Lady Savage

by Donna Lea Simpson

  Zazu referred to the peace accord many, many years before that allowed her ancestors to live free in the Blue Mountains in their townships in return for a cessation of hostilities between the plantation owners and the bothersome Maroons, who would raid supplies and stores from them, and offered a place for runaway slaves to live freely.

  “But my grandmother thought that I should learn all I could. She told me that there was something within me, a restlessness that would never be content with guarding the pigs and chickens, that the wide world only could satisfy my needs. My mother agreed, and so I walked down out of the mountains and came to you, of whom I had heard even among my people as a child of great promise.”

  “I didn’t know you knew of me before we met. How had you heard that?” Savina asked, eyes wide in the darkness that enveloped them.

  “One of your serving staff was friendly with our people. He was courting my aunt, and he would bring her things from time to time, a loaf of bread, an iron pot. He was the one who told my mother about the girlchild of the house where he was employed. He said this unusual girl would look him in the eye and ask him things, and would listen when he spoke.”

  “Just that?”

  “Among your people you must know how rare a thing that is. Even children are taught from infancy, I know now, that servants are not to be acknowledged directly except to give orders. Why were you so different?”

  Savina stared into the darkness and thought about it. “I don’t know. I didn’t realize then that I was different, only that I wanted to learn about people. Jamaica was new to me; I had never seen such dark skin before, and I thought it was beautiful. No one else would tell me why other people’s skin was dark, so I asked the servants. One in particular—perhaps the one who was courting your aunt—told me it was like hair color or eye color, just a part of who he was. That made sense to me. Given that, how could slavery be right, then, especially since our people only enslave those of dark skin? I’ve never understood it. Why, if slavery is all right, are there no white-skinned slaves?”

  “You are rare,” Zazu said with a low, dry chuckle. “Most of your people see the differences; you see the similarities. I knew that the moment I met you and you asked me if I would like a sweet cake. I barely understood your language, but cake . . . I knew that word! After I had been working for you for a year or so I took you back to meet my mother and grandmother. Do you remember?”

  “Of course I do; it was my one wish for my fifteenth birthday. It was thrilling!” Savina clutched her only covering, a thin blanket, to her chest. “How worried my father was, and how he was warned not to let me go, but I would not be denied. Though he was too nervous to go himself, he sent that young guardsman with us and felt somewhat better. Papa had been told so many stories of your people . . . when I think about it now, I still think it was a miracle he let me go at all. I wore him down with my whining. I’m sure he thought I would be frightened and turn back.”

  “He took me aside and told me to take care of you,” Zazu said, “for you were precious to him. I asked him if he wished to come, but he said he felt that his presence would only be a hindrance, and that a British official would cause some trouble for my people, if it was known he had visited them. I didn’t think he was nervous; I thought him a wise man.”

  “I didn’t know he had spoken to you, and I’m amazed he thought so profoundly. I think I’ve underestimated him in some respects.” Savina was silent for a long minute. “I still remember so vividly the trek up through the forest and into the Blue Mountains. Your grandmother and mother were very gracious, though, very hospitable.”

  “When grandmother met you she thought you were a tolerable backra, not so ugly as most.” Zazu laughed, a low husky sound in the night.

  “What is backra?” That was Annie, Lady Venture’s maid, joining in. It was clear that she was wide awake and had likely been listening in for some time in silence.

  “It is what my people call your people.”

  From the sound of Zazu’s voice Savina could tell she had turned over on her back, to share her stories with the young women on both sides of her.

  “Are you really a princess, Miss Zazu?”

  The maid’s breathless tone made Savina smile in the dark. So she was right; Annie had heard the whole conversation.

  “It is an old title and doesn’t mean anything among my people now. It is from the old country when we were Coromantee, not Maroon.”

  “Where was that? The old country?” Savina asked, surprised she had never thought to ask before. She knew some of the old history, that Zazu’s people were African and used to trade gold for copper with the Spanish but were tricked or conquered—it was not clear which—into traveling as slaves to the new world.

  “I sometimes looked at the maps in your father’s library,” Zazu admitted to Savina. “I think, from the stories, it is perhaps along the coast of the African continent, the large curve that juts into the ocean.”

  “I don’t know where Africa is. Is it across the ocean?” Annie said.

  “Very far,” Zazu said. “My mother,” she continued to Savina, “said you were good backra. The old woman in our village thought you had magic, and I should follow you to capture it. But I stayed at first not for that, but because I learned so much. So many books! After I learned to speak your language and to read, I thought I would stay until I had read all of the books in the library, and then I learned there were more books all the time, and I couldn’t think to go until I had learned more.”

  “And then you met Nelson,” Savina said, hastening the story back to her original question. “But still, you decided to go with me to England, knowing it might mean you never see Nelson again.”

  “Men are only one part of our lives, my grandmother said. They think women do nothing but think of babies and cooking and men—even Nelson thought so of women until I taught him my truth—but we know there is more. It was my turn, she said, to go out in the wide world and let them know there were people such as us in it.”

  Savina thought about Zazu’s words as Annie questioned her about the Maroons and her life as a child in the mountains. There was more to a woman’s life than babies and marriage. Among the ladies—the wives and daughters—of the governing officials of Jamaica it didn’t seem that there was more. From the time she was fifteen they were constantly talking to her about who she could marry, and how pretty she was, and how that would surely attract the gentlemen. When the earl had shown an interest in her soon after his arrival to manage his plantation, Tanager, they had done everything in their power to put the two together in suitable social situations and had counseled her as to her hairstyle, clothing and jewelry.

  And it had done what they hoped. She had felt the weight of all of their hopes and dreams on her shoulders when the earl had offered his hand in marriage, and had said yes, unwilling to disappoint such kindness as they had shown. It had pleased her father so, too, and she loved her father with all her heart. All he wanted out of what was left of his life, he said, was to see her well married and have grandchildren. He had been on the verge of marriage himself a couple of times in Jamaica, but always he had drawn back, and it was due to his concern for her, she thought, and his fear that a stepmother would not be acceptable for her. And so she had said yes to the earl’s proposal. To be part of the freeing of a hundred people would have been a noble thing, too, and something worth her life, she had thought, when she believed that Gaston-Reade had as his aim freedom for his workers.

  But now, on this island, it all seemed a sham. The deeds she had valued, the worth she had admired, were all Anthony Heywood’s. She would be married to a slave owner, and every guiding principle of her life compromised.

  She drifted to sleep as the other two whispered, and when she awoke as golden sunlight filtered through the canopy of palms and other trees, it was with a new determination. This awful, dangerous, arduous time was a gift. At the end of it, if they were rescued and safe, she would know if she could marry Lord Gaston-R
eade, or if it was worth damaging her reputation and risking her father’s deep unhappiness to break the engagement.

  Until that time her task was to help them survive.

  Her morning routine was, with Zazu, to prepare the papaya, coconut, plantains and other fruits that would be their simple breakfast. Zazu, thankfully, had an amazing recollection of the fruits, roots and nuts her mother and grandmother used to collect when she was a child, and so they wouldn’t starve, not with guava, hog plum, taro root, custard apple and star apples to eat on their little island. With rice, molasses and flour the American captain had given them and the fish and turtle meat from the sea, they would survive however long it took to either be rescued or find a way off the island. As much as some of the others complained—and that was mostly Lady Venture—she knew they were fortunate.

  It occurred to her, as she peeled a ripe custard apple, to wonder why, when she had been raised in luxury and with servants, she didn’t act as Lady Venture, who resolutely refused to do anything for herself. But even as a child she had been fascinated by the rhythm of the kitchen in their London house. Her mother, gone for twelve years now, was often busy in the stillroom, or managing the making of preserves, or discussing with their cook the week’s menu. Standing by the cook’s apron and stealing a piece of dough or a shred of carrot or a handful of raisins was her constant preoccupation. So when it was necessary, stepping in and taking over seemed natural.

  This was life: preparing food, collecting food, managing food. In Zazu’s village, she had witnessed firsthand a communal life with all of the women gathered and singing old songs as they prepared meals. Using the large knife that served so many capacities, she peeled the fruit and cut it into chunks; even the peelings were thrown into a pot to boil to enrich the day’s meals. The others rose, stretched, and disappeared to perform their morning ablutions, such as they were in such crude surroundings. Lord Gaston-Reade was the first back, and he glanced at her, then looked again. “Savina,” he said, his tone severe. “Your feet are bare.”

  “They have been for two days,” she said, not looking up from her task.

  “That is unseemly. Really, Savina,” he admonished, “just because we are living on this island does not mean we stray so far from our civilized mores. It is what separates us from the savages.”

  Zazu, returning from fetching some water, looked askance at him, then shook her head, poured the water in a pot, and began peeling plantains. Savina watched Gaston-Reade for a long minute, so correct in his jacket, even if the cuffs were filthy and the neckcloth stained. “And the savages are . . . ?”

  He frowned. “Don’t be deliberately obtuse, Savina, and mind your tone; you sounded very challenging just then.”

  She set the knife aside, stood, unbound her hair, shook it out and let it ripple down her back. She pushed up the sleeves of her dress and straightened her backbone, staring directly at him. Challenging? Perhaps. But she was a woman, not a child, and would never placate him again. She had pretended demureness for too long, and had been what the lady-wives of the Jamaican officials had taught her was her role, but it had never been hers. Now she would be herself. He stared at her, but then turned away without comment.

  She was not deluded; they must discuss their future sometime, and if it wasn’t that moment, it would merely wait until another day.

  The others gathered and ate breakfast, picking at the fruit, some complaining and others, in particular Mr. Barker and her own father, talking longingly about rashers of bacon, fresh eggs, ham and toast . . . piles of golden toast dripping with butter. Savina ate papaya as her stomach growled in unladylike complaint. She was dirty, exhausted and constantly hungry for food she could not have, but she was alive, and would never forget that simple fact and be grateful for it.

  Soon the fruit was devoured, but the group still sat variously on crates, barrels or the ground. Savina stood and cleared her throat. When the others looked up at her expectantly, she said, “I think we are all agreed that we don’t wish to stay here forever.”

  “Of course, Savina, dear,” her father said irritably.

  “But we are disagreed, some of us, as to our best chance for escape. Some of us believe that the American captain will keep his word and send help.” She heard Gaston-Reade snort, but charged on. “Some of us think we must take escape into our own hands. But regardless, I think we would all agree that we must cover every possibility if we want to get away from here.”

  “What is the meaning of this drivel, or is there a meaning?”

  Savina turned to Lady Venture, the speaker. “Do you agree that escaping this island is vital?”

  “Of course!”

  “And would you do anything to see that accomplished?”

  “Of course,” Lady Venture repeated, but more slowly, and with a distrusting eye on Savina.

  “It occurred to me last night that if the American captain did keep his word—and it must be admitted by everyone that that is a possibility—that a rescue ship may be on its way already. But how are they to know we’re here? I think we need a signal fire, day and night.”

  There was silence, but Savina could see that everyone was digesting the idea, and then several nodded, William Barker, for one, and her father for another. She noticed Anthony Heywood checking the others’ reactions as well, and then he met her eyes and nodded.

  “So, I think we all agree that it is important . . . vital, in fact. Flame at night and smoke during the day. Now we need to decide who is going to—”

  “Wait a moment, Savina,” her fiancé said, standing. “Rather good thought of yours. Now we need to figure out where best to put this signal fire, and I propose—”

  “You interrupted me,” Savina said calmly, though her heart was pounding and her hands shaking.

  “I beg your pardon?” he said, staring at her across the shadowed enclosure their tarpaulin afforded.

  “How impertinent,” Lady Venture said, clasping her hands together on her lap and squeezing them until her knuckles whitened. “Tell her, Bertie. She is getting entirely above herself.”

  “Shut up, Vennie,” he said.

  “Stop!” Savina felt a welcome spurt of anger bubble up within her. Anger was good. Anger always helped her be more bold. She glanced around at the others, Annie wide-eyed, Mr. William Barker the same, Zazu with a secret smile on her narrow face. Her father stared at her with alarm, and she faltered for a moment, but then took a deep breath. “We must work together. My proposal,” she said, “is that whoever is not busy should man the fire. Isn’t that fair?”

  Anthony Heywood, her secret confederate, murmured, “Couldn’t be more fair, I think. Mr. Roxeter? Do you not agree?”

  Looking befuddled but willing to go along with the group, Savina’s father nodded. “Sounds right, though Savina, dear, I didn’t like how you interrupted Lord Gaston-Reade just now.”

  “Who is not busy?” Savina said, unwilling to be diverted from her goal.

  Mr. William Barker finally spoke up. “His lordship, Mr. Roxeter and I are busy with the boat we are building. Going to take some time, since we haven’t even begun yet, you know.”

  “Hmm, and Mr. Heywood is busy procuring the fish and turtle and building our shelter stronger. Zazu and I, well . . . we have been doing just about everything else,” Savina said, with a long look at Lady Venture.

  “That leaves you,” William Barker said, looking at his fiancée. “You and Annie. Shall you have a go at it, my dearest dove?”

  “Of course not. I’ve never heard anything so absurd—”

  “Stop whining, Vennie,” Lord Gaston-Reade said, tossing his tin plate aside.

  “And I say,” Savina said, raising her voice to cover the murmuring that had broken out, “that the rock promontory is the best place. If the gentlemen can haul wood for her, Lady Venture and Annie will be well able to do the chore, at least for part of the time. Perhaps we can take turns at night,” she said, glancing from face to face, “for it wouldn’t be fair to expect L
ady Venture and Annie to do it all the hours of the day and night.”

  Lady Venture narrowed her eyes and glared at her future sister-in-law, but Savina, unwilling to be engaged in a feud, said, “Just think, my lady, you could be the one responsible for getting us rescued. What a marvelous thing that would be!”

  • • •

  A glorious rout, Tony reflected, as he secured the knife on his spear once more and checked that his knots would hold. It was vital they not lose their best knife, and so he checked and tightened the lashings constantly. Savina Roxeter’s final statement had served to cement the position as an important one and Lady Venture as its holder.

  He looked up from his task, and saw, on the opposite end of the beach on the other rocky promontory, the gentlemen piling wood and helping Lady Venture set up her bonfire. As he watched, Miss Savina and Miss Zazu strolled down the crescent-shaped beach between the two rocky projections, picking their way around scuttling crabs and rocky outcroppings. When they came to a silvery clean stretch of sand the maid stretched her dark, slim arms above her and quickly bent over, turning a sideways flip using her hands to catapult herself. Her mistress stood to one side and clapped, jumping up and down, her long, dark, silky hair dancing and fluttering on the ocean breeze and her skirt belling around her bare ankles and feet. Tony sat down on the rock and watched, enjoying the pantomime, as the young maid clearly tried to talk her mistress into trying the same action.

  Miss Roxeter glanced over her shoulder, up to where her fiancé was helping his sister set up the signal fire. Would she refuse, since he was watching her that moment?