* * *
After two weeks the Delisles and accompanying slaves returned to the Soleil plantation, where life returned to normal. After another two weeks of sedentary pursuits in the enervating company of Antoinette, Beth reflected that life with her Cunningham cousins had been exhilarating by comparison.
Her only consolation was her friendship with Rosalie, which was improving daily as the young maid grew more competent at her duties and more confident in conversing, once she realised her mistress was not going to punish her for making a mistake or speaking out of turn.
One afternoon when Antoinette was in bed suffering from one of her attacks, Beth was about to set out for the blacksmith’s forge to see if her knives were ready, when Pierre intercepted her as she was leaving the house and insisted on sending a slave to find out for her. She returned to her bedroom in a black mood, pacing up and down the room in a futile attempt to burn off her energy. Then she threw herself onto the bed and picked up the book she was halfway through reading, L’Astrée, but after reading the same page four times without absorbing anything, was about to put it down when Rosalie came in, carrying one of Beth’s heavy gowns, which had just been cleaned.
“Ah!” said Beth, seizing this chance of diversion. “Do you have any other chores to do today?”
Rosalie looked confused.
“Madame, I am always yours to command,” she said. She moved toward the heavy chest in the corner of the room to put the dress away, ready for the next time it was needed to torture its wearer. The way she carried it, with infinite care, gave Beth an idea.
“Would you like to try it on?” she said.
Rosalie’s expression gave Beth her answer, even though the maid shook her head instantly.
“Oh no, madame,” she said. “I couldn’t. I would make it dirty.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Beth said, “and we are about the same size. I think it would fit you very well.”
Rosalie looked longingly at the heap of turquoise-blue silk draped over her arm. “No, really, madame, you are very kind, but I couldn’t.”
“Let’s play a game,” Beth suggested, a tactic which she had employed repeatedly since her first day with Rosalie, and which seemed to help her relax. “You will be the mistress and I will be the maid, and will dress you. I am very bored, and as Monsieur Delisle does not take kindly to me offering to help Eulalie prepare dinner or weed the gardens,” both of which Pierre had rebuked her for trying to do in the past week, “then you will be helping me to keep my sanity. Come, take off your gown, and I’ll lay out the clothes on the bed.”
Half an hour later and with much laughter Rosalie was encased in shift, stockings, stays, pockets, modesty petticoat, panniers, three petticoats, stomacher and gown, all tied or pinned in place.
“Oh, Madame Beth!” she said. “It is so heavy! How do you wear all these clothes for a whole day?”
“I wish I didn’t have to,” Beth responded candidly. “I have always hated dressing fashionably. I would far rather wear practical clothing like your own. When I lived at home, I did.”
“At home in England, madame?”
“Yes.” And Scotland. “No, don’t look in the mirror yet. I don’t wear wigs, so I don’t have one for you to try on, but you need something to decorate your hair. Here.” Deftly she tied a ribbon of the same colour as the dress into Rosalie’s thick black frizzy hair, which she kept ruthlessly brushed and pinned into a roll now that she had a position in the house. “There,” Beth said, handing her a fan. “Now you may look at yourself.”
The rapturous expression on the young maid’s face as she observed herself in the mirror was worth all the time spent tying ribbons and laces. The aqua shade of the shimmering silk complemented her dark brown skin wonderfully and she looked like a fairytale princess.
“Ohhh!” she said breathlessly, turning round and looking back over her shoulder into the mirror. “Oh, madame, it is worth feeling so hot to look so good!”
The next two hours were spent with Beth showing Rosalie how to walk, sit, curtsey, use a fan and finally, with much laughter, how to use a chamberpot. For the first time since Beth had listened to Bach in Saint Pierre, she was actually enjoying herself.
When Rosalie was finally back in her normal dress and the gown was put safely away, she untied the ribbon from her hair and moved to put it back in the drawer with Beth’s other fripperies.
“No,” Beth said. “I would gladly give you the gown, if you had a use for it, but you must at least keep the ribbon. It will remind you of this afternoon.”
“You are too good to me, madame,” Rosalie said, smiling shyly as she ran her fingers along the length of ribbon.
“When I lived in England, before I married Sir Anthony,” Beth said, “I had a maid called Sarah, who also became a friend, as you and I are becoming. On the night before I was due to marry I took her to the opera. I helped her to dress, just as I have helped you and we enjoyed ourselves enormously.”
“Oh, madame, that must have been wonderful for her!”
“Not really,” Beth said. “The evening didn’t go as planned, although it was certainly memorable. But one day if possible I will take you to a play, or a concert maybe, and if I do you can wear that gown.”
Rosalie smiled sadly.
“You are very kind, Madame Beth,” she said, “but even if Monsieur were to allow it, no slave would be permitted to attend the theatre.”
“Are there no free black people in Martinique?” Beth asked.
“Oh yes, madame, but I do not think they would be allowed to attend a theatre with white people.”
Beth sighed. Of course not. What was she thinking of? She threw herself down on the end of the bed, standing up again immediately and picking up the book she had inadvertently sat on. She was about to put it back on the shelf when an idea struck her.
“Rosalie,” she said. “Would you like to learn to read?”
“No, Beth, I’m afraid I cannot allow that,” Pierre said, when Beth put her idea of holding reading and writing classes for the slaves to him.
“But why not? You said there is not as much work now the harvest is over.” Although Pierre had said this, Beth saw no sign of the slaves having any more leisure time than they had in the cane-cutting months. The bell still rang before sun-up, and the field gangs toiled until long after sunset. There was always something to do; digging, planting, weeding, collecting wood for the boiling house ready for the next harvest, repairing machinery and walls – the list of chores seemed endless. “Surely you could spare them for maybe one hour a week?” she persisted. “It would give me something to do. I want to feel useful.”
“But you are useful, my dear. Antoinette could not do without you.” Pierre sighed. “Even if I could spare the slaves for an hour a week it is not advisable that they learn to read, even if they were capable of doing so, which I really do not believe most of them are. If they could read, then they would be able to read nefarious publications encouraging them to rebel. That will not do at all.”
Beth, who had been about to say that Rosalie was learning to read very quickly and after just a week knew the whole alphabet and could write her name, realised this would not now be wise, and changed tack.
“But they would also be able to read the Bible, Pierre!” she said. “How wonderful would it be if they could read the word of God every day, and not only on Sundays?”
“Ah, now I can see that although you are a good Roman, the reformed faith of your home country has been a bad influence on you. It is quite sufficient for the negroes to learn the word of God from someone who knows which scripture is fitting for them to hear and which not. No, I am sorry Beth, you know I will indulge you where I can, but this is not possible.”
Back in her room, Beth fumed. No doubt he wouldn’t want the slaves to be able to read Galatians 3:28, or Exodus, or numerous other verses that spoke about rights that the slaves of Martinique did not enjoy.
She was still annoyed about it a few da
ys later when Pierre and Antoinette threw a dinner party, to which were invited all the local plantation owners. It was a somewhat informal occasion; dinner, then conversation and cards followed by some music and perhaps dancing.
Beth insisted on helping to choose and pick the flowers that would decorate the dining table, which gave her an opportunity to wander around the garden all day finding out not just about flowers for the table but other plants too, from the extremely knowledgeable head gardener, an elderly wrinkled negro by the name of Ezra.
“You see, madame, this flower, the marya-marya, she is very beautiful, but like many beautiful ladies, she is also deadly,” he said of a passion fruit plant over whose flowers Beth had exclaimed. “She has the sticky juice here on these bracts, which insects love, and then she traps them and they die, and so they cannot eat her, because she eats them first! She is very clever! And then this one, with her tiny flowers, which madame will not want for the house, I think, she is very precious, because with her you can cure many things. She is called Snakewort, because she cures the bite of the snake sometimes, and also the dysentery.”
“How do you know all this, Ezra?” Beth said after an hour in which she learnt more about plants than she had in the whole of her life in England, and all of it delivered in a fascinating way.
“People tell me as a child, madame, and I listen. Once I know a thing, I know her forever.” He beamed, delighted to have a truly interested audience. “Now I teach Nicaise, who is my grandson, because I am very old and soon I must die, I think.”
“How old are you, Ezra?” Beth asked. He did look very ancient indeed, older even than her grandmother, who was probably over eighty.
“I am fifty-two, madame!” he said with great pride.
Fifty-two, she thought as she walked back to the house, her arms full of exotic flowers, her head full of knowledge and rage. He had a prodigious memory and intelligence. What could he have achieved, given an education? He could have been an apothecary or a great medical man perhaps. Instead he spent his time and energy stopping the ever-growing tropical foliage from encroaching on the perfect clipped lawn, just so that Pierre and Antoinette could, if they wished, sit on it and drink tea or chocolate occasionally. True, he seemed happy enough; but how could he be if he had no choice in his life? He was one of the lucky slaves – clearly he enjoyed the task he’d been given, or had learned to.
But what of the others, the field gangs, those who toiled in the boiling house?
She thought about this all through dinner, with the result that afterwards as they were about to go into the salon Antoinette took her to one side.
“Are you feeling ill, Beth?” she asked.
“No, not at all!” Beth responded. “Why do you ask?”
“Only you were so quiet all through the meal, and hardly spoke at all. You look well, but I thought perhaps you felt unwell.”
For a moment Beth was tempted to say yes, she had a headache and make her excuses, avoid the tedium of the conversation to come, but that would be unfair. After all, her allowance was large and her duties few; but she knew that one of her unwritten obligations was to be the gracious and vivacious English noblewoman when guests called. So far no one had mentioned King Louis, so it was possible that the evening might be moderately interesting.
“No,” she replied, smiling. “I wished only to concentrate on the food, which was exquisite. But thank you for your concern, Antoinette. You are most kind.”
Once in the salon, where some settled to cards and others relaxed on chaise longues and cushioned chairs to converse, Beth made more of an effort and was soon listening with interest to a neighbouring planter who was explaining how his great-great-grandfather, along with other Frenchmen, had made the island their own.
“It was very dangerous, Lady Elizabeth,” he told her. “He was living on what is now a British island, St Kitt’s, and was forced to leave. When he arrived here the island was full of Caribs. My great-great-grandfather lived in a little shack he built from leaves and branches, and cleared his land by hand. I’m sure you have seen how quickly everything grows in Martinique already, even though you’ve only been here a short time. It is very difficult to cultivate such land. But he did it, and in between doing it he led raids against the Caribs. They were savages – it is said that they ate the flesh of men when they could get it, which made it very perilous for anyone to go into the jungle.”
“Really, Julien, do you think man-eating savages are a suitable topic of conversation for a young lady? We do not want to drive Beth from Martinique before she has had time to grow used to it!” Pierre interposed.
“My apologies, Lady Elizabeth,” Julien said, bowing. “I assure you, there are no Caribs on the island now and have not been for many years.”
“No, now we have the danger of the slaves rising and cutting us to pieces while we sleep,” Antoinette put in. Pierre raised his eyes to heaven.
“Are you now becoming accustomed to life on Martinique, my lady?” Julien said quickly, before the conversation could turn to the ever-present dangers of malcontent negroes. “It is very different from your home country, I think.”
“It is,” Beth agreed. “I enjoy the food now; it’s interesting to try the fruits and vegetables I had never even heard of before I arrived here. I can cope with the heat a little better. And when I first arrived here the smell of the sugar made me feel sick all the time. It was Raymond who told me that he didn’t notice the smell any more. I found it hard to believe that anyone could not notice such a strong odour, but now it no longer bothers me at all. Some things are harder to adjust to, though.”
“Beth finds the treatment of slaves difficult to accept,” Pierre elaborated.
“Ah,” Julien replied. “This is normal, I think, for people who are new to the islands. It is the punishments you have a difficulty with?”
“Not only that, monsieur,” Beth said. “I find it difficult to live in such luxury as this,” she waved her arm around the room with its ornate gilded woodwork, crystal chandeliers, rich velvet curtains and luxurious furnishings, “while the people who work to provide the money for it live in vermin-infested shacks, work more than sixteen hours a day in appalling conditions, and are beaten regularly.”
“But this surely is no different to your country, or my own, in fact?” argued Julien. “The poor in France and England live in very basic conditions and work long hours, whilst the rich enjoy untold luxuries. It is the way of the world.”
He had a point.
“That is true,” Beth conceded. “But at least they have not been torn from their own country; and if they are in a job that they hate, with a cruel master, they can seek another one and leave. If they are unjustly treated, they have some recourse to the law. They have some choice; a limited one maybe, but at least some.”
Julien nodded. “I see your point, my lady, and I have heard this view before. But you are not allowing for the base nature of the negro. Left to himself the negro is a savage barbarian. In his own country he lives in sin, walks around almost naked and does as his tribal leader tells him without question. He is incapable of thinking for himself. At least here, although he may be enslaved he is at least exposed to civilisation.”
“That is exactly what the British government say about the Highlanders in Scotland,” Beth said. “It is the excuse Cumberland and his troops are using to justify the so-called ‘pacification’ of the Highlands.”
“Ah, yes, I have heard of this,” another man put in. “It is regrettable. But I think there is some truth in this view. The Highlanders are a lawless savage people who live by raiding and murdering each other. They speak a sort of gibberish language, and I am told the men wear a short petticoat and nothing else! On a windy day nothing is left to the imagination!”
Several women tittered.
“My mother was a Highlander, sir,” Beth said quietly. It was on the tip of her tongue to say and my husband too, and he was more civilised than all of you. But no. She had not kept silen
ce for over a year only to divulge secrets over brandy in a salon.
A profound and uncomfortable silence fell upon the room.
“I thought you were of a noble family, Lady Elizabeth,” one woman finally ventured.
“My father was the second son of a lord, madame,” Beth said. “My mother was one of these Highland savages of whom you speak. I am, I suppose, to this gentleman’s way of thinking, a mulatto. That is what you call the offspring of a white planter and a savage barbarian negro, is it not? Tell me, would you accept a mulatto into your society as you have accepted me?”
“It is not the same thing at all, my lady,” Julien countered, “and I am sure your mother was an exception.”
“No, she was not an exception,” Beth replied, her temper rising. “She spoke the ‘gibberish’, which is rightly called Gaelic, and is a beautiful, poetic language. She came from a clan who, it is true, in common with other clans, look to their chief rather than the government in London to dictate the law and to protect them. They have their own code of honour and loyalty, which they adhere to, and which is the reason why in five months of hiding in their lands with a reward of £30,000 on his head, Prince Charles Edward Stuart was not betrayed to the government.”
“I am sure no one wished to offend you, Beth,” Pierre said.
With an effort, Beth calmed herself.
“I am sure that’s true, Pierre,” she said after a moment. “But it does illustrate my point. The reason that the British government, and you, monsieur,” indicating the unnamed man, “believe that the Highlanders are savage barbarians is merely because you do not understand them, cannot speak their language. Just because their laws, customs and traditions are incomprehensible to you does not mean they have none. Those they have are not the same as yours, so you believe them to be wrong rather than merely different. And now the Elector and his son are showing the Highlanders what real civilisation is, by butchering men and children, raping women and burning them in their homes!”
Tides of Fortune Page 22