'See to it, Boascawen,' Tony commanded. 'And for God's sake bring on the meat, man.'

'Yes, sir, Mr Hilton, sir.' Boscawen took the commands in order, daintily stepped round the kneeling figure of Vernon, crunched some glass beneath his bare feet and paused, with a pained expression on his face, then continued towards the door, without even a limp. 'Absolom? But what you doing up here this time?'

The driver wore only his drawers; his huge chest heaved and dripped sweat. 'Is that Mary Nine. She screaming fit to raise Damballah.'

'Eh?' Dick raised his head. 'Screaming?'

'Well, is the child, see, Mr Hilton, sir? He pushing he head out and causing she too much pain. And is a fact Mr Roche done gone with them others.'

'Roche?' Dick asked, stupidly.

'The white dispenser,' Harriet said. 'This girl, Mary Nine, is too young to have a child, really. She will probably die.'

'Die?' Dick scrambled to his feet. 'We must do something, Harriet. Mistress Gale, you must help me.' He inhaled. 'I mean help her.'

'Me? Help a nigger girl give birth?'

'You must. You said you like to watch. Now you can do more. Horses, Mr Boscawen. Quick, now.'

Boscawen glared at Absolom. 'You seeing what you done, you stupid black man? You upset the master.'

'Well, she screaming . . .'

'Horses,' Dick said firmly. He seized Harriet's wrist and half dragged her from her chair. 'Please. Tony . . .?'

Tony was regarding the enormous side of beef being brought into the dining room by two other of the footmen. 'I'll just stay here and mind the house,' he said.

'For God's sake.' Dick pulled Harriet from the room. 'Horses.'

'You can use mine, Mr Hilton, sir,' Absolom said. 'Oh, thanks.' Dick gasped, and swung into the saddle. 'I will come whenever mine is saddled,' Harriet decided. 'Now,' he insisted, leaned down, grasped her under the armpits, and tried to lift her.

'Help me,' he shouted at Absolom.

The driver hesitated for a moment, then ran forward, seized Harriet's ankles, and pumped them upwards. A moment later she was sitting in the saddle in front of Dick, squirming to make herself comfortable, her hair flowing back to fill his mouth, while she gasped for breath.

He was already kicking the horse forward, sending it galloping down the hill, towards the hubbub which marked the slave village.

'Really, Mr Hilton,' she said, having got her breathing under control. "Tis no way to treat a lady, indeed it is not. I'd not remained on Hilltop to be midwife to a black.'

'I'd not know what to do without you,' he said, and rode into the street of the village, to find himself in the midst of the slaves, all clamouring at him, setting up a tremendous din, but mostly, he realized, in wonderment at his presence.

'Is the master, man.'

'Eh-eh, but you seeing that?'

'And Mistress Gale.'

'Man, but what is this?'

Harriet slid from the saddle, struck the ground rather heavily, and hastily adjusted her skirts. Dick jumped down beside her. 'Where is the hospital?'

'Hospital, massa? Hospital?'

'The dispensary,' Harriet shouted, possibly at him.

'Ah, yes, the dispensary.'

The unearthly scream which cut through the night was a better directive than any of the gabbled instructions. He thrust them aside and ducked his head to enter the building, slightly larger than the average hut, to recoil in horror at the foetid stench which swept across his nostrils. The dispensary was hardly less crowded than the street, and the flickering torches seemed to be licking at the very beams of the rafters. In the centre of the floor a space had been left clear, and here Joshua Merriman knelt.

'Joshua,' Dick gasped in relief, ran to his side, and again recoiled as he watched the blood trickling across the beaten earth floor, issuing from between the legs of the young Negress, she really was only a girl, who lay there, her head on Joshua's knees.

'Oh, my Christ.' Harriet stood beside him. 'She's gone.' 'Joshua?'

Joshua raised his head. He looked tired. But he held in his hands a tiny scrap of black humanity. 'It jammed up,' he said. 'I had to take it, hard.'

'Godalmighty!' Dick had to shake his head to clear his senses. 'And the child?'

Joshua sighed. 'That too, Mr Hilton, sir. That too. I done make a messup of this one.'

'And you needn't have called us at all,' Harriet said severely. 'Ugh. Me dress has blood on it. Really, Mr Hilton . . .'

'You can have another dress,' he promised. Wasn't that the attitude around here, and with lives no less than possessions? 'What do we do?'

Joshua laid the babe beside its mother. 'Well, we got for bury them, Mr Hilton. You there, take them out.'

Two of the men came forward, one to seize the wrists and the other the ankles of the dead woman, as if she had been a sack of coal. Another picked up the child by the ankles.

'My God,' Dick said. 'It can't be done now. There is no coffin, no priest. . .'

'Coffin? For a black girl?' Joshua was amazed.

'Well, at least let us wait until morning.'

'It warm, Mr Hilton, sir,' Joshua pointed out. 'Morning time she going be smelling high, and causing sickness.'

Dick scratched his head. The bodies had already been removed. 'But... a priest. . .'

'Mr Hilton, sir, that girl ain't no Christian. If you can pray like Damballah, now, then maybe you got cause.'

'Damballah?'

'He speaks of the voodoo gods,' Harriet whispered. 'These people are heathens, snake worshippers, most of them. For Christ's sake, Mr Hilton, let us be away.'

'Is a fact, Mr Hilton,' Joshua said. 'I am too sorry to interrupt your dinner, for nothing.'

'For. heaven's sake,' Dick said, 'you did the right thing, Joshua. I should be present whenever any one of them is born. Or dies. They are my people.'

'Christ,' Harriet remarked. 'You'd be down here all the time.' She ducked her head and gained the open air. The slaves stared at her.

Dick followed, gave her a leg into the saddle, mounted behind her. 'I am sorry, good people,' he called. 'It was an act of God.' Or should he have said, an act of Damballah? Clearly he must learn about this snake god. Mama had mentioned it, but in the warmth of an English parlour it had seemed a fairy tale.

The horse picked its way out of the compound, back up the hill. Harriet Gale lay against his chest with a sigh. 'You must alter the list,' she said. 'One thousand and fifty-two.'

'Eh? Just like that?'

'You must keep track of them, Mr Hilton.'

Like cattle, he thought. Count heads, every morning. 'Why was she called Mary Nine?'

'Well, think of it,' Harriet said. 'Better than a thousand. How are you to keep a tally? Your uncle decided it. Half a dozen names, male and female, and after that, numbers. Each field gang has a name, you see.'

'Absolom has no number.'

'Ah,' she said. 'When they get to be drivers, they get proper names, like the house slaves.' She nestled her shoulders against his chest. 'You've a lot to learn, Mr Hilton. But the sooner you start the better. Like the way to carry a lady on a horse is to hold her round the waist.'

'I am holding you round the waist,' he said, 'as my arms are on either side of you.'

'Pfft,' she said. ' 'Tis not what I meant at all.'

'Now really, Mistress Gale,' he said. 'You were my uncle's ..’

'Housekeeper.'

'Yes, but you have yourself told me . . .'

'That I administered to his needs. But if you think a bit you'll understand I have not been penetrated by a man these nine years. 'Tis a long time.'

'For heaven's sake, a girl has just died.'

'Ah, you'd not confuse a nigger with a human being, now would you? That Merriman himself told you they're not Christian.'

He sighed. 'Anyway, I'm betrothed.'

'Are you now.' Her head half turned, her musk and her hair seemed to balloon around his face. 'To a girl in England?'

'Of course. She'll be joining me whenever I am settled. My God, I am settled.'

'You think so? You want to be sure,' she said.' 'Tis a mighty big business bringing a young lady all the way from England to Jamaica. Why think on tonight. She'd be fainting by now.'

He frowned into the darkness. Ellen? Somehow he did not think she would have fainted tonight. She'd be far more likely to have replaced Joshua on the floor, holding the dead child.

'Nine years,' Harriet said. 'Ah, 'tis a long time. I doubt not I'll have forgotten what it's like.'

The horse stopped in front of the steps, and Dick hastily dismounted. She fell from the saddle into his arms. 'Anyway,' he said, 'there is the matter of, well. . .'

'So I'm a year or two the older. A young man always wants to begin with an older woman. 'Tis a well known fact.'

He escorted her to the steps. What an incredible conversation to be having, with an incredible woman, on an incredible day. 'I'm starving,' he said, and stopped in the archway to the dining room, to gaze at Tony, asleep with his hair trailing in an overturned glass of port. 'For heaven's sake. Mr Boscawen,' he called. 'Where is that side of beef?'

'Eh-eh, but you back quick, Mr Hilton.' The butler came in from the pantry, minus his wig, and wiping his lips with a linen napkin. The beef, master? We—we just done finish it.'

'Eh? A whole side of beef?'

'Well, sir, Mr Hilton, there does be fourteen of us out there, what with the maid and thing.' 'My God.' Dick sat down.

'But no matter, sir, I going fetch another side of beef. It only a matter of cooking it quick. One hour, on the spit. Meantime you and Mistress Gale can drink some wine, eh?'

'One hour? More wine?' Dick got up again. 'I'm for bed. I'll say good night, Mistress Gale. Maybe you'd try waking up my brother.'

'They're waiting, Mr Hilton.' Joshua stood in the door to the dining room, his straw hat in his hands. In the half light of the dawn he looked even bigger than he was.

Dick finished his mug of steaming black coffee, handed it to the serving girl—he still could not remember their names— and got up. 'No sign of Mr Hilton?'

'No, sir. Mr Boscawen saying his bed ain't been slept in.'

Dick nodded, and sighed. All week Tony had been growing more and more restless, more and more bored with life on Hilltop. And it had seemed a good idea to send someone into Kingston, to see how Reynolds was getting on with raising some new bookkeepers . . . but then there had been the quarrel over money. Tony just had not been able to understand the need for economy. He had discovered that in the good old days Robert Hilton had kept his own string of race horses, had matched them, here on Hilltop, against the best in the island on magnificent social occasions which were still the talk of Kingston. But that had been twenty years ago, and the race course was now overgrown, the grandstand rotting. It would cost a fortune to clear and repair. Money they did not have, and would never have, so far as Dick could see. The waste on this plantation was on a scale he had not suspected possible. By reasonable accounting techniques they were quite literally tearing their wealth up. Nor had his day spent in studying the books in the office brought him much happiness. The turnover was in figures not even his banking background allowed him properly to grasp, and yet there was no profit that he could see. The plantation was worth five million pounds, on paper; there was the question as to whom they could ever sell it to. Their last crop had fetched nearly five hundred thousand pounds on the London market, but by the time all the notes had been settled, all the provisions, the wines and the cheeses and the sweetmeats, the clothes and the furniture, the staves and the barrels, the replacement machinery for the factory, the powder and the ammunition for the firearm store, the perfumes for Mistress Gale, the ice for the cold cellars, brought all the way from Newfoundland by specially equipped ships, had been accounted for, they had been left with a debit balance of two thousand, which had had to be added to the debit balances accumulated over the previous twenty years to make a total outstanding of thirty-one thousand pounds. The London agent was not apparently concerned. It was the war, the closure of the European markets, the high freight and insurance costs. Once the war ended, why, the debt would rapidly be reduced. At one time in the middle of the last century, a Hilltop crop had fetched a million pounds on the London market. Another year like that and the debt would be liquidated. Supposing sugar ever regained quite that place in the nation's favour. Because now the American market was closed as well.

But Tony, for all his huffing and puffing, had promised to return by dawn.

Dick put on his hat and went outside. The drivers were assembled in front of the steps. Even after a week they still grinned with embarrassment, and shifted their feet, to be standing where the white bookkeepers had assembled in the past. But they chorused their 'good morning master' with enthusiasm.

'Well, Josh, what's the programme for today?' Dick asked.

'I thinking the north west corner, Mr Richard, sir.' Joshua had spread the map of the plantation on the table Boscawen had placed in the centre of the verandah. 'There is too much weed up there. So I thinking we making a concentrated effort there, and working our way down. Is only two months to grinding.'

'Aye.' And what then, Dick wondered. Joshua was an excellent field manager, to be sure; as good as any white man. But who would be sure all the machinery worked properly, or indeed that the sugar was properly boiled, the molasses properly separated? 'See to it then. I'll follow in a few moments.'

'Yes, sir, Mr Richard, sir. Come on. Come on,' Joshua bawled. 'Mount up. Get those black people moving.'

He mounted his horse, his whip slapping his thigh. He wore a white shirt tucked into his brown corduroy breeches, and a wide-brimmed straw hat, and black boots. He was the most enthusiastic man on the plantation. This was his chance of a lifetime, and he did not intend to waste a moment of it.

Boscawen held Dick's stirrup, and he swung himself into the saddle, carefully. He really was not used to spending half of every day sitting on hard leather which happened to be situated on an even harder horse; his backside was raw. 'Thank you, Mr Boscawen,' he said. 'Whenever Mistress Gale arises, invite her to join me for breakfast, will you?'

The meal was taken at eleven, when the sun grew too hot to remain longer in the fields. And of course she always joined him; but he was determined to maintain the formality of their relationship. When sober she was the soul of propriety, but she did not believe in staying sober a moment longer than was absolutely necessary. Presumably he should do something about that, such as refusing her all alcohol. Presumably . . . there was so much that he should do something about. Whoever had given the English public the idea that West Indian planters were a bunch of arrogant megalomaniacs who whipped their slaves and gambled and fornicated and drank themselves into early graves?

Although he could believe the early grave aspect of the situation. He drew rein at the foot of the hill. 'For God's sake, Judith, whatever are you at?'

The girl had been playing at tag with several black children, and had apparently fallen, or been rolled, in the dust. Her hair was matted and her face might have been coated with a brown powder.

'Just playing, Mr Hilton. Just playing.' She straightened her skirt, which had wrapped itself around her legs. She had very long legs, a trifle thin. But they would fill out. As the match-stick which formed the upper part of her body would also no doubt fill out. There was a problem, for the future. As if she was the only one.

He walked his horse into the little cemetery, dismounted, took off his hat. He came here every day. It was a peculiarly solemn place. The graves seemed to frown at him, each headstone a piece of West Indian history.

'Christopher Hilton, born 1651, died 1722, Rest in Peace.'

He wondered if old buccaneers ever rested in peace. But Kit Hilton had been the most successful of the breed, however many men, or women, he had had to kill to reach his prosperous heights. Which had been responsible for all this.

'Marguerite Hilton, born 1652, died 1690, Rest in Peace.'

There was nothing under that stone, neither bones nor peace. Marguerite Hilton had died of leprosy, had mouldered away on the leper island off Green Grove in Antigua. My God. Green Grove. He owned the place and had never visited it. Something to be done. But Reynolds said John Tickwell was a good man, and the Green Grove bookkeepers had not elected to quit. Now there was an idea; perhaps one or two of them could be persuaded to come to Jamaica for the grinding.

'Lilian Hilton, born 1659, died 1727, Rest in Peace.'

His own great-great-grandmother, Kit Hilton's second wife, the Quaker who had brought some goodness into that turbulent family, whose influence had perhaps made Matthew Hilton what he was. And thus his son? Or at least one of them.

An unmarked grave. But the stone was now being carved, and would read, 'Robert Hilton, born 1740, died 1810, Rest in Peace.' His decision, to follow the fashion of the severely limited wording, the blessing at the end. But of them all, Robert Hilton would perhaps lie the least peacefully. If all the tales were to be believed. He was Marguerite's great-grandson, not Lilian's, and had acted the part.

And in time, perhaps, Richard Hilton, born 1785, died —? And would there be a Rest in Peace on that? Dick climbed into his saddle, walked his horse away from the cemetery and into the avenue of canes, tall now, reaching above even a mounted man to shut him away from human sight, from even the dawn breeze. A lonely, quiet place, and the pleasanter for that. And yet, an evocative place, as well. The towering green stalks to either side symbolized his wealth, and his power, and his responsibility, and the labour which was rushing on him like a runaway horse.

He rounded a bend, came upon a gang of women, presumably weeding; they squatted, most of them to either side of the path, their chemises drawn up to their thighs in a most indecent manner, and flicked at the stones with their knives. At the sound of his hooves perhaps half a dozen increased their rhythm; the rest merely glanced up, and giggled at him, tilting the wide-brimmed straw hats back on their heads the better to look at him.

'Come on,' he said. 'Come on. Get on with it.' He slapped the whip which Boscawen always attached to his saddle, and tried to look, and sound, like Joshua, or Absolom, or indeed, Tony. But like animals, they could sense where they were in danger of a beating and where they were not. Their giggles increased, and one called out.

'Man, Mr Hilton, sir, but it hot. Why we ain't resting like?' 'There's the weeds,' he said. 'It'll choke the cane. Get on with it.'

'Not this cane, Mr Hilton, sir, it all but ready for cut.'

'Hey, Mr Hilton,' cried another, standing up. 'Why you ain't getting off that horse and having a little sweetness?' She raised her skirt to her waist and wagged her mount at him, at once bushy and dusty and provocative. He cursed the colour rising into his cheeks, and wrenched his horse round, and sighed with relief at the sound of hooves.

'Mr Boscawen? Has something happened at the house?'

The butler drew rein, adjusted his wig. 'You got a caller, Mr Richard, sir. Mr Kendrick, from Rivermouth.'

'Indeed. I'd best get back. Speak to these women, will you, Mr Boscawen. They don't seem very energetic'

'Ah, get on with your work, you worthless whores,' shouted the butler, riding his horse into their midst, and laying about him with his crop. 'Get to it. You ain't hear what the master done say?'

They cackled with a mixture of amusement if they had avoided the blows, or anger if their flesh happened to be stinging. But the sound of the machetes quickened. Dick sighed, and trotted out of sight. Presumably it was easy enough to do, to charge into the middle of a mob of women and lay about him as hard as he could. All one had to do was do it. All.

He came in sight of the house, and the horse standing before the steps. By now Boscawen had caught him up again, and was waiting to take his bridle. He ran up the steps, faced the short, heavy man, dressed in planting clothes but with a sweat-stained blue coat over his open shirt, and carrying an old tricorne, who was seated at the top, in one of the cane chairs which lined the wall. Harriet Gale was beside him, looking her cool best in a green morning gown.

'Mr Hilton,^’ she cried. 'Mr Kendrick has come to call.'

Dick took off his hat, held out his hand. 'Richard Hilton, sir. Welcome.'

Kendrick was on his feet. 'Tobias Kendrick, sir. My pleasure. Mistress Gale has been making me most welcome.' He glanced at Harriet, his cheeks pink. 'Your servant, ma'am.'

'Oh, indeed.' She smiled at Dick, archly. 'He wishes to discuss business. You'll excuse me, gentlemen. There is a menu to be planned.'

She swept from the verandah with a rustle of skirts, leaving the scent of her musk on the still air.

'A remarkable woman,' Kendrick observed, shifting from one foot to the other.

'Indeed she is,' Dick agreed. 'Mr Boscawen, coffee. Do be seated, Mr Kendrick. Let me see, Rivermouth. You are my nearest neighbour.'

Kendrick sat down, carefully. 'That is so. Do you call all your people mister?'

'Those in a position of authority, certainly. Should I not? It is common politeness.'

'Politeness?' Kendrick scratched his head. "Tis true, then.'

'What?'

'Well. . .' Kendrick flushed still darker, accepted a mug of coffee from Boscawen's tray. 'That you call your slaves mister, that you intend to maintain your uncle's domestic arrangements ... 'tis what Laidlaw told me.' ^‘Oh, yes?'

Kendrick held up his hand. 'Please, Mr Hilton, no offence. A man does what he chooses. And by God, sir, in my belly I envy you Mistress Gale. Indeed I do. But it is difficult, sir, difficult. Your uncle, may God rest his soul, pursued his own path, enjoyed the ostracism he courted. We had hoped, my wife and I, that new blood, so to speak, would change things. Why, Mistress Kendrick would ask you for dinner, sir, to meet the other planters in Middlesex county, but to say truth, she was disturbed, disturbed, sir, to learn that you had immediately assumed, well, your uncle's prerogatives towards Mistress Gale. Well, sir, you must know, she is forty, if she is a day. And besides, why, the whole thing smacks of incest.' He frowned. 'I am trying to explain a serious matter, sir.'

Dick continued to smile. 'And I was thinking how short you people must be of true conversation to engage in so much gossip. Mistress Gale is the one in a difficult position, sir. She is my housekeeper, in the most strict sense of the word. You may believe me.'

Kendrick stared at him. 'True? Good God. Well, I . . . Mrs Kendrick will never believe it. No one will ever believe it. Especially in view of what that Laidlaw woman is spreading all over Kingston.'

Dick got up. 'Your wife may believe whatever she wishes, Mr Kendrick. I understood this to be a social call. If you have come here merely to criticize my domestic arrangements I suggest you take your leave, now.' He wondered if his anger was induced by his own guilt, at his thoughts, his desires, his certainty that Harriet planned nothing less, at some future date.

'Oh, permit me to apologize, Mr Hilton. I do, indeed, and abjectly.' Kendrick remained seated. 'I am here on a far more important matter. Your seat.'

'Eh?' Dick sat down again.

'The Hilton seat in the House. It is yours, as owner of Hilltop. Here again, I must say, your uncle cared little for politics in his later years. The seat has gathered dust these last twelve sessions. But we have hopes that you, sir . . . well, these are dangerous times. The English Parliament, God damn them, is out to get us, sir. There is no doubt about that. This abolishing of the slave trade, and done by a relative of yours too, I believe . . .'

'You are referring to my father, sir,' Dick said. 'And he would hate to take the credit for that accomplishment. He merely supported Mr Wilberforce and Mr Fox.'

'Your father? God damn. Matthew Hilton is your father?' Kendrick looked thunderstruck. 'I remember Matt Hilton. Building churches he was, when any young man of sense would have been turning a card or raising a skirt. And running off with his . . . good God.'

'My mother, sir.'

'Oh, I say, my day for disaster. Of course, he had two sons. Do you know, I had not linked the matter? Well, well. Once again, Mr Hilton, I apologize.' He frowned at his empty coffee cup, then set it down, seemed to be drawing himself together. 'Yet, sir, I must speak plain. How do you stand?'

'On what, sir?'

'Slavery, sir. You have undertaken the ownership of this plantation. You are aware of the scurrilous methods they are employing in England? They know the nation would never stand for Abolition, so they are preaching Amelioration, sir.'

'You had best explain.'

'Well, sir, if they are forced to agree that slavery is decreed by God, and more important, is an economic necessity, they are concerned that it should be as polite as possible. Why, sir, there is a contradiction in terms. Will a slave ever work unless driven to it?'

'No doubt you are right, Mr Kendrick. But cannot even the driving be divided into the vicious and the necessary?' 'You'd withdraw the whip?'

‘I understand it is mainly intended to be withdrawn from the women. But in fact, I have withdrawn it altogether, or at least, not found sufficient cause for its use in my week on Hilltop.

And the plantation appears to prosper.'

'A week? By God. You've not had to plant. And from the women? You've not sampled their tongues.'

Dick thought of the gang he had just left. Indeed he had no idea how else to bring them to heel. But his spirit rebelled at being ordered to brutality by his neighbour.

'Anyway,' Kendrick continued. 'You'll learn the facts soon enough. 'Tis your seat we are concerned with. You'll take it?'

But now Dick was very angry indeed. He wonder if it had not been bubbling within him all this time, ever since that ill-fated duel, perhaps, but certainly since the bookkeepers had abandoned him. And all for the wrong reason. He got up again. 'And will I be welcome, sir, if I bring Mistress Gale to sit in the gallery to oversee me, and if I stand up and support Amelioration or, indeed, Abolition?'

Kendrick had also risen. His cheeks were so purple he might have been about to have a fit. 'Indeed, sir, you would not, on either score.'

'Well, then,' Dick said, 'as I perceive that Jamaica has managed to survive without a Hilton in the House these twelve years, it had best continue to do so, and allow me to get on with my own problems. And my housekeeper, sir.'

'Gad, sir,' Kendrick snorted. 'Gad. I had hoped we could be friends. Gad, sir. You're nothing but old Robert, come back to life.' He stamped down the stairs, vaulted into the saddle, and rode off.

Dick sat down and wiped his brow. Christ, what a stupid way to act, he thought. It must be the heat, affecting my senses.

'You were magnificent, Mr Hilton. Magnificent.' Harriet Gale carried two goblets filled with sangaree, iced red wine to which brandy and fruits had been added. She held one out for him to take, sat beside him. 'He spoke nothing better than the truth. You are a reincarnation of Robert Hilton.'

'Me? He was having his little joke. As you are, no doubt. Me? There can be no man in all the world more confused. More miserable, perhaps. I know not where to start, to be a Hilton, to be a planter. To be a man, even.'

Harriet Gale gazed at him, over the top of her glass as she sipped.

'Then there is the matter of you. If you were listening, you must have heard what he said. What everyone is saying, perhaps. Oh, don't be alarmed. I would not have you leave, Mistress Gale. I would protect your reputation. And mine, no doubt. Perhaps if we could obtain another white woman, to live here with you. Aye, that is the ticket.'

Harriet Gale put down her glass beside Kendrick's coffee cup.

'I do not wish, or need, another woman to live with me. Are you afraid of people's talk?' 'Why, I suppose not. But. . .'

'Well, then,' she said. 'The best way to answer gossip is to make it the truth, then the wagging tongues lose interest.' She leaned forward, held his face between her hands, and kissed him very deliberately on the mouth.

6

The Betrothed

Where Ellen Taggart had thrust, and Joan Lanken had ballooned, Harriet Gale licked. The sensation was so delicious, the assault was so sudden, the feel of her body against his was so much what he had wanted throughout the previous week, that Dick was for a few moments unable to move. Then he remembered where they were, and seized her wrists. 'Mistress Gale. Harriet. . .'

'Don't you like me even a little?' Her face was only inches away, her enormous deep brown eyes looming at him. And her body still rested on his.

'Of course I like you. But on this verandah . . .'

'There is nobody here. Save slaves.'

'Yes, but

She laughed, deep in her throat. 'I forgot. You regard them as important. Will you come upstairs?'

'But. . . they will know.' There was no question of refusing her. As a quick exploration now assured her.

She gave his breeches a squeeze, smiled at him. 'Of course. But does it matter?' She rose away from him, holding his hand. And God, how he wanted. How he had wanted, it seemed, since that evening with Ellen. Ellen. And all his promises.

But Harriet was already at the stairs, and starting up, and he was still holding her hand.

Boscawen was standing in the archway to the dining room. 'You want me put away the horse, Mr Richard?'

'Ah . . .' Colour flamed into his cheeks. 'If you would be so kind, Mr Boscawen.'

'Right away, Mr Richard.' Boscawen looked up at the gallery. 'You there,' he bawled. 'Come down here.'

Two of the maids hastily appeared, armed with dusters and brooms and pans. They scurried down the stairs, averting their eyes from Harriet, who had released him and reached the top, and smiled at him. He almost ran after her. 'My God. They know.'

'And are anxious that you should enjoy me.'

'My God,' he said again. 'I doubt I will be able.'

Again the low laugh, and she went into her bedchamber. 'Out.'

Judith had been lying on the bed, peering at one of the books from the library; she could not read but enjoyed the illustrations. Now she scrambled to her feet, gazed at Dick.

'Oh, my God,' he said. 'This is impossible.'

The child sidled past him, and as she reached him, gave a little moue with her lips and tossed her head, almost suggestively.

'She'll be a right whore, one of these days.' Harriet closed the door. 'I'll have to watch her.'

'Mistress Gale,' he gabbled. 'Really ... we must be mad.'

'I am mad,' she agreed, and held his arm to escort him across the room. 'Mad with desire for you, Dick. God, even to think of you inside me reduces me to a jelly. And you want me as well. I can see it in your eyes, Dick.'

He found himself sitting on the bed, and realized what had been bothering him for the previous ten minutes; she was absolutely sober. She released her gown, stepped out of it— she wore nothing underneath—and knelt to pull off his boots, her breasts sagging towards him in a most entrancing fashion, and below the breasts the fold of flesh at her waist, the pout of her belly, the sudden rise of silky brown hair. He reached for her, closing Ins hands on the soft mounds of flesh, to hold them and use them to bring her against him, while she smiled, and busied herself with his breeches, and lay on top of him as he fell back across the bed, kissing his mouth and eyes and nose and chin, sighing as he caressed, her hair drooping on either side of her face to scatter across his.

But he wanted to possess, as she was willing enough to be possessed. He rolled her on her back, watched her eyes dilate with pleasure, and then without warning she uttered a scream of ecstasy, and dug her fingernails into his back and shoulders, scraping them across the flesh so that he too reached an orgasm in a frenzy of pain which left him lying panting, on the no less exhausted woman.

'I did not mean to hurt you.' His lips were against her ear.

'You have not hurt me enough. Nine years? I think I was almost a virgin again. Dick. Dick. How I have longed for your coming. And yet, I feared it, too. I did not know what you would be like, whether you would like me ... I cannot breathe.'

He rolled away from her, and she sat up, and knelt above him, straddling him, to remove the last of his shirt, play with his nipples in turn, while she worked her haunches to restore him once again to desire.

And this time she would be the mistress, her fingers digging into his chest, her tongue lolling, her hair scattering as she shook her head.

Her entire body sagged, and she slowly lowered herself, to lie on him, blood pumping through the arteries of her neck to fill her cheeks, while her flesh was sweat-wet to his touch. 'Christ,' she said. 'You must have wanted, as much as I.'

A time to think. As if thought were possible, except of the woman, except of desire, except of wanting to arouse again, except of feeling her legs lying on his, her groin pulsing on his, her nipples scraping on his, her mouth sucking at his. But yet, a time to think. The whole house would have heard her scream, would have known what they had accomplished. But the whole house would have known, anyway, once the bedroom door had shut behind them. How could he ever look any of them in the face?

And there were hooves, outside the opened window, and that so well remembered voice.

'Oh, my God,' he said. 'Tony.'

'Now perhaps he will leave me alone’ she said. 'Eh? Tony?'

'Ever since the first night. Oh, I permitted nothing. But he would persevere. Will he be jealous?' 'Of me? Very likely. I must get up.'

Because there were other voices, rising through the old wooden floors. Boscawen, certainly, protesting. Tony, laughing. And boots on the stairs.

Harriet rolled away from him, regained her robe in a single movement, and pulled it on, in the same instant draping his breeches across his thighs.

The door opened. 'Great God in Heaven,' Tony said. 'I did not credit my ears.'

'You are a rude fellow, Mr Hilton,' Harriet said. 'Breaking into a lady's bedchamber.'

Tony nodded. 'Oh, I am. Well, madam, I am to congratulate you. For at least knowing what you wanted. Are you alive, down there?'

Dick sat up. 'I'll not apologize, to you or to anyone.'

'Spoken like a Hilton, old boy. Why should you apologize, to me or anyone? But while you tossed your delightful grandmother, I have been working for Hilltop.'

'Grandmother?' Harriet cried. 'Why, you . . .'

She ran at him, and he caught her wrist. 'A jest, Harriet. Merely a jest.'

'How much did you lose, last night?' Dick asked, buttoning his shirt.

'A trifle, compared with what I won. James. James. Come up here and meet your employer.' 'Eh?' Dick stood up.

'James Hardy,' Tony said. 'Mr Richard Hilton, Hilltop's new owner. Oh, and Mistress Harriet Gale.' Tony beamed at them.

The man was at once short and thin, with a sallow, West Indian complexion and somewhat straggling brown hair. He wore a coat over his opened shirt, and carried his hat in his hand; he had not shaved this morning, and this combined with his thin, even pinched features, and his long nose, gave him a slightly villainous air. But he was by no means dull; Dick observed that a flicker of his green eyes took in the entire room, although he did not appear to look away. 'Mr Hilton,' he said. 'I am honoured, sir. I wish I had come at a more opportune moment.'

'Bah,' Tony said. 'They were finished. You were finished, Dickie, lad? And you could not have come at a more opportune moment, James. He plants, Dick. And has done so all his life.'

'Indeed?' Dick shook the young man's hand, and frowned. Because he was very young; in fact he would have estimated Hardy was the youngest of the three. 'That cannot have been so very long.'

'Eight years, sir,' Hardy said. 'I first rode aback when I was fifteen.'

'He was orphaned,' Tony explained. 'And had to earn his keep. But his people were planters before him. It is in his blood, as it is in ours. But he has the experience. And there is more.'

'Indeed,' Dick said. 'Well, of course you are welcome, Mr Hardy. We shall go down and have a glass and discuss the matter. Perhaps you will dress and join us, Harriet.' He glanced at her; now it was difficult to believe what had happened. But her smile was enough to reassure him that it had been no dream. Christ, what a future suddenly opened in front of him. Of Harriet, endless hours, endless days, endless months of nothing but Harriet. He wanted to scream with joy. Which made the pleasure of being the Hilton, of employing labour, of sitting over a glass of sangaree and discussing business matters, knowing always that she was there, twice as delightful. He escorted Hardy to the stairs. 'But what of your present employers?'

'I will be frank with you, sir,' Hardy said. 'When I heard how you had dismissed all your bookkeepers, I quit my post, sir, hoping for employment here. Then I discovered I lacked the courage to ride out and see you, and was utterly miserable, before I encountered Mr Anthony last night in town.'

'And approached him. Mr Boscawen, sangaree if you please.'

It was all but eleven, and too late to return aback now, in any event. And surprisingly, he found no difficulty at all in meeting Boscawen's gaze.

'Yes, sir, Mr Richard. Right away.'

'But you have not heard the best of it,' Tony said, following them down the stairs. 'James is well experienced in field work, of course. But his principal business has always been concerned with the factory.'

'The factory?' Dick cried. 'And us within a month of grinding. But this is splendid news. Did you see the Reverend?'

'I did. A detestable fellow.'

'He'd not come?'

'He explained to me that he could see no purpose in attending Hilltop to conduct a service where there was no congregation left to hear him. He'd spoken with Laidlaw, of course.'

'But. . . how do we exist, without a service on Sunday?'

Tony smiled at him. 'He also said he doubted his services were really required by a planter determined to live in the most blatant immorality.'

'Why . . .' But the man was speaking nothing more than the truth, even if he could not have known it was the truth when he uttered the words. And yet, strangely, Dick felt only anger, not shame.

As Tony saw. 'So I told him we really had no need of him. We have no need of anyone, Dick. We are Hiltons. And we have James.' He swept the first goblet from Boscawen's tray, held it high. 'I give you Hilltop, and its finest ever crop.'

Its finest ever crop. It was difficult to believe anything valuable could come out of this turmoil, this heat, this filth. Dick Hilton stood on the high catwalk, situated near the roof of his factory, and looked down on the huge vats, which seethed and bubbled immediately beneath him, sending both their heat—for beneath each enormous metal tub there was a glowing fire—and their aroma, the sickly sweet smell of evaporating molasses, to shroud him, to paste his shirt to his chest like a second skin, to have sweat rolling from his hair to cloud his eyes.

He watched the slaves, standing on the catwalk immediately beneath him, most of them naked, poking the thick liquid with long poles, making sure it kept moving, while others watched the huge gutters off which the molten sugar drained, to fill the cooling vats on the other side of the factory, where it would evaporate, the molasses to drip through the perforated bottoms into yet more vats, to be used as a basis for the plantation's other main product, rum, while the crystalline sugar would remain in the hogsheads and gradually fill them, until they were ready for shipping. The slaves were watched in turn by Absolom, also naked, marching up and down behind them with his whip, slicing the air, and a streaming back from time to time, shouting at them, but all unheard by Dick ten feet above.

The noise was quite remarkable. He had not supposed it possible. It seemed to fill the entire plantation, from the slash of the machetes as the cane was cut in the fields, through the creaking axles of the carts as they were trundled behind the mules up the ramp to the great shoot above the factory, increasing in the power mill, where the biggest and strongest of his slaves marched round and round the treadmill, chased by Tony's whip, to propel the huge, squealing rollers which gave the cane its first crushing, before it was pulled and prodded by another army of slaves, who added water to the partially crushed stalks, a carefully calculated twelve per cent dilution, based on Hardy's assertion that even pulped cane will retain, for some moments, a given percentage of water, which will mix with the unextracted juice to increase the volume by as much as twenty-five per cent on a second crushing. He had even spoken of repeating the operation a third time, but Dick had argued against this, as it was apparently an experiment not yet carried out with success on any other plantation.

But the refreshed cane was continuing on its way, to the next set of rollers, which completed its destruction, squeezing the very last drop of liquid into the great vats, while the shattered stalks, now hardly more than straw, and called bagasse, dropped from the shoots into the pits beneath, to be turned with pitchforks by another army of slaves, and then shunted along in mandrawn carts to feed the great fires. A sugar estate wasted nothing, when grinding. It was a self-perpetuating hell, producing the sweetest substance in the world.

His wealth. Just a seething liquid, a few crushed stalks, a few gallons of water, an endless procession of sweating flesh, male and female, adult and child, and all driven by the ceaselessly flailing whips of the drivers. Even he had been forced to accept this, at least during grinding. He did not see how Father could have managed any other way, had he been here. To maintain this level of effort, this level of labour, this level of unceasing brutality, to humans and cane alike, the whip was an essential adjunct.

Not that he would have been able to use it. He would not have been able to produce a tenth of this liquid gold. He watched James Hardy climbing the ladders. The little man was stripped to the waist, and his skin glistened. His hair was matted and he had not shaved in ten days, so that his beard sprouted, pale brown and bristly.

'Mr Richard,' he bawled. 'Twenty-five thousand tons, at the last count. And that to come.'

He looked down at the vats.

'Twenty-five thousand tons?' Dick could not grasp the immensity of the figure.

'Aye. The books say Laidlaw cleared seventeen thousand a year gone. We'll improve on that by twenty per cent and more.'

'By dilution?'

'In the main. It will make no difference to the quality of the sugar, believe me. And do you know what a ton of Jamaica sugar was fetching on the London market last year? Thirty-five pounds, sterling.'

Eight hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds. Plus what was still crystallizing. There was a fortune. Why, that figure of a million might not be so far off. 'We must celebrate.'

Hardy grinned, and shook his head. 'We've a way to go yet, Mr Hilton. You've five thousand acres under cultivation. 'Tis less than half your property. We are getting fifty tons of sugar per acre. That should be sixty, at least. And we have managed, with dilution, to get ten per cent sugar from the crop. So Laidlaw only managed seven. I've my mind set on eleven. We'll celebrate, Air Richard, when this crop is shipped, and the next crop is ratooned and planted.' He closed one eye. 'But you can tell Mistress Gale.'

He played the father, in every way, and he was by two years the younger. Richard felt he should be ashamed. Or suspicious. Why should a man work this hard, this willingly, this enthusiastically, for a wage? But perhaps Hardy represented the true West Indies, the spirit of planting. And anyway, how could James Hardy, itinerant orphan, harm Richard Hilton, of Hilltop and Green Grove, the Hilton?

He laughed, and clapped his manager on the shoulder. 'I'll do that, James.' He clambered down the ladder, hands slipping on the sweat-wet iron. Because that was all he wanted to do. To bring news of the day to Harriet, to watch her smile, and then to hear her give that delicious laugh, and to know her arms, her body, were there for his embrace. Why, she had transformed him. No doubt he had been no more than a prig. But life was there to be enjoyed, if one was a Hilton, with prosperity stretching in every direction as far as the eye could see. So Tony had himself been right, when he had claimed his misfortunes arose from nothing more than attempting to be a Hilton without the means. He had the means now. So he gambled every Saturday night, and invariably lost what to other men would have been a fortune, and undoubtedly he also saw Joan Lanken every Saturday night as well. But Lanken would not dare recognize it. He knew Tony Hilton's ability with a sword and, rumour had it, with a pistol. So he could play the Hilton the length and breadth of Middlesex county.

And Richard Hilton? Sheltering behind the ability of his manager, the prowess of his brother, the aura of his name? Contradicting every social or moral tenet, living with his uncle's mistress, who was also old enough to be his own mother, and loving every moment of it? He must be mad. There would be time to take stock, when the grinding was over, and the replanting was completed, as Hardy had said. Oh, indeed, then there would be time to take stock. He galloped his horse up the drive, Harriet already clearly in sight, seated on the verandah in her crimson robe. He threw himself from the saddle, doubts disappeared in the knowledge that in a few moments she would be in his arms.

'Twenty-five thousand,' he shouted. 'We have topped twenty-five thousand tons, with another couple of thousand to go, for sure.'

She smiled at him. Her face was unusually serious this morning. 'Then you are to be congratulated, Dick. Your bath is ready. But first, there is a letter.'

She held out the envelope, and he seized it, and checked, heart pounding. 'From Mama?'

'Open it and see.'

How joy could drain away in the threat of responsibility. Mama must have heard ... he slit the envelope with his thumb, turned over the sheet of paper, looked at the signature. Ellen. He had not seen her writing before. Then why did not his heart jump for joy? He scanned the lines. Commonplaces, about England. Declarations of love, and passion. Inquiries as to what the death of his uncle would mean, whether it would shorten or lengthen the time between their reunion. Please to let it shorten the time, no matter what.

'Your betrothed?' Harriet asked.

He flushed. 'Aye.'

'And now you are master of Hilltop, with a successful crop on its way, there is naught to stand in the way of your marriage.'

He looked down at her, and she met his gaze. Her fingers played with the sash of her robe, and he knew she would be wearing nothing underneath. 'I'm for my bath,' he said. 'Will you not scrub my back?'

'The fact is, I tread a difficult path.' Dick formed the letters slowly and carefully. 'As I have explained before, as I am sure you understand. Believe me, dearest, when I landed, or at least, when I had recovered from the shock, not only of Uncle Robert's death, but of my own inheritance, I was resolved to send for you on the instant. Fortunately, other counsel, wiser and more experienced than my own, prevailed. This is still a wild and dangerous country, where we live in daily fear of a Negro revolt winch will bring fire and sword, and bloodshed, the length and breadth of the colony. Now, how could I expose you to such a peril, and for a woman you may suspect it is far worse.'

He leaned back in his chair, sucked the stem of his pen. He'd be writing novels, next. There could be no more accomplished literary liar in the world. But a lie, to be palatable, and to be convincing, must be spiced with more than a segment of truth. He dipped his nib once again into the ink.

'In such conditions, in such surroundings, as I stated above, my path is difficult. I will, in so far as I am able, follow my father's precepts and attempt to deal with the blacks as if they were Christians, which indeed they are not, in the main. But this has naturally diminished my popularity with my fellow planters, who consider me at best a weakling, and at worst a positive incendiary. So to the dangers of our position, is added a total social ostracism by the white folk. I am indeed fortunate in having Tony with me, and in having procured the services of a most remarkable man, by name James Hardy, whose entire life seems to be bound up in the business of growing and grinding sugar. Thanks entirely to him, both my crops so far have been exceptional, and we may hope, as this dreadful war draws to a close, to see our prices also regain their former level, and thus embark upon a new period of prosperity which will serve to grace the beauty and the company of the future Mistress of Hilltop. And in this regard I tell you frankly, my dearest Ellen, that I am inclined to wait for affairs in Europe to settle down, as there can be no doubt that French privateers do abound, and truly I shudder to think of the dangers to which I might be exposing you during the long weeks of an Atlantic crossing. But now that Bonaparte seems to have failed in his Russian design, why surely even he will seek peace, or France will seek peace without him.'

He leaned back again, and laid down his pen. Truly, a novelist. And yet, a labour of love, as well. He could envisage her, sitting opposite him. This was not the least difficult, as her portrait smiled at him from the wall over his desk. And it was certainly Ellen. The artist indeed had captured less of her true likeness than her essential expression. It was an utterly entrancing thought, that one day, one day soon, in fact, that look of conscious superiority, that promising body, which could only have grown in the last few years, that so firm mouth and those so steady eyes, would have to surrender to him. To all that he now knew, of woman, and of love.

Just as it was a nightmare occasionally, that she might not surrender, or might do so only once. But these were his earliest fears, looming out of the recesses of his mind only to be dismissed again. How could she not surrender, here on Hilltop, alone with him and his belongings. He was master here. And the Ellen he remembered had not been backward in offering to surrender. As if she had known, as if she could possibly have known, what indeed she was offering to give into his keeping. Certainly he had not suspected.

He inhaled musk, and waited. What would happen when Ellen discovered about Harriet? But then, why should she ever discover about Harriet? Oh, in Jamaica she certainly would. There would be tears, perhaps. But the marriage would already have been consummated, and she would learn that he was no different from any other planter, by repute at least. It was the character of Harriet herself which offended the Jamaican society. Well, then . . . but it would also offend Ellen. And yet, to give up Harriet, to order her from the plantation ... he really did not see himself doing that. The very thought of her, even after two years in her bed, brought him up hard and anxious. She seemed to have accumulated all the experience possible within her one eager body, and still retained the ability to project it forth as a wondrous introduction. Nor did she appear to possess any other interest. Save perhaps drink. Indeed, she drank with a determined enjoyment he had not supposed possible, and often remained sitting up in bed, intent on finishing her bottle, long after he was asleep. And yet, she kept herself so clean and sweet-smelling, it was impossible to take offence, especially as the drunker she became the happier she became. But for the rest, she neither read nor sewed, and her supervision of the house was of the briefest description. Even as regards her daughter she seemed perfectly uninterested. Judith's education, or lack of it, was a source of considerable worry to him, as the girl appeared visibly to grow, day by day. But his instincts warned him not to interfere, and indeed, not even to make a friend of the child, who seemed contented enough in pursuing solitary habits, turning the pages of the books in the library, occasionally romping with Boscawen's children, or sitting on the verandah staring into space with an expression of deep concentration in her eyes.

He felt fingers on his shoulders, leaned back to rest his head against her breast, look down on the hand, long and strong. It was her fingers, the thought of her fingers, in connection with Uncle Robert, that had first created the desire for her within him. And now he knew Uncle Robert had died happy. And guilty? Not Uncle Robert, by all accounts. Then why Richard? He was the Hilton. He repeated this to himself, constantly, to remind himself of his position. Hiltons took. Then, guilty about Ellen? That was stupid. Ellen had herself indicated that she would perfer a man to a boy. When he was ready for her, she would have a man.

'They have returned,' Harriet said.

'Ah.' His belly filled with lead. His first runaways, after two years. The fingers left his shoulders, and he stood up. 'Will you come out?'

She shook her head. ‘I will watch from the house. But Dick . . .' the fingers were back, closing on his arm. 'They must be punished. You know that.'

'Aye.' He sighed. 'I had supposed we had put that behind us, on Hilltop. If only I knew why.'

She glanced at him, frowning. 'There is talk, in the servants..’

'Talk? About what?'

Her frown faded into that marvellous smile. 'It is no matter.

Certainly not beside the fact of their absconding. You'd best go out.'

He went down the hallway, past the staircase. Talk, amongst the servants? He must find out about that.

He stood on the verandah, watched the procession coming slowly up the hill. Hardy came first, followed by Absolom and two other drivers. These were mounted and Absolom held the leashes of the two giant mastiffs. They had been Hardy's first purchases, and were called Robinson and Crusoe. Dick did not like them; he suspected they were Hardy's pets, not his. But apparently a plantation had to have dogs, and this day at the least they had proved their worth. The runaways walked behind, or occasionally fell, and were dragged; they were secured by their wrists to the saddles of two of the horses, but the ropes were sufficiently long to allow them to lag by some ten feet.

And perhaps they had been punished enough, he thought. Their flesh was torn and bleeding, and they were clearly in the last stages of exhaustion, while presumably they had had little enough food or drink during the past two days.

He glanced to the left, at the drive leading past the town, and frowned again. Here came another horseman, swaying in the saddle, hatless, although he had certainly worn one last night when he had set out. Here was the lie to his letters to Mama, which repeated constantly what a tower of strength Tony was, how well he was behaving. The fact was, Tony enjoyed planting, there was no doubt about that. It was in the Hilton blood no less than in the Hardy. But this apart, his promises had been as worthless as any other promise he had ever made. He drank, and he gambled, losing a fortune on every occasion, and he continued to see Joan Lanken. Their affair, indeed, was the scandal of Kingston, only overshadowed by the far greater scandal of his brother and Harriet Gale. So how could he criticize? Well, he did not criticize.

'What do you think, Josh?'

Merriman sighed. 'Well, sir, Mr Richard, they got for be flogged. I ain't seeing no other way.'

The procession stopped at the foot of the steps, and Hardy dismounted. 'Making for the Cockpit Country, Mr Richard. They're not the most intelligent of niggers.'

Dick walked down the steps, heart pounding. Both the runaways were naked, both were young, both were well-formed, the girl especially so. He found them remarkably attractive people, as a whole, in the grace of their movements, the humour which seemed their principal characteristic, even the dishonesty which marred their attitudes to life. And he had often wondered what sort of a lover one would make, and then rejected the thought immediately, and been the more grateful to Harriet for making such rejection a possibility.

'Do you know why they ran away, James?'

Hardy shifted from foot to foot. 'Well, sir, Mr Richard . . .'

'It ain't mattering, Mr Richard,' Merriman said. 'They just got to be punished.'

Dick glanced at him with a surprise almost equal to Hardy's. Josh had never advocated flogging before. If Dick had so far given in to Hardy's demands as to allow him, and the drivers, to carry whips in the field, and use them wherever necessary, Josh had been his most staunch support that the plantation would work and prosper without descending to a formal flogging, but rather in punishments such as confinement on slave holidays, or curtailment of the rum ration.

'Why, Merriman is right, Mr Richard,' Hardy said. 'An example must be made. It is possible that the slaves have been waiting to take advantage of you. Your generosity of spirit is well known.'

Dick frowned at him; Hardy was given to sarcasm.

'So it were best to nip their tendencies in the bud by an example. A severe example.'

'Such as?'

'Well, sir, on most plantations the penalty for running away would be two hundred lashes.'

'Two hundred . . . they'd not survive.'

'Well, sir, Mr Richard, down to a few years ago they'd have been hanged without argument. And a few years before that they'd have been burned alive.'

'This is 1813, Mr Hardy. Not 1713.1 am happy to say.' Dick walked closer to the two prisoners. The man saw his boots, and attempted to rise, but could only reach his knees. 'What have you to say for yourself?'

The Negro's tongue came out and slowly circled his lips. 'Water, massa. Water.'

'You'd best. . .'

'After they've been flogged, Mr Richard,' Hardy said.

'It would be best, sir,' Merriman agreed.

Once again Dick glanced at them. Never before had he known them in such total agreement; indeed Merriman usually and obviously disliked Hardy as much as the white man objected to having a black colleague.

'Hullo, hullo, hullo.' Tony fell from his saddle, kept his feet by hanging on to his horse's bridle. 'Court day?'

'Where on earth have you been?' Dick demanded.

'Aye, well, it was a long game. There are notes . . .'

'Give them to me later. 'Tis a crisis.'

'Runaways?' Tony blinked at the prisoners, and the girl raised her head to stare at him. 'Good God.'

'Aye,' Dick said. ' 'Tis bad. They will have to be flogged. Twenty lashes apiece.'

'Twenty lashes?' Hardy cried. ' 'Tis no punishment at all. Their skin is like leather.'

'Twenty lashes,' Dick insisted. 'I'll not murder them. And they have been punished already.'

'Mercy,' screamed the girl. 'Mercy, massa. Massa Tony . . .'

Dick's head swung, and Tony flushed.

'Aye, well, I'm for a bath. Christ, it's hot work.'

Dick caught his sleeve. 'What is hot work?'

Tony looked down at the hand. 'Why, riding from town. And let go my coat, little brother, or I'll break your head.'

Dick let go before he really intended to. But when Tony spoke in that very low and even tone he generally meant what he said, and they could not afford to fight in front of the slaves. But my God, what had Harriet said? There is talk, amongst the servants. So perhaps he did not waste his time in visiting Joan Lanken, having known her for two years. Or perhaps a white skin alone was not enough for him.

He looked at Merriman, who kept his expression blank, and then at Hardy.

' 'Tis not a crime, Mr Richard. Not compared with running away.'

'And suppose it was the cause of the runaway? This girl and this boy, maybe they love each other. Was she forced? I must get to the bottom of this.'

'Oh, come now, sir,' Hardy remonstrated. 'How can a nigger girl be forced? And indeed, sir, how can she know love? They are animals, sir, and copulate as the urge takes them. Let us compromise, sir, on twenty-five lashes apiece. I will see to it personally. But they must be punished, sir, and in your name. You must rule, sir, and you must be seen to rule. You are the Hilton, Mr Richard. You are the master here.'

The master here. How the phrase haunted him, where once it had rolled around his head like a euphoric cloud. He walked his horse between the rows of cane, and received the nods of the bookkeepers, the obeisances of the weeding gangs. His cane, tall and proud and filled with sugar, approaching his fourth grmding, and every one a record. His drivers. His slaves. His bookkeepers every one recruited by Hardy, by the promise of the revival of Hilltop into the bubbling work cauldron of fifty years before, and the salaries commensurate with such success.

But did they obey him, or James Hardy? And yet, he could not manage this plantation without Hardy. Planting might be in his blood, but it was only a microcosm. He did not react to it instinctively, did not know at a glance where needed the most work, could not look at a field of cane and tell whether it was healthy or whether it desperately needed water. Hardy could.

On the other hand, he could manage the accounting side of the business. Hilltop was probably more financially sound than ever before in its history. So was Green Grove. He had taken ship there, and sat down and discussed affairs with Tickwell, and impressed him with his knowledge of money and markets, and convinced him that the best thing for the two plantations was to amalgamate the bookkeeping side of it, with Green Grove sending all its returns and accounts to Hilltop, where he could enter them up in the great ledger, and have them under his hand.

But why had he had to convince Tickwell, instead of just telling him, I have decided? I am the Hilton. So then, he was, after all, nothing more than a bookkeeper. A bank clerk. And for the time being, Hardy went along with his economies, supported his decisions, however much Tony might criticize.

But there was the crux of the matter. For the time being. Hilltop, and Green Grove, prospered as long as James Hardy so elected. By God, he thought, you are becoming jealous of your own employee.

He took off his hat to wipe sweat from his brow, hastily restored it again; the sun seemed to hang immediately above his head, intent on scorching his brain. It was clearly time to return to the house, and Harriet. It was the only part of the day he enjoyed. He disliked the early morning assembly of the drivers, because although everyone looked to him for the final decision, he knew they expected it to come from Hardy. He loathed and feared the punishment sessions. But what was he to do? Hardy had convinced him it was the only way to maintain discipline, after all. But the sound of the cartwhip, the sight of that steel tip biting into the brown flesh and then snatching slivers of it away, to leave red flecks on the dark skins, made him wish to vomit, just as the sight of the bodies, male or female, twisting in agony, made him feel ashamed of himself. He found the obligatory rides through the canefields embarrassing, because he was sure they smiled behind his back, no matter how they bowed to his face. He dreaded the arrival of messengers from town, with news, with mail. He did not want to know what went on in Kingston; he had almost forgotten what the town looked like, and he knew he would never be able to face any other planter, much less any government official, much less the Governor himself. There had been one invitation, to dinner at Government House, and he had declined, through pressure of work. That had been two years ago.

Why, he had even forgotten there was a world outside this valley.

Except for the mail, which constantly reminded him. News, of Father, and his ill health. Of Mama, worrying. But at least she felt easy about her sons, felt that they were prospering, proving themselves Hiltons, making the plantations more successful than ever before, and in a way their father would approve. And at least she was benefiting from that prosperity, as he had been able to make an income on his parents which had removed their financial problems. But if ever she were to learn the truth? Oh yes. They were proving themselves Hiltons.

And then, Ellen. Apparently resigned to waiting, until the passage became safer, the endless Negro revolts of which he wrote become pacified. Every letter a He, because it replied to a lie. But Ellen ... it was four years since their betrothal. He had all but forgotten what she looked like, even. Which did not make her any the less attractive. On a sudden. Ellen. But then, what of Harriet? Could he be that much of a swine? The fact was, he was even less of a master in his own house than he was in his own fields or in his own factory. Harriet totally ignored him, except in bed. So perhaps she was worth it, in bed. Had been worth it, four years ago. Three years ago. Two years ago. Last night.

But was she worth it? Now? Oh, she enjoyed sex as much as ever before, and her appetite embraced enough variety to keep most men happy. But it was her appetite. He was young enough and strong enough to satisfy her. He was also her bread and butter. Otherwise no doubt she would find him boring. Oh, no doubt at all.

But did not the satisfying of her satisfy him as well? Or was he the one becoming bored? He knew her too well. They shared nothing, except sex. They had no conversation, no other interest. She did not seem to require any. And there was the nagging desire to reveal his education, his ability at love, to a younger woman, someone who would be overwhelmed by his prowess. Oh, he was studying to be a villain, sure enough. Or a Hilton.

So then, today he was merely out of sorts, and proving himself a bigger blackguard than he had supposed. Harriet might be incapable of providing true company, but she was utterly faithful. She was well aware that without his support she was nothing. Less than nothing. And the same went for Hardy, and even for Tony. No doubt they all took every possible advantage of his . . . what was the word? Weakness? Good Lord, no. He would bring them all to heel with a snap of his fingers, if he really found cause. Indolence was a far better word.

On the other hand, for all her effort, her careful diet and her daily exercise, Harriet was certainly past forty. Ellen was just twenty-one, and as healthy and high-spirited as a young mare. As Tony would say. Why, she would even have come into her inheritance.

By God, what a scoundrel are you become. But once the war was ended, and it could not be long now surely, he would return to England, for his bride. No risk to his lie in England, and Harriet could have that large settlement he had promised her. Tony would enjoy playing the planter for a season. There would be a great occasion. There would ... he rounded the last bend in the fields, came in sight of the village and the Great House beyond, and of Joshua Merriman, spurring his horse towards him. And smiled. Josh was his only true friend, the only man on the plantation who clearly sought to serve him and no other. For all that he was just as knowledgeable as James Hardy, and therefore just as indispensable.

'Mr Richard,' he bawled, waving his hat. 'Mr Richard. Man, there is news. That Boney done abdicate.'

'Eh?'

'Yes, sir, man. The ship drop anchor in Kingston this last night and it flying all it flag and bunting and thing. The man done give up the throne and surrender. The war is done.'

'Good Lord.' He could scarce remember a time when there had not been a war, save for that abortive truce in 1802. He had been eight years old when it had started, and now . . .'By God,' he shouted, 'we must celebrate. Ring the bell, Josh. Ring the bell. We'll declare a holiday. Why, the end of the war . . .' He galloped up to the house, leapt from the saddle, throwing his reins to the groom who hurried round from the stables, ran up the steps on to the verandah, and stopped at the squeal, it could hardly be called a cry, of mingled laughter and fear which came from the drawing room to his right. He turned into the archway, and was nearly bowled over by the fleeing figure of Judith Gale, tumbling into his arms, her gown disordered, her hair flying. And gazed over the girl's head at his brother.

Judith scraped hair from her eyes, stared at Dick. 'Oh, Lord,' she said. 'I didn't know you were home, Uncle Richard.' 'What's been going on?'

Tony was pulling up his pants. 'I came home early . . .'

'And assaulted Judith? You must be out of your mind.'

'Assaulted her?' Tony cried. 'That little whore.'

Judith wriggled against Dick. 'Do let me go, Uncle Dick. You're hurting me.'

Dick released the girl, slowly, looking at her for the first time. And perhaps the first time in his life; certainly in the past couple of years. The long legs, bare beneath the thin muslin housegown, and she wore but a single shift, the long arms, delightfully muscular, were still there, but now almost perfect in their shape and strength. The body too, had not changed its proportion, but there was a fullness to her bodice which had previously escaped his notice.

'You'll apologize to Judith, Tony,' he said, a sudden anger bubbling through his system, as it had threatened to do all day. 'And swear to me you have not harmed her.'

'Apologize? Harmed her?' Tony gave a bellow of laughter. 'What a hypocrite you are, little brother. If you mean have I raped the bitch, the answer is no. I'm saving it for a while. She services me, Dickie boy, with her hands. Learned it from watching her Mum, she tells me. And likes it a treat. Well, it is a treat.'

Dick gazed at his brother in consternation, then turned to Judith.

'Oh, Lord,' she muttered again, ducked under his arm and ran for the stairs, only to encounter her mother. 'Oh, Lord.' 'Did you hear that?' Dick asked.

'I should think every servant in the house heard that,' Harriet declared. 'Go to your room, Judith. I'll attend to you in a moment.'

'Attend to her?' Tony shouted. 'Why, you pair of hypocrites. You spend your entire time feeling each other, and you object to Judith and me? By God . . .' He came forward, and Dick seized his arm. He turned, swung a careless blow, and Dick ducked and pushed at the same time. Tony lost his balance, fell over a chair, struck the floor heavily. 'By God,' he said, 'I'll . . .'

Dick was aware of a sensation he had never known before, a tearing anger which seemed to be racing through his system, a culmination of resentment which had been building ever since the duel. 'You'll get out,' he said, keeping his voice even. 'You'll collect your things and get on your horse and clear off. Find yourself a passage back to England. I'll pay. But get out and stay out. There's no place for you on Hilltop. No place for you in Jamaica.'

Slowly Tony pushed himself up. His eyes were grey flints, and colour was filling his cheeks.

Harriet had remained in the doorway. Now she stepped back into the hall. 'Josh,' she called. 'Boscawen.'

The two big black men appeared immediately.

Tony looked at them, then at his brother. Then he turned and left the room.

'Very good, Josh,' Harriet said. 'Very good, Boscawen. But stay near until Mr Hilton leaves the plantation. Perhaps you could escort him to the boundary.'

'Mr Richard?' Joshua asked.

Dick seemed to awake from a deep sleep. 'Aye,' he said. ' 'Tis best, Josh.'

The black men nodded, and went back on to the verandah.

Dick gazed at Harriet. 'Did you suppose I was afraid of him?'

She blew him a kiss. 'He boasts of his prowess. You do not pretend to be a righting man.'

'He has told you of the duel?'

A faint flush. 'I told you, he boasts.'

Was I afraid of him? Again, I was too angry, then. Now? He looked down at his hands, which trembled. In a fist fight? They were the same size. But did he possess the confidence, the resolution? And if it came to weapons?

Harriet took his arm. 'But you did the right thing, Dick. I am surprised you put up with Tony that long. How I have longed to hear you discipline him. If you knew the number of times he has made advances to me. He is insatiable.'

'And Judith?'

'Must be punished. Will you help me? She regards you as a father.'

'Well, I . . .'

'I think it would be best,' she decided. 'Perhaps she feels you are too soft. You must show her the iron in your soul, as you showed Tony.'

The iron in my soul, he thought, as he climbed the stairs. Christ, what a joke. He was trembling again, praying that they would not encounter Tony on the stairs; they could hear him thumping about his room as he packed.

Harriet opened her bedroom door, waited for Dick to enter. Judith stood by the window, but turned, sharply, as they entered. Her face was pale, but pink spots filled her cheeks. Fourteen, Dick thought. Christalmighty. She could be married.

'Well?' Harriet demanded.

Judith's tongue, long and pink, came out and circled her lips. 'Its was his idea.' 'But you didn't object?'

Again the quick lick. 'He's a man. You like to play with men, Mama.'

'That will cost you another six stripes,' Harriet promised, and went to her bureau.

'She was trying to get away when I came in,' Dick said, desperately. But his desperation was about himself. He wanted it to happen.

'Indeed?' Harriet straightened, carrying a dried cane stalk, four feet long, with hardened ridges every six inches. Judith caught her breath. 'Why did you do that?'

Judith stared at the cane. 'I ... he wanted . . .'

'To lay you?'

'No. To . . .'

'Ah. One good turn deserves another? Kneel, over the bed.'

Judith gazed at Dick.

'I think I had better be off,' Dick said.

'Of course not, Dick,' Harriet said. 'The child regards you as a father. Besides, you must hold her wrists. She'll never stay still, otherwise. Come on, Judith. Every delay is another stroke.'

Judith came slowly across the room, allowed her groin to hit the bed, and fell forward.

'Put out your arms,' Harriet commanded.

Slowly Judith stretched her arms across the bed; her gaze never left Dick's face.

'Hold her, please, Dick,' Harriet said.

Dick gripped the slender wrists, looked into the girl's eyes. They were like her mother's, but perhaps still darker and still deeper.

Harriet seized her daughter's skirts and rolled them up to her waist. Dick felt his gaze drawn over the girl's glossy hair to the gently rounded buttocks, watched in fascinated horror as the cane swung through the air; Harriet was chewing her lower lip with concentration. And then was brought back to the girl's expression as the eyes widened with the shock of the blow, and the flat mouth flopped open. The second blow brought a similar reaction, the third a tear, and then a shout of agony, followed by sobbed screams.

'Louder,' Harriet gasped, her hair troubling down, sweat soaking her neck. 'Let them all hear, you little slut.'

As no doubt they would, Dick thought. The wrists writhed and twisted in his grip, and once Judith attempted to get up, only to be forced down again by her mother. He lost count of the cracks, of the screams, of the sobs, before Harriet finally stopped, having run out of breath. 'There,' she panted. 'Let that be a lesson to you. You'll mind whose breeches you get inside, in the future.'

Dick released the wrists; the marks of his fingers remained on the suntanned flesh. Judith slowly subsided across the bed, trying to stop her sobs, eyes swollen, hair scattered.

'Get out,' Harriet commanded. 'Get out. Spend the rest of the day in your room.'

Judith pushed herself to her feet. Her skirts fell into place of their own accord. She stumbled rather than walked towards the door.

'And close it behind you,' Harriet said.

The door closed, and Harriet smiled at Dick. 'Christ, but whipping that child makes me want. You're home for the afternoon, Dick?'

He stared at her. 'Aye,' he said. 'Maybe . . . maybe after breakfast.' He pulled the door open, found himself on the gallery. Now why had he refused her? His tool was as hard as ever in his life. But the desire was for the girl twisting under his hands, not the woman who had laid on the blows. Oh, Christ, he thought. What have you done? Who? Tony, by making her a woman? Harriet, by exposing all that woman? And by reaching into the deepest recesses of his own mind to bring out the ghastly desires that must dominate the dream world of every man?

He stumbled down the stairs, collapsed in a chair in the withdrawing room. The plantation was silent, save for the distant rumble of hooves. Tony? No doubt he had stayed to listen to the screams.

He held his head in his hands, tried to rid himself of that vision. But the girl would stay in his mind for the rest of his life.

And sat bolt upright as a terrible suspicion crossed his mind.

Harriet's punishment had been quite unnaturally severe. Unnecessarily severe. And his presence had certainly not been necessary, as she had whipped Judith before, and not required his assistance. And Harriet, being Harriet, would certainly have noticed that he was not quite so fervent in his love making as a year back. Christalmighty.

The hooves had stopped, but at the steps to the verandah. Tony, come back again. Where was Josh?

But there was Josh's voice, greeting someone, and being summarily told to stand aside. Dick reached his feet in a long bound as the voice slowly penetrated his seething mind, and his jaw dropped in sheer horror as he gazed at the door, and Ellen Taggart.

7

The Fugitive

Ellen wore a brown pelisse over a cream gown, and a matching brown bonnet; as might be expected, she looked extremely hot. Coat and hat were smothered in dust, and there was dust on her face, slightly diminishing the pink in her cheeks.

But it was Ellen. An Ellen who had filled out, was a tall and buxom young woman, and an Ellen who had also developed an even firmer mouth and chin.

'Ellen,' he cried. 'I must be dreaming.'

'Indeed you are not, Richard.' She gave him her hand. 'We are arrived, Mama.'

Mrs Taggart was even more warmly clad, and thus even more hot and bothered than her daughter.

'I must have a chair,' she groaned and sat down. 'My God, these boots ... I swear my feet are swollen.' She looked around her. 'But this is a palace.'

'Filled with revolting Negroes,' Ellen observed. 'And owned by a dumb planter.'

Dick endeavoured to gather his wits. 'You very nearly induced a seizure, I assure you.' He discovered he had let go of her glove, and hastily grasped them both again. 'Ellen. How absolutely marvellous. If I could but understand. But wait. . .' He released her once more, went to the archway. 'Mr Boscawen. Mr Boscawen,' he shouted, as loudly as he could. 'Sangaree, if you please. My fiancee has arrived. See to it, Mr Boscawen, and have the girls prepare the guest bedrooms. Quickly, man.'

Ellen sat beside her mother, pulled off her gloves, and released the bow securing her bonnet. 'We shall not be staying,

at this moment, Richard. It would not be proper.' 'Proper? But your mother is here.'

She was inspecting the room with her gaze. 'This is a most palatial residence, Richard. You did not do it justice in your descriptions.'

'Ellen.' He formed a third on the settee. 'Would you please explain? If only you had given me some notice . . .'

'You would no doubt have formed some reason for delaying me,' she said. 'As you have done for four years.'

'Have you not read my letters?'

'Indeed I have. So has Mama. And so, last night, has Mistress Laidlaw.' 'Clarissa Laidlaw? My God.'

'You have not been my only Jamaica correspondent, Richard,' Ellen pointed out. 'Clarissa has been writing me for years, almost from the moment her inquiries discovered my existence.'

'Why, the bitch,' Dick said.

'Really, Mr Hilton, such language,' protested Mrs Taggart.

'Nothing less than I expected, Mama,' Ellen said. 'You may believe, Richard, that in the beginning I was almost of your opinion, regarded her tales as nothing more than scurrilous, and indeed refused to reply. Yet she persisted in informing me of exactly what you were up to. And I must confess, as the weeks became months and the months became even years, I began to wonder if there might not be at least some truth in her account. I preferred not to discuss the matter with either Mama or Papa, as I was afraid they might decide to terminate our engagement, and immediately. But I leave it to you to attempt to imagine the agonies I suffered alone in my room, comparing your letters with hers, wondering which I was to believe.'

'Cruel, cruel man,' remarked Mrs Taggart.

'Ellen,' Dick said, seizing her hands once more. 'If you'd let me explain . . .'

'I am expecting that you will, Richard,' she said. 'When I have finished. And so I waited, and languished, and suffered, until my twenty-first birthday, when I received my inheritance, and which happily took place only a few days before Bonaparte decided to end his career of crime. Then it was, my mind made up by these fortuitous circumstances, that I confided in Mama. And discovered that I had indeed been wise to wait.'

'Outrageous,' said Mrs Taggart. 'I would have had none of you, young man. None at all. As for Colonel Taggart. . . what is that?'

Boscawen had appeared with a tray of sangaree.

Dick handed them each a glass. 'Something cooling, after your journey. But you prevailed upon your mother to be merciful, Ellen.'

'My mind was already made up. I prevailed upon her to accompany me, to discover the truth for myself, to hold you to your engagement.'

'Hold me? Did you suppose . . .'

'And you may further imagine my shock and disgust,' Ellen continued, as if he had not spoken, 'when on arriving in Kingston yesterday, we repaired to the dwelling of Clarissa, as she had long invited me to do, and there learned that she had spoken not a word but the absolute truth these three years.' She paused, to sip sangaree.

'She deserves to be whipped for slander,' Dick protested, his brain whirring.

'Indeed? She invited us to stay the night, which we did, while considering our next manoeuvre. Having decided to come out today, whom should we meet on the road just now but your very own brother, who informed us that he had been dismissed his living for daring to come between you and your .. . your paramour.'

'Good God,' Dick said. 'Of all the liars.' He squeezed her free hand. 'Ellen, believe me, I have only your good, our good, at heart. If I could speak with you alone . . .'

'Never,' declared Mrs Taggart.

'What can you possibly say to me that Mama should not hear?' Ellen asked.

'Well. . .' He flushed. ‘I might just possibly wish to take you in my arms and tell you how much I love you.'

'Good heavens,' declared Mrs Taggart.

Ellen's expression seemed a trifle softer. 'I am hoping you will do that, Dick, and soon.'

He decided to press home his advantage. 'Then there is the matter of our wedding, as you are here . . .'

'I am hoping that that also will soon be discussed,' she agreed. 'But I would prefer that both should wait until we have completed our consideration of your present position.'

'Present position, why . . .'

'This woman, Gale,' Ellen said. 'Where do you keep her hidden?' 'Why, I . . .'

'I am not hidden, Miss Taggart,' Harriet said, stepping through the archway from the hall, nor could Dick, knowing her, doubt that she had been there for some time. She wore her pink riding habit, which she was well aware was her most flattering garment.

'My God,' cried Mrs Taggart.

Ellen stood up. ' You are Mistress Gale?'

Dick also got up. 'Allow me to introduce you.'

'I have no desire to meet this person,' Ellen declared. 'I merely wish her to pack her belongings and leave, this instant.'

'You've a big tongue in that horse face of yours,' Harriet declared. 'Anyone would suppose you owned the place.'

'I do own this place,' Ellen said. 'By virtue of my forthcoming marriage with Mr Hilton.'

Her cheeks were pink. But then, pink spots were also gathering in Harriet's cheeks.

'I'm sure we can all sit down and discuss this,' Dick said.

'You hold your miserable tongue, sir,' said Mrs Taggart.

'Are you going to let these people talk to you like this, Dick?' Harriet demanded. 'Why don't you call the servants and have them thrown out?'

'On the contrary, madam,' Ellen said, 'it is you who are about to be thrown out. You are nothing but a whore, by all accounts. Certainly you are a wicked woman who clearly has taken advantage of Mr Hilton's generosity to feather her own nest these four years. Well, madam, your little charade is over. I will give you ten minutes to be off Hilltop, or I will have my people carry you. And should you ever venture on to this property again, I will have you whipped.'

Harriet stared at her for a moment in utter consternation, her face glowing. Dick made a move forward, fearing the worst, but was too late.

'Why, you little wretch,' Harriet shouted, and swung her hand.

But now it appeared that Ellen, for all her self-control was equally angry. And she was much the younger, stronger, bigger woman. She stepped inside Harriet's hand, seized her antagonist by the hair, dislodging her hat, swung her round while Harriet gave a gasp of horror, and thrust her away again, with all her force. Off balance, Harriet staggered across the floor and fell to her hands and knees in the doorway, her back to her assailant. And to Dick's total amazement, Ellen followed her, raising her skirts as she did so to reveal that she was wearing boots, and kicked her rival in the buttocks.

Harriet gave a strangled scream and fell forward once more, landing on her face at the foot of the stairs, and virtually at the feet of Boscawen, who, accompanied by half a dozen of the maids and Vernon the footman, had come hurrying from the kitchen to discover what the noise was about.

'You,' Ellen shouted. 'Find her a horse, and set her on it. You can clear her room out later and send her belongings behind her.'

Boscawen gazed from the woman on the floor to his master in a mixture of bewilderment and dismay.

'Ellen,' begged Mrs Taggart. 'Now don't lose your temper. Behave like a lady.'

Dick supposed he must be dreaming.

Harriet slowly rose once again to her hands and knees, turning as she did so to present less of a target. To Dick's distress he saw that she was weeping, tears of pain and shame. 'Dick,' she begged, 'You can't let her treat me so.' Oh God, he thought. Oh, my God. 'Well, Dick?' Ellen demanded.

Oh, my God, he thought. So Clarissa has her way after all. And her revenge. No doubt sweeter for the delay. And certainly rougher on Harriet.

'Have you lost your tongue, Mr Hilton?' Mrs Taggart inquired.

'Dick,' Harriet said.

Dick licked his lips. 'Perhaps . . . perhaps it would be better, Harriet, if. . .'

'If I was to go?' Her voice rose an octave, to a level he had not previously heard.

'Ah . . . well . . . just for the time. Until we can get things sorted out. Go to the Park Hotel. Yes, that is it. Tell them the charge is mine. I . . .' he glanced at Ellen, 'I will visit you shortly.'

Harriet had reached her feet. She looked at Dick, then at Ellen, and then, without a word, turned and limped out of the front door.

Ellen stooped and picked up the hat, handed it to Boscawen. 'She'll need this. We'd not have the creature catching sunstroke.'

'Yes'm,' Boscawen said. He glanced at Dick, rolled his eyes most expressively, and hurried behind Harriet.

'I'm sure you spoke for the best, Dick,' Ellen said, 'in order to avoid a scene . . .'

'A scene?' he said. 'My God.'

'But I must warn you that if you ever attempt to see that woman again I shall leave Jamaica. Mama, are you ready to return to town?'

'But . . . you are leaving now,' he protested.

'Of course. It would not be proper for me to stay until we are wed, and besides, that woman's presence, her scent, remains. As do her clothes. You will send them off, as you promised. I will expect you to call, Dick. Not today. I really am feeling quite faint after what has happened. But tomorrow. Mama and

I are staying with the Laidlaws.'

'The Laidlaws? But. . .' he grasped her hand. 'You haven't given me a chance to explain.'

She allowed him a smile. 'There is nothing to explain, Dick. I feel I know enough about humanity to understand that a man, a young man especially, like yourself, and innocent of the ways of the world, readily succumbs to female charms when those charms are made available, and when, perhaps, he is already subject to temptation . . .' she glanced around her. 'In his surroundings, in his position. You have my word, I shall say no more about it. Unless of course you give me reason. You may kiss me goodbye.'

He hesitated. A wild urge came seeping up from some recess of his mind to shout, balderdash, to bellow, I am Hilton, of Hilltop, and you are nothing, save as my bride, to say that, unless you stay now, I shall terminate our engagement. . . but would all of those things not mean he was indeed trying to ape Robert Hilton, riding roughshod over manners and morals and people's feelings in the gratification of his own desires? He had behaved abominably, and everyone knew it. Why, it was exceedingly generous of Ellen still to wish to marry him.

He leaned forward, and touched her lips with his, and waited, for the sudden thrust of passion he still remembered. But her mouth remained closed.

'Until tomorrow, Richard.' She withdrew her hand. 'Shall we go, Mama?'

'Good day, Mr Hilton,' Mrs Taggart said. 'I trust you will think very deeply about your past life, and endeavour to mend your ways.'

She followed her daughter into the hall, leaving Dick standing in the drawing room. Presumably he should go to the verandah to wave them off, but he felt incapable of movement. He listened to the sound of the hooves, the rumble of the wheels, gazed at Boscawen.

'They gone, Mr Richard.'

'Oh, thanks, Mr Boscawen. Is Josh around?'

'Well, no, sir, it gone eleven. Josh back to the village.'

'And Mr Hardy?'

'He gone to the house, I should think, sir.'

Where he was looked after, in every possible sense, by a mulatto girl he had picked up in Kingston. How he would laugh, when he heard the story.

And they had been going to ring the bells, and celebrate Bonaparte's abdication.

'You going breakfast, Mr Richard?'

'Eh?' He doubted he could stomach a thing. If only Tony had been here. He'd have sorted them out. But he had just finished sorting Tony out, and been proud of it. For a moment. 'No, Mr Boscawen. I'll not breakfast today. But I wouldn't mind a drink.'

'Oh, yes, sir. I going mix some more sangaree.'

Dick shook his head. 'I think something a little stronger. A glass of rum. No, bring the bottle.' He sat down. He felt exhausted.

'Yes, sir, Mr Richard.' Boscawen was back in a moment, set the silver tray with the bottle and the glass in front of his master, straightened. 'Mr Richard, I can ask?'

'Of course. What?'

'That lady, Mr Richard. Is true she going marry you?'

Dick drank, felt the hot liquid scorch his mouth and burn its way down his chest. 'I'm afraid it is true, Mr Boscawen.' And wondered why he had used the word 'afraid'.

Boscawen rolled his eyes some more. 'Ayayay,' he remarked, and left the room.

Dick poured himself another glass. He supposed he should try to think. He had been humiliated. And Ellen was making sure he would be even more humiliated tomorrow, by forcing him to call upon the Laidlaws, who would this evening be regaled with the story of how she had quite literally kicked Harriet Gale off the plantation.

But if he did not go tomorrow, she might well refuse to marry him. And was he not betrothed? Had he not dreadfully deceived her these four years? And was not Ellen born to be mistress of a house like this? He could imagine her, sweeping through these great rooms, hostessing vast receptions, playing the piano . . . why, in the four years he had been here the piano had never once been played. Harriet had no such accomplishments.

But, to be out here, alone with Ellen, and Mrs Taggart? Good God. He had not thought of that. But Mrs Taggart would hardly have sailed all the way across the Atlantic just to turn round and sail back again. She must be planning to stay some time.

He poured himself another glass of rum, discovered that while the day had undoubtedly grown hotter, which was reasonable at noon, it had also become somewhat lighter in atmosphere. The room had taken on a pleasant glow, again caused by the noonday sun, no doubt, and he found that he could think more clearly.

And objectively. If he was going to have to live in a perpetual confrontation with the Taggarts, then he had to have support. And if he was going to have to eat humble pie in any event, at the Laidlaws, he might as well eat humble pie to his own brother. There was the answer. Tony had behaved badly, but was still the best support to be found anywhere. He could not imagine Tony putting up with Ellen's bullying and Mrs Tag-gart's snide remarks. And anyway, he had sent Tony packing because of Judith Gale. But if Judith and her mother were in any event leaving the plantation . . . Christalmighty, he thought. Judith Gale.

He raised his head. Because there she was.

'My God.' He attempted to stand, lost his balance, and sat down again.

'She deserved it,' Judith said. 'All of it. And then, riding off and forgetting about me.'

Harriet, forget her own daughter? That did not make sense. She had abandoned her deliberately. To be sure she retained a link with the plantation, a reason either for Dick to call on her, or for her to return.

'Uncle Dick,' Judith said, coming into the room. 'Are you really going to marry that woman?'

'Eh? Why, yes, I suppose I am. My God, if she learns about you ... we must get you into town. I was going anyway.' Oh, indeed. Why should he wait until tomorrow, merely because Ellen had decided so? He had been taken by surprise. That was it. And he had been feeling at once exhilarated by the news of the peace, and excited by Judith's whipping. Judith's whipping. He regained his feet, peered at her. 'Can you ride?'

She rubbed her backside, carefully. 'I could put a blanket on the saddle. But Uncle Dick, it's the middle of the afternoon.'

'I'll show them,' Dick muttered. 'Middle of the afternoon? What does that matter?' He discovered himself in the hall, holding on to the bannisters. 'Mr Boscawen. Mr Boscawen. Saddle my horse. And one for Miss Gale.'

'You going now, Mr Richard?'

'Right now. Right this minute. Judith. Get yourself a coat and a hat. And put on boots, girl. You can't go into Kingston barefoot. Hurry, now.'

She hesitated. 'Are you sure you're all right, Uncle Dick?'

'All right? All right?'

'Don't you think you should have a nap, and then perhaps this evening . . .'

'Now,' he shouted. 'Hurry.'

She gazed at him for a moment, clearly uncertain. But he had held her wrists while her mother had flogged her. She ran up the stairs.

'Come on, come on,' Dick bawled, returning to the drawing room for another glass of rum, and discovering the bottle was empty. 'Mr Boscawen, another bottle. No, bring two.' He put one in each pocket. As the child had said, it was the middle of the afternoon. The sun would be at its hottest. He'd probably need a drink on the way. 'Come on, come on.' He went into the office, unlocked the safe, took out his bag of coin. He always kept at least twenty guineas in coin on the plantation, mainly for settling Tony's debts. This night they might serve to settle Harriet's anger. He put the bag in his coat pocket, beside a bottle of rum.

Judith hurried down the stairs, wearing boots and a hat, but no coat. 'What about my clothes?'

'We'll send them on later. If they are going on at all. We must sec about this. Yes, indeed,' Dick decided, negotiating the front stairs by holding on to the bannisters. 'We shall see about this. Ordering me about in my own house, indeed. Where the devil is the stirrup, man?'

Two of the grooms assisted him into the saddle, and he watched Judith mount. She rode as if part of a horse. But then, she had been born to it. And did he not also ride as if he were part of a horse? Was he not a Hilton? By God, was he not the Hilton? He drew rein to take a drink and discovered that they were at the boundary. There was a quick ride. He could look back over the whole sweep of the valley. There was a sight to give a man confidence.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, held out the bottle.

Judith shook her head. 'You will have a seizure, most like, Uncle Dick. Drinking in the sun is very bad for you.'

'Listen,' he said. 'I am done . . . done, do you hear, being told what I can do and what I can't do, what I must do and what I mustn't do. Done.'

He kicked his horse, and set it moving again, and she rode behind him. She really was a good child, and a brave one; sitting a horse must be agony in her condition. But they wouldn't be long now. And the sun was already drooping. On Hilltop he'd be going aback again, and he felt no discomfort. Siesta was all rubbish, when you came down to it. Perhaps he should make a change in the system. If the blacks worked all day instead of taking two hours off in the middle, surely they could produce more cane. Or could they? The cane grew, and there was an end to it. Standing there looking at it would not make it grow any faster. He must ask Hardy about that one.

Houses. Flags flying from every building. Bunting draped across Harbour Street. Masses of people, white and black, men and women, mostly drunk, filling the roadway, waving bottles and cheering, reaching up to stop their horses and squeeze their hands. Kingston, celebrating the end of the war.

'I doubt I'll ever sit again,' Judith remarked. 'I think I'm a big blister. What do we do now, Uncle Dick?'

'Hey,' Dick bawled. If only he wasn't so sleepy. And his head was banging away as if divided into two. But it would soon be cool. 'Where does Mr Laidlaw lodge?'

A black man stared at him. 'Eh-eh,' he said. 'But you is Mr Hilton.'

'You are God damned right I am Mr Hilton,' Dick said. 'Laidlaw, where is he?'

'Well, he does be living down Union Street. Is that second corner.'

'Over there,' Dick said, and kicked his horse. People parted in front of him, reluctantly.

'Maybe I should stay here,' Judith suggested.

'Rubbish. Rubbish,' he shouted. 'You go where I go. That's an order. From me.' He turned his horse down a quiet tree-lined avenue, away from the bustle of the town centre. 'Laidlaw,' he bellowed at a white couple obviously on their way back from the celebrations. 'Laidlaw.'

'Why, 'tis Mr Hilton,' said the man. 'Melissa, 'tis Mr Hilton. Good day to you, sir.' He raised his hat, and his wife gave a nervous smile.

'Oh, good day to you, sir. Madam. I seek Laidlaw.'

'Why, Mr Hilton, sir, his house is straight across the street.'

'I thank you.' Dick dismounted, strode up the stairs. Judith leaned from her own saddle to take his bridle.

The house was small, and had verandahs on both floors, inevitably. Laidlaw had taken a post in the government, as agricultural adviser. The front door was shut, but in response to his banging was opened by a black butler. 'Sir?'

'You have a Miss Taggart staying here, I believe,' Dick said. 'I wish to see her.'

'Miss Taggart only just come in, sir,' the man said. 'She is weary, Mr Hilton, sir, and lying down.'

'I'll see her, by God,' Dick shouted. 'I'll see her.'

'You'll do no such thing, sir-' Charles Laidlaw said, corning into the hallway behind his sen-ant. 'We saw you, sir, coming down the street, reeling in the saddle. What, did you stop to drink with that disgusting mob? Miss Taggart says if you do not leave on the instant, she will not speak with you again. And I am empowered to have you ejected, sir.'

'To have me . . .' Dick stared at him. But Laidlaw was at least his size, and the servant even bigger. 'By God,' he shouted 'Had I a pistol. . .'

'You'd attempt murder?' Laidlaw inquired.

Dick turned and stamped down the steps. He should have broken their heads. He should have taken the precaution of bringing Josh and Absolom with him. Then they'd have sung a different song. He had never been so angry in his life. Why . ..

'She'd not receive you?' Judith asked.

'Silly bitch,' he grumbled. 'Maybe it was seeing you. We'll to your mother first. Aye, I should have done that. Then I'll seek out Tony, by God. And then we'll see.'

Judith said nothing, but released his bridle and turned her horse.

'Drunk, am I?' Dick grumbled, following her. 'By God, I'll show her, drunk. I'll. . .' He discovered himself in front of the hotel, just round the corner from Harbour Street. The noise crashed and boomed in his ears. 'Come on,' he said, and dismounted. God, how his head hurt. He stamped into the reception hall, peered at the clerk. 'I am looking for Mistress Gale.'

The clerk looked from him to Judith. 'Ah ... if you'd wait, sir, perhaps I could acquaint Mistress Gale with your arrival.'

'Acquaint?' Dick shouted. 'Give me her room number, dolt. I am Richard Hilton. I'll see myself up.'

'I know who you are, Mr Hilton.' The clerk looked at Judith again. 'The number is seven hundred and four. But really, sir . . .'

'Seven hundred and four?' Dick gaped at him. 'You have seven hundred rooms in this dump?'

'No, sir, we have seven. But Mr Mortlake decided to start the numbering at seven hundred and one. Gives the place a bit of class, you see.'

'Seven hundred and four. Good God Almighty.' Dick climbed the stairs, looked over his shoulder. 'Aren't you coming?'

Judith crammed her hat on her head, ran behind him. Dick was already in the uncarpeted corridor. By now it was growing dark, and the candles had not yet been lit. He peered at a door, found it was open; the room beyond was empty. The number read seven hundred and two.

'This one,' he decided, and tried the next handle. It was bolted. 'Open up,' he bawled, banging on the door. 'Open up, Harriet. It's me.'

'She's probably out celebrating,' Judith whispered.

'Celebrating? She'd have seen us.' He resumed banging on the door. 'Open up. Open up.'

The door swung in, and he found himself looking at a very large white man.

'Who the devil are you?' he demanded, peered past him into the candlelit room. 'Harriet?'

'Well, well,' she said, and got off the bed. 'Come to your senses?'

'Harriet?' She was naked. 'Good God. You only left Hilltop at eleven.'

She tossed her head. 'I have friends,' she said. 'I decided to look one up.'

Dick tried to enter the room, and found the large man's hand on his chest. 'What'll I do?' the man asked.

'Oh, throw him out,' Harriet said. 'And come back to bed.'

'You heard the lady,' said the large man.

'Now look here,' Dick declared. 'I am Richard Hilton. I intend to enter that room. Stand aside.' He once again tried to push in, and gained the sensation that a mule had kicked him under the chin.

Dick found himself lying against the wall opposite the door marked 704, which had again closed. He did not remember it closing, so presumably he had been unconscious. But only for seconds; he watched Judith Gale coming towards him, apparently, from the flutter of her skirt and her hair, moving quickly, but seeming to take an eternity actually to kneel beside him.

You shouldn't be here, he wanted to say. You should be inside with your mother. But when he attempted to move his chin nothing happened.

'Oh, God,' she said. She was kneeling now, and stretching out her hand to touch the corner of his mouth, then take it away again and look at the blood. 'Oh, God.'

He pushed himself up. The corridor appeared to be rising and falling, like a ship in a rough sea, and the wall against which he lay was also moving, back and forth.

There were noises from the stairs. Judith heard them as well. 'They mustn't see you like this, Uncle Dick,' she said, and grasped his arm. What a strong child she was. With only the minimum of help from him she dragged and pushed and propped him, first to his knees, and then to his feet, and then through the still opened door of seven hundred and two. Here, she released him, and he staggered across the room and fell over the bed.

Behind him the door closed, and the bolt was slipped. Dimly he heard feet in the corridor, and voices, but it was impossible to decide what they were saying, The entire hotel seemed shrouded in the racket from the next street. A board creaked, and then the mattress—the bed was not made up-depressed beside him. 'Shall I light a candle?' she whispered. 'There must be one.'

He rolled on his back. 'No,' he said. There. He could speak again. 'They might see it.'

She nodded; in the gloom he could see her head move, although he could not make out her face. Although perhaps he could make out the glow of her eyes.

'He took you unawares,' she said. 'Next time you'll kill him.'

He watched the glow. He felt sick, in his belly and in his heart, and in his mind. His last remembered thought before the fist had exploded against his chin had been shame, a certain knowledge that he was in a situation about which he could do nothing, and winch would leave him even more bereft of self-respect than before.

But mingled with the shame, incessantly and increasingly, was the memory of this girl's wrists in his as she had knelt across the bed, and the tears issuing from her eyes. The very eyes which now gloomed at him. And of the pale-skinned buttocks, so contrasted with the suntan of her face and arms and feet, quivering and reddening beneath the blows.

The eyes came closer; and she was lying beside him, propped on her elbow. 'Uncle Dick,' she said, softly. 'Do you think Miss Taggart would object if I stayed on Hilltop? I could be her maid. You could tell her you employed me as a surprise, to be her maid. I can be a maid, Uncle Dick. I've brushed Mummy's hair, oh, often. And if you make me stay in town Mummy will beat me again, I know she will, Uncle Dick.' She seemed struck by an afterthought, and came closer yet; he could feel her breath on his face. 'I'd call you Mr Hilton, Uncle Dick.'

Oh, Christ, he thought. Oh, Christ. Because he had touched her before he had realized what he was doing. His hand seemed to leave his side as if impelled with some other force than his mind, and lay for a moment on her shoulder, before slipping down her back.

Foolishly, he thought he must make conversation. It was the only way. 'Are you sore?'

'I'm burning, Uncle Dick. Oh, Uncle Dick.' But it wasn't a protest. Her bottom gave a little wriggle under his hand, and she licked his face. Like a cat, he thought. Like a cat. He wanted to look at her, but not her face. He sat up to raise her skirts, and found he could see the slender slivers of white which were her legs, just as he could inhale the utter freshness of her youth. But not that young. When he buried his head in her groin, he found hair. And now she was sitting up as well, hugging his face between belly and thighs as she brought up her knees. 'Oh, Uncle Dick,' she said again.

How long, he wondered. How many nights, how many dreams, have you lurked there at the back of my mind? How many hours in bed with your mother have been dominated by the thought of you?

He was lying again, on his face, and she was reaching down his back to release his belt, and then drive her hands inside his breeches. So then, had she dreamed? Or had she just been awakened by Tony's assault, this morning? But had that been an assault, or had she not just been seeking, from any man? Her own mother called her a whore. Was she a whore? He had discovered her and Tony because this day he had returned to the house early, to celebrate the news of Bonaparte's abdication. He had supposed it had been a coincidence. But there was no such thing as coincidence. Suppose Tony and Judith had been frolicking together every day? The servants would have known. How they must have grinned and winked, behind his back. Why, even Harriet must have known. By God, Harriet. She had known, and done nothing about it until she could act the mother to her best advantage.

Only Dick Hilton had not known, would never have known, save for Bonaparte. Just as Ellen would not have discovered his guilt, but for Bonaparte. God damn Bonaparte. But was she a whore?