Coromandel! by John Masters

back, but it was too long. She felt the night air cold in her teeth and saw the poacher’s knife in Jason’s hand, and saw it strike down into her brother’s back. Hugo’s eyes widened, and Jason caught him and eased him to the floor. What was the matter with him? But Jason’s hand glowed red as nightshade berries, and the blade of his knife dripped red on to the red carpet, and the pool of red widened under her brother’s back, and his eyes stared, amazed, at the carved ceiling.
    Jason bent and put his hand on Hugo’s heart. He straightened up and said, ‘I’ve killed him.’ Then, slowly: ‘Better him than you. Did I have to kill him?’
    He shut the door with care. She said, ‘Hugo, my brother.’ She knelt down and looked into his face, and put out her hand to touch him, but dared not. It was her fault too that he lay dead on her carpet, because she had been wicked enough to fall in love with Jason and to wish that Jason would protect her against Hugo’s anger.
    She felt wild, deep breaths of air fighting down into her lungs, and the room and Jason’s face and Hugo’s dead eyes blurred together. Then Jason’s hands were on her wrists. He said, ‘Be still, darling Jane. We can reach my father’s farm in twenty minutes. Molly will help, and we can get the horses ready in ten more. By morning we can be past Salisbury if we ride hard. If you have any money, get it. Dress quickly, my dear love. We’ll take the first ship.’
    How could he speak of that now? Everything was changed, and her hopes lying as dead as Hugo at her feet. She saw the poverty of Jason’s clothes, and behind him the silk dresses in her wardrobe. She blurted, ‘Jason, please, please don’t tell them I asked you here.’ She burst into a passion of tears.
    She heard Jason speaking gently, insistently, to her, as though she were a child who had not understood. ‘We’re going to get married as soon as we can. But we must go away quickly now.’
    Slowly she collected herself. Being almost numb with shock, she spoke her thoughts clearly and simply. She said, ‘I don’t want to go away with you. I love you, but I don’t want to live under a hedge all my life.’
    Jason was silent for a long time, still holding her wrists.
    There was blood on her now, but she could not pull her hand away. She watched him, and he seemed to be looking round her room--into the wardrobe, aglitter with the fold and drape of brocade; out of the window, where, hidden in the night, her father’s land lay wide under the rain. At last he said, ‘Would I give up this for Coromandel? When you said you’d marry me if your father agreed, I felt suddenly as though you’d given me a heavy weight to carry. Then Hugo came in--and I murdered him.’
    She found her eyes fixed now on Hugo’s face. She said, ‘Not murder. He was trying to kill you.’
    Jason said, ‘I could have disarmed him, wounded him. But I killed him--as I nearly killed you. So now I have to go. Am I mad to think it happened like that?’
    She looked up, startled, and he said quickly, ‘Give me an hour. Then scream and tell them Hugo found me robbing your room. Tell them it was a fair fight, though.’
    She felt his lips on her eyelids, then watched as he picked up the wonderful picture book, opened the door, and left her.
    She sat down slowly on the bed and looked at her brother. Even now she could go with Jason into the rainy world if she had the courage. His eyes glowed before her, the fire of his strange enthusiasms warmed her, his lips searched hers. Even now . . . She rolled over on her face and began to cry deep in her chest--the tears of a woman, not of a girl.
     
    Jason thought briefly of Hugo. He was sorry he had killed him, but the deed did not seem so terrible as the thought of Jane’s unhappiness. Had he caused that too? He could not think of it now.
    He must go now to Mary, because she had been kind to him. He ran quickly down the lane beside the churchyard wall in the rain. He