Lady Savage

by Donna Lea Simpson

  “Of course,” Savina said, trying to fight back her distaste. “I’ve had turtle soup before. And Captain Gallagher had live turtles on board for the crossing; I saw the crew loading them.”

  Mr. Heywood nodded as he deposited the meat in the other pot. “I intend to try to catch fish, too, but this fellow wandered by, and it was too opportune to ignore. A gift from the sea.”

  Savina felt faintly ill, but Zazu was enthusiastic. “We will make turtle stew for dinner,” she said.

  “And I’ll have fish for you ladies tomorrow, I promise.”

  Lady Venture returned just then, sat down on one of the crates and said, “Is tea made?”

  “No, not yet,” Savina answered.

  Annie returned, too, and without hesitation picked up the brush and began brushing her mistress’s hair.

  “Annie will need some of that hot water for my toilette, first,” Lady Venture said, pointing at the pot of steaming water. “Get some Annie. I wish to wash.”

  Zazu stepped in front of the pot. “My lady forgets there are other people. Tea first, then washing.”

  Lady Venture slowly turned to face Zazu. “I don’t think I heard you correctly.”

  Savina stepped forward to support Zazu. “You know you did. Everyone wants some tea. There are eight of us, so you can wait to wash up until after breakfast.”

  “I cannot eat in this state,” she said, hands outstretched in distaste.

  Savina shrugged. “Then don’t eat. Or use cold water to wash. That’s what I did.”

  Anthony Heywood stood back and watched with a secretive smile on his face as he scruffed his fingers against the three-day growth of beard on his chin. Lord Gaston-Reade and William Barker came up the rough path from the beach to the camp just then, and Lady Venture turned to them and related, in highly colored expression and with enormous exaggeration, what had passed, and appealed to both for their support.

  William Barker said nothing, watching Gaston-Reade’s face, clearly uneasy at taking a position until he saw how the other man was going to decide.

  The earl said irritably, “Vennie, I want my breakfast. You can wash your face after, but if Zazu is going to make breakfast, I say let her.”

  Triumphant, Zazu and Savina went back to work, and tea and food was soon ready. Lady Venture merely picked at her food, trying to indicate her ire, no doubt, by her petulance. Savina rolled her eyes at Zazu and shrugged.

  “Tony,” Lord Gaston-Reade said as he finished his meal of fruit and fried pork, “I shall require you today. I wish to work out a map of where we may be, according to our position when we were taken off course by that storm.”

  Heywood glanced up at him. Savina watched, knowing the secretary had other plans that day for fishing, hunting, and securing their shelter.

  “Uh, certainly, sir,” he said. “But can it not wait until this evening? I have things—”

  “No, it can’t wait.”

  “I was thinking of getting some fish, sir, for dinner.”

  “Others can do that,” Gaston-Reade said, waving one hand. “Let Barker do it. You’ve fished before, Barker, have you not?”

  “Well, fly-fishing in Scotland, yes.”

  “Then you can fish. Go on . . . Tony and I have work to do.”

  Barker, mumbling under his breath, wandered off, with Lady Venture calling after him to bring back a lot of fish, as she was tired of pork.

  “He’s not very clever,” Gaston-Reade said, ignoring a gasp and glare from his sister.

  “I don’t think he’s unintelligent, sir,” Heywood said.

  Savina could hear the irritation in the secretary’s voice as the two men settled down with a wood crate as a table. Her father hovered, and she realized that he would have been delighted to be the one consulted, and with his knowledge of the area would likely have been a better fit for figuring out where they were. For Mr. Heywood had no prior knowledge of the place other than their sojourn on Gaston-Reade’s Jamaican sugar plantation for the last seven months.

  She sighed and turned her back on the scene. It was her experience that any suggestions she had ever made to her fiancé had been received with indulgence, a smile and forgetfulness.

  “Let’s get some water, Zazu,” she said, picking up the firkins.

  “Be careful, Savina,” her father said, glancing up from his position looking over the shoulders of the two younger men. “There may be wild animals, you know.”

  “Nothing but lizards, sir,” Anthony Heywood said, glancing up. He smiled at Savina. “And I don’t think Miss Roxeter would be frightened of a lizard.”

  “Attend to what I am explaining, Tony,” Gaston-Reade said, drawing a line on the wood crate with a black stone.

  “Yes, sir,” Heywood said and bent his head back over the crude map.

  The forest was lush, with palms and other tropicals competing for space with thick underbrush, but Anthony Heywood, using one of the large knives the American captain had allowed them, had already cut back some of the brush so there was a crude pathway to the freshwater source. The two young women picked their way through the brush, having to hold their skirts up with one hand and carrying the firkins in their other. Zazu led the way, as she knew where the lakes were.

  Birds flew overhead, calling to each other as they swooped from tree to tree, disturbed by the intruders. Along the way there were some flowers, and butterflies flitted among them. But as the path got more tangled, the two young women had to pay more attention to the walk and less to their surroundings.

  “Long skirts are a nuisance,” Savina said, disentangling the lace ruffle on the bottom of hers from a dead branch on the path and wincing at the ripping sound. “A sovereign’s worth of lace torn, there. Ah, well. Zazu, what are we going to do?” She glanced ahead at her maid, also picking her way carefully through the tangled undergrowth.

  “Do? What do you mean?”

  “Do. Here. On this wretched island.”

  “Survive, of course,” Zazu said, finally stopping and knotting her skirt so it would stay above her ankles and not interfere with the arduous hike through the scrub.

  “Will we be all right?” Savina followed Zazu’s lead in the way she knotted her skirt and then the two proceeded.

  They topped a low rise and looked over to a clear area where the two small inland “lakes” were. “These must be fed by rainwater, I suppose. Do you think, Zazu? I can’t imagine there would be a spring on such a tiny island.”

  “Perhaps,” Zazu said.

  “So,” Savina repeated, as they followed the slope to the edge of the tiny lake, a small flat pond fed from the larger pond, “do you think we’ll be all right?”

  “I think we will,” Zazu said. “There is water here, there is food in the sea and on the land.”

  “You’re so certain,” Savina said, watching her. Zazu was small-boned and delicate, but stronger than she looked, and determined. From the ladies of society in Spanish Town, Savina had learned that she should keep a distance between herself and her maid, making sure Zazu knew her place, but she had never been able to. Raised in isolation as she had been in her Jamaican home, with little company but what her father brought home from Spanish Town, her maid had become her friend, she realized, and she didn’t want it any other way. They picked their way around the edge of the small pond to the rivulet that connected the two. “How can you be so sure we’ll be all right?” She plunked down on a rocky outcropping and dipped one of the firkins in, setting it aside.

  “Is there any other choice?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “My people, when they escaped bondage and moved into the hills,” Zazu said, crouching on the mossy edge of the pool and running her hand through the water, “knew nothing about how to survive in the strange land their forefathers had been brought to in chains, but without even these things—pails, knives, pots—they made their way. And so shall we.”

  “You’re absolutely right.” Savina looked down at the warm water. It trickled fro
m the larger pool, over a shelf of mossy rocks and down to the lower pool. The rivulet, just a few feet long and sloped, was inviting. She glanced down at her shoes and the cool water, and pulled off her shoes and stockings. She set them aside.

  “What are you doing?” Zazu asked.

  “Perhaps Venture had the right idea,” Savina said, wading into the lower pool. “Come, we deserve this. The upper pool will be for drinking water, and the lower can be for bathing. You and I have worked as hard as anyone else. Harder than most.” Zazu pulled off her own shoes and stockings and joined her, and the two of them waded in the warm water. “Oh, that’s so much better!” Savina exclaimed, pulling her dirty skirts up and knotting them higher over her knees. She wiggled her poor pinched toes, then splashed some water at Zazu, who laughed and returned the favor.

  Then Savina pulled her ratted hair out of its clumsy bun and began yanking at the knots. For a while both women were too consumed with the wonder of feeling clean, and how simple a pleasure that was, to even speak. They rinsed their dirty skirt hems and wrung them out and sat on the edge of the pond for a while, feet luxuriously clean. Finally Savina sighed and said, “I suppose we should go back.”

  “Do you think Lord Gaston-Reade has figured out where we are yet?”

  Savina snickered, understanding the sarcasm that was veiled in Zazu’s careful words, though she knew she shouldn’t. She had to keep reminding herself she owed him respect, though that was getting increasingly hard to accord him when he offered her none in exchange. “He’s very tedious, isn’t he?”

  “But not as bad as his sister,” Zazu said, splashing her feet in the water. “That woman thinks only of herself.”

  “Venture is poisonous, isn’t she?” Savina said, frank for the first time in her life about what she thought.

  “But she doesn’t mean to be.”

  The quiet voice made both young women whirl around to find Annie standing behind them, gazing longingly at the fresh water. Savina was grateful that it wasn’t her future sister-in-law, and then realized it never would be, for Lady Venture was poorly named; she would never venture so far into the forest on her own.

  “Your mistress is cruel to you. How can you defend her?” Zazu asked, searching the expression of the young woman who stood above them.

  “My last position was much worse,” Annie said.

  “Sit, take your boots off and wash your feet,” Savina said, indicating a spot between them.

  “I shouldn’t,” Annie said with the hesitance that was so customary for her.

  “Yes, you should,” Zazu said with great firmness.

  “But my lady sent me to find you, to ask you why you hadn’t boiled more water yet for her toilette.”

  “I’m not her handmaiden, nor is Zazu,” Savina snapped. “Sit, Annie. You will better be able to serve your mistress if you’re more comfortable yourself.”

  That argument proved efficacious, and Savina had the pleasure of seeing the girl take her shoes and stockings off and paddle in the water. Soon, she was wading in the pool below the rivulet, holding her skirts up and winding them around her waist. She was a very pretty girl, plump and pink, with light brown hair as fine as silk.

  “What did you mean when you said Lady Venture was better than your last position?” Savina asked.

  “I was a maid at Langley Hall,” Annie said, naming one of the plantations near Jamaica’s northern shore. She glanced at Zazu and then dropped her gaze again, but her gaze was drawn back as though she was mesmerized. She approached the dark-skinned girl and said, “I heard that your people—those Maroons—are cannibals.”

  Savina gasped. Zazu’s dark eyes were wide with astonishment, but then her expression changed to a wide grin and she laughed out loud. “How my grandmother would laugh to hear that. She would say it is better for your people to think such things . . . then you do not roam into our mountains and bother us.”

  “I thought it wasn’t true,” Annie said with a shy smile. “You’re much too kind. You gave me a ginger bun once, when Lady Venture was visiting Mr. and Miss Roxeter. I was very hungry, for I hadn’t had time to eat that morning, and you noticed how pale I was and made me eat.”

  “You remember that?” Zazu asked. “I don’t remember at all.”

  The girl nodded. “It’s true. You made me sit down, have a bun and a cup of milk.”

  Savina watched her, thinking how bad her former position must have been to make Lady Venture’s treatment seem a relief. But as the girl continued her story, it came out that it was not her mistress at Langley Hall who was the trouble but her master, who would not leave her alone, and who was always trying to get her alone. She had been afraid she wasn’t going to be able to defend her virtue any longer, when Lady Venture, a guest at the house, found out and saved her by hiring her as her lady’s maid.

  “Venture did that?” Savina asked, amazed.

  “She did, that very day.”

  “Did she know you were unhappy?” Savina asked, thinking it was likely that Venture had been in need of a maid and decided to poach someone else’s staff.

  “She knew. And she took me with her so I wouldn’t have to spend another night under that roof. And she paid my former mistress a fee to take me away. I was so very grateful,” Annie said, her voice breaking.

  Perhaps Lady Venture was more complex than she had thought, Savina reflected. It had always seemed to her that her future sister-in-law was thoroughly spoiled and completely uncaring about anyone’s comfort but her own. But if the story was accurate—and surely it must be—then it revealed depths to Venture that she had yet to plumb. She shrugged and relegated the information to her list of things she thought about when she was bored. It was a conundrum, and she liked puzzles.

  Finally they all felt clean and refreshed and clambered back up the short rise, filled both firkins, and stood, overlooking the lovely spot.

  “I’m not putting these wretched shoes and stockings back on,” Savina declared, waving them with her free hand. “Even if it is rough walking back, it’s better than the torture of those leather caskets!”

  “Thank goodness,” Zazu sighed. “I won’t either, then.”

  Annie stared at them wide-eyed but sat down on the ground and slipped her own back on her damp, clean feet. “I wouldn’t dare do such a thing,” she said. “It wouldn’t be proper.”

  Savina glanced over at her suspiciously, but the maid seemed unaware that she was casting aspersions on the propriety of Savina and Zazu’s decision. The three made their way back to the camp, Savina relishing the unusual feeling of bare feet. There were a few tough moments on broken branches and slippery moss, but it was worth it for the unaccustomed feeling of freedom. She vowed to herself that she would go down to the beach later. She had always wondered what sand would feel like under her feet, and soon she would know.

  But their return was halted at the edge of the camp by the shouting they heard. Savina handed her pail of water to Annie and raced ahead to find Lord Gaston-Reade and his secretary facing each other, with Mr. William Barker standing off to the side, holding his hand away from him. Blood dripped from it.

  “What’s going on here?” she said, tossing her shoes and stockings aside and striding into the clearing near their tarpaulin.

  “Savina, you should not be here,” her fiancé said, pointing back the way she came. “I sent Venture away. It is not seemly for a lady to hear men arguing. Go, now!”

  “Fustian! Mr. Heywood,” she said, turning to the secretary. “What’s going on here? And why is no one helping Mr. Barker?” That fellow held his hand out with a pitiable expression on his pale face. She bent down, ripped a strip from the bottom of her now-clean skirt, and bound the cut on his hand to try to stop the bleeding.

  “Barker is fine,” Heywood said, irritation in his voice. He passed one hand over his sandy hair, took a deep breath, and calmed himself. “Miss Roxeter, it is a surface scrape.”

  “I cut it on a sharp shell,” Mr. Barker said with a plaintive
whine. “I was trying to grab a fish.”

  “Trying to grab a fish?” Savina shook her head. “But what was the shouting about?”

  “Tony is being difficult, Savina, and it is no business of yours,” her fiancé said, his beaky face set in an obstinate expression. His scruffy beard, a black shadow over his jaw and chin, made him look like a perturbed pirate. “I told you that you should retreat, and I meant it. Your father quite agreed and took Vennie off somewhere.”

  “I am not being difficult, sir,” Mr. Heywood said through gritted teeth. He folded his arms over his chest. “I said that I thought our tasks should be delegated to those who could best perform them. Mr. Barker clearly has no idea how to catch fish, and I do. He would be better here with you, figuring out your dratted map,” he said with an impatient gesture at the wooden crate with the crude outline of their position worked out on it.

  “Language, Tony! Do not curse in front of my fiancée!”

  “Enough, both of you,” Savina said as Zazu and Annie entered the camp. Both women went about their business, leaving the confrontation to Savina.

  “I’m going fishing,” Heywood said, taking the long knife and a length of rope and heading out of the camp, loping with long, furious strides.

  Ire in every line of his body and in his face, the earl stomped off in the opposite direction. The conflict was far from over, Savina realized. Far from over. It would likely brew, breaking out again in some other way. But at least there was peace for the time being.

  It was like the weather. In Jamaica they were entering hurricane season, that time of year when vast storms would cross the Atlantic and ravage the islands of the Caribbean. There was nothing on the horizon for now, but one could approach any time, and they would be wise, perhaps, to seek shelter deeper in the forest when one did cross their path. But she wouldn’t look for trouble. They would handle that if it happened; so it was with trouble among the castaways. Perhaps everyone would surprise her and learn to get along.

  The day was long but quiet. Mr. Barker was happily employed with cutting up the turtle meat and roasting it over the fire, as Savina and Zazu tried to make their home a little more comfortable for the night by getting more leaves and fronds for their beds. Savina’s father sat and talked with a cleaner and better-humored Lady Venture in the shade of the huge palms, as they canvassed what acquaintance they had in common and how the summer was proceeding in London. It was September, so some people would be coming back to town for the little Season, and there would be a few balls before people disappeared again to their estates for hunting and Christmas.