Petyr
Post Script: copied out and sent by letter to Stefan Franck this same evening. PVA
Port-au-Prince
Saint-Domingue
Dear Stefan,
It has been a full fortnight since I last wrote to you. How can I describe all that has taken place? I fear there is not time, my beloved friend-that my reprieve is short-yet I must write all of it. I must tell you what I have seen, what I have suffered, and what I have done.
It is late morning as I write this. I did sleep two hours upon my return to this inn. I have also eaten, but only that I may have a little strength. I hope and pray that the thing which has followed me here and tormented me on the long road from Maye Faire has at last returned to the witch who sent it after me, to drive me mad and destroy me, which I have not allowed it to do.
Stefan, if the fiend has not been defeated if the assault upon me is renewed with mortal vigor, I shall break off my narrative and give you the most important elements in simple sentences and close and seal this letter away in my iron box. I have already this very morning spoken to the innkeeper, that in the event of my demise he is to see that this box reaches Amsterdam. I have also spoken with a local agent here, cousin and friend to our agent in Marseille, and he is instructed to ask for the box.
Allow me to say, however, that on account of my appearance these two men believe me to be a madman. Only my gold commanded their attention, and they have been promised a rich reward upon delivery of the box and this letter into your hands.
Stefan, you were right in all your warnings and presentiments. I am sunk now deeper and deeper into this evil; I am beyond redemption. I should have come home to you. For the second time in my life I know the bitterness of regret.
I am now scarcely alive. My clothes are in tatters, my shoes broken and useless, my hands scratched by thorns. My head aches from my long night of running through darkness. But there is no time to rest further. I dare not leave by ship this very hour, for if the thing means to come after me, it will do it here or at sea. And it is better that it make its assault on land so that my iron box will not be lost.
I must use what time I have left to recount all that has taken place …
… It was early evening on the day I last wrote to you when I left this place. I had dressed in my finest clothes and went down to meet the coach at the appointed time. All that I had seen in the streets of Port-au-Prince had prepared me for a splendid equipage, yet this surpassed my imaginings, being an exquisite glass carriage with footman, coachmen, and two armed guards on horseback, all of them black Africans, in full livery with powdered wigs and satin clothes.
The journey into the hills was most pleasant, the sky overhead stacked with high white clouds and the hills themselves covered with beautiful woodland and fine colonial dwellings, many surrounded by flowers, and the banana trees which grow here in abundance.
I do not think you can imagine the lushness of this landscape, for the tenderest hot house blooms grow here in wild profusion all year round. Great clumps of banana trees rise up everywhere. And so do giant red flowers upon slender stems which grow as high as trees.
No less enchanting were the sudden glimpses of the distant blue sea. If there is any sea as blue as the Caribbean I have never beheld it, and when it is seen at twilight, it is most spectacular, but then you will hear more of this later, for I have had much time to contemplate the color of this sea.
On the road I also passed two smaller plantation houses, very pleasing structures, set back from the road behind great gardens. And also just beside a small river, a graveyard laid out with fine marble monuments inscribed with French names. As we went very slowly over the little bridge I had time to contemplate it, and think about those who had come to live and die in this savage land.
I speak of these things for two reasons, the important one to state now being that my senses were lulled by the beauties I saw on this journey, and by the heavy moist twilight, and by the long stretch of tended fields and the sudden spectacle of Charlotte’s plantation house before me, grander than any I had beheld, at the end of a paved road.
It is a giant colonial-style mansion, and by that I mean it has a great pitched roof with many dormers, and beneath there are porches stretching the length of it, supported by mud-brick columns which have been plastered over to look not unlike marble.
All of its many windows extend to the floor and are decorated with very green wooden shutters which can be bolted both against enemy attack and against storms.
A heady profusion of light came from the place as we approached. Never have I seen so many candles, not even at the French court. Lanterns were hung in the branches of the trees. As we drew nearer. I saw that every window was open to the porches both above and below, and I could see the chandeliers and the fine furnishings, and other bits of color gleaming in the dark.
So distracted was I by all this, that with a start I beheld the lady of the house, come out to the garden gate to see me, and standing among the many flowers, waiting, her lemon-colored satin dress very like the soft blooms that surrounded her, her eyes fixing me harshly and perhaps coldly in her young and tender face so that she appeared, if you can see it, a tall and angry child.
As I climbed down with the aid of the footman onto the purple flags, she drew closer, and only then did I judge her full height to be great for a woman, though she was much smaller than I.
Fair-haired and beautiful I found her, and so would anyone else looking at her, but the descriptions of her could not prepare me for the picture she presented. Ah, if Rembrandt had ever seen her, he would have painted her. So young yet so like hard metal. Very richly dressed she was, her gown ornamented with lace and pearls and displaying a high full bosom, half naked one might say, and her arms were beautifully shaped in their tight lace- trimmed sleeves.
Ah, I linger on every detail for I seek to understand my own weakness, and that you may forgive it. I am mad, Stefan, mad over what I have done. But please, when you and the others judge me, consider all that I have written here.
It seemed as we faced each other that something silent and frightening passed between us. This woman, her face sweet and youthful almost to an absurdity of tender cheeks and lips and large innocent blue eyes, studied me as if a very different soul lurked within her, old and wise. Her beauty worked like a spell upon me. I stared foolishly at her long neck, and at the tender slope of her shoulders and again at her shapely arms.
It struck me stupidly that it would be sweet to press my thumbs into the softness of her arms. And it did seem to me that she regarded me very much as her mother had regarded me many year ago, when in the Scottish inn I had fought the devil of her beauty not to ravage her there.
“Ah, so, Petyr van Abel,” she said to me in English and with a touch of the Scottish to it, “you have come.” I swear to you, Stefan, it was Deborah’s youthful voice. How much they must have spoken together in English, why, it might have been a secret language for them.
“My child,” I answered, in the same language, “thank you for receiving me. I have made a long journey to see you, but nothing could have kept me away.”
But all the while she was coldly taking my measure, as surely as if I were a slave on the auction block, not disguising her appraisal as I had taken pains to disguise mine. And I was shocked by what I saw in her face, a thin nose and deep-set eyes, for all their size very like my own. Cheeks a little low and full, very like my own. And her hair, though it was a glorious mane of pale gold, brushed straight back from her forehead and held in place by a great jeweled comb, in color and texture very like my own.
A great sadness consumed me. She was my daughter. I knew that she was. And there came to me again that terrible regret I had known in Montcleve. I saw my Deborah, a broken puppet of white wax on the stones before the church of Saint-Michel.
Perhaps my sadness was felt by Charlotte, for a shadow fell over her countenance, and she seemed determined to defy this feeling as she spoke:
“You are as handsome as my mother told me,” she said, half musing, and half under her breath and with a
