Freedom's Banner

by Freedom's Banner (retail) (epub)

  Freedom’s Banner

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Disclaimer

  Epigraph

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Part Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Part Three

  Interlude

  Part Four

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Copyright

  This book you are about to read is a product of its time. It depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that were common place in western society. While the following does not represent Canelo’s view of today’s society, this book is being presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.

  ‘Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn but flying,

  Streams like the thunderstorm against the wind…’

  BYRON, Childe Harold

  Part One

  Bath, England

  1860

  Chapter One

  It was a certain fact, an exasperated Constance Barlowe reflected, that Mattie Henderson was one of those unfortunate people who could drive a saint to distraction without the batting of an eyelid or the lifting of a finger. Surreptitiously she adjusted her shawl to cover the stain on her green silk where baby Nicholas had dribbled that morning, tucked a few strands of mousy hair back up inside her neat-fitting bonnet, and attempted to conduct amiable conversation whilst fixing aggrieved eyes upon her cousin, willing her to smile, to chatter, to laugh, as those about her were politely smiling, chattering and laughing.

  Mattie, sitting with a group of younger folk in the pleasant, dappled shade of a small birch grove a few yards away, did not notice the look. Mattie indeed did not appear to be noticing anything. Constance breathed a small, long-suffering sigh. What in the name of heaven did the girl think she was about?

  Around them the summer air twittered with the light, untroubled sound of voices. Sitting poised and straight-backed upon the wrought-iron garden seat next to Mattie, Sally Brittan fluttered her fan becomingly and chattered like a jay at a tall, thin-faced young man who stood beside her, his head with its large, sun-reddened ears bent dutifully to her. Every now and again he fingered his stiff collar as if it were choking him and a prominent Adam’s apple bobbed disconcertingly as he attempted to edge the odd word into the one-sided conversation. On the grass at Mattie’s feet that little hussy Alice Thompson, her pink skirt spread like the petals of a full-blown peony, her face bright with laughter, was openly – one might even say brazenly – teasing the young Hopley lad. Now there was a match that would be made by the end of the month, or Constance Barlowe was a Dutchman. Even the very plain Miss Esme Spencer was sitting austerely to attention upon a canvas chair, thin hands folded about a drooping daisy chain in her muslin lap, talking with decorously lowered eyes and with a clear trace of heightened colour in her wan cheeks to a middle-aged man whom Constance recognized instantly as Mr Ashby-Jones, a widower of Eastbourne, who was in Bath – according to the omniscient Mrs Johnstone – to take the waters and to find a wife.

  And Mattie? Mattie was sitting, calmly composed, staring into the middle distance with a tranquil and distracted concentration which cut her off from her companions as effectively as a firmly closed door. She might as well, Constance thought, with a spurt of enraged indignation, hang a sign about her neck and have done with it: ‘Strictly private. Keep out!’ The problem with Mattie – Constance pursed her lips and reframed that thought – one of the problems with Mattie was that she had absolutely no idea how to behave in smart company. She would sit so for hours, quietly, taking no part in the gossip about her, exuding what could only be described as a polite disinterest, enough to dampen the kindest of interest or effort. It was her father’s fault of course – a vexed frown marred the pale smoothness of Constance’s forehead for a moment – oh, yes, entirely Cousin Henry’s fault. The Lord only knew what he had thought he was about, bringing up a child – a female child! – in such a ridiculous and contrary manner! Constance winced, remembering her own dear Herbert’s understandable embarrassment the evening before upon being drawn into an unsuitable discussion about the outrageous theories of that dreadful Mr Darwin. But then, in charity, one could only give Mattie the benefit of Christian sympathy; whatever could be expected from such a very odd background? In fact it really had to be said that it was a positive blessing that Henry had died when he had; or this awkward orphaned daughter of his might well have been altogether beyond saving, completely unmarriageable, and thus a burden to herself as well as to others. Constance smoothed her crocheted gloves over plump fingers and graciously acknowledged the greeting of a newcomer. Of course even that would not have been such a very bad thing if her own original plan had worked out a little more satisfactorily. But, alas, it was not to be. The idea of her lonely, bereaved second cousin as friend and helpmeet to herself, and nurse and tutor to the children, properly grateful for a roof over her head and the kindly companionship of a happy family, had been seductive. But at the time of its promising conception Mattie and Constance had not met in ten years, since Constance’s marriage, when Mattie had been no more than twelve years old. To be sure, she’d been an odd little thing then, but it had not occurred to Constance that her cousin’s daughter could have retained such eccentricity into adulthood. Henry’s fault, all Henry’s fault! What young woman could possibly have grown up in any normal fashion in that great uncomfortable barn of a house with no company but her father and those peculiar – why, one would simply have to say in some cases downright disreputable – friends of his? Constance smiled sweetly again and nodded, acknowledging a distant, lifted hand as a small party of ladies and gentlemen strolled by at the far end of the garden, taking the fresher air of the terraces that overlooked the city. The smile faded rapidly as she noticed amongst them the portly Mr Andrews, a London banker, escorting much too attentively the well-rounded but nicely proportioned figure of Miss Faith Edwards. Too late, then; there was yet another chance that Mattie had let slip. Really, one could almost imagine the trying girl didn’t want to make a match!

  Constance turned her head a little, her attention caught by a sudden murmur of interest that had lifted like the buzz of bees about a flower bed from the lawns behind her. Mrs Johnstone’s voice called in shrill greeting. ‘Why, Mr Sherwood! How delightful to see you! How very kind, to grace our little gathering – Anna, my dear, make a place for Mr Sherwood.’

  Constance watched, as enthralled as anyone. A tall, gracefully built young man, deeply tanned, was making his way from the open windows of the house across the paved terrace to the garden. His broadcloth cutaway coat was dark green, the waistcoat and trousers beneath it a soft fawn and obviously, like the coat, of expensive cut and material. His soft-collared shirt was a spotless white and the dark green silk neckcloth faultlessly tied and fastened with a gold scarf-pin. In one hand he carried hat and gloves, in the other a small book. His thick and shining black hair, parted in the middle, fell forward like a boy’s onto his forehead. His eyes gleamed dark as the jet beads that bedecked his hostess’s ample bosom, and his expression was apologetic. ‘Mrs Johnstone – Ma’am – I do hope I’m not unforgivably lat
e? I had a meetin’ in Bristol yesterday with our mutual acquaintance Mr Salisbury, who, by the way, sends his best regards to you –’ he bowed his dark head a little, impeccably courteous ‘ – a meetin’, as I said, concernin’ some final details of the shippin’ arrangements for next season’s Pleasant Hill cotton. I have only just returned.’ The voice was pleasant, the slow drawl magnetically attractive set as it was against the clipped English accents. Heads turned. Eyelashes fluttered. Fans were lifted and a small sibilance of whispers scurried around the garden like a summer breeze.

  ‘My dear boy, of course not! Come – join us for tea. It’s a warm day for travelling.’

  ‘It is indeed, Ma’am.’ With the exquisite manners of which every Mama in Bath had taken approving note, the young man subsided with good grace and a charming smile onto a narrow bench beside Mrs Johnstone’s daughter Anna.

  Mrs Johnstone leaned forward, handing him tea in a dainty flowered cup. ‘So very delighted to see you, Mr Sherwood. We were quite cast down when we thought you wouldn’t come. Anna was saying just this morning how fascinating she found your stories of your home in the romantic South – and how much she hoped you might be here this afternoon and willing to tell us more.’

  On cue, Anna blushed, becomingly.

  Constance sniffed. So that was the way of things, was it? Trust Emma Johnstone to have her predatory eye firmly on the most eligible of the young men in evidence this year for her own pert offspring. That explained Mrs Johnstone’s ill-humour the other night when this same young Mr Sherwood had so inexplicably sat out of the dancing and had spent almost the whole of the evening with – of all people! – Mattie Henderson, earnestly discussing, so Mattie had mildly insisted, the ideas and poetry of Mr Shelley and Lord Byron. Constance had not believed a word of it then, and still did not. Mattie could be a sly one sometimes, there was no mistake about that. She glanced again at her cousin. Mattie’s hands were idle in her lap. Her eyes were fixed upon the distant, shining ribbon of the river that wound through the city beneath them. Her wide, pale mouth drooped a little. It was perfectly obvious that she had not noticed the newcomer, nor was she making the slightest effort to join in the talk and laughter around her.

  For just one moment Constance had the almost overwhelming desire, hastily suppressed, to slap her.

  * * *

  Constance was right. Mattie Henderson’s thoughts were very far from this garden, from this gathering – far, indeed, from Bath itself. Watching the play of sunshine upon the distant river and the golden spires of the Cathedral Church she was indulging in what she was perfectly well aware was an absolutely disgraceful bout of self-pity. As the silly, inconsequential talk and laughter fluttered unnoticed about her ears she was at that moment back at Coombe House, much-loved home of a childhood she knew she should long have outgrown, but that had only truly come to an end on that day five months before when her father had died, in his sixty-eighth year and her twenty-second. The rigidly formal manicured garden where she now sat, high on the hillside above a city that, for all its airs and its still-fine classical buildings, was showing unmistakably the first signs of a genteel decay, was a far cry from that other garden her heart knew so well. That garden – empty now, she thought desolately, an unkempt graveyard surrounding an equally betrayed and abandoned house – was lush and beautiful; flower-filled, half-wild, secret; hidden in a tree-filled valley in the quiet Kentish countryside, its western boundary a fast-moving, singing stream. That garden, as she so often remembered it, had been full of birdsong, and windsong, and her father’s voice. With a painful twist of her heart she could hear that voice now, far clearer than these others; deep and well-modulated, edged more often than not with laughter, or with passion, engaged in one of those usually amiable and always subversive wrangles in which he so loved to indulge. ‘My dear old chap, of course we can keep the ungrateful natives pacified in the short term; it will be a long time before they – or we! – forget the lessons of the Mutiny. Why, they have an Empress now, of their very own, the lucky fellows! But the long term, my boy – look at the long term! The greatest of empires tumbles at last – see for yourself, for otherwise you and I would be sitting here draped in sheets, crowned with laurel and conversing in Latin! Mattie, my dear, come share this excellent wine and support your old father – Albert here seems to believe that God has given the vast and treasure-filled continent of India to the British for India’s own good and on an entirely permanent basis!’

  Mattie took a very slow and rather careful breath. This was simple, perverse self-indulgence. It could serve no possible purpose. Think of something else.

  ‘You’ll grieve, my dear – of course you will,’ her father had said at the end. ‘But it will pass. I promise you. The time will come when you will remember me simply with affection, and I hope with laughter. I’ve been a wickedly selfish old curmudgeon, to keep you here beside me for so long. You’re young. You have a life to live. Live it knowing that my love and my blessings are with you always. And remember – the pain will not, cannot, last for ever.’ And he had been right, of course, as he almost always had been. The devastating, the agonizing pain of loss had eased. If it had not she might well have eschewed good taste altogether and lost her reason. The problem was that what now stood in its place was, if anything, worse; the emptiness, the numbing ache in heart and soul, the certain knowledge that nothing would ever again be as it had been, that she would never again see that dear face with its wise, bright eyes, hear that special note in his voice that was for her alone…

  ‘Miss Henderson?’

  A darker shadow stood in the dappled light. Disconcerted, she lifted her head, blinking up at the tall figure beside her, aware even in her surprise that an interested silence had fallen about her, that bright, inquisitive and astute eyes were watching. A dark-skinned, well-shaped hand was extended towards her. In it was a small and very scuffed leather-covered volume. ‘I promised I wouldn’t keep it too long, Ma’am,’ Johnny Sherwood said, in his soft, intriguing drawl, ’though it’s with great reluctance that I return it.’

  Mattie rose, smiling, and took the book, refusing to betray the slightest hint that beneath the calm there might be any unsettling sensation of excitement, of quickening blood. ‘You enjoyed it, then?’ Her voice was satisfyingly composed, coolly friendly.

  His reply was a moment in coming. He did not smile. ‘Enjoy is too insignificant a word, Miss Henderson, when you talk of genius.’ Formally he extended his expensively clad crooked arm. ‘Please – might I ask you to walk with me awhile? I’d very much like to talk with you.’

  Mortifyingly Mattie found herself to be blushing; an occasion so rare as to be all but unique. In wary silence she placed her gloved hand upon the proffered wrist. Beneath the strong smooth weave of the broadcloth she was unnervingly aware of the warmth of him, of the horseman’s strength in the steady arm; as they stepped together into the sunshine she caught Constance’s astonished eyes upon her, unblinking. The pale gaze was so disbelieving, so truly thunderstruck, that it almost brought open laughter, the constraint of which at least helped to overcome those mystifying sensations that had for a moment surprised her into awkwardness. She ducked her head, hiding her amusement beneath the wide brim of her flower-trimmed straw hat and, wide skirts swaying, accompanied her escort along the paved path that led through rose-hung pergolas to the terraces.

  They walked for some moments in silence, returned the polite salutes of a couple who passed them on the way back to the house, the two young women manoeuvring the silk- swathed cages of their crinolines like bright flowers nodding greetings to each other in a summer’s breeze. ‘Confound the thing,’ Mattie said, conversationally. ‘And confound its inventor. Did you ever see a more ridiculous and constricting fashion?’

  Johnny turned upon her a quick smile that lit his darkly handsome face like a gleam of sunlight. With warmth in her cheeks that once again could not be entirely attributed to the balmy day, Mattie looked away, apparently absorbed in the view
of the city that unfolded beneath them. Unconventional she might be, and to Constance’s permanent chagrin not brought up in the fine and mannered fashion of declining Bath, but even she knew how very rude it was to stare. ‘I find them very becoming,’ Johnny said.

  ‘That well might be because you don’t have to wear them.’ It was a small triumph to discover that she could return his smile in her most unflustered fashion, to take the bite from the words. She lifted the book. ‘So – do I gather that you approved of my Mr Shelley?’

  ‘Miss Henderson, I think you know that approve is not – cannot be – the word.’ All levity was suddenly gone from the boyish face. ‘The man, as I said, possesses pure genius. I had read a little –’ he spread his thin, strong hands ‘– a very little I fear; small excuse, I know, but there seems little time for such leisurely pursuits at home. So of his lyrical dramas I knew nothing. I cannot thank you enough for introducing me to them.’

  Mattie was holding the small book to her breast, her hands folded around it almost protectively. She glanced down at it. ‘I’m glad you liked them so much. I truly wish I could have given you the book. But – it’s very precious. I couldn’t bring myself to part with it.’

  They had reached a small terrace, bounded and perfumed by tumbling roses, at the far end of which was set a shaded stone bench. Beside the seat, in a little fountain-splashed pool a mermaid gazed with stony concentration into a large shell. With one accord they stepped from the path and strolled towards it.

  ‘I couldn’t help but notice that the book is signed to your father from Mr Shelley himself.’ Johnny helped her to arrange her skirt so as to make the business of sitting at least possible if not entirely comfortable. ‘May I ask – did they know each other?’

  ‘Yes, they did.’ Mattie laid the book upon the pale lemon silk of her skirt. Earlier she had found herself wondering what had prompted her to the extravagant caprice of wearing this, just about her only flattering and fashionable day dress and certainly her most expensive, to accompany Constance upon her visit to the abominable Mrs Johnstone this afternoon. Now, in honesty and not altogether comfortably, she knew, and the knowledge was disconcerting. She was not used to deceiving herself. ‘They were at University College together, at Oxford. In eighteen hundred and ten, or thereabouts –’