Inheritance Feud

Chapter 59

Chapter 59

"Ah, but you will," he said, still smiling, and seized her; and subduing in the end her struggles, coldly as he had done all things regarding Hermione till now, he r***d her, while the water ran smoothly under the boat's keel. He was aware, through it all, of the constant sound of the water, heard latterly beyond Hermione's defeated sobbing. He could almost picture their location at sea. They must be somewhere within sight of Invale; could the Berrys see the vessel from the shore? He had given orders to Samson to hoist Hermione's mourning-gown, as a sign of what had taken place, from the mast. There would then be no doubt in the minds of the county, not even the most diehard among them, that Theon Doon must marry the publicly compromised widow of Mal vie; anything else would be unthinkable.

In his place on deck, Samson the mulatto went about his tasks. His stripping of Hermione recently had aroused no un due lasciviousness in him; she was his master's woman. He glanced briefly up at the masthead, where the purloined black gown already flew; then down again as sounds came faintly, as they had done for some time at first, from the cabin below. The woman had struggled, resisted, wept; but there could have been, Samson knew, in the end only one outcome. By now, the sounds had changed; his master was giving his woman pleasure. That was as it should be. Samson's mind, always detached, harked back to their years together in Port Jackson, when it had never, during all the latter period of the sentence when rules were less strict, been possible to interest Doon in a woman. Prostitutes, of the kind Samson's own mother had been, abounded in variety in Sydney Cove, since the released consignment of some years earlier; most had chosen not to return home. But Doon had been adamant. "Go down for yourself," he had told Samson on such occa sions, and it had begun to be said of Doon that he was a frigid man, a man perhaps secretly interested in men and boys; but Samson knew his tastes had never tended that way. Now -the coloured man smiled-his master had redeemed himself fully, first with Livia Judd and now this captive woman. Seated here at this moment, gazing past the Berry acres to Baron which still, beyond the intervening inlets, reared its towered head, Samson found that the renewed silence had a sated quality, not altered by the faintly commenced lapping of the tide about the great boat's sides. It was almost as if he had lain with the woman himself. Loving Doon as he did, they were no doubt in constant sympathy.

He stretched himself, and watched the evening fall grad ually on the sea. No sign of protest had yet come from the shore about the boat, with its hoisted garment; someone must have seen it by now; it meant they were either afraid, or bribed. As for the latter, all arrangements were long ago made at Baron, with some of their people working there already. Samson had, under previous orders from Doon himself, strictly instructed the men and women who had gradually been chosen to replace all original house-servants about the place. The stables themselves would now be in charge of young William, aided meantime by grooms: the sick old man himself could go out to the almshouses. Samson smiled; the little boy would be happy enough, thinking himself of import ance. Doon had stated that the other servants formerly in the house, including Sam, were each one to receive forty days' pay, as was the custom here, and to be out by the day after tomorrow, when Doon would bring home his bride. He was generous enough. Everything else had been thought of. "I don't want any of Devenham's servants about me," Doon had said, and it had been ensured that, of such as were still left, there would remain not one to welcome the bride. Samson was certain that he had carried out his own orders well.

He cast a line into the sea, having baited it with several tied hooks. The fish rose well and he was soon able to light a brazier in the sheltered place on deck, and cook enough for their supper, and the woman's too if she would eat. Presently Doon emerged, buttoning himself, tempted by the smell of baking fish, and ate his fill; he seemed cheerful and certain that, as he had foreseen, they would soon be in Baron, and he the laird of it. He indicated that the woman in the cabin would not eat yet; tomorrow, perhaps. He brought wine, and together they drank to Baron. Later, when Doon had drunk a good deal, he went back to the woman again; he would sleep with her, he said. Samson cleared away the remains of their meal and while doing so listened without lasting interest as regarded what passed again in the cabin; there were fewer of the sounds on this occasion, and no doubt the woman had decided not to resist longer. Women always acted so; they were predictable, manageable once their desires had been satisfied. Samson yawned, and having made all ready for the morning, settled down to his night's watch, with a single lan thorn burning.

Hermione irritated Theon by delaying his plans, a state of affairs he could seldom forgive. With her continued obstinacy, moreover, as the days went by, the possibility of a rescue grew. Theon had never discounted this, but had assumed that long before now Hermione, the pliable, the adoring of old days, would yield to his wishes, and marry him that he might own Baron and so redeem her reputation. But wax in his hands as she might still be, or had lately become, she would afterwards turn stubborn. He had never encountered so stubborn a woman. He used her, as Samson had heard him do and as he himself had foreseen and deliberately intended; he even beat her once, overcoming with impatience lest her prolonged resi stance prove the undoing of all of them, and a rope's end for himself instead of Baron. But still Hermione refused the marriage.