The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (150 page)

‘I need to get to Eden,’ said Adam. ‘Please, Kelly, get out of my way.’

‘You won’t make Eden on that nag,’ Kelly pointed out. ‘She’s knackered. Or hadn’t you noticed?’

Before Adam could reply, Kelly had brought his horse alongside him. ‘You any good at riding bareback?’

‘What?’

‘Take the grey, she’s got plenty of go in her, which is why I’ve just had to chase her halfway across Trelawny to bring her home.’

No time to argue. Besides, he was right. Quickly, Adam slipped off his hired nag, untacked her, and sent her clattering off down the road to Town. While he did so, Ben Kelly somehow managed to keep his own seat, avoid flying branches, and maintain control of the grey mare until Adam had jumped on her back. ‘So why Eden?’ he said as he tossed Adam the reins.

‘I need to find Belle.’

To his surprise, Kelly barked a laugh. ‘In a hurricane? Bloody hell, Palairet, your timing’s even worse than mine!’

Adam did not reply.

‘Come to think of it,’ said Kelly, turning thoughtful, ‘you’re not the first idiot I’ve met who’s out for a ride. I ran into Cornelius Traherne a while back. He was heading for Eden too.’

‘
Traherne
?’ cried Adam, reining in his horse. ‘When? When did you see him?’

‘Half an hour? Why?’

The pieces were falling into place, and Adam didn’t like the picture they made. Miss Monroe must have done something to tip off Traherne, and somehow he’d got wind that Belle had left Burntwood, and was heading for Eden . . .

‘I think he’s after Belle,’ he said.

Kelly didn’t waste time asking questions. ‘Well come on then,’ he said, yanking his mount’s head round. ‘What are we waiting for?’

Ben will have taken shelter in the cellars, Sophie told herself as she followed Mrs Herapath through the crowded church. She tried and failed to picture her husband sedately taking cover. It wouldn’t be like Ben. He would take some stupid risk, and get himself—

A gust of wind rattled the windows, and further down the nave a woman cried out in alarm. She was instantly hushed. An old man chided her not to frighten, they all right in the house of the Lord. In other words, there might be a hurricane outside, but there was no need to panic.

It was so dark that the lamps were being lit, and soon the scent of kerosene was mingling with the sweet-onion smell of perspiration. But there was also a heartening aroma of coffee and spiced johnny cake. After all, people still had to eat.

St Peter’s was packed, and Sophie had been one of the last to arrive. She’d been surprised at how shaken she felt, and how reassuring it was to see Mrs Herapath’s formidable bulk bearing down on her.

‘
So
nice that we chanced to meet,’ said Mrs Herapath in her cut-glass tones as she sailed through the throng like a brightly coloured galleon with Sophie following in her wake. ‘I’ve made myself a little encampment by the old Mordenner tomb, attracted
quite
a collection of waifs and strays. Here,’ she told Sophie over her shoulder, ‘you can look after Max.’ She indicated a small red-haired boy who was sitting in the shadow of a large roll-top tomb, trying to read a book about parrots.

He seemed faintly familiar. With a jolt, Sophie recognized Sibella’s little boy. ‘Hello, Max,’ she said, surprise momentarily elbowing out her worry over Ben. ‘What are you doing in Jamaica?’

‘We’ve only just arrived,’ said Max shyly.

‘His guardian left him with me for safekeeping,’ said Mrs Herapath, as if Max was a library book.

‘Adam Palairet?’ exclaimed Sophie. ‘He’s here?’

‘I didn’t know you knew him,’ said Mrs Herapath. Casting a wary glance at Max, she added in French, ‘Extraordinary man. Said he had to “find someone”, and simply
rode off
! In this!’ She waved a plump hand at the storm-dark windows. ‘It’s always the quiet ones who surprise one, don’t you agree? They never—’

She was interrupted by a crash and a splintering of glass, and the scream of the wind grew suddenly louder.

Craning their necks they saw, just below the transept, the branches of a tree poking through one of the upper windows of the church. The people underneath had been liberally showered with leaves and broken glass, and were now brushing themselves off, shaking their heads regretfully at their spoiled food. Some glanced up at the branches in the window, and crossed themselves.

Clutching his book against him like a shield, Max looked from Mrs Herapath to Sophie, then back again.

Aware of his scrutiny, Mrs Herapath affected not to find anything amiss, and calmly started taking off her hat.

‘What was that?’ Max asked politely.

‘Only a tree, dear,’ said Mrs Herapath through a mouthful of hatpins. ‘One of the duppy trees in the churchyard has fallen over, the poor thing. Happens all the time. Nothing to worry about. It’ll simply let in a welcome breath of fresh air.’

Max studied her for a moment. Then, reassured, he went back to his book.

Mrs Herapath caught Sophie’s glance and rolled her eyes. ‘Incredible,’ she said in French, ‘how much faith they have in adults at that age.’

‘Incredible,’ echoed Sophie. She’d just been thinking how reassuring she, too, found Mrs Herapath’s beribboned bulk.

A terrific flash of lightning and a peal of thunder – and rain began to hammer on the roof.

Sophie thought of Ben, and told herself firmly that he must have taken cover by now.

People began to pray in earnest. Mrs Herapath studied them curiously, for she herself had given up Christianity when her husband died, in favour of spiritualism. Raising her eyeglass to squint at the duppy tree in the window, she leaned over to Sophie and shouted in her ear, ‘I can’t help thinking that a spot of obeah might be rather more appropriate!’

Up at Arethusa, they’d finished closing the shutters, and everyone was already down in the cellars. Everyone except Evie.

At the cellar door, Isaac called to his wife to come
quickly
, but she said no, she had something to see to first. One look at her face, and he wisely decided not to argue.

So now here she was in the darkened house, like the last person left alive on a sinking ship, while outside the wind howled and the rain hammered on the roof.

Running to her room, she snatched her bankra and her obeah-stick from beneath the bed, and let herself out onto the back porch. A crazy thing to do: in seconds she was soaked to the skin, and it was all she could manage to stay standing in the onslaught. But she had to be outside to do obeah.

Curiously, though, she wasn’t frightened at all. She was in a power to work her turning-spell. Not to take vengeance against Cornelius Traherne, oh no, she wasn’t about to go breaking her promise to her mother; but to turn him away from doing harm to Belle.

A glare of lightning lit up the trees bent almost to the ground, and in the flashing light the serpent carved about her mother’s obeah-stick writhed.

Squatting in the porch, Evie reached into her bankra and pulled out the handkerchief of Cornelius Traherne that she’d confiscated from Belle seven years before. Quickly she twisted it into a coil and tied it round the neck of the serpent; then she smeared it with the paste she’d prepared of grave-dirt and asafoetida mixed with lime juice, and a few other things too, besides.

Then, bracing herself against the wind, she held the obeah-stick high, and began to chant. Power surged through her like a lightning flash.

Lightning lit up the old guango tree that guarded the turn-off to Eden great house. In the glare, Belle saw that the wind had completely stripped it of its leaves.

The house was in darkness. Shingles were flying off the roof like arrows. ‘Papa!’ she shouted. ‘
Papa!
’

She couldn’t get through to the front of the house. The path that led to the verandah steps was blocked by the remains of the bath-house roof. Digging in her heels, she put her horse at the wreckage. They sailed over. She cantered into the garden.

A flash of white by the verandah – and there he was, in his shirtsleeves and soaked to the skin, as she was, but unhurt, thank God.

When he saw her, he froze. ‘
Belle
? What are you doing here?’

‘I had to find you!’ she shouted above the scream of the wind.

Grabbing the bridle, her father pulled her out of the saddle and into his arms.

Suddenly she was shaking so hard that she could hardly stand. ‘I had to find you,’ she mumbled into his chest.

‘I thought you were at Burntwood,’ he said, holding her tight. ‘I thought you were with Mamma and the twins.’

‘I was – they are – they’re in the cutwind – but I—’

A terrific gust of wind nearly blew them off their feet, and above their heads part of the verandah roof lifted and blew down, blocking the way to the cellars at the other side of the house.

The horse reared. Papa grasped the bridle with one hand, and put the other arm round Belle. ‘Come on,’ he shouted in her ear. ‘No time to get to the cellars! I know where we can go.’

A gust of wind dashed what sounded like an entire tree against the outside of the cutwind. It didn’t even shudder.

Inside there was an air of cramped and sweaty companionship. No-one was unduly alarmed. Some of the nurses were humming cheerful hymns, and several were also fingering little charm-bags at their necks, just for good measure. The twins were digging each other in the ribs and giggling. Everyone knew they would be safe in the cutwind. In the hundred and seventy years since it was built, it had weathered more hurricanes than anyone could remember – and protected the rest of the great house, too. Burntwood might have a reputation for being ‘bad luckid’, but no hurricane could bring it down.

A laundrywoman lifted the lid off a basket on her lap and started doling out squares of cornmeal pone and wangla nut brittle. She offered a piece of pone to Madeleine, who managed a tight smile, but shook her head.

It was just over an hour since Belle had pushed her into the cutwind. Had she reached Eden safely? Had she found Cameron? It seemed too much to hope that they would both survive. Madeleine shut her eyes and tried to picture them at Eden, safe and well. If she’d been a believer, she would have prayed.

In her lap, the blue envelope had become damp with sweat from her palms. She opened her eyes and stared down at it.

‘If anything happens,’ Belle had told her, ‘open it. You’ll understand.’

Another crash outside. Madeleine’s hands tightened on the envelope.

Well, she thought, I think a hurricane counts as ‘something happening’. I think it’s time to find out what this is about.

The hurricane was on its way.

At Romilly, a tree across the road brought Adam and Ben to a precipitate halt.

‘Any time now,’ yelled Ben through the wind and the rain, ‘and it’s going to get dodgy!’

‘We’d better take cover under the bridge!’ shouted Adam.

‘And hope to hell there isn’t a flash flood!’ cried Kelly, jumping off his horse and leading it down the streaming bank.

In the town house in Falmouth, Miss May Monroe rearranged her gloved talons on the head of her cane, and listened to the waves battering the quays that her father had built over a century before, and waited for the hurricane to strike.

In St Peter’s, the inhabitants of Falmouth listened to the sea battering the quays, and redoubled their prayers. Max huddled in Mrs Herapath’s lap and hid his face in her bosom, and resolved to describe this adventure
in detail
in his next letter to Julia and Miss McAllister. Sophie clasped her knees and prayed that Ben would make it through alive.

At Arethusa, Evie felt her husband’s arms tighten around her as they crouched in the cellar. ‘You’re soaked,’ he said against her temple. She nodded but did not reply. She was thinking of the obeah-stick she’d left planted in the ground, with Traherne’s handkerchief wrapped about the serpent’s coils.

In the cutwind at Burntwood, Madeleine sat staring at the photograph on her lap as the truth about her daughter crashed over her like a wave. The picture before her was over-exposed, and clearly taken in haste. It showed a young girl – her face in shadow, but recognizably Margaret Cornwallis – seated on a bench, while an old man sat close beside her. Every line of the girl’s body was fraught with tension. Cornelius Traherne’s liver-spotted hand was planted firmly on her breast.

The photograph was a recent one: Madeleine could still smell the chemicals from the darkroom. But on the back, Belle had written:
Juvenile Fancy Dress Ball, May 1912. Bamboo Walk, June 1912. I could never tell you. Sorry. Belle.

The fancy dress ball, thought Madeleine. Memory flooded back. Belle dressed as a devil. Traherne . . .

In the undercroft at Eden, Belle huddled against her father, while behind them in the gloom Drum Paget’s exhausted gelding munched a bag of oats.

‘Where’s everyone else?’ said Belle, her teeth chattering.

‘In the cellar,’ said her father, ‘where I would have been if you hadn’t turned up when you did. I’d only come out for a last look round. Damned lucky I found you.’

Belle nodded, and pressed herself closer against him. His arm tightened round her like an iron bar. When she shut her eyes, she felt the beat of his heart against her cheek. ‘Will we get through this?’ she said.

‘I should think so,’ he replied. He sounded astonishingly calm. ‘We might lose the roof, but the house and the undercroft should stand.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Bulletwood frame,’ he said, stroking her hair. ‘They call it bulletwood for a reason, Belle darling. Besides,’ he added, and she heard the smile in his voice, ‘we’re in your mother’s darkroom. No hurricane in its right mind would dare come in here. Although when this is over, we shall have some explaining to do about the horse.’

At the turn-off to Eden great house, Cornelius Traherne’s horse skittered to a halt. She was in there somewhere, he knew it. He just had to find her. Then everything would be all right.

Above him the guango tree thrashed its leafless limbs. In the flaring lightning it looked oddly threatening, like some sort of skeletal guardian.