Island Queen

by Vanessa Riley

  Polk ran and brought one of the ornate carved chairs from the dining room.

  Cells sat and put me in his lap spreading his legs wide. If anything dropped, nothing would get caught.

  “Oh, Massa is going back to the slave field for this birth.”

  “Polk! Go!” Cells had a growl in his tone.

  His steward fled.

  “And Queen Cleopatra was known to do this, Dolly. I did a great deal of study when I lost my son.”

  “What!” I screamed again, part pain of the labor, part my surprise at Cells having a family. He never talked of one, never brought them here or to Montserrat. “Son? You had a boy and Mrs.?”

  “I lost everything when he died.”

  Everything meant all was lost. I felt for him, but the next tremor in my gut had me wiggling.

  “Don’t leave me, John Coseveldt Cells. Don’t talk about anything you see either. No gossip.”

  His fingers held about my belly. “I won’t, Dolly.”

  If embarrassment didn’t kill me, I’d live a long life.

  Yet nothing seemed more right than Cells holding me, being with me for this birth.

  Demerara 1771: New Feelings

  Polk picked up his fiddle and played it in the yard behind the kitchen. Sitting on the steps with the last of the day’s sun brightening the dusky sky, I admired the vast land of Cells’s Hermitage. His fields had cane, beautiful green shoots denser than all Montserrat. The red rich mineral soil here blessed him more than the ash-gray dirt of home.

  Cells made rum with his cane, not sugar. That seemed the right choice, one that would have been difficult in Catholic Montserrat.

  Good cane shouldn’t be for the devil’s liquor, they’d say.

  I missed the thick trees and hills, the outside worship of God. And the hymns. Cells sung to my baby Charlotte words to the hymn Mamaí had given to me and Kitty.

  Rop tú mo baile.

  Didn’t know what it meant, but it made being at the Hermitage feel right and holy.

  “Come on and dance, Miss Dolly.” Polk had taken off the ebony mantle he wore indoors, exposing a brilliant white shirt.

  Nice man. Full of life, his slick bald head perspired in the dry heat as he plucked that horsehair bow. I heard sorrow in his melody, then a peek at triumph—something distant and joyous.

  I didn’t know this tune, but I felt it gnawing at my gut, and I didn’t want just a peek at joy. I wanted it all.

  I’d started dreaming again, now that I knew Charlotte would live. My healthy baby loved music. She smiled as Kitty and I hummed over her in the beautiful mahogany cradle with filigreed sides that Cells offered.

  Kitty guarded Charlotte always.

  My sister was getting taller, but her mind didn’t dream, not like mine. She was still a little girl, still stuck in yesterday, the day before the horror of the Marketplace.

  My little swallow had begun to heal. She was a little more confident being outside, but I doubted I’d ever again see the bravery she possessed when she attacked Nicholas. Her sparkle had been stolen. I didn’t know how to get it back.

  “Come on now, Miss Dolly,” Polk called. “Kick up those heels.”

  Mrs. Randolph came out of the kitchen. “Leave her be. Jumping about in the heat will make her wilt.”

  “I’m not that delicate, ma’am, but the music is good.”

  The housekeeper, a fancy word for cook, washerwoman, and everything else to keep a house, was a tall woman with short-cropped curly hair. She seemed suspicious of me, always eyeing me when I took Cells his supper. She didn’t like when he and I had long talks about Demerara politics. She didn’t want me here at all.

  A few of the field hands and one of the young managers came up to this wide open space.

  Polk played and played.

  Soon, a crowd of people arrived from the fields and provision grounds. Everyone danced.

  Cells spent over the clothing allotment. Women wore the more costly linen than osnaburg. No one was without shoes.

  Some of his laborers were free, most weren’t. Yet free and enslaved all joined hands, jumping and laughing. Cells was a good owner, if there was ever a thing such as a good owner of men.

  Did these people not yearn for freedom? Many spent their leisure day fishing in Hobabo Creek beyond the fields, not trying to earn more money.

  Polk stomped his feet and played on, his tune loud, proud, and joyous.

  Was my tapping toe a traitor to what I knew? With a change in ownership or overseer all this perceived joy could go away.

  Wouldn’t I still be stupid and happy waiting on Pa, if not for Nicholas’s lusts?

  Mrs. Randolph picked up the scarf that fell from my braids and gave it to me. “With all the head swaying, maybe you should be dancing. You’re not feeling poorly?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m good.” A sigh left me as I retied my hair. “They all look happy.”

  Maybe it wasn’t my place to ask or cause trouble planting seeds when I myself wasn’t free, when I couldn’t provide for Kitty or Charlotte if I left Cells’s protection.

  Cells didn’t own me. But if Nicholas floated up that Demerari River—

  “Come on, girlie.”

  I jumped and almost fell off the steps when she touched my shoulder. “Mrs. Randolph, you frightened me.”

  “Your head was somewhere else. Are you sleeping more, now that the baby sleeps through the night?”

  “A little more, but it’s never enough.”

  She patted her hips to Polk’s rhythm. Her white apron with frills swung from side to side and her long gray skirt stayed full and fluffy. “You can’t sit like a bump on a log.” Mrs. Randolph stretched her bronzed hands to me. “Polk is cutting a fine fiddle. You work hard, now dance hard.”

  Linking my palms to hers, we twirled. Round and round, until my lungs were full, heady. The rhythm felt good.

  Except for the Egyptian wiggling I’d done to birth Charlotte, I hadn’t done much moving. It felt wrong since I did that in the brothels.

  Closing my eyes, I let the beat take over. The rhythm moved slow and silky along my skin, sweeping against my bosom, slipping to my thighs.

  We whirled faster. My fine hair fell out of my scarf again. It whipped and teased my nose.

  But this was joy.

  Who knew my body needed this? To be happy, I needed to feel a tune from my crown to my knowing toes. So much healing was in the tempo.

  The music stopped midspin.

  Gasps.

  Eyes moved to the kitchen door.

  Mrs. Randolph released me and I almost fell.

  “Mr. Cells,” she said smoothing her apron. “We didn’t think you’d be back this early.”

  Poking from his coconut-colored jacket were frilly white sleeves, the same hue as his long coconut-colored waistcoat. His tidy white pantaloons were tucked nicely at his stockings. He looked very elegant, elegant and stiff.

  “The meeting was abysmal, ma’am. I made my apologies early and headed out before the dinner.”

  He tapped his foot. His sleek black silk slippers held shiny silver buckles. Shame such pretty things hadn’t danced tonight.

  With a hand to his brow, he scanned the area, shaking his head toward Polk. “Such temptation here. And alas the temptation of smuggled champagne was not enough to keep me.”

  Champagne? I’d heard it was something the planters coveted. Yet, he returned to us.

  Descending the steps in a slow gait, he steepled his fingers against his lips. “This is what you all do while I’m away?”

  The air was silent until Polk laughed. “Massa, you know how you were when you were young.” He started plucking his fiddle. “You were wild and fun.”

  Cells wild? No.

  Polk began another rousing tune, faster than the last. He stopped and put the bow string to his side. “I suppose you prefer this.”

  The man plucked the fiddle, moving his nimble finger across the chords; the thing now purred. The music had no regular beat. I
t could be a hymn. Yes, definitely something for church.

  Then Polk bowed and spun like a puppet on string. His shirttails popped out. He looked like a rooster. “That’s the music of your parties, sir.”

  Cells’s face was blank, then he started to laugh. “You do a fine minuet, sir. I believe you missed your calling. You could be a virtuoso violinist.”

  He clapped slow and low at first, then it picked up speed. “Begin again. I’m not one to ruin a party.”

  Polk grinned, and there may have been a wicked gleam to his jet eyes. “Show us that fancy minuet, Massa.”

  “I’ll need a partner for that.”

  His gaze was on me, but he turned a little to Mrs. Randolph. “Do you remember the minuet, ma’am?”

  “I do, sir, but it’s a dance for you young people. Try Miss Dolly.”

  He made a gracious bow to the housekeeper then slipped back to me. “Shall we, Dolly? Polk, do add a little allemande in the end.”

  Tossing his jacket to Mrs. Randolph, he waved at me to follow and centered himself on the flat ground. “Are you up to this? Dancing with everyone looking?”

  The challenge in his voice was new. This was the second time he admitted to watching me dance in his study.

  “Well, Dolly?”

  I’d not miss anything that had him cheered. He’d started his day frowning in his letters at his breakfast table.

  “Yes, I’ll minuet with you.”

  “Good, do as I do but opposite. We are like a mirror, like two halves of the same. And when I draw near to you, you do the same.”

  That was an easy command. Life and death had bonded us. Mrs. Ben’s death mask was ours, and watching him raise up my Charlotte, fingering the spittle out of her mouth to make her breathe, proud like he was her pa—that should make us inseparable.

  “Wait.”

  His head tilted. “What?”

  I reached for the ebony ribbon tying his dark hair. It swung free like my braids. “Now, we are truly a mirror.”

  His locks were shoulder length and ready to move. “Start, Polk.”

  The music began, but the rhythm, and Cells’s haunted hazel eyes, had my heart racing.

  He stepped back. “Watch and mirror.”

  I didn’t need to be told that, not the way his cheeks flushed, not the way his gaze burned.

  Could he be mirroring my thoughts of me and him and holding each other? Then there wouldn’t be six feet between us.

  “Show me, Cells.”

  “You . . . you stay there. Watch my feet, do the opposite.”

  He crossed his heels and came forward like he walked suspended on a thin branch.

  I did the same.

  “I’ll stretch my hand to you, Dolly. Grasp it, but take it slow.”

  I did.

  Our fingers touched, and we spun.

  “Now, Dolly, we allemande.”

  Polk sped up the tune.

  Cells bent to me and grasped my fingers, rotating me like the figure eight, arm over arm.

  The beat matched my heart, thumping hard. One glance away from the heat of this man, I saw everyone dancing.

  His grip tightened and my attention went back to Cells.

  He knew I’d stopped concentrating, but he couldn’t guess that it would be better for us if I didn’t focus on him, the press of his lips.

  Everyone kept moving and spinning. The blue sky turned purple and red. It was fully dusk, and I didn’t want this to end.

  Fingers laced with his, drawing me to him . . . I wanted Cells, but for Kitty and Charlotte’s sake, I couldn’t afford to reach for this distant star and miss.

  “You’re a good dancer, Dolly. I’ll have to show you more sometime.”

  “Will it have more hand-holding like the allemande?”

  That half-smirky smile showed, then he released my palm. “Perhaps. I’ll be in my study working; bring me tea later when you finish here.”

  He bowed and wiped at his neck. He took his ribbon and jacket from Mrs. Randolph and went inside.

  The housekeeper clicked her tongue. “I’ll take him tea, Dolly. You go see about that newborn baby. Know your place and don’t go trying to elevate yourself.”

  Her gape could swallow me whole. I stopped in my steps. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Yet my traitorous toe tapped the new dance I’d learned.

  Mrs. Randolph saw the flame growing and burning in me. I wondered if Cells had, too.

  Demerara 1772: New Duties

  The music of angels filtered into my room, seeping beneath the crack in my door. The musicians for Cells’s party had started. This rhythm like Polk’s minuet had me swaying.

  My one-year-old, Charlotte, finally went to sleep, suckling her thumb. The perfect baby with big mammee apples for cheeks, round and pretty. She had Mamaí’s brown eyes. She was a little darker than Lizzy, or at least how I remembered her.

  A wave of sadness roared through me. My Lizzy turned three a few days ago. Almost two years had passed since I last kissed her cheeks.

  I wanted Charlotte and Lizzy to grow up together. I wanted Mamaí. I needed her to mother me and Kitty again. It was hard being a mother to my sister and my daughter.

  Kitty was still nine in her head, or maybe younger. Her conversation hadn’t grown up. At times it seemed she was stuck in the stocks at the Marketplace. Maybe she was when she closed her eyes.

  I had no right to tell someone how long to grieve, but I didn’t know if I was enough for my sister, that I’d done enough to help her grow and feel safe and want to live life outside our room.

  My dreams hadn’t left me. I wanted my own. I wanted to free us all and have a big house and land. Then Kitty could have the leisure of staying young forever.

  “Dolly, you look sad.” Kitty was on the floor playing with the polished wooden doll Cells bought her. It had moving rag arms and hinged knees. On its limbs hung the same boned corset and big-skirted petticoat that the massa of the Hermitage had given me to wear.

  I swung my hips from side to side. This dome-shaped cloth swallowed my thighs whole. My new dress was big. I think I liked big. No one would miss me when I entered a room. “I’m well, sis. I’m just getting used to all these clothes. I want to look right for him.”

  “You do. No fretting, Dolly. Tonight is Cells’s party,” she said. “You’ve practiced serving tea. You’ll be fine.”

  Tugging at my jet skirt and off-white tunic, I watched the fabric billow. Cells procured this specifically for me, nothing handed down. Procured was one of the new words he taught me in his study. He shared many in his readings to us when he returned from church on Sunday.

  An Anglican church, a building of wood and glass, not outdoors. He sought the English God like his British friends that arrived at the Hermitage tonight.

  “You look very pretty, Dolly. Finish up and come back and play with me.”

  “Thank you, Kitty, but I don’t know how long this will go.”

  I’d earned a chance to serve at one of his parties, not just spy on them from the kitchen. Cells trusted me, to allow me around these politicking fellows.

  That meant more than dressing pretty.

  I smoothed my starched apron. It made a snap sound as I tied the bands. “Kitty, you’re going to be good and watch Charlotte?”

  “Yes. No one will take her. Here, Dolly.” Kitty gave me a necklace. “I made it for you.”

  The cowrie shells were glossy, painted red and gold and strung on a thin strip of leather. It looked like Mamaí’s rosary beads that I prayed over, mentioning her, mentioning Lizzy. “It’s lovely, sis.”

  Cells’s other servers wore no jewelry, but I didn’t want to be like the rest.

  Putting on the necklace, I stared at my figure in the mirror. I wasn’t skin and bones. My bosom was thick. My waist showed again, small and tight. This outfit missed the curves of my hips and thighs.

  These colors, dull and dark, were dreary against my skin—it wasn’t right. The skirt had no print or stripes. This cou
ldn’t be how to fit into Cells’s world.

  Charlotte awoke and pulled herself up on the side of her crib. She blew me a gummy kiss. “Mama.”

  Such a pretty voice.

  Kitty leapt up. “She sounds like our mama. Like a hummingbird.”

  I fanned at my eyes. Charlotte sure did. Just like Mamaí.

  Not crying or dwelling in my sorrow, I forced a smile and looked down at Charlotte. “It looks like a tooth is going to come.”

  Wishing I had Mamaí’s knowledge of tinctures, I wanted to make something for Charlotte. I didn’t want her in pain.

  My baby lifted her arms, and I scooped her up and snuggled her close.

  “Will Mr. Cells read to us tonight?” Kitty asked. “When his party’s done?”

  “He . . . he will probably be too tired.”

  Kitty’s face held a frown, but it was a lot for her to look forward to Cells. Maybe my frets about my sister were just my own.

  Charlotte smiled and dribbled and blew air through her lips. I was sure my baby liked Cells reading to us too.

  “You were up late with Mrs. Randolph pressing tablecloths. You should be a part of the fun.”

  “No, Kitty. I work hard because I want to learn. Today, I serve. Someday it will be my party. I dream about us having a house like this.”

  “You should be a guest at this one. Mr. Cells should let you since you make him happy.”

  “He’s happy with my work. I have to earn our ransom. I need to earn a hundred and fifty pounds more than the fifty I’ve saved.”

  Bending over the cradle, I put my Charlotte down. “Kitty’s going to take care of you while I work.”

  “Work. Work.” Charlotte put her thumb in her mouth again.

  “Yes, your mother has to work. Thank you, Kitty.” I saluted her and went to the kitchen.

  Mrs. Randolph was tipping from this pot to that one. The smells. When Mamaí cooked in the owl house she used one big fired bowl and cooked such wonderful stews of salt pork and potatoes. This kitchen had dozens of bowls and pots, each offering hints of onions or rosemary or ginger, or roasted meats.

  Polk was in his spot by the cakes, fanning to keep the bugs away. “That planter’s widow will be here.”