And what did he want?

She rested her chin on her forefinger, gazed at him across the table. She had dressed with especial care this night, wore an evening gown of cream satin decorated with crimson ribbon embroidery, over a pink slip, with chiffon sleeves also edged with crimson ribbon. Her hair was up, held in place by her favourite aigrette surrounded with flowers.

They had eaten well, and drunk well. And were in no hurry to rise from the table. They had nowhere to go, save to bed, and after ten days spent in each other's arms, even that was a pleasure which could be savoured without haste. 'Well?' she asked.

He lit his cheroot carefully; lighting a cheroot to Alan was as important as smoking it.

'Well, indeed,' he said, blowing a thin stream of smoke at the ceiling, and reaching for the decanter of port. 'I'm afraid ...'

'Alan.'

'I must, sweetheart. Dreamer has lain at anchor now for two weeks. Two weeks lost, as regards profit.'

'You are a mercenary beast. Am I not your profit? Will I not replace your profit ?'

'Indeed you will. You do. You have. But I am a sea captain. I still owe money on my schooner. You haven't forgotten what you said, as we rode out here ?'

'I have not forgotten, Alan. But you have not forgotten that I have children to care for, and a court case coming up in the New Year.'

'And then?'

'When Richard is twenty-one, which is only four years off, I will sail away with you, to the ends of the earth.'

'And forget all about being Hilton.'

She accepted a glass of port, sipped. 'And forget all about being Hilton. I have already forgotten all about being Hilton. I have no doubt that thunder we occasionally hear, those earth tremors which bother us, are my ancestors turning in their graves.'

'And I'll be glad to sail away, with you. Those earth tremors may be your ancestors rolling in their graves, but has it occurred to you that they are becoming a great deal more frequent ? And when you remember, what happened in San Francisco last year ... it makes you think.'

'Oh, really,' she protested. 'San Francisco is five thousand miles away. Isn't it?'

'Give or take a few, I'm sure you're right. But Port Royal isn't a thousand miles away.'

'1692,' she said scoffingly. 'And that was an act of God. It destroyed Morgan the pirate. They said you could hear the beating of Gabriel's wings that day.'

'Earthquakes are always acts of God,' he pointed out.

'They say the earth trembled the day I was born, too,' she said, suddenly thoughtful.

'Now there is the most encouraging thing I've heard in a long time.' He smiled at her. 'You're not superstitious about it?'

She hesitated. 'No,' she lied. 'I'm not superstitious about anything. But you can't leave now. There's Christmas, and then there's the trial. You must be here for the trial, sweetheart.'

He leaned across the table to kiss her on the nose. 'Am I being called as a witness?'

'No,' she said. 'But ‘ would not be any good as a witness, if you were not there. I do not know if I shall be any good anyway. My husband, a Hilton ...'

'You were going to forget about that,' Alan said. He took her hand. 'Billy killed a man who loved you, you say, and who was in any event risking his life to see you to safety. Not to see that his murderer is punished would be an act of betrayal.'

She gazed into his eyes, sucked her lip between her teeth. 'Are you sure, Alan? Are you sureV

'Dead sure, my darling. Anyway, I'll be there to hold your hand. I promise you. As for Christmas, if I get away now, I may be back. I'll certainly be back for New Year's.' He squeezed her fingers. 'Won't that do ?'

'Just see that you're back, Alan,' she said. 'Just see that you are back.'

'You awake, mistress?' Muriel stood by the bed, the tray resting imperiously on one hand.

'Yes,' Meg said. 'Yes, I'm awake.'

'That is the thing, mistress. I goin' run your bath for you.'

Meg gazed at the white canopy of the mosquito netting above her head. The bathroom was another innovation, added by Oriole. Oh, my God, Oriole, she thought. Oriole would be in court. Oh, no doubt of that. She had hoped her cousin would leave Jamaica immediately, but she should have known better. Oriole was made of sterner stuff, and she was waiting for the outcome of the trial.

Alan sighed, and turned on his side. 'Well ?'

Meg raised herself on her elbow, lifted the netting, found his cup of tea and passed it to him, then pushed herself into a sitting position to drink her own. 'Well?'

'How do you feel ?'

She sipped. 'How do you think I should feel?’ 'Butterflies?'

'You could say that. I have never appeared in a court of law before.' She raised the netting higher, got out of bed, walked to the jalousie and threw that wide. She looked at the sheep browsing on the pasture, at the endless banana groves. Her land, Hilton land. It was almost two hundred years to the day since Kit Hilton had founded this plantation. So tell me, Kit, she thought, what would you have done?

But she knew what Kit had done. In his determination to seek justice he had brought his own father-in-law to trial for murder. In the ensuing family quarrel he had lost his wife and his plantation, although, being Kit Hilton, he had got them back later. But he had done what he had supposed was right.

And beyond the banana groves were the mountains. Had there been drums last night ? The wind had been from the south, and she had not been sure. But if ever there would be drums again, they would have been last night. Because today would see them avenged. Today would see her justified, in their eyes.

If she could ever be justified in their eyes.

'Meg.' Alan was uneasy. She kissed him on the forehead, and then went to her bath. She soaked in the tub, gazing at the ceiling; one of the skylights overhung the bathroom, and this had been pulled just a little open to allow air into the huge room; it had been a bedroom before Oriole had appropriated it. Muriel waited patiently. But what did she think? What did all of the black people think? Or did they prefer not to think at all, just to let their strange, violent, often senseless employers get on with ruining each other's lives, so long as their lives were left in comparative peace?

She got out of the bath, allowed herself to be swathed in the huge white towel and gently massaged, and then to be powdered. She wrapped herself in the robe and returned to the bedroom; Alan had left the bed and gone to the master's dressing room. He might look forward to leaving Hilltop, but he could not do otherwise than enjoy it while he was here.

She dressed with great care, wore a mauve poplin skirt with a matching bolero jacket; both bolero and skirt were trimmed with lace, the bodice being a foamy mass, while her blouse was also white lace. Her hat was a white straw with mauve ribbons, and her gloves and parasol were cream.

She gazed at herself in the mirror, allowed those firm lips to widen just a shade into a smile. It was a beautiful face, she thought. A Hilton face. But that was dangerous, on a day like today.

'It got for come forward,' Muriel muttered, perhaps to herself, still fiddling with the hat. But at last it was perched at just the right angle, inclining from the mass of her upswept hair, threatening, it seemed, to slide down over her nose at a moment's notice.

'There we are then.' She stood up. 'Tell Lawrence Captain McAvoy and I will be back out for dinner, and we shall need something light. I have no doubt.' She went outside, stood on the gallery. Alan waited for her at the foot of the stairs, Lawrence and Washington in attendance. Washington was in a state of high excitement; he had given his evidence yesterday.

Meg descended the stairs slowly. Never had the portraits to her right seemed so alive, so interested in her progress. She stopped, and looked at Susan Hilton, the first of all the

Hilton women, the Irish girl sent to the West Indies as an indentured servant whom the first Tony Hilton had taken for his own. Susan's portrait had to have been painted from memory; there had been no artists in the St Kitts of 1630 or the Tortuga of a few years later. But her artist, even working from diaries, had managed to capture her magnificent auburn hair, always described as shining, as he had captured the pale skin with the dusting of freckles, the strong, somewhat aquiline features, the wide-set grey eyes, the pointed chin.

So, Susan, what would you have me do this day?

Below Susan there waited Marguerite. This had been painted when she had been a girl, and still a Warner, but from all accounts she had not changed with age, until her beauty had dissolved in horror. Marguerite's eyes were green, and glinted, and her nostrils seemed to flare even in the portrait, as they had been said to do whenever she was emotionally aroused. The rounded features were framed in the deep brown, straight hair, separated, as had been the custom at the time, into four strands, each tied with a blue ribbon, while round her neck, nestling against her half-exposed breasts, was a string of pearls. The whole made a picture of confidence. Confidence had been the first Meg Hilton's greatest characteristic.

So, Meg, what would you have me do ?

Next to Meg was Lilian Hilton, Marguerite's rival, Kit Hilton's second wife. Her Scandinavian blood was revealed in the mass of straight yellow hair, the blue eyes, the long somewhat serious face. No one could have been more of a contrast to the tempestuous Marguerite. But she had been the first Hilton woman to five and rule in this house.

So, Lilian, what would you have me do this day?

She went a few steps farther, stopped in front of the sisters, Georgiana and Suzanne. Georgiana had been the younger, had lived her life with a careless exuberance. Her hair was light brown, and scattered; her features were real Hilton, finely carved, a trifle small; her eyes were a deep blue, and seemed to be summoning the artist, or anyone else who would meet them, to come closer. Had they summoned the men, and the women, who had torn her limb from limb ?

Georgiana at the least would have no doubts as to what she must do. To kill a black man, for Georgiana, would be a sure passport to her version of heaven.

But Suzanne, waiting beside her sister with all the calm dignity which had been her greatest asset, Hilton face relaxed and composed, pale yellow hair worn short, so that it did no more than rest on her shoulders, pale blue eyes gazing at the world with that almost frightening steadiness. Suzanne had stood at Matt Hilton's shoulder through every tribulation, in the cause of freedom and equality. No doubt about Suzanne either, on the opposite side to her sister.

And at the foot of the stairs, close to her own portrait, Carterette, old Richard's wife. Titian hair, thick and long and quite magnificent, enormous blue eyes, surprisingly short nose, her face was a mass of flaws which came together into a perfectly splendid whole. Cartarette had suffered at the hands of Christophe's blacks, but had lived to marry Christophe's general, and to take her place in that brief flowering of Negro culture in the West Indies.

So then, Great-Grandmama, what would you have me do ?

Or you, she thought, staring at herself. The face looking at her matched any of the others in its beauty, in its serene arrogance. But that portrait was of the Mistress of Hilltop. That face had never known the Spanish sailors or the Spanish rope between her legs. That face had never known fear.

Alan took her hands. 'Communing with your ancestors?'

She smiled at him. 'And should I not, as I set out to destroy everything they stood for?'

Courtney was nervous. He was a short slender man, who wore a pince-nez and was very precise in his manner as he was in his habits. Over the previous ten years he had built up a considerable reputation as Attorney General. But he had never had to face Kingston's senior lawyer in court.

Nor had he had to prosecute a Hilton.

He sat at his desk and polished his glasses, raised them to look at Meg, and then lowered them again. 'So there it is,' he said. 'One cannot blame them, of course.'

'I am blaming no one,' Meg said quietly.

'Still, it will be an ordeal. In effect, I fear, it will be you on trial all over again. Oh, they cannot attempt to have you... ah...'

'Certified?'

'Oh, good heavens, no, Mrs Hilton. I really wasn't thinking of that. What I meant was, they cannot hope to impugn your sanity again. Oh, no no, no. But what they will try to do, I have no doubt at all, is prove how your... ah ... well ... mode of living, your ... ah ... adventures, one could say, might over the years have driven your husband to distraction, have perhaps, driven him from his mind. After all, no one can argue that your husband did not pull that trigger. Walter Reynolds can only attempt to convince the jury that he was justified in doing so, or that he was driven insane, at least temporarily, by jealousy. I shudder to think what... ah ... secrets of the marriage bed they will attempt to drag out. You do understand this?'

'Yes,' Meg said.

'Normally, of course,' Courtney went on as if she hadn't spoken, 'such a state of affairs is impossible, except in ... ah, divorce cases. The wife, and the husband, is protected by the very simple, very ... ah ... intelligent, ah, civilized law that no man can be forced to testify against his wife, and, ah ... ah, no wife can be forced to testify against her husband.' He placed his pince-nez on his nose, gazed at her with a startled expression.

'I understand that,' Meg said. Was he trying to tell her something? Of course he was. It was all a conspiracy, the white people closing their ranks against the blacks. Billy Hilton could not be condemned for murder. Billy Hilton, the Hilton, could not possibly be hanged.

'So... ah... there it is.' Courtney took out his watch and peered at it. 'My word, we should be getting down there’

'What exactly do I do ?' Meg asked.

'Well, you wait until you are called. We cleared all the routine business out of the way yesterday, the ... ah, evidence of arrest, evidence of death of the victim, evidence as regards the, ah ... weapon used. And we also took the evidence of your five drivers. But I must say they were not satisfactory witnesses, from your point of view. Oh, no, no. Yours will be the... ah, crucial moment. And we should be ready for you very early. There are just one or two other points to be cleared away. So it will only be a short wait. I have secured you a private room, so you will be quite comfortable. And then, you just answer my questions, and after that, well, you will have to answer Walter Reynolds' questions. And then you, ah ... just leave the box, don't you know?' He stood up. 'Well, then, Margaret. See you in... ah, court.'

'Yes,' she said.

He hurried round the desk to open the door for her, and she was able to squeeze Alan's hand; he had waited outside. 'Well?' he demanded.

'Just a briefing, Captain, just a briefing,' Courtney said, determinedly cheerful.

'Will Alan be able to sit with me while I am waiting?' Meg asked.

'Oh, ah ... I'm afraid it wouldn't be right, Margaret. Witnesses, well, they should be left to themselves at least... ah, by other ... ah, interested parties, don't you know.'

She nodded. 'Well, then, we must all have a drink when it is over.'

Alan escorted her down the stairs. 'But I shall be in court, my darling,' he said, helping her into the closed cab which would take them to the courthouse. 'You may think of me at your elbow, every second.'

'Yes,' she said, and leaned back on the cushions.

'Meg ...' He took her hand again. 'You are all right?'

'Of course I'm all right,' she said. 'A little nervous, I suppose.'

'Ah, well... we'll have that drink, this afternoon.'

She squeezed his hand; the cab was slowing to a halt. They were inside the courthouse yard, and there was only a short way to go. But already a large crowd had assembled, mainly black people, to gaze at her as she was handed down and hurried up the steps. A buzz of excited whispering seemed to circulate around her ears. But a moment later she was in the cool of the porch, and a Negro clerk was waiting for her.

She gave Alan's hand a last squeeze, and followed the young man down a corridor, and into a small antechamber; it contained a table, two chairs, and a window, looking out at the back of the court. Here the ground was empty, save for a white-helmeted policeman, patrolling slowly to and fro.

'You will be all right here, Mrs Hilton,' said the young man. 'And I will come for you when it is time.'

'Thank you,' she said, and sat down. When it is time. Immediately she was on her feet again. What would he look like, standing there in the dock ? Would he be crushed, or defiant? What would Oriole look like? But Oriole was very possibly to be a witness for the defence. To testify to her outrageous behaviour, which drove her husband half out of his mind.

Well, perhaps it had done that. Billy was unlucky, as Oriole had been unlucky, in being bora in the nineteenth century instead of the eighteenth, when he could have killed whoever he wished and merely thumped himself on the chest and said, I am the Hilton.

She was aware of heat. She wished desperately to take off her hat, but she knew she would never get it on properly again. So she dabbed at her lips and her cheeks and her temples with a handkerchief, and felt the moisture gathering under her corset and in her armpits. Oh to be back home, and sitting in her tub. Or better yet, bathing in the river. But would she ever bathe in that river again? Would she ever dare? It seemed her entire life had begun at that river. So then, was she supposing her life was at an end?

How long they were taking. Why, she must have been here hours. She did not carry a watch. She had never done so. She hated to be governed by time. But if only she knew how long she had been here, how much longer she would have to stay. Although she could judge, roughly, by the sun; it was all but overhead, and she had left Courtney's office at eleven. Soon they would be adjourning for luncheon. My God, she might have to see people, talk with them. She did not think she could do that until after she had given evidence.

The door opened, and she turned, heart pounding, sweat returning with a renewed rush.

'They are waiting, Mrs Hilton,' said the young man.

'So am I,' she said, and was amazed at the calmness of her voice.

She followed him along the corridor, and through a side door, found herself in the courtroom before she properly realized it. For a moment she was surrounded by sibilant sound, a rustling of papers, a gentle whisper which welled out of the spectators' gallery, and was immediately quelled by the hammer of the gavel.

She was facing curved steps. Slowly she climbed, holding the rail with one hand, her skirts with the other, found herself in a pulpit. On a level with her, and to her right, the Chief Justice sat alone, giving her a benevolent smile. His red robes seemed to glow at her. Beneath her were collected the various black-gowned lawyers and clerks of the court. And opposite her, on the other side of the judge, and at a lower level, stood Billy, also in a pulpit. He wore one of his best suits, and looked pale but perfectly composed. He stared at her, as if trying to communicate, but after a brief glance she looked away.

To Billy's left were the jury, six white men and, she discovered with surprise, six black. That proportion surely could not have been drawn by lot. But this was the most important trial of the year, perhaps of all time, in this courtroom.

And to her left were the public seats. She gave them a quick glance, but they contained no more than a blur of faces. She could not pick out Alan, she could not discover whether or not Oriole was present.

The clerk was speaking to her, from just beneath the witness box. 'If you will take the book in your right hand, Mrs Hilton, and repeat after me.'

She noticed the Bible for the first time, picked it up, said, 'I swear by Almighty God that the evidence I shall give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.'

The clerk disappeared back to his desk, and she became aware that Courtney was on his feet, fingers grasping the lapels of his coat, wig slightly askew. Now for the first time she saw Walter Reynolds, sitting beside his adversary, and watching her with total hostility. Oh, my God, she thought. Oh, my God.

'Will you state your name, please, madam,' Courtney said quietly. 'Margaret Hilton.' 'Occupation ?'

'I am the proprietress of the banana plantation known as Hilltop,' she said.

Courtney appeared to hesitate. But the question had to be asked.

'Are you acquainted with the defendant, Mrs Hilton?' She stared at him, her brain seeming to be seized in an icy grip.

'Mrs Hilton?' Courtney asked, his voice slightly louder. 'Are you acquainted with the defendant?'

Meg found her head turning, so that she looked at Billy. His hands rested on the sill of the dock, and his lips were slightly parted. And he was staring at her.

'You must answer the question, Mrs Hilton,' said the Chief Justice gently.

Meg licked her lips. 'I am his wife,' she said.

"Thank you, Mrs Hilton,' Courtney positively exuded relief. 'Now, Mrs Hilton, I would like you to tell the court in your own words what happened on the morning of November 18th last.'

Meg gazed into Billy's eyes. My husband shot my lover, she thought. My husband shot a black man with whom I had cohabited. My husband acted the Hilton, for the first and last time in his life. Oh, my God, my husband acted the Hilton. I made him a Hilton, and he played his role. Oh, my God.

'Mrs Hilton?' Courtney was now definitely sounding nervous.

Meg's tongue circled her lips. 'I... I must refuse to give evidence which may incriminate my husband,' she said.

There was a moment of utter silence, then the entire court burst into sound. Meg continued to look at Billy; his mouth had opened ever so slightly, and he had actually taken a step back in the dock.

The gavel banged, and again and again, and the noise slowly subsided.

'Mrs Hilton ?' Courtney looked as if he had just swallowed an overdose of strychnine.

Meg licked her lips.

'You must answer the question, Mrs Hilton,' the Chief Justice said softly.

'I cannot be forced to testify against my husband,' Meg said, turning to face him.

The whispers began again, and were immediately quietened by another series of blows from the gavel.

'Indeed you cannot,' the Chief Justice said, his voice hardening. 'But your position should have been made clear before this case came to trial. By adopting this attitude, you are obstructing the working of my court. I have every right to commit you for contempt.' He gazed at her, watched her mouth settle into a firm line. 'Indeed,' he added, ‘I would be failing in my duty were I not to do so, if you persist in your refusal.'

'I am sorry,' Meg said. 'I have been in prison before, my lord. I have no doubt at all that a Jamaican cell will be more comfortable than a Cuban one.'

The court remained silent, and the Chief Justice went very red in the face. Meg could almost read his thoughts: Hiltons, they think they own the earth.

'You will step down, Mrs Hilton,' he said. 'I will give a judgment regarding your contempt at the conclusion of this trial. Kindly leave the box.'

Meg inhaled, filled her lungs to their fullest capacity, and then released them again, slowly descended the stairs. The clumps of her heels echoed in the noiseless room. The side door was already open, and the same clerk was waiting for her. His face remained expressionless, but his manner was stiff.

'The Crown asks for a recess, my lord,' Courtney said, then the door closed, and she heard nothing more. 'Are you staying in town, Mrs Hilton?' inquired the clerk. 'Am I required to?'

'You are not under arrest, if that is what you mean. No doubt his lordship will know where to find you, when he is ready.'

'Then I shall go home,' she said. She wanted to lie down. She wanted to sit in a warm tub and then go to bed and sleep and sleep and sleep. 'I would like a message sent to Captain McAvoy.'

'As you wish, madam.' The clerk escorted her on to the porch, where the crowd stared at her, voices humming with excitement. The news had not reached them yet, although it was just beginning to, she suspected.

'Ask him to join me at Hilltop, if you will.' She hurried down the steps, was assisted into the trap by Washington. 'Home, please, Washington, as quickly as you can.'

She leaned back on the cushion, closed her eyes. It is over, she thought. It must be over. Now she could turn her back on Billy without remorse, without regret, without bitterness. She had put him in his position, she had kept him there when it was a matter of life or death, and now she could remove him from it. And try to live. My God, she thought, how I just want to live.

And Cleave would understand. Of all the men she had known, she supposed Cleave was the most capable of understanding.

Almost she dozed; she was exhausted. It was quite a surprise for her to discover herself once again on Hilltop, once again pulling to a halt before her own front stairs.

Lawrence waited at the top. 'But you back soon, mistress. Is all well?'

'All is well, Lawrence.' It was still early in the afternoon. 'I shall be taking a siesta today, Lawrence. Don't wake me until Captain McAvoy arrives, but ask him to come right up.'

'Yes'm, Miss Meg. But you ain' taking lunch?'

She shook her head. 'Not today, Lawrence. I doubt I could stomach a thing.'

She went upstairs, dismissed Muriel, undressed, and lay on her bed, on top of the covers. She wondered what old Sir Harry would do with her. She did not really suppose he would send her to gaol. Not Margaret HILTON. Not the Hilton. But she didn't really care. Because she had acted the Hilton for the very last time, satisfied every requirement of every ancestor. Now she could turn her back on them, and be plain Meg McAvoy. Why, she had never considered such a name before, but it had a ring to it.

She awoke with a faint headache, listened to the clatter of hooves outside, and sat up.

The clock on her bedside table told her it was just past six. Alan must have waited to see how the case was going to develop. She got out of bed, scooped her robe around her shoulders, listened to the knock on her door. 'Yes,' she said. 'Come.'

The door opened, and Oriole Paterson stood there.

For a moment the two women stared at each other. Then Oriole reached for Meg's hands. 'Oh, my darling, darling, Meg,' she said. 'Oh, my darling.'

Meg felt herself being drawn forward, checked herself. 'I thought you had left Hilltop for good.'

'I had. I thought you were a changeling. But of course I was wrong. You are Meg Hilton, and proved that today, to all the world. Meg, forgive me, for everything. Oh Meg ...' Her eyes were moist, and she was pulling again.

'I'm sure you are, as usual, quite wrong, Oriole,' Meg said, giving a tug to free her hands. 'I decided, after due reflection, that I owed Billy something. There is nothing more than that. I propose to place Hilltop in the hands of an attorney, to divorce Billy, whatever the outcome of the trial, and to marry Alan McAvoy.'

Oriole's grip relaxed. 'You ... marry that common sailor?'

'I should have married him long ago. Yes, I propose to marry Alan.' She allowed herself a smile. 'And then, if you wish, you may marry Billy. Wouldn't you like to ?'

'My God.' Oriole sat in the chair by the window. 'Marry your husband ? My God. I've had a husband, thank you very much. I do not propose ever to have another.'

'Ah,' Meg said. 'Then you actually prostituted yourself to control Hilltop. Oh, I am not condemning you, Oriole. I think that was splendidly Hilton. Far more Hilton than I could ever be, now. I did prostitute myself once, you know, for the sake of Hilltop. And very successfully too. I suppose you know about that. Billy will have told you. But I still think you are much more of a Hilton than I. What a shame I was the one to inherit. Now, if you'll excuse me, Oriole, I really must get dressed. I am expecting Alan for dinner. I'm surprised he has not come already.'

'Alan McAvoy?' Oriole stood up, tossed her head. 'You are a dreamer, Meg. He won't be coming out here.'

'Oh, do be quiet, Oriole. And do leave.' Meg picked up her brush, started to stroke through her hair.

'Because, my darling, you see, whether you wish to be or not, you are a Hilton,' Oriole said. 'You are the Hilton. Alan McAvoy? He cannot stand the light which surrounds you. He left the court shortly after you did this morning. And returned to his schooner. I believe he gave orders that it is to be prepared for sea as rapidly as possible. What did you promise him, my darling? That you would send Billy to the gallows? Whatever you said, you have ended that particular dream.'

Meg had turned, slowly, gazed at her. Then she ran to the door, pulled it wide. 'Lawrence,' she shouted. 'Muriel. Have my horse saddled. Quickly.' She hurried back into the room threw off her robe, reached for the clothes she had tossed carelessly over the chair.

'Oh, Meg, Meg,' Oriole said. 'You are so very beautiful. So very Hilton. So ... Meg ...'

Meg stepped into her second petticoat. 'If you touch me, Oriole, I will have you thrown down those stairs. And I do mean it. Oh ...' She turned at the knock. 'What is it?'

Lawrence stood there. 'Is Washington, mistress. Man, mistress ...'

'Washington ?' She went to the door, forgetting her state of undress, peered at the exhausted groom. 'What has happened ?'

'Is them boys, mistress. Man, mistress, them boys in the jury.'

'What?' Oriole shouted, hurrying to Meg's side. 'What was the verdict ?'

'Man, Mistress Paterson, despite all, them boys did find Mr William guilty.'

 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

 

SUNSET

 

THERE was a moment of silence, then Oriole uttered a shriek and reached forward. For a moment Meg thought she was actually going to seize a black man by the shoulders. But she checked herself in time.

'Convicted?' she shouted. 'How could he be convicted?'

'How could it happen so quickly?' Meg asked.

Washington looked from one to the other. 'Well, is a fac' it happen too quick, Miss Meg. What happen is, the Chief Justice he say they got for lunch during the recess, and then, when they done, that Courtney man say the Crown finish, and Mr Reynolds start the defence. But he only call Mr Billy, Miss Meg, and he ask Mr Billy for to say what happen, and Mr Billy say that when he see you with that Cleave man he lose he head, what with jealousy and thing, and he shoot. So then Mr Reynolds say that is he case, and when he addressing the jury he saying that they got for believe Mr Billy, because is you what bring the case, and then you what saying you ain' givin' no evidence, so the truth got for be that you knowin' Mr Billy only done what he got for do.' He paused for breath.

'Oh, go on,' Oriole shouted.

'Well, Mistress Paterson, the fact is ...' Washington shifted his feet uneasily. 'That Mr Courtney, you see, he done ask me, like he ask Massie and them others, what we did talk about while we looking for Miss Meg, and well, Mistress Paterson, we is under oath and that thing, and we had to say well, Mr Billy saying, all the time we looking for

Miss Meg, I knowing where she is gone, she gone to them black people what does beat the drum, and you knowing what I goin' do when I catch up with them, this is he talkin' you understanding, I goin' blow them head right off.'

'You bastard,' Oriole said. 'You unutterable bastard.'

Washington shifted his feet some more. But he was looking at Meg as he spoke. 'Man, Mistress Paterson, we did be under oath and thing. And then, what happen, the Judge he addressing the jury, and he saying, all you got for decide is what Mr Billy thinkin' in he mind when he goin' after Miss Meg, whether he thinkin' well I got for get me wife back, or whether he is thinkin' goddam I goin' kill the boy what she is with. That is the crux of the matter, the Judge saying, and then, seeing as how it is five o'clock, he saying well, I goin' adjourn this here court until tomorrow, while you does consider your verdict.' This time he paused to wipe his brow.

'So what happened ?' Meg asked.

'Well, Miss Meg, the foreman of that jury, and he a white man, too, he standing up and he saying, well, they been whisperin' to one another one time, while them lawyers did be speaking, so he saying, well, Mr Judge, he saying, we ain' got no need for to be lock' up for the night, because we done make up we mind already. Now how is that? askin' the Judge. But they ain' budging, so he for ask them, and they saying that they reckon Mr Billy did be thinkin' all the time that he goin' shoot whoever he finding you with, and that is that. So the Judge done pronounce Mr Billy guilty, and saying then, I ain' goin' adjourn this court, I goin' say sentence.'

'Oh, my God.' Oriole sank to the chair.

'Is a fac', Mistress Paterson, he saying the same thing, about God and thing. But then he putting on he black cap and he sayin' that Mr Billy mus' be hangin' from the neck until he does be dead.'

'Oh, my God,' Oriole moaned. 'Oh, my God. Meg, what are we to do?'

Meg gazed at her for a moment. But what was she to do about Alan, who thought she had lied to him, who supposed she had betrayed everything he held dear?

'Washington,' she snapped. 'Saddle me a horse. Quickly.'

Washington scratched his head. 'You goin' to town, Miss Meg? Man, it is very late, and I does be too weary.'

'I'll ride alone,' she said. 'Just get me a horse. Quickly, man.' She pushed him through the door, reached for her gown.

'Meg.' Oriole attempted to grasp her arm. 'What can you do ? Appeal. Oh, yes, we'll appeal. But Walter will already have thought of that.'

'Billy is guilty of murder, Oriole,' Meg pointed out. She abandoned the idea of trying to put on her hat - her hair was loose in any event, and it would take half an hour to put it up - pulled on her gloves, went to the door.

'Meg...' Oriole wailed.

Meg hesitated. But she did not have the heart to order her from the plantation, at this moment. She closed the door behind her, ran down the stairs; she would not look at the portraits this night. Washington was already at the front steps, with a saddled horse.

'Man, Miss Meg,' he said. 'In this dark, you can' go so by yourself.'

'Of course I can, Washington,' she said. 'Who'd molest Meg Hilton?' Who indeed, she wondered. She sat astride, urged the horse forward, thundered along the roadway out of the plantation and up into the hills, had to remind herself to slow to a walk, as there was a long way yet to go.

She preferred not to think. What she would do if the Dreamer was no longer in the harbour, she just did not know. Because this time he would not come back. This time he would know, without a shadow of a doubt, that a Hilton could not throw off the burden of his or her past; that the name, the family, the plantation, would always dominate every other thought, every other hope, every other fear, every other emotion. As it had done to her, for all of her life.

The clock was striking twelve when she walked her exhausted horse into a sleeping, darkened city. A beat policeman peered at her, but she ignored him and walked on to the waterfront. She stared at the harbour; there were several ships moored out there; an American naval squadron was visiting Jamaica, and in the darkness they were no more than a cluster of lights. She dismounted, left her horse standing, walked to the edge of the nearest dock, stared again. But it was quite impossible to identify any ship.

'Eh-eh,' remarked a voice. 'But is Mistress Hilton?'

She turned, peered at the black man, a sailor by his clothes. 'You know me ?'

'Well, I got for know Mistress Hilton,' he pointed out. 'I see you in court today. You lookin' for the Captain?'

Her heart gave a tremendous bound, which threatened to choke her. 'Captain McAvoy? He is still here?'

'Oh, yes, mistress. He come aboard last evening, and he sayin' we must prepare for sea, but we can' sail until we is loaded, mistress, and that can' be until tomorrow.'

'Then he's aboard ?' Meg cried. 'Take me out, please. I'll see you are well rewarded.'

'Well, mistress, I goin' take you out if that is what you wish, but the Captain ain' aboard.'

'What? Where is he?'

The seaman shifted his feet. 'Well, mistress, he sayin' he got for have a drink, and he comin' back ashore. I did bring he.'

'And now you're waiting to take him back?'

'Ay, well, no, mistress. The fact is...' Again the feet did a quick shuffle. 'He did be drink so much he did pass out, mistress. So I did think the best thing is to put him to bed like.'

'Where? Please tell me.'

'Well, is the last place we was at, mistress. Bladings' Hotel, like.'

'Bladings? Oh, thank you. Thank you. I shall see that you are rewarded.' She ran for her horse.

'But Mistress Hilton,' the sailor called. 'The Captain ... well, he did drink a lot of rum. And he did speak against you, Mistress Hilton.'

She turned the horse, walked it up the street. He did speak against you, Mistress Hilton. And he was drunk. Then perhaps he would beat her, as Billy had done on their honeymoon. Perhaps he would also wish to throttle her. Unlike Billy, once Alan's fingers wrapped themselves around her throat, there would be no letting go.

She dismounted before Bladings, and the major-domo hurried down the steps to peer at her. 'Mistress Hilton?' He fumbled in his fob.

'It is just midnight,' Meg said. 'Captain McAvoy is staying here, I believe.'

'Well, he is here, Mistress Hilton. We did give him a room for the night. But Mistress Hilton ...'

'I'd be much obliged if you'd stable my horse, give it water and oats.' She walked up the stairs, pulling off her gloves, pushing hair from her forehead and eyes. The night clerk peered at her in turn.

'Mistress Hilton?'

'Good evening to you,' she said. 'Which room has Captain McAvoy ?'

'Captain McAvoy? Why, Mistress Hilton, I really could not.. .’

'Or shall I try every one in turn?' Meg inquired. 'Oh, my God. Oh, no, Mistress Hilton, you couldn't do that.'

'Watch me,' Meg said, and turned for the stairs. 'Number thirty-nine, Mistress Hilton,' the clerk called. 'Third floor. Number thirty-nine.' Then give me your pass key.'

'Yes, Mistress Hilton.' He gave her the key, watched her walk across the lobby, scrabbled for the house phone.

Meg climbed the stairs slowly. How her heart pounded. And how simple it was to act the Hilton, to leave everyone scandalized and immobilized before her utter arrogance, her total determination to have what she wanted when she wanted it. How little did they suspect the uncertainties which lurked beneath that mask of omnipotence.

On the second floor she met Charlie Blading coming down. 'Mrs Hilton? Do you know..

"That it is midnight, Charles? I do. But do you know that these stairs are uncommonly steep? When are you going to fit an elevator?'

Blading gaped at her. 'When... when I have the funds to install electricity, to be sure, Mrs Hilton.'

'You have high tension wires attached to your roof.'

'A convenience for the Electricity Company. To bring it right through the hotel would cost a fortune, money I just have not got in these troubled times. But really, madam, Meg, I must protest, this is not a ... well...'

'A brothel, you were going to say,' Meg said. 'Well, I hope it is not. But Captain McAvoy and I have been lovers for a very long time, Charles. You could not possibly describe this as an overnight affair, or even a clandestine one. And I do propose to see him tonight.'

'Yes, well...' Blading pulled his nose.

'And we will be quiet about it, I promise you.' Meg climbed the next flight of stairs, reached the third floor, paused to regain her breath. Blading did not follow her. Poor man, he must have already cursed the day Meg Hilton had followed Lord Claymond in here. Or had it really been good for his business?

Very gently she inserted the key in the lock, turned it, pushed the door inwards. The bedroom was utterly dark, and she waited in the doorway for some seconds while her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, and to allow the light from the corridor to enter. The third floor contained only single rooms, and not the most expensive in the house either. The furnishings were sparse, a table and two chairs, a wash-stand with a china basin and ewer, and a tin slop bucket. And a single bed, over which the mosquito netting had not been dropped, and across which there lay the body of a man, breathing heavily, and still dressed. He even wore his boots.

It was Margarita all over again. How she wanted it to be the Margarita all over again, but with the right to change the course of their lives, to make them wiser, to eliminate all the misery that had happened since.

But she could not undress him in the dark without wakening him. And besides, she wanted to see his face. She took the candlestick into the corridor, lit it from one of the wall lights returned it to its holder. Then she locked the bedroom door on the inside.

Alan gave a gentle snore, half turned, and fell onto his face again. Gently she rolled him on his back. He had loosened his neck tie, and now she removed it altogether before starting work on his boots. It took her only a short while to undress him completely, and then she lay beside him. Surprisingly, she felt no great surge of passion. He was her man. He had been her man since their earliest days, and throughout all their quarrels and their separations, their triumphs and their tragedies, she had always known that he was hers, as she was his. And now she had come home for the last time.

She nestled her head on his shoulder, kissed him on the cheek, and felt his arm suddenly tighten as he awoke. 'Meg ?' he whispered. 'Meg ?'

She kissed him on the mouth. ‘I am here, my darling. I am here. That is all that is important. Unless you wish me to leave.'

'Oh, Meg...' His hands slid over her back, and then suddenly clenched her shoulders to move her a few inches away. 'Have you heard the verdict?'

'Washington brought it out to Hilltop. Billy will appeal.'

Alan shook his head. 'There will be no appeal.'

'But he has been condemned to death.'

'There will still be no appeal. An appeal can only be allowed on a question of law, or a question of fact. Billy was properly tried, and Sir Harry was entirely correct in his summing up. While no one can dispute the facts.'

'My God.' She sat up, allowed her legs to droop to the floor. 'He'll be hanged.' 'I'm afraid he will. For murder, Meg.' 'And despite my cowardice.' 'Was it cowardice?'

She glanced at him, looked away again. 'I had never supposed that a part of your character,' he said.

‘You supposed that my upbringing, my background, my ancestors, rose up and choked off my words,' she said.

'Did they not? I saw the way you looked at them as you descended the stairs yesterday morning.'

'True,' she said. 'But it will not happen again.'

'Oh, Meg, Meg,' he said, holding her arms again, and attempting to bring her forward. 'A man is what he was bora to be. As is a woman. You were bora a Hilton. You were born to be Mistress of Hilltop. Nothing you wish, nothing I can say, will ever alter that fact. While Hilltop stands, you will be its mistress ...'

'No,' she said. 'I decided on my ride into town. I will place it in the hands of an attorney, and leave for ever. Now. We will go to England, so that I may see Richard and Aline, and then I am yours, my darling. If you still want me.'

'Want you?' he said, and this time he proved too strong for her, brought her down on to his chest. 'Want you? I was angry today. Angry, and miserable. Because I thought I had lost you. But I did some thinking too, you know. And I realized my mistake. You cannot be changed. You cannot be otherwise than as you are. As you know. As you told me, that day in the cabin of Margarita. You came to me in defiance of every convention, because you were Meg Hilton. You could not come to me as anything else. And even should you live on the other side of the earth, you will always be Meg Hilton, and the first news of a crisis in the affairs of Hilltop will bring you charging back to its rescue.'

She allowed her body to relax, her cheek to rest on his, her hair to fall across his face and neck. 'And what will you do then ?' she whispered.

'Come with you,' he said. 'I can do nothing else.'

She closed her teeth on his ear, gently. 'Will you marry me, Alan?'

'Meg..;

'Will you marry the relict of a condemned murderer?' 'Meg...'

'Will you marry the mistress of a black man, Alan?' 'Meg...'

'Will you marry a Hilton, Alan?' He kissed her, held her close. 'I'll marry you, Meg. Whatever comes with you, I'll accept.'

Meg awoke to a greater feeling of well-being than she had ever known. Suddenly she was no longer tired, no longer tormented by doubt. No longer even conscious of her aches and pains. She was merely relaxed, and happy, only mildly concerned to find herself alone in the bed. As it was a single bed, she was the more comfortable for that, and she no longer had any fears that he might not come back. They had ridden their last hurdle together.

She sighed, and stretched, and rolled over, looked at the blinds, at the brilliant light behind. It must be very late, she thought drowsily. He had let her sleep and sleep and sleep, and she was the better for it.

Yet there were things to be done. She sat up, her brain teeming with memories, with ideas, with problems to be solved. But they were, now, this morning, no more than problems.

A knock, and the door swung inwards. 'Alan,' she cried. He was fully dressed in his sea-going gear. And he was smiling at her.

'I've lunch with me.'

She pulled the sheet to her neck, and the Negro waiter rolled the trolley in. 'Lunch?' she asked. 'My God. What time is it?'

'Just gone one,' Alan said, and tipped the waiter.

'One ? Good lord. Do you think I could have a bath ?'

'Oh, yes, Mistress Hilton. The bathroom is right at the end of the corridor. There ain' goin' be no one usin' that now.'

At the end of the corridor. Even Bladings' Hotel. 'Thank you,' she said.

The man closed the door, and Alan sat beside her, kissed her hair, her forehead, each eye, her nose, her mouth, her chin. 'I thought it best to let you sleep.'

'And I feel much better for it. But where have you been?'

'Down at the docks.'

'But...'

'Life must go on, my darling. Dreamer must be loaded, or we'll never get to sea.' He kissed her again. 'Or have you changed your mind again ?'

She rolled away from him, got out of bed, stretched. 'I haven't changed my mind, Alan. I'll never change my mind again, I promise you. But there are one or two things to be done.'

'Of course.' He sat at the table, served cold chicken, poured champagne.

She sat opposite him, as she had done in her bedroom at Hilltop, naked. 'I have to find an attorney to manage Hilltop.'

'Courtney is expecting you at four. He has a short list made out. I had a word with him this morning. If you want someone from England, why at least he'll supply a chap to hold the fort until you can advertise properly.'

She sipped champagne. 'I like being looked after,' she said. 'It is the first time it has ever happened, except when I was a prisoner.' She bit her lip.

'Meg...'

'Oh, no looking over shoulders for Meg Hilton. Time for that when I'm dying. But Alan... I must see Billy.' He frowned at her.

'I must. He is my husband. And ... if I can help him, I must do so. You do understand that, Alan?'

The frown lasted for a moment longer, then disappeared in a smile. 'I'll speak to Courtney. Or better yet, you can do so yourself, when you see him.'

'I wonder he still wishes to speak with me at all.'

'He wishes to speak with you very much. You are due to appear in court tomorrow morning, you know.'

'Me?' she cried.

'To answer the charge of contempt. You had forgotten, hadn't you?' 'Oh, my lord.'

'I have it from Courtney that Sir Harry intends to administer a wigging and a fine. Nothing more.'

'Oh, but...' She stared at her plate, then tossed hair from her eyes. 'Well, then, I'll have to listen to him, won't I ?'

'That's my girl. Now eat up. We've a lot to do.'

She was surprisingly hungry. Alan had finished long before she had, and was sitting back smoking a cheroot and drinking the last of the champagne before she swallowed her last mouthful.

'That feels better. You'll come with me, to Courtney?'

He shook his head. 'He wants to see you alone. Who knows, maybe he wants to talk about Billy.' He smiled at her. 'Don't forget, if you do manage to get him reprieved, you'll have to arrange a divorce. Anyway, sweetheart, I must get on with it. I've arranged to change to a double room, so I'll meet you back here at six o'clock this afternoon.'

'Oh, but ...' She bit her lip again. Did she want to go back out to Hilltop ? Would it not be better never to see it again? 'All right,' she said. 'Six o'clock, in the lounge downstairs.'

He leaned across the table, kissed her on the forehead. 'You know, at last I feel we're almost married.'

'We've been married for nearly twenty years,' she said. 'It just took us that long to realize it.'

'Then I must set about getting you a ring.' He saw the shadow cross her face, and kissed her again. 'All in good time. See you at six.'

She leaned back in her chair and finished her champagne. Only problems, from now on. Even her appearance in court could be only a problem. But it would be discourteous to keep Courtney waiting; it was already past two.

She wrapped herself in her towel, cautiously opened the door, peered into the corridor. How quiet it was in the middle of a Jamaican afternoon. Hotheaded Englishmen like Alan might still be rushing around, but the major part of the city were either in bed or in the cool of their offices, waiting for the heat to begin to leave the sun. Even the faint breeze which filtered in the bedroom window was warm.

And the hotel itself was silent, save for the faintest of tinkles from downstairs where the kitchen staff were no doubt washing up the last of the lunch dishes. She stepped outside, hurried along the corridor, reached the safety of the bathroom. She soaked in the tub, dreamily resting her head on the bath itself, playing with the taps with her toes. She did not wish to think coherently, so instead she daydreamed, of herself and Alan on the deck of Dreamer, running north east before a westerly wind, three weeks at sea with not another white person to speak to, with just themselves.

The notes of the cathedral clock rumbled through the afternoon, reverberating in the bathroom. Three o'clock.

'Oh, lord,' she muttered, and leapt from the tub to towel herself and hurry along the still deserted corridor to her bedroom. She'd never make it. She dropped her shift over her shoulders, buttoned her blouse, walking to and fro in her anxiety, stepped into her skirt and fastened her waistband, used Alan's hairbrush to drag some order into her hair, gazed at herself in the mirror and attempted to smooth her eyebrows, pulled on her bolero and stood back to admire the whole; looked around the room in an attempt to remember if she had brought a handbag, turned to the door, and found herself unable to move, as the room, the hotel, the afternoon, suddenly filled with a long, high yet soft sound, as of the strongest hurricane wind the world had ever known sweeping across Jamaica.

Meg turned to face the window, expecting to be blown across the room by the force of the wind. But the breeze if anything had died; the curtains hardly moved. Immediately outside her window there was a breadfruit tree, and this too was quiet. But as she watched the sound of the airless wind was replaced by something far more terrible, a growing, searching rumble, a swelling paean of noise as if every coach in the world was being driven at breakneck speed down the mountains to converge upon the city.

In that instant Meg knew what was happening. A million memories, locked in the recesses of her mind, of the stories told her by Percy, of that night in the mountains when the fowl cock had escaped her grasp, careered through her brain and seemed to galvanize her muscles into action. She turned again, and threw herself across the room, even as the floor beneath her feet began to move.

She seized the door handle, twisted it, and gasped in sheer terror as the door would not come to her. She clung to the handle and looked up, and watched the chandelier swaying as if a giant had kicked it, before suddenly plunging down. She screamed, her voice lost in the unearthly roar which was rising all around her, deafening her. Her head flopped back and she watched the chandelier falling past her, tensed her muscles for the resulting spray of glass splinters which would tear her back to shreds, and turned her head in horror to watch the entire floor drop away so that the cascading glass fell straight through into the room below.

She found herself hanging, her hands slipped from the door handle, and she lodged them with frantic endeavour upon the towel rail secured to the wall by the door, gasping for breath, her legs kicking desperately while she stared at the washstand, slowly inclining towards her, the ewer starting to tilt, so that water splashed on her face, the slop bucket striking her on the shoulder as it wandered down the sloping floor before also dropping into the room below.

Was the hotel still shaking? Still collapsing? The noise still rumbled through her ears, and she knew she could not hang where she was much longer. She looked down. There would be a bed down there. But she almost choked with horror as she saw that that floor too, had disappeared, and plummeted through into the next, and down there were people, or there had been people. Screams and wails came up to her, sounds of the purest terror.

To which she would belong if she fell through there. The walls of the bedroom still stood, even if the roof was sagging where the chandelier had broken away. And only the joist in the centre of the room seemed to have gone as yet, so that although the floor under the bed had given way to send it and anything else loose hurtling downwards, the boards still clung to the edges, and the jalousies still flapped aimlessly at the windows, and beyond the jalousies there was still the breadfruit tree, the easiest of all trees to climb.

She gasped with endeavour, shook her head in an attempt to end the terrifying noise in her ears, without success, tensed her muscles and with a supreme effort dragged herself out of the pit, face pressed against the trembling walls, body racked with great gasps, fingers burning, scrabbling at the sloping wood with her bare toes and only then realizing that she had not put on her boots.

Or her stockings. Oh, thank God she had not put on her boots or her stockings. Her toes had some ability to grasp the wood, to force her upright. She reached her feet, still pressed against the wall, and the entire building shook again, bringing another rush of terror into her throat, but at the same time impelling her once again into action.

She slid along the wall, breast and belly and thigh clinging to the paper, turned as the floor seemed to steady, and threw herself at the window, even as the hotel gave another horrifying shake. She drew herself forward again, aching fingers eating into the wood of the sill, reached her knees, and then got astride the window, skirts pulled high. Still the noise ballooned in her ears. She, had no idea how long it was since the first shock, but she knew it could only have been a matter of a few seconds.

The branches were just beyond her fingertips. But she had no thought of hesitating. With a lunge and an involuntary gasp she threw herself out. The branches hit her in the face and one poked her in the stomach. She fell through another branch, the crack echoing in her ears like the report of a pistol, and then was struck a violent blow on the chest as she landed on something stronger. Instinctively her arms went round the saving wood, and her legs came up as well, kicking back her skirt to wrap themselves ankle round ankle, hugging the wood to her body and against her face, panting, looking back up at the walls and roof of the hotel, at curtains fluttering through the open windows, at bursting electricity cables cascading sparks into the air, and then seeming to contract with horror, from her toes to her brain, as the whole wall suddenly seemed to tilt above her. . 'Oh, God!' she screamed. 'Oh, God!'

There was a noise like the first note of the Last Trump, and the collapsing hotel plunged into the tree, striking first of all the top branches, cutting through them as if they were grass, then breaking up itself as it struck the stouter wood farther down. Slabs of timber crashed onto Meg's fingers, forced them from their hold. For a moment she was aware of hanging upside down, because her ankles, miraculously, were still locked together. And now she was choking because of the swirling dust which seemed to rise and descend at the same moment, turning the mid afternoon into darkness, filling her eyes and her nostrils and her mouth, making her choke and gasp and retch at the same time.

Wood cascaded onto her back and struck her bare feet, and they slipped. Her hands, reaching downwards, encountered another branch and locked there, tearing at the bark. But now she was falling again, still in the centre of a plunging maelstrom of wood and glass and plaster.

She landed on her feet, with a jolt which went through her entire body, and realized that she had actually reached the ground, without knowing how.

But the ground provided no security at that moment. For still she was surrounded by falling debris and now she saw that the tree itself was on its way down, in a deathly slow motion which was accompanied by the most heart-rending sound she had ever heard. Yet again she screamed, and sank to her knees, or perhaps she had spent the last eternity falling to her knees in any event, for the pain in her legs was intense.

Her head hit something and for a moment she was senseless, then the crashing noise ended, and in its place there was something far more horrible, a quite unearthly silence. It was as if the entire world had ceased breathing for a space of about a second, she supposed as the gods of destruction sat back and inspected the result of their caprice.

Then, slowly, sound seeped back across the afternoon, the crack of a falling timber, the scream of a trapped woman, the whimper of a dying man, the wail of a wounded animal. And Meg realized she was sobbing, and her legs were caught under a fallen branch lying across her thighs. She opened her mouth to call for help, and again all but choked on the still swirling dust. And in that inhalation caught another, yet more deadly smell, the nostril-tingling odour of burning wood.

A whiff of smoke drifted across the afternoon as well. Oh, my God, Meg thought. Oh, my God. She turned her head to and fro, could see only the tumbling branches, and the swirling dust, or was it smoke?

Beyond the dust and the smoke there was sound, some of it even intelligible. At least, not everyone had died in the holocaust, as yet.

'Help!' she shouted. 'Help me!' she screamed.

But the other sounds were mostly screams themselves. And now it was hot, too hot even for a Jamaican afternoon. And now too she saw the flames, licking at the old wood of the hotel, piled like a waiting bonfire all around her. And the flames were licking at the wood of the tree itself.

But she would die of suffocation, from the smoke. It was thicker now, making breathing difficult.

She seized her right thigh in both hands, discovering for the first time that she had lost her skirt and wore only her shift, while her blouse and jacket were both torn to shreds, as were her hands; blood dripped onto the ground. And her foot was immovable.

But she was sitting on the ground, had in fact been forced into it by the impact. Desperately she tore at the grass with her fingers, sawed her bottom to and fro, worked her heels and her legs, as best she could, sawing and dragging at her body.

Something dropped on her hand, and she shook it off with a wail of pain, for it was a glowing ember. She looked up at the branches which still whirled above her head, saw them glowing as a fresh cascade of embers and burning debris rattled through them, screamed again as she was burned on her cheek and on her shoulder. She rolled on her face, attempting to shield herself, attempting to gain some air to breathe, for now she was entirely surrounded by the swirling smoke.

She dug her fingers and her toes into the earth, pressed her body against it, gasped ... but she was on her face. She had managed to roll over.

She gave a convulsive surge forward and came free, reached her hands and knees, and was forced flat again by the billowing smoke which robbed her lungs of air.

Which way to go ? She might well crawl into the fire. But how could she avoid crawling into the fire when it was all around her?

Yet she would survive. She was determined about that. Even if she had to crawl through fire. She had survived too much already just to lie down and die now. Besides, not to survive would be to admit that the mamaloi was right; the earth had trembled when she had been born, now it sought to take her back again, for ever.

She dug her toes and fingers into the ground, inched her way forward. Branches scraped at her shoulders, completed the destruction of her clothes, caught in her hair and jerked her head backwards so that she had to claw upwards to free herself while all the while the burning embers scattered around her, striking the grass with giant hisses and setting it alight.

Air, and light. She discovered herself free of the tree, kneeling, peering at the zinnias which lined the hotel driveway. And peering too at a woman, a maid, she guessed, from the girl's white gown. But the gown ended at the waist, and there were only legs. The trunk lay farther on. She had been cut in two by a gigantic piece of corrugated iron, torn from the roof of the hotel.

Meg vomited without warning. Then she rose to her feet, staggered, and actually tripped over the ghastly corpse. Once again she was sick, but even while the bile dripped down her chin she was again on her feet and running down the driveway, leaping over a gigantic rent which had appeared in the tarmacadam, reaching for the safety of the street.

There was no safety in the street. The air was still filled with dust and with fumes and with swirling smoke. Bladings' Hotel was not the only building that had caught fire, while in contrast the drains had burst and water ran across her toes as she looked from right to left.

People screamed and wailed and howled and begged and shouted and gave orders and asked for orders. Dogs barked and ran to and fro. Horses shrieked their terror. Two black men emerged out of the smoke and attempted to seize her arms. Even as she struck at them she realized they were attempting to take her to safety rather than molest her. But she did not wish to see anyone, speak with anyone. Save Alan.

Alan. He had gone to the docks. Oh, my God, she thought, the docks. In the earthquake of 1692 Port Royal had disappeared beneath the waves.

She staggered down the street, was suddenly accosted by a white woman, hair wild, clothes torn, face blackened with smoke.

'Meg,' she shouted. 'Meg Hilton. Oh, my God, Meg Hilton.’

Meg attempted to shake herself free, but the woman continued to hold her, and now she looked closer she discovered that she was Anna Phillips.

'Anna,' she cried. 'Anna? Oh, Anna. Where's John?'

'I don't know,' Anna Phillips wailed. 'I don't know. He had just set off on his rounds when it happened. Oh, my God, Meg. I don't know.'

'You'll find him,' Meg promised her. 'You'll find him. I know you will. Please let me go. I must find Alan.'

'John,' Anna cried. 'I don't know where he is. Oh, my God, Meg, have you ever known anything like it ? Oh, my God...'

Meg pulled herself free, ran down the street, rounded the corner and stumbled into an overturned automobile, its doors flung open and a man half in and half out, his face a mass of coagulating blood.

This time she was not sick. She did not suppose she had any sickness left. She tumbled down the street, pushed someone away when he would have spoken to her, tripped over the body of a dead dog, and reached the docks ... but the docks were no longer there, the timbers dissolved into the still seething waters of the harbour.

Meg wiped sweat from her face and peered at the ships. But they at least were still all right, although most had steam up. But the Dreamer still rode to her anchors, and as she watched, a boat pulled for the shore. Had it then been so short a time since the earthquake ? Now for the first time she saw the sun, just beginning its afternoon droop towards the waves, before it was obliterated by the drifting smoke.

She found herself on her knees, watching the approaching boats. Most of them were from the American warships, filled with white-jacketed seamen, staring at the stricken town as if they were seeing the end of the world.

But one of the boats was from the Dreamer and in the stern was Alan McAvoy.

'Alan!' she screamed, nearly hurling herself into the water as the boat came alongside.

'Meg.' He scrambled ashore to hold her in his arms. 'Oh, my dearest Meg.' He held her away from him. 'Are you all right?'

She was in fact just realizing how bruised she was; her stomach and her breasts were aching, as was her right leg, while her back felt as if she had been whipped. But none of those seemed particularly relevant. She was alive, and as far as she could tell, she had not even broken anything.

'I am all right, my darling,' she said. 'I climbed down the tree outside our window.'

'My God,' he said. 'The sight of it. I'll never forget it to my dying day. It was as if a giant had taken a rug and jerked one end of it. These docks ... they just rose in the air and fell away again. Meg, are you sure you're all right ?'

'Yes,' she said fiercely. 'Yes. Alan ... could you see the prison?'

'Only the roof,' he said. 'It disappeared. But then, so did most other roofs.'

'We must look there,' she said. 'We must, Alan.'

'But ...' He hesitated, but she knew what he had been going to say: why risk our lives looking for a man who has been condemned to death?

'We must,' she said. 'I must.'

'And we shall,' he said. 'Supposing we can get through the town.'

‘I have already been through the town.'

She held his hand and went forward, towards the smoke pall which lay across the stricken city, to be stopped by an armed American marine.

'You can't go in there,' he said.

'But I must,' Meg said. 'My husband is in there.'

'The whole town centre is on fire,' the marine pointed out. 'And buildings are falling like matchsticks. Anyone who hasn't got out isn't coming out. Believe me, lady.'

'But...' Meg stared at an officer, white uniform blackened with smoke, coming towards them. 'I must find my husband.'

'In there?' The lieutenant looked over his shoulder. 'Where should he be, ma'am ?' 'Well...' She bit her lip. 'At the prison.' 'The prison? Holy Jesus. It's collapsed, ma'am.' 'Collapsed? But...'

'The walls just caved in. They're saying not a one survived, and if anyone did, why it's been burning now for half an hour.'

'Oh, my God,' Meg said, and sank to her knees. 'Oh, my God.' Poor, poor Billy. No doubt he would have died anyway, even had he never met her. But it was she who, in pursuit of her own ambitions, had taken him from his comfortable middle-class existence and made him a Hilton. And it had been she who had brought him down again when he had tried to act the part. Poor, poor Billy.

She felt Alan's arms round her shoulders. But he did not speak. There was nothing he could say.

'Now then, lady,' said the lieutenant. 'We'll get you to one of the ships, and you'll be able to lie down ...'

'No,' she said, using Alan to pull herself to her feet. 'No. I'd like two horses.'

'Horses, ma'am?'

'Can you get me two horses?' she insisted. 'I have a plantation. I must get out there and see what has happened.'

The lieutenant scratched his head.

'Maybe it would be best, sir,' the marine suggested. 'Anything is better than staying here.'

'And there was that stable just outside of town,' the lieutenant said, half to himself.

'Well, then ..Meg cried.

'But this whole place has gone wild, ma'am,' the young man explained. 'These black people are figuring the end of the world has come. I couldn't let you ride off by yourself.'

'She won't be by herself,' Alan said. 'I'll be with her.'

'Yeah ...' Once again the officer hesitated. 'Okay. I'll get you two horses. But you'd better take this, Captain.' He gave Alan his service revolver. 'And take care, for God's sake.'

It was a blessing to be away from the smoke cloud and the unthinkable stenches that lay beneath it, from the crackle of the flames, from the shrieks of the wounded and dying, the rumble of the collapsing buildings. But there was no relief from the fact of the earthquake. Meg rode astride, urged her mount on to the road which led up into the mountains, and discovered that there was no road, the embankment having subsided into rubble, so that the stream which ran beside the original surface was the most practicable route.

But the stream itself was a place of death, a trapped horse, which had drowned, the body of a child, floating on its face, while from above them now there came the hoarse cries of the crows, already beginning to gather.

'My God,' Alan muttered. 'My God.'

The horses picked their way over shattered trees, round fallen bridges. In the first shanty town they came to, a mile from the smoking city, all the lean-to houses had collapsed, but there were at least no dead bodies.

Although there were several live ones. Half-crazed black people, men and women, ran at them, shrieking, and Meg had to use her crop to drive them back, with no success until Alan drew his pistol and fired once into the air. Then the mob hesitated long enough for them to hurry their horses through and gain the open country beyond.

'We'll avoid townships,' Alan decided.

'Will they ever be normal again ?'

'Everyone forgets,' he said. 'In time.'

At the first rise they reined to look back at the smoke pall.

The death of a city. Her city, Meg realized. Her home. How she had always loved coming back to Kingston.

The desolation reached into the mountains. In fact it seemed to increase to suggest that the tremor had begun there, and thence found its way down to the sea. Some places she was unable to recognize. A cliff face which had always been a landmark had dissolved into two, and they picked their way through a sudden ravine. Trees were either down or bent at amazing angles, their roots still clinging precariously to the upturned earth. Streams were running where no water had ever run before, and other streams were dry. And now they were out of town the whole afternoon was covered by a deathly hush, as if Nature herself was shocked into silence. And at sunset she came to Hilltop.

There had been no fire, she could see no drifting smoke, and in the rapidly gathering gloom any flames would have been easy to discover. But then, she remembered, the earthquake had happened at half past three in the afternoon, when no one would have been cooking, and there were no electric cables out here to come swinging down and carry death and destruction in their wake.

Thus the scene looked almost peaceful. There had been a labourers' village; there was now a scattered accumulation of debris. There had been a staff town; there was now a grotesque litter of white-painted timbers, some pointing crazily skywards, others lying about like a collapsed house of cards. There had been a church; two walls and the roof had fallen, but the other two still stood, a mute testimony to man's rightful fear of the Unknown which had so rapidly and efficiently destroyed his handiwork.

She pushed hair from her forehead, heard Alan catch his breath as he reined beside her.

There had been a grandstand. Quite remarkably the four main uprights still stood, but the tiered seats, and the staircases, had slid away from their supports, and arrived together by the winning post in a cluster of cane and timber.

There had been banana groves; now there were acres and acres of flattened trees, and no doubt, she thought, of scattered fruit. She wondered if, beyond the fruit groves, there was still a rushing river, shaded by cedars, or if they too had disappeared, together with the water where she had bathed, and where her life had first begun to have meaning.

Her breath caught in her throat. Because there had also been a factory, with a chimney. Hilltop chimney had been one of the most famous landmarks in all Jamaica. While Hilltop chimney stood, Father had always said, Hilltop will be Hilton land. Now it lay as rubbled stone, pointing up the slope towards the house.

Because there had also been a House.

She kicked her tired horse in the ribs, cantered down the slope, lost sight of the buildings as she dipped into the valley. It would be quite dark before she got there. She wanted it to be dark before she got there.

Alan drew alongside. 'Meg,' he said. 'It can be rebuilt. There is nothing that cannot be rebuilt.'

She galloped away from him, reached the pasture. Amazingly, there were still sheep, gathered together in plaintive groups, looking at her with determined patience, wondering no doubt what new catastrophe was about to overtake them. And there were chickens, released from their run by the collapsing walls, roaming the shattered plantation in terrified freedom, squawking and flapping their wings.

Halfway up the slope she drew rein. Because Hilltop had also contained people. And now she could hear a rumble of sound, an angry groaning, like a gigantic animal in pain.

She kicked her horse, rode past the cemetery, and checked again. For wailing through the darkness, rising above the mutter which filled the evening, she heard the voice of Oriole Paterson.

'Oriole,' she shouted, once again riding forward, to pause in horror. On the far side of the slope there were people, her people, hundreds of them. And in front of them, crawling away from the mob, there was Oriole. Her mouth was open and she was shouting, but her words were incoherent and tears streamed down her face. Her clothes were torn and dishevelled, and her hair flowed in the breeze. Her body was cut and bruised, stained with mud and blood. Nothing quite so unlike Oriole had ever been imaginable, Meg thought.

And as she watched another stone flew through the air, to strike her cousin in the back, send her sprawling again. And now the gigantic mutter began to make itself audible.

'White woman.'

'Bitch woman.'

'Jumbi!’

'Woman, we goin' bust you ass.' 'Woman...'

Another volley of stones and mud flew through the air, striking Oriole and making her fall with a moan of terror and pain. One of the flying clods of earth struck Meg on the shoulder as she urged her horse forward.

'Stop it,' she shouted. 'Stop it, do you hear?'

Behind her Alan drew the revolver from his belt and fired a shot in the air, and that checked the crowd.

'Eh-eh, but it is Miss Meg,' someone shouted.

'Man, is Miss Meg, You ain' seeing that?'

They clustered around her. 'Man, Mistress Meg, this place done.'

'Man, Mistress Meg, some of them boys done kill.' 'Man, Mistress Meg, the earth just open so.' 'Man, Mistress Meg, is she doin'.' 'Man, Mistress Meg, all our troubles begun the day that woman come here.' 'Man, Mistress Meg, we goin' stone she and stone she...' 'Man, Mistress Meg ...'

'Be quiet,' Meg shouted. 'You should be ashamed of yourselves. An earthquake is an act of God. Not of a human being. It happened. It has happened before. It may well happen again. You should just be grateful that you are still alive.'

They gazed at her, muttering, but there would be no more violence. She was sure of that.

'Go down to the village,' she said. 'See what you can save from your homes. I will be down to see you in a little while. Go home.'

They edged away from her, casting fearful glances at Oriole, who had collapsed altogether on the ground, hugging the earth in her terror.

'Go home,' Meg said again, and dismounted. 'Oriole,' she said. 'Oriole. What happened ?'

Oriole rose to her knees, gazed around herself with an almost childlike curiosity.

Alan also dismounted. 'What happened here, Mrs Paterson?'

Her head jerked, and she stared at him. 'I was in the kitchen when it happened,' she muttered. 'It just collapsed. Everything collapsed. Then there was silence. I crawled out of the rubble, and there was nothing. I just sat there. And then the people came. They shouted at me.' She clasped his hand. 'They threw things at me. And when I ran, they ran behind me, and threw things at me. An hour. Two hours. They ran behind me, throwing things at me.'

"They've gone now, Oriole,' Meg said. "They were just frightened.'

Oriole stared at her. 'Meg,' she whispered. 'Oh, my God, Meg. But you're dead. They're all dead. All the Hiltons are dead. The Great House is dead. The factory is dead. The Plantation is dead. Oh, God have mercy on me. They are all dead.'

Meg gripped her cousin's shoulder, shook it to and fro. 'I am not dead,' she shouted. 'I am not dead.'

Oriole screamed, a sound of purest terror, pulled herself away, scrambled to her feet, and ran towards the cemetery. Amazingly, the earthquake had passed the cemetery by. The tamarind trees still stood, the white palings gleamed in the darkness, the gravestones had stayed upright. 'Dead,' she shrieked. 'Dead.'

Alan helped Meg up. 'She's lost her senses.'

'And when she hears that Billy is dead ...'

'Aye, well, it's difficult to feel sorry for her.'

Meg walked towards the Great House. It seemed the main force of the tremor had run right underneath the building, for the massive stone cellars upon which it had been erected, which had been at once a foundation and a refuge where the inmates could take shelter from hurricane wind or marauding buccaneers or rampaging revolting slaves, had been split, as if with a gigantic axe. Hilltop Great House had simply collapsed into the resulting chasm. The outer walls still stood, but the roof was gone, crashing down on top of the bedrooms, on top of her bed - she could see one of the uprights protruding through the rubble, with even a shred of torn mosquito netting still clinging to it - crashing in turn on top of the collapsing staircases, crashing in turn into the hall and sucking down the inner walls of the dining room and the drawing room.

She stood at the foot of the steps, where her father and her grandfather and all the Hiltons before them had each morning held their daily meeting with their staff before setting the machinery of the plantation into motion. The steps had fallen before the verandah, which itself sagged back into the rubble behind it.

'Meg.' Alan had also dismounted. 'Be careful, Meg.'

She was already clambering over the rubble, even in the gloom able to pick out the overturned billiards table, the grand piano from which all the keys had sprung like an army of musical ants, to lie around the instrument which had been their home, like so many tiny dead bodies.

She slipped, and jarred her back, and still sitting, on what she realized had been one of the great iron-bound doors, she stared at Marguerite Hilton. The canvas had been torn from its frame, or the frame had been torn from the canvas, with the result that her face was somewhat bent and the wide, arrogant mouth appeared to be smiling. Oh, my God, she bought. They are all in there as well, all destroyed, all reduced to meaningless rubble. As Marguerite had been, in her own prime. No wonder she was smiling.

She discovered she was weeping, great silent tears which rolled down her cheeks and dripped onto her torn blouse. Alan knelt beside her, put his arm round her shoulders, and she leaned against him. All gone, she thought. All gone. Everything Hilton gone.

'Meg,' Alan said. 'We'll start tomorrow, rebuilding Hilltop. I'll get the men from my ship, and we'll...'

‘We goin' rebuild Hilltop, Captain,' Washington said. 'I goin' get them boys workin', and we goin'...'

'Washington,' Meg cried. 'Oh, Washington. What happened!'

'With Mistress Oriole?' Washington scratched his head. "Them boys did be too angry with she, Miss Meg. Is not only the quake. Is how she did treat you this time, is how ...' He sighed. 'But they didn't mean to kill she, Miss. You got for understand that. If they had mean to kill she, she would be dead.'

Which was true enough, Meg supposed.

Them boys only want for to keep Hilltop for you, Miss Meg,' Washington explained. 'Hilltop is our home, and you is our mistress, and so we goin' start rebuildin' this house.'

'No,' she said.

'But Meg...' Alan protested.

'It will cost a fortune to rebuild Hilltop.'

'But surely there will be government aid ...'

'Not enough,' Meg said. 'Never enough. Besides ...' Her turn to sigh. 'It is finished. Oriole is right there. The Hiltons are dead.'

'Meg...' His voice was uneasy.

'Oh, ‘ am not mad, Alan. But it is a fact, isn't it? The Hiltons were dead long before the earthquake. Perhaps they died with Great-Grandfather. I think we have only been going through the motions, ever since. And now the plantation itself is destroyed ... do you really want to see it rebuilt?'

 

_‘

'I'm concerned with what you want, Meg. Then there's Richard and Aline ...'

'There is money in the bank,' she said. 'Enough to complete their schooling, at the least.'

'And what do you want to do, Meg?'

She took Washington's hands. 'I was never a Hilton,' she said. ‘I was never a real successor to Marguerite and Susan, to Suzanne and Cartarette. I only tried to act the part, and suffered for it. But I'll be a Hilton now, Alan. We have more to do than prop up old buildings. I have my people to see to, to see them settled, to tell them they can split the plantation into smallholdings. Would you help me do that, Washington ? Will you be able to farm this land?'

'Well, I mus' be able to do that, Miss Meg, if you want me.' He grinned at her. 'Them boys goin' be too happy to have Hilltop for their own. But Miss Meg ...'

'Meg,' Alan said. 'By the terms of your father's will...'

'I can never sell Hilltop, Alan. I know that. But I'm not selling it, am I? I'm abandoning it to Washington. Richard will agree. Believe me. He'll be grateful that he won't have to carry the burden of being a Hilton of Hilltop. And when we are finished here, we'll see if we can help in any way with the rebuilding of Kingston.' She squeezed his arm. 'You once said we only took from Jamaica. I'd like to give something back, just for once.'

'And then?'

She threw back her head, cleared hair from her forehead, and turned into his arms. 'Then, Captain McAvoy, I am going to be your wife.'

 

THE END