'I don't want to be your master, Meg. I just want to be near you.' 'Spite of all?'
'Spite of all. But I do remember you saying that you could only come to me, the way you did, as Meg Hilton. Mistress of Hilltop.'
'As Meg Hilton,' she said. 'I sometimes think Hilltop has been a gigantic millstone hung around my neck. Hung around all of our necks. I sometimes wonder if people, even people like old Tom Warner or Kit Hilton, really understand what they do when they set out to achieve wealth and fame and fortune. If they understand exactly what they are bequeathing to their descendants.'
'Philosophy,' he said. 'But I like this new Meg Hilton. Sure it isn't a passing fancy ?'
He pulled on the rein as he spoke, and they looked down at Hilltop, glowing in the evening sunlight, the banana trees waving in the gentle breeze, the chimney pointing at the sky, the Great House standing foursquare on top of its man-made hill.
'No passing fancy, Alan. But I want to make love to you, at least once, in my own bed.'
He flicked the whip, and the trap raced down the narrow road, past the Negro village and the white town, bringing people onto their porches and their verandahs to see the return of their mistress, rattling to a stop before the front steps.
Which were already occupied by servants carrying Oriole's boxes and bags down to the waiting carriage. And Oriole herself stood at the top of the steps.
'Meg,' Alan begged.
'There will be no scene, I promise you.' Washington was there to help her down.
Oriole waited. 'A triumphant return,' she said. Her face was twisted.
'A return, Oriole.' Meg climbed the steps. 'A happy return.' 'For you,' Oriole said.
'I would not make it unhappy for you,' Meg said. 'If I can. Where is Billy?'
'My God,' Oriole said. 'What ignorance. Billy has been arrested, Margaret. By your command.' Her smile was bitter. 'He is presently on his way to a Kingston cell.'
Meg gazed at her. 'He is guilty of murder.'
Oriole met her stare, but lowered her voice. 'Think well what you do, Margaret Hilton. He is your husband, and he is a Hilton. Hiltons have always done what they thought best for the Hiltons. You are the one who would break that pattern, for your own satisfaction. Billy did nothing more than act the Hilton, and you know that. Your children will know that. The world will know that. And every Hilton waiting in the shades will know that. Think well what you do, Margaret Hilton.'
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE VERDICT
THINK well what you do. Think well what must be done.
But for the moment there was so much to be done. She had forgotten the amount of work involved in managing the plantation. And these were new people she was dealing with, white people who had been selected by Billy, with Oriole at his shoulder; she half expected them all to give notice on her very first day. They didn't. Jobs were scarce, and there was no plantation quite so solvent as Hilltop. And of course,
they
had never supposed her to be mad. But what could
they
do?
It
is not possible to defy William Hilton
the
Hilton. Only his wife could ever do that.
So then, was she going to be vindictive or magnanimous ? Marguerite Hilton or Meg Hilton? She had no desire to be vindictive to them. She wanted only to have Hilltop running as smoothly as it had in the past. She wanted only to enjoy her plantation.
So then, think well what you do. Think well about the house, about the servants. Again, Oriole's creatures. Madge and Lilian had to be dismissed; she could not possibly exist in their presence. Search again for Prudence. But Prudence had died during those lost years.
Her new personal maid was named Muriel, a large dark-skinned woman, anxious to please. And Lawrence was still there, desperate to make amends for the years when he had been Oriole's butler, and not hers.
Think well about the children. Her immediate desire to bring them back to Jamaica had quickly been tempered by
discretion. Richard was all but seventeen, and had but a year more at school. Then, hopefully, Oxford. It would be senseless and it would be irresponsible to take him away for her own gratification. Aline was but a year younger, and also just about finished her schooling. And for seven years they had lived with the fact that their mother was mad, just as for two years before that they had lived with the fact that she was dead. So, however eager she was once again to hold them in her arms,
they must be approached with ca
ution.
John Phillips helped her here, wrote to them both, told them that their mother was again herself, and that she would be with them soon. Her decision was taken to visit them the moment the
trial
was over; it was too close to Christmas for it to be held this year, but the court would sit on the 12th of January, 1907, and the trial was not expected to last more than a few days. Then she would be free to visit England, and see them again.
But would they want to see her? Billy was their father, so far as they knew. And she was contemplating sending him to the gallows. Think well about that.
And above all, think well about Alan. To lie in his arms again, after nine years. To know only the utter joy of his embrace, the experienced strength of his masculinity. She had been terrified. There was so very much between them, around them, hanging above them; the memory of their last night together, on board the
Margarita,
the memory of what had happened since, the realization that they were both nine years older, the understanding that she had fled to Cleave, the understanding that she was seeking the condemnation of her husband for killing her black lover.
And yet, none of those things mattered, as they had never mattered before, once she found herself in his arms. She had even supposed that the fact of their being in her bed, and beneath the roof of Hilltop Great House, might inhibit him. But Alan had survived too much, experienced too much, learned too much, to be inhibited. By anything, she suspected, but certainly by a house and a bed and a memory.
He loved her. Nothing else mattered. And she loved him. So that, physical needs satisfied, they could lie together, her head on his shoulder, and share their thoughts.
'He committed murder,' Alan said. 'He deserves to be hanged.'
'He shot my lover,' she said. 'My black lover.'
'He did not know that for certain, Meg. He shot a black companion, nothing more. He is no different from those men in Cuba, Meg. He is nothing to you. He is not even the father of your children.'
Alan could hate, still. Alan could look at Billy only as the man who had robbed him for all those years. But had he not, in reality, robbed himself?
She wanted to go into the mountains, to try to explain to the people of the drum. But they never heard the drum nowadays. Perhaps the people had moved, taking their
mamaloi
with them. Their leader had been killed, because of his love for a white woman. Perhaps they would remain no longer in proximity to Hilltop. To a bad Hilton.
Anyway, Alan would not allow her. 'You say they would not let you stay with them,' he pointed out. 'Therefore they are already hostile to you. Now that Cleave is dead, you would probably need an armed expedition to get there and back in safety.'
It was her thirty-sixth birthday, and they dined alone, served by an eager Lawrence, drinking Hilltop wine and eating Hilltop food. The Mistress of Hilltop, entertaining her lover. But she wanted more than that
And what did he want?
She rested her chin on her forefinger, gazed at him across the table. She had dressed with especial care this night, wore an evening gown of cream satin decorated with crimson ribbon embroidery, over a pink slip, with chiffon sleeves also edged with crimson ribbon. Her hair was up, held in place by her favourite aigrette surrounded with flowers.
They had eaten well, and drunk well. And were in no hurry to rise from the table. They had nowhere to go, save to bed, and after ten days spent in each other's arms, even that was a pleasure which could be savoured without haste. 'Well?' she asked.
He lit his cheroot carefully; lighting a cheroot to Alan was as important as smoking it.
'Well, indeed,' he said, blowing a thin stream of smoke at the ceiling, and reaching for the decanter of port. 'I'm afraid
...'
'Alan.'
'I must, sweetheart.
Dreamer
has lain at anchor now for two weeks. Two weeks lost, as regards profit.'
'You are a mercenary beast. Am I not your profit? Will I not replace your profit ?'
'Indeed you will. You do. You have. But I am a sea captain. I still owe money on my schooner. You haven't forgotten what you said, as we rode out here ?'
'I have not forgotten, Alan. But you have not forgotten that I have children to care for, and a court case coming up in the New Year.'
'And then?'
'When Richard is twenty-one, which is only four years off, I will sail away with you, to the ends of the earth.'
'And forget all about being Hilton.'
She accepted a glass of port, sipped. 'And forget all about being Hilton. I have already forgotten all about being Hilton. I have no doubt that thunder we occasionally hear, those earth tremors which bother us, are my ancestors turning in their graves.'
'And I'll be glad to sail away, with you. Those earth tremors may be your ancestors rolling in their graves, but has it occurred to you that they are becoming a great deal more frequent ? And when you remember, what happened in San Francisco last year
...
it makes you think.'
'Oh, really,' she protested. 'San Francisco is five thousand miles away. Isn't it?'
'Give or take a few, I'm sure you're right. But Port Royal isn't a thousand miles away.'
'1692,' she said scoffingly. 'And that was an act of God. It destroyed Morgan the pirate. They said you could hear the beating of Gabriel's wings that day.'
'Earthquakes are always acts of God,' he pointed out.
'They say the earth trembled the day I was born, too,' she said, suddenly thoughtful.
'Now there is the most encouraging thing I've heard in a long time.' He smiled at her. 'You're not superstitious about it?'
She hesitated. 'No,' she lied. 'I'm not superstitious about anything. But you can't leave now. There's Christmas, and then there's the trial. You must be here for the trial, sweetheart.'
He leaned across the table to kiss her on the nose. 'Am I being called as a witness?'
'No,' she said. 'But
‘
would not be
any
good as a witness, if you were not there. I do not know if I shall be any good anyway. My husband, a Hilton
...'
'You were going to forget about that,' Alan said. He took her hand. 'Billy killed a man who loved you, you say, and who was in any event risking his life to see you to safety. Not to see that his murderer is punished would be an act of betrayal.'
She g
azed into his eyes, sucked her li
p between her teeth. 'Are you sure, Alan? Are you
sureV
'Dead sure, my darling. Anyway, I'll be there to hold your hand. I promise you. As for Christmas, if I get away now, I may be back. I'll certainly be back for New Year's.' He squeezed her fingers. 'Won't that do ?'
'Just see that you're back, Alan,' she said. 'Just see that you are back.'
'You awake, mistress?' Muriel stood by the bed, the tray resting imperiously on one hand.
'Yes,' Meg said. 'Yes, I'm awake.'
'That is the thing, mistress. I goin' run your bath for you.'
Meg gazed at the white canopy of the mosquito netting above her head. The bathroom was another innovation, added by Oriole. Oh, my God, Oriole, she thought. Oriole would be in court. Oh, no doubt of that. She had hoped her cousin would leave Jamaica immediately, but she should have known better. Oriole was made of sterner stuff, and she was waiting for the outcome of the trial.
Alan sighed, and turned on his side. 'Well ?'
Meg raised herself on her elbow, lifted the netting, found his cup of tea and passed it to him, then pushed herself into a sitting position to drink her own. 'Well?'
'How do you feel ?'
She sipped. 'How do you think I should feel?
’
'Butterflies?'
'You could say that. I have never appeared in a court of law before.' She raised the netting higher, got out of bed, walked to the jalousie and threw that wide. She looked at the sheep browsing on the pasture, at the endless banana groves. Her land, Hilton land. It was almost two hundred years to the day since Kit Hilton had founded this plantation. So tell me, Kit, she thought, what would you have done?
But she knew what Kit
had
done. In his determination to seek justice he had brought his own father-in-law to trial for murder. In the ensuing family quarrel he had lost his wife and his plantation, although, being Kit Hilton, he had got them back later. But he had done what he had supposed was right.