The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (87 page)

I can’t believe it, thought Sophie as she followed the hummingbird’s progress from flower to flower. I’m back in Jamaica. I can’t believe it.

‘I don’t believe it,’ said a man’s quietly courteous voice directly behind her. ‘Can this really be Sophie Monroe, back in Jamaica after all this time?’

The voice was startlingly familiar – and yet unfamiliar. She twisted round, shading her eyes with her hand, but he was standing with his back to the glare, and at first she couldn’t see his face.

Then the sun went black. Dark spots darted before her eyes. No. Not him. It couldn’t be him.

He was standing looking down at her with his head slightly to one side and an amused expression on his face. He wore a white linen suit and a panama hat, and he stood with both hands in his trouser pockets, completely at his ease. ‘It is you, isn’t it?’ he said again. ‘May I sit down for a moment, or are you expecting someone?’

She swallowed hard. Then, still unable to speak, she shook her head, and clumsily indicated the cane chair on the other side of the little round tea table.

Nothing was real any more. She wasn’t sitting under a wild almond tree in the gardens of the Myrtle Bank Hotel. Ben wasn’t standing beside her. He couldn’t be.

And yet he was. It really was him. The same narrow green eyes, the same sharply handsome face, the same lean, graceful figure. Even the same thin vertical scar cutting across the right eyebrow.

He was the same – but he wasn’t. He was utterly changed. The last time she had seen him he’d been bruised and unkempt, his clothes crumpled after a hasty wash in the river, his face white with shock as she told him she was ending it between them. The slender gentleman before her now was completely self-possessed. He was dressed with a casual, unstudied elegance, and spoke with distant courtesy, and not a trace of a Cockney accent.

‘
Ben?
’ she said stupidly. It came out as a croak. She felt herself colouring.

He sat down and put his hat on the ground beside his chair, and crossed his legs, and leaned back and smiled at her. It was a charming smile with no feeling behind it – a social smile – and it was nothing at all like Ben. At least, not like the Ben she had known. In the old days there’d been either that wary feral snarl, or the genuine, breathtaking smile which would occasionally flash out and make her want to cry.

He told her that she was looking remarkably well, and asked what she’d been doing with herself since he’d last seen her. Had she ever got round to taking her degree?

No, she said. She mumbled something about St Cuthbert’s.

A charity volunteer, he said, how interesting. And have you been in Jamaica long?

Four days, she said.

Indeed, he said. I was in London a couple of months ago, we must have been there at about the same time. Isn’t it extraordinary how one’s always missing people one knows, just by a whisker?

Then he noticed the sapphire and diamond cluster on her finger, and asked whom he ought to be congratulating, and she steeled herself and told him that it was Alexander Traherne. He looked mildly surprised, then faintly amused. I hope you’ll be very happy, he said, with the counterfeit pleasure which one adopts when the marriage is that of an acquaintance for whom one doesn’t really care.

‘It was in
The Times
,’ she muttered by way of justification.

‘I imagine it was,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid I don’t always have the time to read the papers when I’m in London.’

The tea arrived, and she asked in a strangled voice if he’d care to join her. She thought she sounded like someone reading from a script, but if he noticed he gave no sign of it. He reached for his hat and got to his feet and said, thank you no, I ought to be going. But you go ahead, you must be parched.

She stared at the tea things. She couldn’t touch them. If she did she would drop the teapot or break a cup.

There was an awkward silence. At least, she felt it to be awkward, but Ben merely stood with one hand in his pocket, slowly fanning himself with his hat.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said suddenly.

He smiled down at her. ‘What don’t you understand?’

‘I don’t— I mean, you’re – you’re—’

‘Rich?’ he put in gently.

‘Well – yes.’

‘And you really haven’t heard a whisper about it?’

She shook her head.

He gave a slight laugh. ‘Well, then, it seems we’re both hopelessly ill-informed! Although I have to say, I think I’ve more of an excuse than you. You see, I never bother with newspapers at Fever Hill.’

The ground tilted. ‘Fever Hill?’ she said.

He was laughing and shaking his head. ‘Really, Sophie, don’t you know about that either? I fancy you’re going to have to administer a sharp rebuke to that sister of yours for not keeping you better informed!’

Chapter Twenty-Four

‘I thought it best to wait,’ said Madeleine over tea at Parnassus, ‘and tell you face to face.’

Sophie caught the glance which passed between her sister and Sibella, and realized with a jolt that Sibella had known about Ben all along. ‘Well,’ she said as lightly as she could, ‘now that I’m here, you can tell me everything.’

Madeleine put her teacup to her lips, then set it down again. She was trying to appear at her ease, but she wasn’t managing it any better than Sophie. It was the first time they’d seen each other in seven years. Sibella had offered to make herself scarce, but Sophie had begged her to stay. She was too nervous to be left alone with her sister.

‘There’s not a great deal to tell,’ said Madeleine, stirring her tea and avoiding Sophie’s eyes. ‘According to Olivia Herapath, he knocked around Panama for a while, then took up with some coloured engineer – the one who’s just bought Arethusa. They went to Sierra Leone to look for gold, but didn’t find any, so they went to Brazil, where they did. At least,’ she added, ‘they found the
expectation
of gold. I don’t quite understand it, but Cameron says they bought up the rights very cheaply, and then sold them on to mining companies at an enormous profit, and then sold the business itself at an even more enormous profit. It seems that Mr Walker – that’s the engineer – had a minority share as he only provided the surveying expertise, while Mr Kelly’, her cheeks darkened, ‘was the brains behind it. He came up with the idea of selling the information rather than doing the mining themselves, and that’s why he’s so much the wealthier of the two.’

Mr Kelly.
How bizarre to hear Madeleine calling him that. The last time she’d spoken of him, she’d been cold-eyed and savage with grief.
I’ll never forgive him
, she had cried.
I hope he rots in hell
.

And what about me? Sophie wondered, watching her sister stirring her tea with elaborate care. Have you forgiven me? Or are you always going to keep me at a distance?

‘It was something of a nine days wonder,’ Madeleine went on evenly, ‘but it’s all blown over now. And of course, he never goes out into Society.’

‘I should think not,’ said Sibella, pink with indignation. Clearly, having Ben Kelly for a neighbour was wormwood to her.

Sophie pictured the consternation at Parnassus when they’d first got the news. An erstwhile groom –
their
groom – the new owner of Fever Hill! Cornelius would have been incandescent; poor Rebecca prostrated. ‘But has it really blown over?’ she said.

Madeleine bit her lip. ‘There’s been a certain amount of gossip,’ she said carefully.

A certain amount of gossip.
Sophie appreciated her sister’s attempt to minimize it, but she could just imagine the nature of the gossip. Of course, no-one would say anything to her face, but everyone would be remembering her wildly inappropriate attachment to that good-looking young groom at Parnassus. How Olivia Herapath would relish it! ‘My dear, isn’t it killing? The boy from the wrong side of the tracks (so to speak) has absolutely gone and bought the railway! And just when she’s about to be married, poor lamb. I’d give anything to be there when they meet.’

There was an awkward silence. Then Sibella stepped into the breach by loudly admiring the presents which Sophie had brought from London. There was a folding pocket camera for Madeleine, who had mentioned in one of her letters that she’d taken up photography again; a patented Thermos flask for Cameron; a picture frame for Clemency, and for Belle an Ever Ready electric battery torch which she was currently trying out in the croton bushes on the other side of the pergola.

Sophie did her best to join in, but she knew that she failed. She was painfully aware of how different this homecoming was from her last. Seven years before, she hadn’t needed presents to buy approval. Her welcome had been genuine, Jamaican, and at Eden. Now they sat on Italian wrought-iron chairs under Rebecca Traherne’s rose pergola, and skated like mayflies over the surface. Even when Sibella tactfully went inside – ‘to fetch that copy of
Les Modes
for Madeleine’ – they did not delve beneath. Madeleine asked about the trousseau, and Sophie told her what a godsend Sibella had been, and made a joke about Gus Parnell’s horror of centipedes. They didn’t mention Fever Hill. Or Ben.

They strolled the length of the pergola, and watched Belle emerging from the croton bushes, scowling as she beamed the torch directly into her eyes.

‘She’s going to be beautiful,’ said Sophie for something to say.

Madeleine sighed. ‘She’s a dreadful tomboy. Rides all over the estate; always giving the grooms the slip.’ She paused. ‘Cameron wants to send her away to school. But I don’t think she’s ready.’

Of course not, thought Sophie with a pang. Madeleine had already lost one child. How could she lose another, even if it was only to a girls’ academy in Kingston? ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ she agreed.

‘Am I? I don’t know. Cameron has a point. She rarely sees children her own age, apart from the pickneys. And she’s got a morbid streak which worries me.’

Sophie glanced at her in surprise. Was this her way of bringing the conversation round to Fraser?

‘She never seems to
play
with her dolls,’ Madeleine went on with her eyes on her daughter. ‘Just holds funerals for them.’

‘But lots of children do that. Don’t they?’

‘Yes, but Belle’s are so elaborate. Proper Jamaican nine-nights, with parched peas in the pockets and cut limes on the eyes.’

‘That’s to stop them becoming duppies,’ said Belle, who’d heard her name mentioned, and sidled up.

‘Oh, I can understand that,’ Sophie told her. ‘At your age I was fascinated by duppies. I was very ill, you see, and I – well . . .’ she broke off in confusion, ‘I was simply fascinated.’ She’d been going to say that she’d been scared of dying and becoming a duppy herself, but stopped just in time.

Belle was looking up at her with new respect. ‘Mamma never told me you were ill,’ she said with an accusing glance at Madeleine. Then she turned back to Sophie. ‘How did you get better? Did you ask a duppy tree?’

‘As a matter of fact, I did.’

Belle’s mouth fell open. ‘
How?
Did you give it an offering? What did you—’

‘Belle,’ said her mother, ‘that’s enough.’

‘But
Mamma
—’

‘I said, that’s enough. Now run along and ask Mrs Palairet if you can go to the stables and say hello to the horses.’

As Sophie watched Belle reluctantly trailing off, she felt a pang of recognition. She had been about Belle’s age when she’d first come out to Jamaica. She’d adored Fever Hill, and lived in terror of the duppy tree across the lawn; she’d idolized her older sister, and – although she hadn’t known it at the time – she’d had a hopeless crush on Ben.

He had been like some dark, bright-eyed spirit from another world: filthy, savage, and terrifyingly foul-mouthed, but always vividly aware of whatever she thought and felt. How could all that have changed so profoundly? How was it possible that he’d transformed into that polite, indifferent man in the white linen suit? How could anyone change so much?

At her side, Madeleine drew a cross on the flags with the point of her parasol, and asked when it was to be.

‘When is what to be?’ said Sophie.

‘The wedding. I was talking of the wedding.’

‘Oh. I don’t really know. We haven’t fixed a date.’

‘Ah.’

They walked on a few paces. Then Madeleine said, ‘Shall you care to be married from Eden?’

Sophie hesitated. ‘Cornelius has suggested Parnassus.’

‘What a good idea,’ said Madeleine with an alacrity which gave Sophie a twinge of pain. ‘That makes much more sense,’ Madeleine went on without looking at her. ‘The house and grounds are so much bigger, and it’s far more convenient for people coming from town.’ She paused. ‘I wondered – there are still a few odds and ends of yours in the spare room. Shall I have them sent down, so that you can sort them out?’

‘If you would.’

‘I’ll see to it directly.’ She put on a brighter face. ‘I was so looking forward to seeing Alexander, but I understand he’s—’

‘In Kingston, yes. You see, we’d been planning on staying there a fortnight, but then I changed my mind, and he still had business to complete, so he had to go back.’ She knew she was talking too much, but this polite fencing was beginning to wear her down.

‘Sophie,’ said Madeleine, fiddling with her parasol, ‘you do love him, don’t you?’

Sophie was startled. She’d forgotten how direct her sister could be. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘It’s just that it seemed – well, rather sudden. So I wondered.’

‘I’m extremely fond of Alexander,’ said Sophie, and confirmed that with a smile.

‘Oh, Sophie.’

‘Why “Oh, Sophie”? It’s true. It really is.’ Then an unwelcome thought occurred to her. ‘I should perhaps mention – Alexander doesn’t know anything about Ben. I mean, he knows that I was – attached to Ben. But he doesn’t know anything about what happened – that night.’

Madeleine’s face had gone still. ‘I’m sure that’s for the best,’ she said, scarcely moving her lips.

‘I thought so too,’ said Sophie. ‘I just thought you should know. That’s all.’