HF - 03 - The Devil's Own (69 page)

'Can you not find
it
in your heart to be happy, at least about the reconciliation with your family?' he asked. 'One would suppose that in Daniel Parke you had lost
your
closest friend. But as I remember you thought little of him.'

'I feared him,' she said. 'If that is what you mean. Perhaps I even foresaw that he must come to a violent end, and feared that he would involve you in his own catastrophe. As he did.'

'Yet do I stand here at your side, now, unharmed.'

'And for that I am eternally grateful. Yet it is also but what I expected, Kit. You are too straight a man to be brought down by rogues, except through an unhappy chance.'

'Well, then
..."

'I fear you are also too straight a man to live a lie, for all of your life.'

He frowned at her. 'Could you but forget the fact that I am married, I have no doubt at all that I also could manage it.'

'I doubt that,
Kit.
I doubt that very much. No doubt, knowing that this day of disaster was overhanging us, you slept restlessly, last night. And cried out in your sleep.'

He stopped, and turned to face her. 'Her name?'

'Meg. Time and again. Meg. But you have done this before.'

'By God,' he said. 'That I should have inflicted such a misfortune upon you.
It
shall not happen again, Lilian.'

'What will you do?' she asked. 'Spend the rest of your life in wakefulness?'

'If I could make you understand. She
is
a part of my life. A great part. Like Daniel, she helped to make me what I am.'

'And you love her still,' Lilian said quietly. 'So after all, she is the victor between us, and I must remain a trespasser.'

He stared at her, his mind desperately searching for the words which would have set her mind at rest, and finding none.

'Kit.' Astrid came running out of her front doorway.

'What is it, Astrid? Some more catastrophe?'

'Miss Johnson,
Kit.
She is here to see you. But
Kit
...'

Kit
went inside, to pause in amazement. Could this be the prim middle-aged lady he had known for so long? Elizabeth Johnson was hatless; her hair was loosed and tumbled. Her gown was torn and mud-stained, and there were shadows beneath her eyes. She looked as if she had not eaten in days.

Dag held a glass of water to her lips, and she sipped, and panted. 'He'll not find me here, Mr Christianssen. Say he'll not find me here.'

Dag raised his head, to look at Kit.

'Who'll not find you here, Elizabeth?'

'Captain Hilton.' Elizabeth Johnson half fell out of the chair to seize his hands. 'Oh, thank God. He came into town, you see, to join with Mr Chester and Mr Harding, and most of the overseers came with him. So I managed to escape. I walked all night, Captain, crawled through the canefields to get here.'

He held her shoulders and raised her up. Certainly there was no doubting the evidence of her journey.

'You had to
escape
from Green Grove?'

'I have been locked in my room these last three weeks, fed when they wished. When he wished. I thought he would murder me, but
...'

'He? Who is this he?'

'Hodge. He manages the place now, Captain. He has since
...
since the day of the duel. Since he
..."
she burst into tears.

Gently
Kit
forced her into the chair and knelt beside her. 'He has imprisoned Marguerite as well? Is she also locked in a room at Green Grove?'

She shook her head. Her hair scattered to and fro. 'Oh, no, Captain. He would not risk that. He feared her, as we all feared her, until that day.'

Kit
frowned at her. 'You mean they rebelled against her because she had not killed Lilian?'

Again the violent shake of her head. 'No one knew,' she said. 'No one, save I, and I was sworn to secrecy. And she was careful, always careful, Captain. She would not go abroad unless veiled, and only I was ever allowed into her bedchamber.'

Kit
stared at her, a terrible lump seeming to swell in his belly. He glanced at Dag; the Quaker's face was rigid.

'But that morning,' Elizabeth said, 'she was in despair. She had gone to die. She thought Lilian would kill her. She expected to die, Captain. And then, when Lilian fired into the air, she knew that she could not. She was in such despair,

Captain, she took off her hat and veil in the carriage. And Hodge caught up with her before she regained the house. He saw her, Captain.'

'Oh, Christ,' Kit muttered. 'What did he see, Elizabeth?'

But he did not have to ask, because suddenly he
knew.

'Oh, God, Captain,' she moaned. 'He saw.'

Kit felt Dag's hand on his shoulder.

'How long had she been ill?' the Quaker asked.

'More than a year,' Elizabeth said. 'It began with a cold which would not dry.'

'My God,'
Kit
muttered. He remembered Marguerite on board the
Euryalus,
and in the courtroom
in
Bridgetown, dabbing at her mouth with the scented handkerchief. And he remembered too Martha Louise, and others, whose ailment had begun with a dribbling nose. But neither of them had thought for a moment such a fate could be Meg's. 'You knew of this?'

Elizabeth's head bobbed up and down. 'Soon after she returned from the trial. After that night, when you came out to Green Grove, and were arrested. She fled upstairs when you were gone, and I went in to her, and saw her lying on the bed, in tears. I asked if I could help, and she raised her head, and looked at me
...
oh, God, Captain Hilton, that look I will carry to my grave.'

'There were marks on her face?'

'Not then. On her body.'

'She showed you?' Astrid whispered.

'Aye. She was so alone, in her misery. She knew not what to do. It was I begged her to do nothing. Perhaps it was just a skin disease, I said. Perhaps the yaws.'

'But they spread,' Kit said.

'Yes,' Elizabeth said. 'They spread. And became worse.'

'And would you not send for the surgeon?'

'She would not, Captain. And she swore me to secrecy. Oh, God have mercy on me, Captain. What could I do? What can anyone do, with a woman like Mrs Hilton?'

'But
...
the children?'

'Were not exposed, Captain. I swear it. From that moment she never touched them. She kept herself isolated. No one was allowed near her, except me, and I was to wear gloves
whenever I assisted her, and then to burn the gloves.'

'You stayed with her for a year, knowing she was a leper?' Lilian asked. 'Miss Johnson, you put us all to shame.'

'But the children,' Kit said again, his brain a whirl of despair.

'Are safe, Captain. I swear it. I tried to persuade her to send them away, immediately. But she would not. She loved them too dearly, Captain. But when she realized there was no hope for her, then she sent them to her stepmother.'

'Safe?'
Kit
cried. 'And their mother a leper?'

Dag's fingers still rested on his shoulder. Now they tightened. 'The disease is not hereditary, Kit. All authorities are agreed on that. If they were not exposed, then they are, truly, safe.'

'Oh, God,'
Kit
muttered. Marguerite, all that beauty, all that strength
...
'Is that what you would have told me the night I went out there?' he asked. 'But once again you obeyed her.'

'What could I do, Captain?' she asked again. 'By then I loved her as if she were my own sister. God knows, I feared and hated her when first she summoned me to Green Grove. But such courage cannot help but be loved.'

'And she would have had me kill her,' Lilian said half to herself. 'I failed her, in that. But I will put flowers on her grave. Now and always.'

'She is not yet dead,' Elizabeth muttered.

Kit's head jerked. 'Not dead? But
..."

'Hodge discovered her secret, yes. He was terrified. He summoned two other of the overseers, Lowan and Marks, and they took her to her room. They knew not what to do. With either of us. They wanted to kill her, but they feared her, even then. But then they realized the power that could be theirs, that was already theirs, if no one discovered the truth. Yet they still feared to murder her, to murder a planter, to murder a Warner, to murder
Kit
Hilton's wife. So at dead of that night they ferried her to the island.'

Kit
stared at her, his jaw slowly dropping. 'They took Marguerite to the island?'

'She fought them,' Elizabeth said. 'She fought them and would have screamed for help, but they bound her and gagged her and threw her into the boat, and took her across, and left her on the beach.' 'And you?'

'They threatened to take me with her, Captain.' Tears welled into her eyes. 'I could not. I wept and begged.' She glanced at Lilian. 'You think I am brave, and strong, as she? I stayed because I feared to leave. But when they would have taken us both, I lay on the floor and kissed their boots and begged them. And so they locked me up, at last. I think even then they were afraid of what might happen. They were wait
ing
to hear about the Governor, because everyone knew that Chester had written to England asking for Colonel Parke's recall, and
it
was felt that if the Governor went you would have to go too, Captain Hilton.'

'Hodge, by God,'
Kit
said.

'So last night they rode into town to take part in the fight, and I escaped.' She flushed. 'I climbed down the drain pipe.'

'And walked to St John's from Green Grove?' Astrid cried.

Kit stood up. 'You'll get me a horse, Dag. I'll take the trap up to Government House for my weapons.'

'You'll go after Hodge? Can there not be an end to hatred and bloodshed,
Kit?'

'Hodge? By God, I'll settle with Hodge, Dag, when the time comes. But I must go for Meg.'

'But
..."

'She is a leper? Would you have me stay away for that? Yet is that not the true horror of it. Hodge set her ashore on the island where every inhabitant is a victim of her own peculiar method of dealing with the disease. Can you imagine how they must hate her? And now
...
for three weeks, by God, she has been in their power.'

'Oh, God,' Lilian muttered. 'Oh, God.'

'Aye,' Dag said. 'He does pose us some problems, to be sure. You fetch your weapons, Kit. I'll procure two horses.'

'Two?'
Kit
demanded.

'This day I'll ride by your side. And be happy to do so.'

The sun was still high in the sky when they topped the hill above the plantation. From here all looked as peacefully prosperous as ever in the past. Except that the fields were empty.

Kit, dragging on his rein to give his mount a respite, and drawing his sleeve across his face to dry the sweat, stared at the empty acres of waving green in amazement.

'The overseers must all have marched with Chester,' Dag said.

'Then may we well discover a massacre.' Kit kicked his horse and cantered down the slope. He had not seen Hodge since immediately before the Governor's death. But then, Hodge, would hardly have dared show his face.

The house stood empty,
the front door open. But now h
e could see the activity at the overseers' village. There were wagons waiting, and
women standing around giving t
heir menfolk instructions, wh
ile the children shouted and pl
ayed hide-and-seek around their mothers' skirts.

He turned his horse and rode for them, and at the sound of his hooves men, women and children insensibly moved into a huddle. He reined at the gateway, scanned the terrified faces. 'Where is Hodge?'

They glanced at each other, and shook their heads.