HF - 04 - Black Dawn (18 page)

'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 hi
s 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.'