Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier

Author:Daphne du Maurier [Lisa Evans]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 978-1-78319-385-1
Publisher: OBERON BOOKS Ltd
Published: 2013-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

Scene 15

Jamaica. Kitchen.

MARY enters quietly. Only sound is the clock ticking. MARY takes off her shawl, boots and wet socks and warms herself shivering by the fire. Clock strikes ten. Creak of door opening and a shaft of light as JOSS enters.

JOSS: (Hoarse whisper.) Who’s there? Why don’t you speak? (He looks at her without recognising her.) Put away that knife. Put it away, I tell you.

MARY’s eyes dart about looking for a weapon. She can find none in reach. JOSS creeps slowly towards her till his fingers nearly touch her face.

MARY: Uncle Joss it’s me.

JOSS: Mary? Where have they gone? Have you seen them?

MARY:You’ve made a mistake, there’s no one here but me. Aunt Patience is upstairs. Are you ill?

JOSS: (Looking round.) They can’t scare me. Dead men don’t harm the living. They’re blotted out, like a candle. That’s it, isn’t it, Mary?

MARY: Yes Uncle.

JOSS: The faces stand out like live things in the darkness. Go into the bar and fetch me some brandy.

He hands her the keys. Keeping an eye on him she leaves but exits up the stairs. No sooner up one step than he hears her.

Where are you going? I told you to fetch brandy!

MARY exits to the bar and brings the bottle to him. He looks at it but doesn’t drink. It’s cat and mouse time.

They pay gold for this up-country. And what do I pay? Not one damned bloody sixpence.

It’s a hard game Mary but they can’t catch me. I’m too cunning. There’s over a hundred of us now, working inland to the border from the coast. Here, come close, down here by my side, where I can talk to you. We ought to be partners you and I. I’m fond of you. You’ve got sense. Should have made you a boy. I shouldn’t drink.

I see things that never scare me when I’m sober. Damn it, Mary, I’ve killed men with my own hands and slept in my bed like a child.

But when I’m drunk I see their white-green faces staring at me, with their eyes eaten by fish, and some of them are torn, with the flesh hanging on their bones in ribbons. There was a woman once, Mary, she was clinging to a raft and she had a child in her arms. Her hair streaming down her back. The ship was loose in on the rocks you see, and the sea was as flat as your hand. They were all coming in alive, the whole bunch of them. She cried out to me to help her, and I smashed her face in with a stone. She fell back, her hands beating the raft. She let go of the child and I hit her again. I watched them drown in four feet of water. We were scared then. For the first time we hadn’t reckoned on the tide. In half an hour they’d be walking dry shod on the sand. We had to pelt at them all with stones, Mary, break their arms and legs.

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