Andrew Pepper - Kill-Devil and Water

‘Frightened?’

‘It’s nothing that should concern you.’ Malvern tried to smile but Pyke could tell he’d realised his mistake.

‘I’m thinking about making you an offer for the estate. Anything and everything about the place concerns me.’

Malvern picked up his coffee and took another sip. ‘There’s this primitive slave religion called Obeah. It’s superstitious nonsense, you understand; a kind of black magic. Obeah men and women are said to be able to summon the spirits of the dead. One of these figures set out to ruin the happiness I was beginning to enjoy with my fiancee. I could see that it was all in her mind, but eventually it got too much for her. They’d leave bloodied feathers, chicken legs, parrots’ beaks in her bed, that kind of thing. I tried to make her see it for what it was but even though she’s educated and has read more widely than I have, she told me she couldn’t stay here. That’s when we first talked about settling in England. I tried to talk her out of it, of course. I know the place. I was schooled at Harrow and spent much of my adolescence there; a cold, dreary country, nothing to recommend it. But she’d read about England in the novels of Jane Austen — that’s what she imagined it would be like, and who was I to try to convince her otherwise?’

‘And so you decided to send her ahead of you to London,’ Pyke said, trying to keep his tone neutral, ‘to stay with your family perhaps?’ But he was thinking about what the captain of the Island Queen, McQuillan, had said about Mary Edgar: that she had the ability to commune with the dead. Would such a person, in turn, really be frightened of a parrot’s beak or cat’s paw?

This made Malvern sit up in his chair. ‘My family?’ His face was damp with perspiration. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’

‘I thought you told me that your father and sister had relocated to England as well.’ It was something Malvern had mentioned the previous night over dinner.

‘Mr Squires, I mean Monty…’ Blood was vivid in Malvern’s cheeks. ‘My father helped to build this estate into what it is today and, in the end, he earned the respect of the slaves who worked here. In turn, he came to appreciate their grudging work ethic and loyalty. But do you really think he would ever consent to me, his heir and only son, marrying a mulatto girl? Enjoy carnal relations with her, perhaps, but marry? Never. He’d string me up before allowing it to happen.’

Pyke considered what he’d just been told and whether it implicated Silas Malvern in Mary Edgar’s murder. What if the old man had found out about the proposed marriage? What if he’d told Elizabeth and she’d tried to frighten Mary off using Jemmy Crane? What if all of that had failed?

‘Then surely you’re taking a risk,’ Pyke said, as though the thought had just come to him, ‘by planning to marry in the city where he now lives?’

‘But he doesn’t know about the engagement. He doesn’t even know Mary is in London,’ Malvern said, puzzled. ‘I’m hoping that when we finally do marry, he’ll come to accept us. I mean, he’ll have to, won’t he?’ Malvern’s naivety was both endearing and pathetic.

‘So you’ve made arrangements for her to stay with friends until you’re able to conclude your affairs here and join her in London?’ Pyke did his best to suppress an urge to ask Malvern directly about William Alefounder, whether he’d stayed at the great house and, if so, whether he’d shown any interest in Mary.

Malvern looked at him quizzically, perhaps taken aback by the personal nature of the question. ‘My godfather was happy to take her in and will look after her for as long as is required. You see, Uncle William lives on his own in a large house in Mayfair.’

Pyke took note of this detail. It explained why Mary had asked McQuillan about that part of the city but didn’t begin to shed light on why she’d also taken a room at the lodging house on the Ratcliff Highway. ‘I’m pleased for your sake this man is more enlightened than your father.’

‘He just wants me to be happy. I wrote to him and explained the problem towards the end of last year. Indeed, it was his idea. And I know for a fact he won’t say a word about it to my father.’ Malvern looked over at Pyke, frowning. ‘Anyway, why are you so interested in my personal affairs? They have no bearing on the status of Ginger Hill.’

Pemberton had just stepped out on to the veranda.

‘If I’m buying anything — a horse, a house, an estate — I want to know exactly why the seller is willing to give it up,’ Pyke said. ‘In this instance, if my questions have been of too personal a nature, forgive me. But for my own peace of mind, I needed to ask them.’ He stood up and left the two men to discuss their affairs.

Pyke found his horse at the stables. It had been fed and watered after the long ride up from the town and, having saddled it himself, he mounted the docile creature and urged it into a canter with a kick of his boots. From the stables, he followed the flint track down the hill to where a stone bridge crossed the river; there, next to the river, was the boiling house, a larger building than he’d been expecting. It looked deserted but Pyke didn’t stop to check. A little farther up the hill on the other side of the river was the grinding house, a slightly smaller building, again made of stone, which was connected to the boiling house via a wedge-shaped trough. As Pyke understood it, the freshly cut cane was ground using vertical iron rollers powered by a waterwheel. The cane juice then ran down the trough into the boiling house, where it was rinsed, skimmed and emptied into copper vats; there it was boiled down into raw sugar and the skimmed molasses was turned into rum. But there was no one working in either of the buildings, and the whole place felt like a cemetery. As he rode up the hill into the fields on the plateau above the river, Pyke thought about the dilemma facing Malvern — pay a higher wage or risk losing the whole crop — and wondered why the planter hadn’t compromised in the short term. It seemed Malvern had been badly advised, and Pyke wondered whether the attorney really did have his best interests at heart. He also thought about what Malvern had just told him about Mary Edgar, and how distraught the planter would be when he learned about her fate.

There were more clouds in the sky than there had been the day before and the air was more humid. Pyke had ridden deep into the cane fields and the ripe canes, seven or eight feet tall, swayed in the gentle breeze. About a mile or so farther along the track, he heard some voices and then caught sight of Pemberton slouched on his grey horse, staring idly into the distance. Pyke didn’t think the attorney had seen him and climbed down from his own horse, tying the reins around a cotton tree. He hadn’t seen a single field hand anywhere during his ride and was therefore surprised to see a crew of about twelve men, all black, sitting under the shade of a giant mango tree, talking freely with one another and laughing. Pyke didn’t want to draw attention to his hiding place and so didn’t risk getting close enough to hear what they were talking about, but in all the time he watched them, they didn’t move from their spot, and Pemberton, for all his rhetoric about ‘nigger knocking’, didn’t make them. Certainly no one seemed too interested in the ripe cane plants and, from what Pyke could see, none of the surrounding fields had been harvested.

Back at the stables, Dalling was waiting for him. He was leaning against the gate, with a blade of grass in his mouth.

‘I was wondering if you’d thought any more about the conversation we had last night?’

‘I don’t carry that amount of money around with me.’

Dalling offered Pyke a lazy smile. ‘Don’t insult my intelligence. You strike me as a resourceful fellow. Go out and be resourceful.’