HF - 05 - Sunset (44 page)

'Yesterday,' Billy said, apparently to himself. 'My dear Meg, you have lain in this bed for seven months.'

Meg frowned at him.

'You have been totally mad for seven months,' Oriole said, smiling at her. 'The word breakdown is merely a euphemism for dementia. Madge and I have had to care for you almost every moment. Why, we have had to wipe your bottom for you.
It
has been like having a baby in the house, save that you are rather large, and totally ungrateful.'

'I don't believe you,' Meg said.

'What is the last thing you remember?' Billy asked.

'Well
...
I remember coming back to Jamaica. I remember coming out here to find that creature installed. I remember that detestable doctor.' She hesitated. 'I remember screaming. I was very angry.'

'That was seven months ago,' Billy said. 'Believe me, Meg.'

She stared at him. 'But
...
Richard? Aline?'

'Are safe in England,' Oriole said. 'Oh, we wrote and told them that their mother had decided to return. And they were overjoyed. Of course, we also had to tell them that you are not well
...
very well. It is difficult to make children understand these things. But as they grow older, they will more appreciate the situation.'

'Dear God,' Meg whispered. But she would gain nothing by again losing her temper; she had to get out of this bed first, and that meant regaining her strength. Then she could once again think of being Meg Hilton.

'So you see,' Billy was saying, 'everything is completely under control. Now what you must do is
...'

'Under control ?' she cried. 'Under control ? With that
...
that harpy lording it over Hilltop? Lording it over you ?'

'Now, Meg,' Billy said. 'Oriole has been very good to you.' He flushed. 'Very good to us. To me.'

To you? My God,' Meg said. 'Do you sleep together?'

'Well,' Oriole said. 'What a question.'

'Surely one I am entitled to ask,' Meg said, keeping her voice quiet. 'Quite apart from the fact that she is pushing fifty, and just about old enough to be your mother
...'

'Well, really,' Oriole remarked. 'You seem to forget your own age, my dear. And I will say, that you should just pray that you retain as much of
your
looks when you are forty-seven.'

'She is also a totally unnatural creature,' Meg said. 'Or didn't you know that?'

Billy's flush deepened. 'Ah, well
...
Oriole has no secrets from me. She has told me of your absurd passion.'

'My
passion ?' Meg cried.

'I believe it is fairly common amongst teenage girls,' Billy said. 'Or so Dr Roberts says. It really is nothing to be ashamed of. Although in your case, of course, he regards it as but an early manifestation of this sexual obsession which has so humbugged you throughout your life.'

'Sexual obsession? Oh, my God.'

'Now really, Meg,' Oriole said. 'You should attempt to be honest with yourself. All Jamaica, half the world, knows about your escapades. You have the reputation of being unable to keep your hands off anything in pants. If that is not an obsession, what is? As a matter of fact, Peter Roberts says it is the principal manifestation of your madness.'

'My
...
I am not mad,' Meg shouted. 'All right, so I had a
...
a breakdown, as you call it. I seem to have lost my senses for a while. I suppose it was because of the prison. You have no idea what it was like in that prison, what I suffered.' Oh

God, she thought; I am going to cry. But I cannot cry in front of them now.

Oriole sniffed. 'To all intents and purposes, my dear, you entered that prison quite voluntarily. Whatever happened to you, however terrible, was only what you deserved.'

I will not lose my temper again, Meg thought. I will not. I must reason with them, explain to them. She inhaled, slowly, filling her lungs to capacity.

'She is going to have one of her screaming fits,' Oriole said.

'I am not going to scream,' Meg said. 'I am done screaming. All right. I deserved what happened to me. And I had a breakdown. I am very grateful to you, Billy, and to you, Oriole, for taking care of me. But I am well again, now. You can see it. You have just recognized that I am well again. So I intend to get out of this bed, and resume being Mistress of Hilltop.'

She gazed at them, and licked her lips. There was no response in their faces.

'I shall bear no grudges,' she said. 'If Billy wishes to maintain you as his mistress, Oriole, that is perfectly all right with me. You may even live in this house. But I will not, I cannot, have you looking after the upbringing of my children, the management of my plantation.'

'Poor child,' Oriole said. 'How sad that her moments of lucidity should be so brief.'

'I am not mad,' Meg shouted. 'I am not mad,' she sobbed.

'Oriole
...'
Billy's voice was uncertain.

'Now, Billy
..

Meg raised her head. 'I would like to speak with Billy alone,' she said. 'Will you leave us, please.'

'I shall do no such thing.'

'Billy, tell her to go.'

'Oriole
...'
He was even more uneasy.

'Oh, really, Billy, she just means to twist you round her finger. I know what she can get up to. And you are such a kind-hearted old dear you would let her, too.' She rumpled

Billy's hair affectionately, while Meg stared at her in impotent rage. Then Oriole's face hardened. 'Now, you listen to me, Meg Hilton. You had a good run for your money. Far too good a run. You dragged the very name of Hilton in the dirt. You made this plantation, our plantation, a cesspool of scandal. It will not happen again. You are mad. Mad, mad, mad. Dr Roberts has said so. All Jamaica accepts it. They know only a latently mad woman could possibly have behaved as you have behaved these last ten years. They are very sympathetic. They blame it on that night in the mountains when you were a girl. But they know that it is so.'

Oh, my God, Meg thought. Oh, my God. 'But you know I am sane,' she cried. 'You
know
it.'

Oriole's lips relaxed into a half smile. 'I may know it, and Billy may know it. Peter Roberts may know it as well. But no one else does.'

'And do you think I will not tell them ?' Meg shouted.

Oriole's smile widened. 'Tell whom, my dear Meg? Oh, you may shout it to these walls, as often and as loudly as you like. Because these walls, and Madge, and Billy, and me, are all you are going to see. Mad people have to be confined. You should just be grateful that we have not sent you to the asylum.'

If only she were not so tired still, Meg thought, she could fight them. She could rise from this bed and knock both their heads together and make her escape down the hillside to the town and thence the village. Once there she would be free. The book-keepers would help her. And the blacks would certainly help her.

But instead she felt a wave of exhaustion creeping up from her belly to overwhelm her mind. She lay back on her pillows. 'I am amazed you do not just smother me,' she said, 'and have done with it'.

'Now, don't be a silly girl,' Oriole said gently. 'On the contrary, my dear, we are going to do everything we can to preserve you alive. Don't you know that when you die, the plantation passes to Richard ? Well, we are doing our best with the boy, but he
is
your son, and it is quite impossible at this stage to be sure he won't turn out to be an utter monster like his mother.'

My God, Meg thought; I
had
forgotten. Richard would be twelve. They would have nine years, if she were dead. Only nine years.

But for the entire term of her life, if they kept her alive. Even supposing Oriole was not able to seduce him utterly to her cause in nine years.

'I would like to write to him,' she said. 'And Aline.'

'I do not think that would be wise, my dear,' Oriole said. 'It is highly dangerous to expose children to the ramblings of a mad-woman. All medical authorities are agreed upon that. No, no, I will write them both on your behalf, as indeed I have been doing these past seven months. Now you have a good rest. You are looking quite pale.'

Billy got up. 'And you'll see, Meg, we don't mean you any harm. Why, if you'd just behave yourself, there is no need for you even to be confined to this room. You'll see.'

I'll see, she thought, shutting her eyes and listening to the door close. But a moment later it opened again, and she opened her eyes to see the large Negress come in, carefully shut the door behind her, and then take a seat in the rocking chair by the window.

'I would prefer to be alone,' Meg said.

The mistress done say
...'

'I am the mistress,' Meg said.

The mistress done say,' Madge continued as if she had not spoken, 'that someone got for be with you all the time. Day and night. Oh, yes.'

Oh, God, Meg thought. But she could not fight them. Not by herself, and certainly not while she was this weak. Health must be her first priority. Because Billy had given her some hope, once she regained her health.

And every day she could feel the strength returning to her muscles and, correspondingly, to her mind. She thought. She wished she could be sure. Muscles were a simple matter. She could walk, she could stand on one leg, she could bend without becoming dizzy, she could lift things and she could
feel
the energy beginning once again to surge through her system.

She could watch her body regaining its normal contours. It remained a voluptuous body. Because she was still a young and beautiful woman. Every glance in her mirror told her that. Save for her hair; the mahogany brown had several streaks of grey. But that was in itself almost beautifying. Her bone structure was so very fine that she was perhaps more beautiful than ever, she thought.

But who could tell what was taking place, what had taken place, in her mind? Just as who could tell what had taken place to those delightful, devastating, demoniac urges which had driven her through life? No man had touched her for over a year more intimately than on her arm. Once that would have driven her wild with continuous desire, which she would have known how to satisfy. Now she had no desire to touch herself, just as she had no real desire to be touched. There was the true legacy of that Cuban prison. It had left her only half a woman.

But was not her true problem one of guilt, she wondered. She had never been a religious person - in itself a cause for guilt, she sometimes felt, in her confused and weakened state - but she could not deny the fact that she had defied and ignored most of the moral tenets man had decided were decreed by his fear of God. It had not seemed important, as Margaret Hilton, and she had relieved her conscience with the reminder that she was pursuing her own life, not consciously causing harm to any other living creature, and in fact doing her best for all those who happened to be dependent upon her generosity. But perhaps that had not been enough.

Then there was the fact of her neglect of her children, as Oriole never tired of pointing out. She had been a good, almost an indulgent mother when in the mood, but the moment the 'itch between her legs', another of Oriole's phrases, caught hold of her, she had thoughtlessly abandoned them and departed to satisfy herself. No matter that she had supposed it would be for a matter of hours or at most days. It was the thought which counted, and that she had been separated from them for two years was merely the considered punishment of heaven, which quite justified her new gaolers in keeping her separated from them for another half-dozen.

She could not argue with that reasoning, however much she felt, she knew, that Richard and Aline would understand, could they but be given the chance. But there was a greater guilt yet, of which presumably Oriole was quite unaware. She could not avoid the responsibility for Alan's death. She could not help but feel that she had brought him bad luck. After all, he had run guns in to the insurgents on several occasions without a mishap, until he had made the mistake of taking her with him. But even if it had been merely a question of time until the Spaniards had caught up with him, she had to feel that had he not known, that dreadful day off the Jardines de la Reina, that she was on the schooner, he might have made his escape. That knowing her life was in danger, he had chosen to shoot it out with the Spanish soldiers, and thus lose his own life.

This single thought, recurring almost daily, was sufficient to bring her to tears. Alan was dead, and it had been her careless insistence on making the most of their reunion there and then, instead of satisfying herself with occasional meetings in Kingston, that had caused it.

But tears came easily in any event. It seemed that her strength, of which she had always been so proud, had been drained in that prison, so that although her body seemed as healthy and as powerful as ever before, exertion of any sort, and especially mental, left her collapsed and miserable. She tried to tell herself it would pass, it had to pass; built a peak of determination and resolve for when she was at last allowed out of the house, and then felt too tired, too weak and too indecisive to do anything. Supposing it had been practical, anyway; she was accompanied on her rides round the plantation by both Madge, riding a mule, and Oriole, and she had been given as her mount a mule also, which could easily be overtaken by any of the plantation horses.