HF - 04 - Black Dawn (11 page)

'They's Congo people. Is the name what the masters give us all, no matter what. I's Ibo.'

'That is your real name, you mean?'

'No, sir, Mr Hilton. I am of the Ibo people. It is a nation, sir, like the Negroes. To call me a Negro is like if I was to call all white men English, whether they is French or Spanish or Dutch, or what.'

Dick removed his hat to scratch his head. 'Oh,' he said. 'Then I apologize. I never knew that before.'

But what a remarkable thing, for a white man to be apologizing to a Negro. Oh, dear, he thought: A black man. On the other hand, Merriman also seemed surprised, as he lapsed into silence.

They proceeded up and down, along tracks cut into the side of cliffs, with empty darkness to their left, through wooded copses, loud with rustling sound. Dick could not help but begin to wonder, eventually, if he was
not
being led astray, to his murder.

He urged his horse forward, beside the mule. 'But even Ibos do not all read and write,' he said conversationally. 'No, sir, Mr Hilton. But I's even more Jamaican than Ibo.'

'Would you explain that?'

'Is me great grandpappy what made the middle passage, Mr Hilton. That is back a hundred year.'

'Ah. Are there many slaves in Jamaica who were born here?'

'The most. All, from now, with the slave trade finish.'

'And are
they
all as well educated as yourself?'

'They ain't got no well educated field slave, Mr Hilton. It is all depending on what you train for. I did be a field slave, one time. Man, I did be a driver. But then they see how's I got brains like them, and they sell me too good. Now, I am a clerk, so I got for be educated.'

'I see. And are you happy, to be educated?'

At last the big man's head turned. 'Slave can be happy, Mr Hilton?'

'Ah. No, I suppose it is difficult. Yet there is not much trouble in Jamaica, I have been told.' 'Trouble, sir?'

'Well, when you think of what has happened in St Domingue

'Them boys had more cause, maybe,' Merriman said thoughtfully. 'And there weren't no government, that time, what with the revolution in France. Jamaica got plenty government. And anyway, where would they go? The Cockpit Country ain't no good now.'

'The Cockpit Country?'

'Well, sir, Mr Hilton, is a bad place in the north, all hill and ravine and bog and river. And is where all the runaway slaves did go, oh, since the Spaniards held Jamaica. So they become a nation, like, and the white folk call them Maroons. And they fighting, fighting, with the white folk all them years, but they getting push back, and back. And you know what, when they know what is happening in St Domingue, they start fighting again. That is only fifteen years gone. But they get beat again, and they sign treaty with the Governor. He ain't going trouble them no more, providing there ain't no murder up there, and they ain't going trouble the white folk no more. And they going send back any runaways what join them. That is the thing.' He urged his mule a little faster, came to the top of a rise, and pointed. 'Hilltop, Mr Hilton.'

And as if he had given a magic signal, the moon, enormous and round and yellow, and so low it might have been a lantern held by a giant, topped the mountains to send cold yellow light across the valley beneath them. Less a valley, Dick thought, than a large amphitheatre, almost oval in shape, mainly an endless series of canefields, but cleared in the centre, perhaps three miles away; there the moonlight showed up the sloping roofs and white walls of a little town, dominated by its chapel, silent in the darkness; farther off he could make out the bulk of the boiling house, also suggestive of a church because of its enormous chimney pointing skywards — and was it not a church, he thought, the religion of an entire economy—and then the equally orderly rows of logies in the slave village. He swung his gaze round, Mama's descriptions returning to him, and found the stables and the kitchens and the slight, man-made rise on which stood the Great House, four-square and two-storied, the white-painted verandahs shimmering in the half light, the rest of the house in darkness save for a slight glow from one of the downstairs rooms. Hilltop! The name, given to a protected valley, somehow epitomized all the Hilton philosophy. Or was it the Hilton arrogance?

'I can ask, sir?' Merriman suggested.

'Anything you like.'

'Is what it is feeling like, Mr Hilton, sir, to own all this?'

Dick glanced at the man. 'Feel like. It is terrifying, if you really want to know, Joshua. Come on.'

He kicked his horse, sent it galloping down the slope, dust flying from its heels. Up the beaten earth road he raced, the tall cane stalks waving gently beside him, hooves setting up an echo. Past the white village, where a dog commenced to bark, and was soon joined by another, and up the slope to the house, head spinning now, breath panting to match that of his horse, aware only of a consuming excitement, which made him feel almost sick, bubbling up from his belly.

'Hold there.'

He dragged on his rein, and the horse gasped to a halt before the steps of the Great House. 'You got business here, mister?'

Two black men, carrying sticks and knives, and whips.

'And who may you be?' Suddenly he was utterly grateful for the presence of Joshua.

'We is watchman, mister. And we ain't told to expect nobody this night.'

'Man, you stupid?' Joshua dismounted, held Dick's bridle. 'This is Mr Richard Hilton. This your new massa, and you had best watch out.'

'Eh? Eh?' The black men moved closer together.

'A natural mistake,' Dick assured them. 'I only landed this evening. Is the house open?'

'Oh, yes, massa. Oh, yes,' said the spokesman for the two watchmen. 'Jeremiah, you had best hustle down to town and wake up Mr Laidlaw.'

'Oh, I am sure that can wait.' Dick was already mounting the steps, hearing his boots clumping on the wood. His wood. He looked up at the bulk of the house, towering above him. His house.

'Man, massa, Mr Laidlaw would take the skin from we back if we didn't tell him you here
,' said the spokesman. 'I is Ab
solom, massa.'

'Oh, indeed? How are you, Absolom?' He found that he had stuck out his hand without meaning to, and Absolom was regarding it with a perplexed expression. But clearly he couldn't continue apologizing every time he made a
faux pas.
'Well,' he said. 'Shake it, Absolom. It won't contaminate you.'

Absolom glanced at Joshua, then took the fingers, very carefully.

'Thank you,' Dick said, and continued up the steps. From the verandah he looked through opened jalousies, which in turn rested against huge, thick mahogany doors, ready to be closed in the event that trouble, which Joshua said could not occur, did ever occur; and into an enormous hallway, with parquet floor and high ceiling, dominated by a great wide right-angled staircase which led to the gallery surrounding the upper floor, and by a series of portraits, both up the stairs and along the opposite wall. The whole was illuminated by a gigantic chandelier in which the candles still burned brightly.

He decided this must have been the glow he had seen from the hillside, for the light in the room to his right where the door also stood wide, had burned to nothing more than a glimmer. He stepped inside, gazed in amazement at the apparently endless sweep of parquet flooring reaching into the darkness at the back, at the upholstered chairs, at the occasional tables, laden with beaten brass trays filled with ornaments representing a variety of animals and birds, fabulous as well as actual, at the grand piano and the billiards table, and then in horror at the woman who lay, on her face, in the very centre of the floor, not six feet from where he stood.

'My God.' He ran forward, Joshua at his heels, turned her over, gazed at pale features, somewhat too big for beauty, but undeniably handsome in their regularity, and perfectly fitted to the mass of straight dark brown hair, which flowed over from his fingers to brush the floor. 'My God,' he said again. 'Is . . . is she dead?'

Joshua was kneeling beside him, peering at the woman. 'No, sir, Mr Hilton,' he said at last. 'She ain't dead. But she is dead drunk.'

Dick realized that there was, indeed, a strong smell of alcohol, and that in fact the woman was breathing, and most disturbingly; she wore an undressing robe, and nothing else that he could discover; the robe itself was flopping open, and it was easy to decide that her figure was a match to her face, at once large and well-shaped.

'That is Mistress Gale,' Absolom remarked.

'And who is she?' Dick asked.

'She does be Mr Hilton housekeeper. She is always this way.' 'Eh?'

'Drunk, Mr Hilton,' Joshua explained. 'It is well known in Kingston.'

'Good Lord. But we cannot just leave her here.' 'I going to fetch Boscawen. Oh, there he is,' Absolom announced.

Dick raised his head, gaped at the black man, who wore a brilliant red jacket over black and white striped calico drawers, no stockings or shoes, but was hastily fitting a white peruke over his black curls. 'What is this?' he demanded.

'Man, hush up your mouth,' Absolom recommended. 'This is Mr Richard Hilton.'

'Eh-eh?' The butler hastened forward, ignoring the unconscious woman so far as to step over her. 'Man, Mr Hilton, sir, let me welcome you to Hilltop.'

'Glad to be here, Mr Boscawen,' Dick agreed, and straightened to shake hands. Boscawen looked at Absolom, received a quick nod, and seized Dick's fingers. 'Now, this lady, Mistress Gale? She must be put to bed.'

'Oh, you can leave she there, Mr Hilton,' Boscawen said. 'She going to wake up, soon enough.'

'She cannot stay there,' Dick decided. 'If you chaps would care to lift. . .' He frowned. She really was very scantily clad. 'No, I will lift her. If you would be good enough to show me her bedchamber, Mr Boscawen.'

Again it took some seconds for the butler to understand he was being addressed; no doubt, Dick decided, he was still half asleep. Dick stopped, got one hand under Harriet Gale's shoulders and the other under her knees, and struggled to his feet, watching with complete dismay the front of her undressing robe once again flopping open to expose one absolutely perfect breast.

'Joshua,' he suggested.

Joshua folded the material back into place, and scratched his head. 'I going be back to town, then, Mr Hilton.'

'Of course not,' Dick said. 'You must be exhausted. Mr Boscawen will find you a bed. I have no doubt at all. As soon as we have taken care of Mistress Gale. Will you lead on, Mr Boscawen?'

The butler lit a candle and climbed the stairs, and Dick followed, the woman in his arms. Her breathing was less stentorous by now, but she was still unconscious. At the gallery he paused for breath, and also because he had become aware of noise below him; in the doorway to the left of the hall there had suddenly accumulated at least a dozen black people, women as well as men, peering at their new master.

'Good day to you,' he said. 'I will see you all in a moment.'

They stared at him, and Boscawen was waiting farther along the gallery. He now opened a bedroom door, and Dick entered, to find himself in a chamber on a scale similar to the rest of the house, some twenty-five feet square, he reckoned, containing a large tent bed as well as a variety of dressing tables. The bed had not been slept in, and he laid Harriet Gale on top of the coverlet; the night remained warm.

'Thank you, Mr Boscawen,' he said. 'Poor woman, she must be grieving for my uncle.'

'Oh, she doing that, Mr Hilton,' Boscawen agreed.

'Well, we'd best let her sleep it off, I suppose.' He backed to the door; Boscawen continued to hold the candle. She made a quite entrancing sight, he thought, and tried to estimate her age. Certainly she was not a girl, but equally certainly she was nowhere as old as Mama. And she was his housekeeper, now, presumably. What a delightful thought.

He closed the door, followed Boscawen back along the gallery, and discovered yet another two additions downstairs, a tall, spare white man, and an equally tall, thin white woman, both with red hair, and freckled rather than sunburned complexions, and both fully dressed, despite the hour; it was just beginning to grow light outside.

'Mr Hilton?' The woman stood at the foot of the stairs; she spoke with a pronounced brogue. 'I'm Clarissa Laidlaw. Charlie is your manager.'

'Mistress Laidlaw,' Dick said, and hurried down the stairs. 'I really am sorry to have awakened you at this hour, but the watchman insisted.'

'Hoots, man,' Laidlaw said, squeezing his hand.' 'Tis dawn, and time we were adoing.'