Inheritance Feud

Chapter 43

Chapter 43

He waited; then stealthily, uncertain against what he might have to plan action-some animals here were tame, but not many, for the hunters and, of late years, the white man had taught them caution-rose and moved along the wall. The sound had come from one of the crocks near a corner. There were no windows in the store because of thieves, and the door was fast shut; only Theon in his blindness was at no dis advantage in the dark.

The sound came again, and he reached out; he was certain now that it was a human animal, probably a thief. A cry met him, as his fingers closed on a skinny, almost skeleton out thrust arm, a child's, he thought. Instantly teeth met in his hand; they wrestled, he and the skeleton, together for moments, and then he dragged the latter, sobbing, from its place of refuge in the corn-crock, shaking it briefly to the sound of scattered grains of Indian corn. Neither had spoken, but Theon cursed now aloud at the pain in his bitten hand; he could feel it running with blood. He was about to shout for aid, but as yet did not. He could, he felt, deal reasonably with one skeleton, pot-bellied with eating raw maize.

"Are there others of you?" he said clearly, still holding the child-he was certain now it was only a child-by the scruff. The boy was n***d. He whimpered, then struggled briefly and gave up. He'd seen all the men he knew, the men of the tribe, old as well as young, taken and hung in chains for the birds to pick. He'd dived among the corn early on and hidden from the soldiers. Stumbling, for he had almost forgotten how to speak this unseen guardian's tongue, he told Theon of it.

"Do not let them hang me!" He sketched a gesture with his emaciated finger across his throat; the whites of his eyes rolled upwards in the dark to where the strange, still figure of the white man waited. He knew it must be a white man because of the way he spoke. But why did he remain so still? Other whites shouted, strode about, were angry. The boy remembered them from the days of the brothel, the later days of the Comte. He bowed suddenly and said, "Je vous remercie, monsieur, you no let soldiers get me. I no hang." Suddenly he slid to his knees and gave way to sobbing. "I no hang? I no hang? Please."

Theon hid the boy till he himself could obtain clothes for him, a ragged shirt and a pair of breeches; he did not for a long time take to shoes. He padded about at Theon's heel thereafter, rapidly putting on flesh with the shared rations, and became the blind man's eyes in a number of ways; he could run errands, after instruction cook and mend; from the beginning keep watch, listen and report accurately; he could also steal, but after the undetected replacement of a watch of the Lieutenant Governor's, and the instruction that he most assuredly would hang after all if such doings were repeated here, the boy settled down to become a useful and, later, an indispensable servant to Theon. He grew out of the breeches, and then out of the shirt; he put on weight and inches almost to the extent of his unknown and putative sire, and in par ticular the privy organ, which Tilly's intervention had pre served entire, was of a size the bushmen themselves, Samson assured his master, had latterly regarded with astonishment: it was evident that he was, even so early, under the special eye of Dalamulun. He soon put the life in the tribal clearing behind him, but did not revert to his earlier origins; by now, he was the perfect white man's servant, and his feeling for Theon was unique, blending a protective understanding of the other's blindness with firm tolerance of the fact that they were slave and master, man and dog. Nobody asked where Theon had found the boy; it was assumed he came from the farms up-river, or else had been picked up from among the swarms of homeless children about the port, the sons and daughters of imported prostitutes. There was no longer any sign, or word, by now of Tilly and the boy never heard of her, or asked about her as far as anyone knew, again. The present was enough and he was happy, and could do more or less as he liked apart from carrying out Theon's orders. When Theon also bought himself the land up-river, it was Samson who acted as foreman there; under cultivation, with the corn cut and sold yearly, and the money which had mean time come from somewhere across seas, his master grew rich. When it became a question of selling the farm, and going back across the sea, there was no doubt that the blind man would take Samson with him now that he was free. And Samson, by now an impressive figure in his bespoke broadcloth coat and tricorne beaver, came; and here they were in a coach bound for Grattan, and he carried his duelling-pistols.

Nothing happened to them on the journey from highway men, accidents, or the like. Early next morning, with the sun gilding the empty road, they clattered into the village where the Fleece still slept across its cobbled yard, and drew up there, Theon instantly yelling for a groom. When the latter came out, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he bade him go and wake his master. "Tell Abel I want a shave, and some breakfast," he said, grinning like a boy. "Do it before you off the horses; then come back."

The groom's demeanour, which had been truculent, chan ged; this was a man who could call the landlord by his Christian name, and must be a respected person; perhaps much more. His faculties slowly recovering with the morning air, the young groom climbed to Abel's bedchamber, and shook him awake where he slept with his wife. Abel pulled on his breeches and came down, grumbling and still in his tasselled nightcap; when he saw who it was, with Theon by now stretching his legs in the yard, his expression was comical. "It-it can never be Theon Doon?" And he pulled off the

cap and stood turning it about between his hands, with the early sun shining on his black-fringed pate. Theon stood still, smiling. "How is it with you, Abel?" he said. "Do I disturb you too early? But I was always an inconvenient fellow, you know, though Aaron and Bart suffered more from me than you did."

"1-1-" Still Abel seemed devoid of words; then they burst out of him. "Theon, I can't but feel the heart glad in me to see you stand there again... I let the wife sleep on, not knowing who had come. She-she works hard, and it's not yet five of the clock. Have you told them what you'll eat? I have eggs, always, and a bite of home-cured ham and ... He bustled away to get the fire lit; Theon could hear him shortly, roaring for the maids to get up; what was it Abel had said about a wife? He could, despite his state, have been assumed to have married again by now, Theon thought out of the void which had been his, regarding any news. A cautious, slow, safe remarriage to some plump widow with a comfortable tocher; that would be Abel, and he wished him joy. His own face hardened with determination. As soon as Devenham's signature endorsed the lease, with Baron visited, and he himself set down in the Mains for the time with Sam son, and what they could scratch together for fare and fire, after the journey; after that, he'd set out, and if it took the rest of his days would find out what had become of Livia Millarch and her child. He had a notion Livia would have contrived some means of not being left abandoned, or roofless; unless and this was his greatest fear-she'd perhaps found her mother's people, and would be stravaiging with them now up and down the country, so that it might take years to find her again. But he'd find her; and when he'd found her, he'd take her away with him. Most likely the good lass was in service somewhere, though with a child at her hip it would have been hard to find a situation. The devil had been in it that he hadn't been able to write, or she to read; since blind ness had fallen upon him like a pall and he'd been sent, more dead than alive, in a stinking hulk chained beside Tom Neilson to the Antipodes, it had been like taking a new skin, painfully. But now he was himself again, except for the eyes; and he

had his plans.