The White Witch of Rosehall

by Herbert G. De Lisser

  When he entered it, the boiling-house seemed like a corner of Hades. A three-roller sugar mill was in operation, a mill with three huge steel cylinders or rollers, into one end of which the cane was thrust, while out of the other end the extracted juice poured in a steady yellow stream through an iron gutter into large open receptacles, somewhat like great hollow globes cut in halves, which simmered and bubbled over fires on a long brick fireplace raised about two feet from the level of the ground. The two mills on Rosehall were worked by wind power and by steam; when the wind was light resort was had to steam, as on this night, and now the furnace was going and the heat it generated was infernal.

  The men and women were feeding the mill with cane and the furnace with fuel. The men were clothed, each in a pair of trousers only, their sweating black torsos and muscular arms glistening in the glare from the flames. Men were feeding the fires under the shallow cauldrons, or taches as they were called, and constantly the cry rose for ‘wood, more wood!’ With ladles whose handles were several feet long the attendants skimmed the boiling, pungent-sweet liquor from one tache to another, and the thick substance incessantly formed bubbles which burst as incessantly, flinging upwards a thick spray. The voice of the big negro headman, or foreman, who was in charge of the boiling-house that night, rapped out orders to the ladlers to ‘skim light!’ There was a continuous movement. There was a perpetual babbling of voices. What these commands meant, and why there should be such a tumult, in all that glare of flame and terrible heat, Robert could not for the life of him comprehend. He remained in the boiling-house for but a few minutes, noticing that no white man was in charge just then. The black headman was evidently a trusted and a competent man. Not for an instant had he ceased his labour of supervision and harsh commanding because of the unexpected advent of the new bookkeeper.

  Robert was glad to escape into the open air once more, which was delightfully cool at this hour. He went straight to his quarters, flung wide the only window it possessed, a window made of wooden slats or blinds, which permitted curious persons to peer into the room unimpeded as soon as it was open. That there might be inquisitive eyes gazing upon him did not matter to him in the least just then; indeed, he never thought of it. Thoroughly exhausted he tossed off his clothes, threw himself on the indifferent bed, and fell sound asleep.

  He was out of his room at eight o’clock. Burbridge had been up at daybreak and among the fields, he had had no night duty and therefore was expected to be at his work when the slaves should begin to take up their tasks. But he spared a moment to ride up and say a few words to Robert when the latter emerged after a very hasty breakfast; he told Robert what he was to do until further orders. The latter, still feeling an interest in what went on about him, despite his fatigue, had during the last hour been taking in the busy scene that was set out before his gaze. The cutting of the cane went merrily on, the loading of the carts, the unwearied shouting, just as he had seen and heard it yesterday. But now his more practised or more closely observant eyes noticed other things also. Under a great shade tree, a silk cotton, he saw little babies lying on heaps of trash or bits of spread cloth, with one or two women looking after them. There must have been twenty of these urchins, none of them more than two years old, most of them younger, and they lay on their backs and kicked their feet in the air, or rolled about, carefree with the irresponsible freedom of infancy. They were the children of women who were at work and who had brought them forth from their huts, according to custom, to where they might suckle them when necessary. Meanwhile the little ones were placed in the charge of a couple of women whose business it was to see that no harm came to them.

  There were some other children also, ranging in years from five to nine, and these were by no means idle. They ran about collecting bits of trash, which could be used in the furnace, and picking up cane leaves and other edible substances for the feeding of the hogs and the cattle of the estate. This was the Piccaninny Gang, the gang of minors, very young, but nevertheless useful, and over them was put an elderly woman, armed with a switch, whose duty consisted in seeing that the piccaninnies did not fail to do something towards defraying the cost of their keep.

  But Robert’s attention had been diverted from the antics of the children by some preparations which he saw being made not far away from where he was stationed. It was now nine o’clock; he was feeling somewhat fagged, and these preparations, the nature of which he fully understood, could not tend to an enlivening of his spirits. Burbridge had hastily told him that morning that three of the slaves were to be punished for misdemeanours, and one of these was a woman, the same girl he had saved from a whipping the day before. The slave-driver had reported her case to Mr. Ashman, giving his side of the story, and Mr. Ashman had decided that the girl deserved punishment. Robert suspected’ that his interference had had much to do with this decision; he was to be taught a lesson. This was, in fact, to be a sort of ceremonial punishment. There were some twenty persons assembled to witness it, clearly the more obstinate of the bondspeople. Burbridge and Ashman were on the spot. Robert had not been summoned, but from where he was he could see what passed with a fair degree of distinctness.

  The three culprits, backs exposed were awaiting their punishment. But there was, as it seemed to Robert, a deliberate procrastination. Suddenly he glimpsed a figure on horseback approaching from the Great House and attended by another; the riding was rapid and in a very little while he perceived that the first rider was a woman, white, and at once he knew who it must be. ‘Mrs. Palmer,’ he thought, and felt certain that at least there would be some palliation of the sentence of the unfortunate trio who stood in such abject attitudes anticipating their torture. The girl might even be spared. A woman surely would have some sympathy with her.

  The riders arrived, and the first was respectfully greeted by Ashman and Burbridge. The slaves around simply grovelled at the sight of her. Her face could not be distinctly seen by Robert, but he observed that her figure was slight and girlish, her long riding habit sweeping down below her shoes, her feathered beaver placed jauntily on her head. Her right hand held a riding whip. She sat her horse perfectly. He guessed from their attitudes that the condemned persons were beseeching her for mercy.

  He moved his horse a trifle nearer to the scene. No one paid any attention to him.

  He saw the lady nod to Ashman, who gave a signal.

  One of the men was seized and tied to a post, and a heavy whip rose and fell with a resounding whack on his skin. The wretch screamed out in fear as well as agony, a piercing scream that must have been heard a quarter of a mile away; but that had not the slightest effect upon the man who wielded the whip. Twenty times came down that terrible instrument; the full sentence was executed; and then came the other man’s turn.. Then it was the girl’s. Robert, forgetting that he was only an employee on the estate, and that on his father’s own property in Barbados a similar scene might at that very moment be taking place, dashed swiftly up to the group, though without quite knowing that he had done so or what he was going to say or do. He was given no opportunity to say or do anything.

  ‘Go back and watch those slaves load the wagon, Rutherford!’ sternly commanded the overseer. ‘What do you mean by leaving them when you were not sent for?’ The voice was arrogant, intolerably insolent, and, as Ashman ceased, Robert heard Mrs. Palmer say: ‘What is he doing here? He isn’t needed.’ She did not even glance at him. Her gaze was fixed on the trembling, weeping young woman, and Robert Rutherford realised that he could not possibly aid the girl and might even make her predicament worse if he dared to say a word. He noticed that the driver he had stopped from beating the girl the day before was the man in charge of the flogging. This man flashed an impudent, triumphant leer at him.

  He turned his horse and rode back, revolted, to his station. As he moved away he shuddered, for a long, terrible cry broke from the girl’s lips and continued until her flogging ceased, though only eight lashes were administered to her. She was flogged to her knees
.

  A wave of disgust swept through him. He was not squeamish; he lived in an age when labourers were treated harshly and callously; in England the men who worked in farm and field had a hard time of it: long hours, heavy labour, wretched remuneration; so that their position was sometimes contrasted with that of the West Indian slaves, to the ‘advantage of the latter. And soldiers and sailors were unmercifully whipped for trivial offences; the use of the whip was believed to be indispensable if discipline was to be maintained. But he himself had never seen a human being flogged before, and a woman at that; and the circumstance that another woman, young, of good breeding, and presumably of ordinary humane feelings, should stand by and see such punishment inflicted startled and shocked him. He knew that slavery was doomed. Emancipation had already been decreed; in a few years there would not be a single slave in these islands, and the bondsmen, aware of it, were now muttering ominously and showing every inclination to disobey their masters and rise in their own behalf. He had noticed something of this spirit in the nearby town of Montego Bay; he had heard about it from the rector; but here on this estate of Rosehall the evil, reckless spirit of former days seemed to manifest itself; the danger that threatened was ignored; here he was back in the eighteenth century instead of being in the early nineteenth. And a woman was the mistress of this estate.

  He had not seen the face of the mistress of Rosehall; only her figure. He had heard that she had looks to boast of, was beautiful; but he thought that her countenance must be hard, lined, cruel; that it must reflect a soul that delighted in suffering. Only a devil would willingly watch the agony of others as she had done, was the thought that ran in his mind.

  The punishment over, the group broke up, Mrs. Palmer, accompanied by the overseer and her negro attendant, riding off to some other part of the estate. She was evidently making an inspection. Burbridge went into the boiling-house; Robert again gave his attention to the task immediately before him. He perceived that the slaves around went about their work with a sullen, mordant air, now and then exchanging a remark with one another in an undertone; he had a feeling that they were dangerous, deadly, though held in strict subjection. He believed he understood now what was meant by a smouldering human volcano.

  Chapter Four—TWO WOMEN

  AN hour passed, and then he saw the mistress of the plantation returning. The sun was cruel now in the open, unsheltered landscape, although this was the cooler time of the year; but Mrs. Palmer did not seem to mind it. She rode easily with Ashman at her side. She was coming in Robert’s direction, but he kept his eyes fixed on the slaves who, aware of who was approaching, redoubled their efforts and began heaping cane into the wagons standing by the path. Not so had they toiled all that afternoon. The man on horseback, big and strong though he was, had for them nothing of the terror which the slim woman who was nearing them so evidently exercised.

  ‘Is this the new bookkeeper?’

  The question was asked in a clear, musical, carrying voice, a voice which, though not lifted, could yet be heard some distance away, a voice of rich quality and of decisive, vibrant, exquisite tones. Robert lifted his head and stared in its direction.

  It was as though an electric shock had passed through him. He found himself gazing into a pair of eyes which he thought the most wonderful he had ever seen. They were black and of a peculiar, penetrating brightness; they looked through you: gazing intently into them you became conscious of nothing else; they absorbed you. The brow above them, though partly hidden by the riding beaver, was broad and smooth, and smooth, glossy black hair covered the ears. The nose was slightly aquiline, suggesting strength of character, a disposition and a will and an ability to command; the mouth was small and full, the upper lip too full, the lower one a little blunt and hard. A fascinating mouth nevertheless, made for the luring of men; and under it was a rounded chin, well-marked, definite, strong.

  Her complexion was brilliant, her colouring indeed was part of the attractions of Annie Palmer and had not been affected by her rides in the sun of the West Indian tropics, probably because her horseback excursions were seldom taken in the bright sunlight. She sat upright on her horse; sitting thus, she appeared to be a mere girl, though her age was in reality thirty-one.

  ‘Yes, he came in yesterday,’ Robert heard the overseer say in answer to her question.

  He was conscious that Annie Palmer was scrutinising him closely, studying him feature by feature, as it were, sizing him up, calculating about him. She did so quite openly, in no way hesitating or abashed. She must have seen the impression her beauty made upon him, for she smiled a little smile of satisfaction and triumph, forgetting the bookkeeper and thinking only of the man. Ashman noticed this by-play, and a dark expression gathered on his brow. Ashman today was cleanly shaved, and anyone could see, in spite of his coarse mouth and insolent eyes, that he too was a handsome man. He was well-built, muscular, a masterful man and a quickly angry one. Anger showed now in his glance, in fists clenched upon reins and whip. But Robert did not notice it. Mrs. Palmer did.

  ‘Mr. Ashman,’ she remarked casually, ‘I will ride back to the house alone; you need not wait for me.’

  ‘But you will go over to Palmyra this afternoon, won’t you? There are some matters I should like you to see for yourself.’

  ‘I am not sure I shall go today.’

  ‘But you said you would, Mrs. Palmer. We arranged it on Saturday.’

  ‘And now I say I won’t’—a note of imperiousness crept into her voice—‘and that settles it. You can go over to Palmyra yourself after you have finished what you have to do here today. I will go another day. I’ll not keep you now any longer.’ She moved her horse slightly, so as to put the overseer behind her.

  He said nothing more, but stared one long moment at Robert. Not liking the man, and noticing the look, Robert returned the stare, and fancied that there was not only hate in it but also fear, distinctly fear. Yet why should an overseer be afraid of a mere bookkeeper? That would be to reverse completely the established order of things.

  Mr. Ashman touched his hat and rode off. Mrs. Palmer’s face broke into a brilliant smile as, to the surprise of Robert, she put out her hand to shake his. ‘Welcome to Rosehall,’ she said gaily, ‘though I wish you had come at some other time when I was not obliged to superintend the punishment of rebellious slaves.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he replied; but bewildered though he was, and fascinated, he could not help adding: ‘how rebellious?’

  ‘That is a long story, and I could not tell it to you here. You don’t know the difficulties we are having now with our people. Unless we inspire them with a proper dread they may rise at any moment and cut our throats. You look incredulous! Wait until you have been here a month. I suppose you think me cruel?’

  ‘It is not for me, your employee, to think you cruel or to think anything disrespectful about you,’ said Robert humbly. ‘That would be impertinence.’

  ‘Not in you!’

  Again he was surprised. They had just met, and, as mistress and bookkeeper, their positions were such poles apart that it was very condescending for her even to take ordinary notice of him. The usual course would have been for her to fling him orders, if she had any to give, through the medium of the overseer. Yet here was she talking to him on friendly, on familiar terms, as an equal, as though they had the same social footing. And she was smiling that dazzling smile of hers—what beautiful teeth she had!—and looking at him with a soft alluring look. He had expected in his youthful ardour to find strange adventures in Jamaica; but of a surety he had expected nothing whatever like this.

  ‘What is your first name?’ she asked, seeing that he made no comment on her last remark.

  ‘Robert. My full name is Robert Waddington Rutherford.’

  ‘A rather aristocratic appellation: I shall call you Robert. My name is Annie.’

  ‘I know, Mrs. Palmer.’

  ‘My name is Annie,’ she repeated, with playful insistence. ‘It isn’t a pretty name, is it?’


  Robert Rutherford was not only young but a gallant gentleman. He forgot all about his bookkeepership; it was the gallant and the fascinated youth who answered: ‘Not by any means as pretty as its bearer.’ He added, as she laughed delightedly: ‘But what name could be?’

  ‘Good, good!’ she cried. ‘I can see we are going to be excellent friends. But you are a flatterer, you know.’

  ‘Rather one who perhaps speaks the truth too boldly, but only the truth.’

  ‘Better and better! But you puzzled me, Robert. How is it that you came out here to be a nigger slave-driver? You don’t look the part.’ She eyed him swiftly up and down, noted that his appearance was rather that of a proprietor than of an underling.

  ‘I came out here to learn the planting business,’ he replied immediately. He forgot entirely that his purpose was not to be advertised abroad, lest it should interfere with his gaining of elementary knowledge and experience. ‘But the sun; surely you feel it, Mrs.—’

  ‘Annie,’ she interrupted. ‘Yes, I feel it, but I can stand it. Better than you, who are not used to it.’ Her voice fell a tone or two: ‘I thought, when I saw you a little while ago, that a man of your appearance was hardly cut out to be a bookkeeper; you are very handsome, Robert.’

  Abashed at this open compliment, Robert glanced round to see if it could possibly have been overheard; some of the slaves were quite near. She noticed his movement.