He thought about Mary Edgar and the way the skin around her eyes creased when she smiled. But he also thought about what she and Webb and Harper and Bertha and Sobers had done, or tried to do, and how close they were to realising their ambitions. He’d thought about little else in the month or so since Mary had departed on the steamer bound for Kingston.
‘It would appear we’ve reached an impasse, sir,’ Malvern said, sipping his cognac. ‘You see, I’m sufficiently curious about this new information you claim to have acquired regarding my daughter to at least consider your request, even if it comes at great personal cost to myself.’
‘But?’
‘But I can’t agree to honouring this agreement until I know more about the specific nature of your information.’
Pyke felt his stomach tighten. ‘Perhaps I could ask you a question, in the meantime?’
Malvern nodded.
‘What’s become of your intention to donate a tranche of land at Ginger Hill to Knibb’s church?’
‘I signed the papers before Knibb sailed for Jamaica.’
‘A hundred acres?’
Malvern hesitated, his eyes narrowing slightly. ‘More like fifty.’
‘ Like fifty, or fifty?’
‘Forty perhaps. No, definitely forty.’
Pyke contemplated what he’d just been told. ‘But the estate at Ginger Hill encompasses more than five hundred acres.’
‘That’s correct, sir.’
‘And you think that donating a paltry forty acres is enough to make up for the profits your family has accrued from the forced labour of slaves? That is your expression of remorse — forty acres?’
Malvern pulled his blanket up over his knees and took another sip of brandy. ‘I know you’ve visited the island, sir, and know a little of the challenges faced by planters and negroes alike. But you can’t simply tear down one system and replace it with another overnight. That takes time. Little by little change will come, and if the negroes show themselves capable and worthy of adjusting to their new circumstances as citizens of the Crown, more opportunities will come their way. But they will have to prove themselves first. Even Knibb would tell you the same thing.’
Pyke thought about Webb and Harper, but most of all about Mary Edgar. Had they proved themselves?
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me, sir. I’ve had a change of heart.’ Pyke stood up and looked down at Malvern’s face.
‘What do you mean, a change of heart?’
‘If you were to be seized by a sudden desire to unburden yourself to Mayne or Tilling, I for one would welcome it. But I see no further reason for continuing this conversation.’
He started to walk towards the door. Malvern tried to climb up from his chair but the act was beyond him. ‘What about your news of Elizabeth? What’s happened to her? You can’t leave me like this. Sir, I beg you.’
On the steps outside Malvern’s house, Pyke steadied himself against the stone column and watched a milkmaid pass by on the pavement, two metal churns balancing on either side of a wooden yoke. It was a cool, overcast day and the air smelled of wet leaves, but Pyke’s thoughts were not of the imminent change of season, nor even about the conversation he’d just had with a frail old man. Rather, he thought of a place high in the mountains where people grew their own food and lived in their own houses, and whether it was possible to commit terrible acts in the name of a general good — and still be able to face your own reflection without hating what you saw.