HF - 04 - Black Dawn (6 page)

'Tony? What will Uncle Robert say?'

'I will give you a letter. I ask nothing for Tony save that he be employed as an overseer. But give him the opportunity, to prove what he can do.'

'Well, I . . . anyway, he'd never agree.'

'He has already agreed.'

'Eh?'

'I have put it to him very straight.'

'And he agrees? He understands that. . . well, in view of the investigation you have just related, he must mend his ways.'

'He understands. He has agreed to follow your wishes in everything.'

Tony?'

'Tony.' She got up again, went to the door, opened it. 'Come in here.'

Tony Hilton came in, slowly. 'We adventure together, then, Dick.'

Dick hesitated, then rose to his feet. 'Aye, well, I was wondering how I should survive the crossing, without company.' He held out his hand. 'Together then, Tony. With but one objective; to prove ourselves worthy of owning Hilltop.'

Tony's lingers squeezed his. 'I'll say amen to that.'

He was smiling. Even his eyes were smiling. When Tony Hilton smiled he was one of the handsomest men Dick could think of. Here was company, the best of company, to stand at your shoulder.

But what had Mama just said of her brother? A man is what he is, and cannot change? My God, he thought; what have I done?

3

The Coward

' "It is convenient to divide the types of sugars into two main groups." ' Richard Hilton spoke the words slowly and carefully, and loudly, as the gusting wind whipped each syllable from his mouth before it was properly pronounced. ' "They are monosaccharoses, form
erly called glucoses, and disac
charoses, formerly called saccharoses." Eh?'

Anthony Hilton yawned, and pulled his coat tighter. They sat on the poop deck, and faced aft, for the brig was beating into a stiff southwesterly; spray clouded over the bows with every dip into the rolling green of the waters, and often enough came flying the length of the deck, while astern of the ship, merging with the flowing white of the wake, the whitecaps pranced and broke, churned by the breeze which scattered the young men's hair, flapped their coats, ruffled the pages of Dick's book.

' "The first term," ' Dick continued, "includes the simple sugars, bearing the formula Ca(H
₂
0)."
We must remember that.'

^‘
Oh, indeed,' Tony agreed. 'I am to plant Ca(H
₂
0).
That sounds uncommonly like water to me.'

'Well,' Dick said thoughtfully. 'As in all plants, there must be a great deal of water in the average sugar stalk.'

'Oh, quite,' Tony agreed. 'But not half so much as there was in that gale the other day. Did you watch it coming over the bow? I thought we were for the bottom.'

'I was hanging on to Mistress Marjoribanks,' Dick said.
‘I
thought she was for it, certainly.
She puked green, at the end. I
expected to see her gut, at any moment.'

'Ugh,' Tony said. 'Do remember we don't all have a stomach like yours. Still, I suppose it pays to have a digestion like a carthorse, if one is going to marry a mare.'

'Now, look here . . .'

Tony smiled, and stretched. 'A very handsome mare, let us not forget. Do you dream of her?' 'Every night.'

'Ah, but you have only been separated three weeks,' Tony said. 'When it is three months, you will have forgotten what she looks like.'

'Never. She has promised to send me a likeness. She is having it commissioned.'

'How sweet. You'll want more than just a face, to keep you constant amidst all those brown-skinned wenches.'

'Tony!'

'Oh, I promised. To be a Hilton's Hilton. But so far as I can make out, they rather went for the brown. Don't frown so, I am only joking. Actually . . .' He sat up, his elbows on his knees. 'I have used this fortnight for thinking.'

'About brown bellies.'

'No.' Tony's face was quite unusually serious. 'About being a Hilton.'

'You are a Hilton.'

'And you are being deliberately dense. Mama gave me Uncle Robert's letter to read, you know. No, listen. Stuff that damnably boring tome. Listen. He decided on you, instead of me. Now why? Because I drink more than I ought, because I gamble more than I can afford, because I am rutting from whore to whore rather than attaching myself to some unworthy female. I am not thinking of Ellen, believe me. Any female I accumulated would be unworthy. But think on this. Robert Hilton has spent his life doing all of those things, at least according to Father.'

'Which no doubt, now that he is growing old, is why he doesn't wish his heir to follow his example.'

'Hm. You know, old boy, you are the priggiest prig I ever came across. Oh, you'll do well. But not while you are looking over your shoulder at your conscience. You want to let go a little, live a little, especially if you are going to spend the better part of your life married to Ellen Taggart. She'll have you hog-tied to the bed-post in seconds.'

'You do talk the most utter rubbish,' Dick said, without anger. 'Now, let us get back to it. Uncle Robert will certainly want us to know something about our crop. Where were we? "The formula of the second group is C
_l5
H
₃₂
0
₁₆
."
Say it now.'

'Just what I was thinking of,' Tony said. 'Here they come'.

'Eh?' Dick marked his place with his finger, looked back along the poop deck where Captain Morrison, all red cheeks and unshaven chin, was welcoming the rest of the passengers for their afternoon constitutional. 'Oh, Lord.'

Mistress Marjoribanks came first. She was a large lady, although she had lost weight during their fortnight at sea; the weather had been unfailingly bad and she was a poor sailor. Then the Collies, Mistress Collie clutching her babe in her arms, while it wailed and gnawed at her pelisse, Dr Collie holding the older child by the hand, half dragging it across the deck; having made the appalling mistake of marrying before completing his medical studies, he had been forced to seek a livelihood in the colonies. Then Master Rowland, who sported yellow braces under his vest, and pretended to smoke a cheroot, for all that his cheeks were tinged permanently green—his father was a plantation manager, and he felt it necessary to act the part. And then Captain and Mistress Lanken. Captain Lanken was a very military gentleman, with square shoulders and a jutting chin, who seemed almost naked without his red jacket. He was in fact, like them, on his way to a post as manager of a plantation in Jamaica, having recently been invalided from the army as a result of a wound which had left him with an almost useless left leg. Thus he walked with the aid of a stick, and with the assistance of his wife.

Who was currently the object of Tony's admiration. Joan Lanken was less than half the age of her husband, Dick estimated, and was an extraordinarily pleasant young woman, not especially pretty because of her somewhat flattened features, but with an agreeably plump figure and a delightful little tinkle of laughter. Her hair was pale brown, and a positive mass of curls, although these were presently concealed beneath the edgings to her fur bonnet, for the breeze remained chill. Dick, indeed, was fast coming to regard her as almost a sister, as it was impossible not to regard all the cabin passengers as close relatives, in view of the intimacy in which they were forced to exist, sleeping, eating, dressing and undressing, quarrelling and laughing, grumbling and dreaming, all together in a cabin hardly twelve feet square.

Tony was on his feet. 'Ladies. A better day.'

'Oooh, this roll. Oooh, this pitch.' Mistress Marjoribanks sank to the blanket he had spread on the deck. 'I shall never travel again, Mr Hilton. Never. I should not be travelling now. It is cruel, cruel, to send for me like this. James has existed without me these four years. He could have done so for four more.'

'But think of it,' Dick said. 'The Caribbean. Why, save for the occasional hurricane, it never blows there. Endless months of calm seas, warm sun, blue skies . . . you will be wondering why you did not accompany your husband in the first place.'

'Ugh. All those cannibals?'

'I think the Caribs are just about extinct,' Dick said. 'Except perhaps for a few settlements in the smaller islands. In any event, they have learned to respect our strength.' His gaze drifted to the rail, where Joan Lanken and Tony were leaning, shoulders touching, apparently contemplating the sea.

'Reading, sir? Reading?' Humphrey Lanken barked rather than spoke.

'The Essentials of Cane Growing,
sir,' Dick explained. 'By Dr James MacLaren.'

'Essentials? Why, sir, there is nothing to it. In those islands, sir, why, cane grows like grass. Oh, indeed, sir, it is a simple matter.'

'I'm sure you are right,' Dick agreed. 'Good afternoon, Captain Morrison. A fine day.'

'Good day to you, Mr Hilton. Oh aye. The weather is on the mend. For the time.' He winked. 'We don't want to forget 'tis the storm season.'

'Oooh,' screamed Mistress Marjoribanks. 'Not a storm.'

'Ah, 'tis early yet,' Morrison declared. 'The first hurricane seldom sprouts before August; we've a week in hand. Soon enough we'll pick up a trade wind, and then, why, it'll be coasting along with the wind abaft the beam, and not a whitecap in sight. You'll like that, Mistress Marjoribanks.'

'Oooh,' remarked that lady. 'Will she still roll?'

'Oh, aye, well, ships do roll, madam. Ships do roll. But none of this pitching. Ah, no. There'll be no pitching once we find the trades. Now ladies, gentlemen, I'm unpacking my cheese today. Real Stilton, ladies, gentlemen. You'll want to be in the cabin at four, eh? Good stuff, no mildew, well, none you can't stomach, and going cheap. Oh, aye, four o'clock.'

He bustled forward, and the Collie children, momentarily silenced by his bellow, began to wail once more.

'Damned scoundrel,' Lanken said. 'Why did he not uncover his cheese last week, eh, while it was still fresh?'

'Because then we all had cheeses of our own, captain,' Tony said, having turned back from the rail. His cheeks were flushed, and to his consternation, Dick saw that Joan Lanken's were also pink. And they had been looking over the lee rail, backing the wind.

'And now he can charge us what he likes, knowing that our own stocks are low,' Collie grumbled. 'Truly they say that all seafaring men are pirates at heart.'

'Aye, well, we are in the rascal's power, and must make the best of it,' Lanken declared. 'Mistress Lanken, I'm for a stroll. You'll take my arm, if you please.'

'Of course, sir.' Joan Lanken gave Tony a quick smile, and seized her husband's left arm to propel him over the quarterdeck. Dick found that his own arm had been seized, and by
his
brother.

'Do you fancy her?' Tony whispered, pulling him to the taffrail.

'Eh? Good Lord, no.'

'Then you're a fool. She let me touch her titties just now, and right through the cloth, Big.'

'For heaven's sake, Tony, with her husband right there?'

'He is a total fool. And quite incapable, she says.' He grinned. 'His leg keeps getting in the way, and she says it is the stiffest part of him. Listen, she is absolutely begging for a little service.'

'Then are you the total fool. In our circumstances?'

'Ah, well, there's the difficulty. I suggested she and the captain shift their berths to our side of the cabin, but she feels he would suspect something. On the other hand, it is going to get much warmer in a day or two. No one could be blamed for waking in the middle of the night, and needing air.'

'What about the watch? What about when the captain also wakes up and needs air?'

'I have thought of that. We must act together. That way we can share the profits, and also the watch-keeping requirements. A very military matter.'

'You must be mad.'

'I am going mad, if that is what you mean, with sheer desire. To know all of that is just a few feet away from me, has been there for a fortnight, and will be there at least a fortnight more, my God. Listen, she really is a delicious little thing, under all that cloth. If you like, I'll arrange with her for you to stand at the rail tomorrow. Then you can discover for yourself.'

'I have no intention of discovering for myself. You gave me your word . . .'