The Monsoon (62 page)

Tom sat by his bed until evening when a footman brought up a dinner tray.

“Where is William?” Hal asked weakly, as Tom fed him spoonfuls of soup.

“He is with Master Samuels at the bank. Lord Childs handed over the Company note to him for the share of the prize, and he has gone to deposit it,” Tom told him. He did not remark on how swiftly William’s concern for his father’s health had abated once his barony was established, and its succession to William’s person assured. William’s main interest now was to see the gold safely lodged with the bankers in the Strand where it would be under his control.

“You must rest now, Father. You must regain your strength for the journey home. Our business here in London is almost done. The sooner we can get you back to High Weald, the sooner you will be restored to full health.”

“Yes, Tom.” Hal showed sudden animation.

“I want to go home now. Did you know that William and Alice have given me a grandson? They have named him Francis, after your grandfather.”

“Yes, Father,” Tom answered.

“William told me.” William had made the point quite clear that, now he had fathered an heir, the inheritance of the title and estate had passed out of Tom’s reach for ever.

“I have engaged a vessel to take us back to Plymouth. The captain is Luke Jervis.

Do you remember him? He says that you saved his life.” Hal smiled.

“Luke? He was a likely lad, a good fellow.

I’m happy to hear he has his own ship now.”

“It’s only a small cutter, but a fast one.”

“I would like to sail at once, Tom.” Hal gripped his arm. There was an eagerness in his expression.

“We should wait for the doctors to give the word.” It was another week before the four surgeons agreed, reluctantly, to allow Hal to be taken aboard the Raven, Luke Jervis’s ship. They sailed from the Company wharf in the late afternoon to make the most dangerous part of the voyage at night.

William was not with them. Now that the prize money from the auction was safely deposited with Samuels Bank in the Strand, he had been anxious to get back to take care of the running of the estate.

“Every hour that I am away costs us money. I mistrust those rogues and imbeciles I had to leave in charge during my absence. I will post down to Plymouth at once. I will meet your ship when you arrive, Father.”

The Raven proved as swift as her reputation had promised. As they ran south in the night, Tom ” stood beside Luke Jervis at the tiller.

Luke wanted to hear every detail of their voyage to the Indies, and he questioned Tom avidly.

“Sweet Jesus! If only I had known, I would have signed on with Captain Hal, quick as you can say Jack Flash.”

“What about your wife and babes?” Aboli grinned, showing white teeth in the darkness.

“If I never hear another brat squeal or a goodwife scold it will not break my heart.” Luke pulled at his pipe and the glow lit his rugged face. Then he took the stem out of his mouth and pointed with it into the east.

“See those lights over there. That’s Calais. I was in there three nights ago to take on a cargo of brandy and baccy. The roads are thick with shipping, like fleas on a mangy dog.” He smiled wolfishly in the starlight.

“If a man had a letter Of marque, he wouldn’t have to sail all the way to the Orient to find a prize.

“Doesn’t it trouble your conscience to trade with the French when we’re at war with them?” Tom asked, puzzled.

“Somebody has to do it,” Luke said.

“Otherwise there would be no brandy and baccy to comfort our fighting lads.

I’m a patriot, I am.” He said it seriously and Tom did not pursue it, but he mused on what Luke had said about the French shipping crowding the Channel ports.

When the Raven tied up at the quay in Plymouth, William proved as good as his word. He had a big, well sprung coach on the dock, and servants standing ready to carry Hal into it. They set out at a sedate pace on the road for High Weald, and all along the way they passed small groups of men and women, the labourers, miners and tenant farmers of the estate, gathered to cheer his lordship home. Hal insisted on sitting up so that they could see him, and when he recognized a face among them he made the driver halt so that he could shake the fellow’s hand through the coach window.

When they wheeled through the gates and crunched up the drive to the big house, all the servants were drawn up on the front steps. Some of the women wept to see Hal’s state as the footmen carried him in, and the men muttered gruff greetings.

“Jesus love you, me lord. It does our hearts good to have you safe home.”

“Alice Courtney, William’s wife, waited at the top of the stairs. She had the baby in her arms, a tiny creature, Tom saw, with a bright red, wrinkled face. He squalled petulantly when Alice placed him for a moment in Hal’s arms, but Hal smiled proudly and kissed the top of his head, which was covered with a thick black cap of hair.

It looks like a monkey, Tom thought. Then he looked more closely at Alice’s face. Although there had never been the opportunity to get to know her when she married William, he had liked her instinctively.

She had been pretty and gay, but now he hardly recognized her.

There was an air of melancholy about her. Her eyes were sad, and though her skin was still peach soft and unblemished she seemed care-worn. When Hal was carried inside the main doors she lingered on the top step to greet Tom.

“Welcome home, brother.” She kissed his cheek, and dropped a curtsy.

“You have a beautiful baby.” Tom touched the little face awkwardly and jerked away his fingers when the child squealed again.

“As beautiful as his mother,” he finished lamely.

“Thank you, Tom,” she said and smiled, then she dropped her voice so that none of the servants could hear her.

“I must talk to you, not here, but at the first opportunity.” She turned away quickly and handed the baby to a nurse, while Tom followed his father up the stairs.

As soon as he was free to do so, Tom went down the passage towards the back stairs, but he had to pass Dorian’s room. He opened the door, stood on the threshold, and felt a nostalgic pang as he looked about the small chamber.

It was as his little brother had left it. There were the companies of lead soldiers in pretty painted uniforms arrayed along the window-ledge, and the kite Tom had made for him hanging above the bed.

The memories were too painful. He closed the door quietly and went down the back stairs.

He slipped through the kitchen and stable yards and ran lightly up the hill towards the chapel. It was dark and cool in the vault, just a thin beam of sunlight burning down from the opening in the centre of the domed roof.

He saw with relief that the chest containing his grandfather’s body stood against the far wall, beside the stone sarcophagus that had been prepared so long ago to receive it. It had made the long voyage up from Bombay and the Cape of Good Hope safely. He went to the coffin, laid his hand on the lid and-whispered, “Welcome home, Grand, father. You will be more comfortable here than in that cave in a far and savage land.” Then he passed down the line of stone tombs until he reached the one in the centre. He stopped before it and read the inscription aloud: “Elizabeth Courtney, wife of Henry and mother of Dorian. Taken by the sea before her full flowering. Rest in peace.”

“Dorian is not here today. But he will be soon,” he said aloud.

“I swear it.” He went on to the tomb of his own mother, stooped over it to kiss the cold marble lips of her effigy. Then he knelt before it.

“I am safe home, Mother, and Guy is well.

He is in India now, working for John Company. He is married. You would like Caroline, his wife. She is a pretty girl, with a lovely voice.” He spoke to her as though she were alive and listening, and he stayed beside her sarcophagus until the sunbeam on the stone walls had made its full circuit and at last winked out, leaving the vault in semidarkness. Then he groped his way up the stairs and out into the dusk.

He stood and gazed down upon the darkling landscape he remembered so well, but which now seemed so alien to him. Beyond the rolling hills he saw the distant sea. It seemed to beckon to him from beyond the twinkle of lights that marked the harbour. He felt as though he had been away for a lifetime, but far from being content, he felt restless, consumed with the need to move on. Africa was out there, and that was where his heart longed to be.

wonder,” he whispered, as he started down the hill, “if I will ever be happy in one place again.” As he reached the bottom of the hill the pile of the house was only a dark shadow looming in the evening mists that drifted across the lawns. Tom stopped abruptly below the wall as he glimpsed a ghostly figure beneath the outspread branches of one of the old oak trees that stood dark and massive upon the lawns. It was a female figure, dressed all in white, and Tom felt a stir of superstitious awe, for it appeared ethereal and wraithlike.

There were many legends of the ghosts that haunted High Weald.

When he and Guy were boys their nurse had frightened them with those tales.

“I’ll not be bettered by any ghost,” Tom resolved, gathered his courage and strode towards the white girl. She seemed oblivious of his approach until he was almost upon her. Then she looked up, her face frightened, and he saw it was his sister-in-law, Alice. The moment she recognized him she gathered up her skirts and fled towards the house.

“Alice!” he called and ran after her. She did not look back but increased her pace. He caught up with her on the gravel drive below the facade of the house, and grabbed her wrist.

“Alice, it’s me, Tom,” he said.

“Don’t be alarmed.”

“Let me go,” she said, in a terrified tone, and looked up at the windows of the house, which were already glowing cheerfully with yellow candlelight.

“You wanted to speak to me,” he reminded her.

“What is it you want to tell me?”

“Not here, Tom. He will see us together.”

“Billy?” Tom was puzzled.

“What can he do?”

“You don’t understand. You must let me go.”

“I’m not afraid of Black Billy,” he told her, with youthful arrogance.

Then you should be,” she said, pulled her hand free and ran lightly up the steps into the house. Standing in the middle of the carriage way with both hands on his hips, Tom watched her go. He was about to turn away when something made him look up.

His elder brother stood at one of the tall bedroom windows on the second floor. The light was behind him so he was merely a slim, elegant silhouette. Neither of them moved for a long moment, then Tom made an impatient dismissive gesture and followed Alice into the house.

Tom was in his bedchamber when he heard a faint sound that was out-of place even in the old house with its creaking timbers and windswept roof. He stood still, with his stock half tied, and cocked his head to listen. After a few seconds the sound came again, like a rabbit in a snare, the wail of distress high and plaintive. He went to the window and opened the latch. When he threw wide the shutters the night breeze off the sea rushed in, and the cries were stronger. He recognized them as human. It was a woman’s weeping, punctuated by deeper male tones.

Tom leaned out of the window. Now he could hear that the sounds came from the floor below, where the main bedchambers were situated.

Abruptly the voices fell silent, and he was about to close his window again when he heard the sound of a blow. It must have been a heavy one to carry so clearly, and Tom’s heart tripped as the woman cried out again. This time it was a scream of pain so high and clear that he could not mistake who had uttered it.

“The swine!” he blurted Out, and whirled to the door.

In his shirtsleeves, his stock loosening, its ends dangling down his chest, he raced along the passage to the staircase, and bounded down, three steps at a time.

As he reached the door to his father’s apartment he hesitated.

The double doors stood wide open and the curtains of the four-poster bed across the room were drawn aside, so he could see Hal’s figure lying under the embroidered bedclothes. He was propped up on the pillows, and he called urgently to Tom as he passed the open doors.

“No, Tom. Come here!” Tom ignored his summons and ran on to the doors of William’s apartment further down the passage. He tried the handle but it was locked, so he hammered on it with his clenched fists.

“Open up, damn you, Billy!”he bellowed.

There was a long silence beyond, and he filled his lungs to shout again, when the door opened quietly and William stood in the opening, blocking it with his body so that Tom could not see past him.

“What is it you want?” William asked.

“How dare you come yelling at the door to my private rooms.” He was also in shirtsleeves, but his face was darkly flushed, with anger or exertion, and his eyes burned with ri”.

“Get away with you, you impertinent puppy “I want to speak to Alice.”

Tom stood his ground stubbornly.

“You have already spoken to her once this evening.

Alice is busy. You cannot see her now.”

“I heard someone cry out.”

“It was not here. Perhaps you heard a gull, or the wind in the eaves.”

“There is blood on your shirt.” Tom pointed at the tiny scar let specks on his brother’s white sleeve. William looked down and smiled coldly through his anger. Then he brought out his right hand from behind his back and sucked the cut on his swollen knuckle.

“I

caught my hand in the cupboard doors.”

“I must see Alice.” Tom made to push past him, but at that Alice’s voice called urgently, “Tom, please go away. I cannot see you now. Her voice was gusty with tears and pain.

“Please Tom, listen to my husband. You cannot come in here.”

“Now do you believe me?” William asked scornfully.

“Alice will not talk to you.” He stepped back and closed the door.

Tom stood indecisively in front of it. ” He lifted his hand to knock again, but his father’s voice stopped him.

Hal was calling again.

“Tom, come here. I want you.” Tom turned away from the door and went to stand beside the four-poster bed.