Andrew Pepper - Kill-Devil and Water

‘I’ve heard of it.’

‘I had a long chat with a woman called Bertha. She used to work for you at the great house in Ginger Hill. Do you remember her?’

‘Bertha? What is this? A witch hunt? No, sir, I don’t recall a woman by that name. She may have worked for me but I’ve had hundreds of people in my employment and I don’t remember every single one.’

‘That’s interesting because she remembers you, and your brother Phillip. More than that, she remembers a night shortly after your wife died, when you sent the servants and your children away and…’

But Malvern wouldn’t listen to any more and gesticulated wildly to Knibb and the absent porters. Knibb broke off from his conversation and was joined at the high-chair by the two red-faced porters. ‘Take me home; this man is upsetting me. I didn’t seek out his company; he imposed himself on me and I want him removed from the building forthwith. Is that understood?’

Knibb stared at Pyke. ‘Will you do as the gentleman asks, sir?’

Pyke looked down at Malvern, who was trembling in his high-chair. ‘I’ve just returned from Jamaica. I’m afraid I have some bad news which I was trying to relay to Mr Malvern.’

Part of him wanted to stop, to turn around and leave without saying another word, but it was as if a squally wind had suddenly blown up behind him and was pushing him towards a destination irrespective of whether he wanted to go there or not.

‘What bad news?’ Knibb said, staring down at Malvern.

‘There was a terrible storm, the worst some people on the island had ever seen. It destroyed the great house at Ginger Hill and, I’m sorry to say, it killed his son Charles. A lawyer, Michael Pemberton, and a guest called William Alefounder also perished.’

Knibb stared at him, open mouthed. Pyke had already determined that neither he nor Malvern had heard about the deaths but correspondences from Jamaica, perhaps travelling on the same steamer Pyke had caught, would soon reach them.

Turning to leave, Knibb grabbed Pyke roughly by the arm. ‘Is it true, sir? Is his son really dead?’

‘I’m afraid it is.’

Knibb licked his lips, still trying to come to terms with what he’d just heard. ‘Just who are you, sir, and what business do you have here?’

‘I’ve already introduced myself to Malvern. I’ll let him explain everything to you.’

‘Just one minute, sir…’

But from the high-chair, they both heard Malvern mutter, ‘Charles? Charles can’t be dead. My daughter, Elizabeth, is bringing him home.’

‘You tell a father his son has died with all the compassion of delivering an order to the butcher. What kind of a man are you?’ Knibb stared into his face.

Pyke brushed Knibb’s hand from his arm. ‘Perhaps you should ask yourself whether you should be accepting gifts from a man who killed his own wife.’

Knibb stared aghast at Pyke’s departing figure while Malvern looked around him, like a boatman without oars.

Pyke took a few moments to assess the wreckage he’d caused, feeling no pride and little satisfaction in his handiwork. He had not only rubbed the man’s nose in his son’s death; he’d done so knowingly and with a degree of relish.

Outside, on the steps of the hall, he waited, exhausted. Perhaps he’d misread Silas Malvern and the situation. What the man had done years earlier, rightly or wrongly, had earned him the status of a monster in Pyke’s eyes, and he had drawn on these feelings to justify confronting him in such an abrupt manner. But he had now seen the man in the flesh and was beginning to have his doubts. What if the truth was not as he’d initially imagined? What if Malvern hadn’t killed his wife in the manner that Bertha had described? And what if the old man’s quest for forgiveness — to atone for his sins — was, in fact, well intended? More to the point, what if Malvern had told the truth? What if he was wholly innocent in the matter of the two murders?

As he stumbled down the steps, Pyke thought about the sins that he imagined Malvern had committed and weighed them against the lives he had taken; he wondered — once again — what gave him the right to judge people who were as flawed as he was.

The first thing Pyke had done, after returning from Jamaica, was to use some of the money he’d accrued from playing cards on board the steamer to rent a stout, terraced house in a respectable street in Pentonville. He’d gone to his uncle’s apartment early the next morning and surprised Felix and Jo with the news they would be moving into a new house immediately. He’d arranged for a wagon to take their possessions the mile or so to Pentonville, and later that day he had shown Jo, an excitable Felix and an even more excitable mastiff around their new lodgings. It hadn’t taken Felix long to forget the reason why he’d hated Pyke and, despite some tears at having to leave Godfrey, to whom he’d become very attached, he’d quickly come around to the new arrangement. It never failed to amaze Pyke how swift children were to forgive people and not dwell on the sins committed against them. Pyke had taken the largest bedroom at the front of the property, and Felix had chosen the slightly smaller room at the rear, overlooking the yard. The only awkward moment had been when Pyke had tried to persuade Jo to take the airy bedroom next to his. Jo had considered it for a while but when he’d given her no further encouragement, she’d opted for a much pokier bedroom on the top floor. Pyke’s clumsy attempt to give her enough money to hire a cook had only made matters worse and, later on, when he’d proposed taking a bottle of claret into the garden, after Felix had gone to bed, she had shaken her head and then left the room.

When Pyke arrived home after his confrontation with Silas Malvern, Jo and Felix were playing in the garden. For a while he watched them from the window, Felix squealing while Jo chased him across the yard. He thought about the news he’d just delivered to Silas Malvern. What would he do if someone told him that Felix had perished? It was, he recognised, one of his many failings; that he never quite saw the rich as being human and fallible in the same way that everyone else was. To distract himself from this thought, he took time to admire Jo’s pale complexion and unassuming beauty and found himself wondering, not for the first time, what a life with her might be like, and whether his feelings for her were a measure or a reflection of how much Felix adored her.

When Felix saw Pyke in the window, he ran inside to greet him and they chatted for a while about the birds and insects Pyke had seen in Jamaica and what Pyke intended to cook for them later. Pyke told Felix he was going to prepare a meat stew because he didn’t want the lad to see the rabbit he’d picked up and would have to skin. Jo hardly said a word throughout this conversation. Eventually Pyke managed to persuade Felix to go up to his room and begin unpacking his belongings, and when he heard Felix traipsing up the stairs, he went and joined Jo in the kitchen. She had a knife in her hand and had already started to skin the dead animal.

‘I was going to do that.’

Jo turned, suddenly wrenched from her thoughts. ‘You must be pleased. You’ve made Felix very happy.’

‘Godfrey told me that the boy’s behaviour was much improved during my absence.’ Pyke hesitated. ‘And he made no further attempts to pick old men’s pockets.’

‘Whatever you said to Felix before you left for Jamaica had the desired effect. I’d say he’s grown up a little.’ But Jo wouldn’t meet Pyke’s gaze and her manner with him was cold and formal.

Pyke waited for a moment. ‘And yet I seem to have made you unhappy at the same time.’

Jo put the knife down on the cutting board. ‘Do you want to know how I felt yesterday when we first arrived here? I felt like an old piece of your furniture being moved into your new house.’