Richard sat silently beside me; I had the idea that he had heard this type of comment before and was pointedly ignoring his father.
“You are finding your accommodations in Spanish Town to your liking?” Mr. Mason went on.
“Indeed. The house could not be more comfortable, nor more conveniently situated.”
He nodded approval to my response. “And I understand you have the same housekeeper?” He leaned forward in his chair. “By the name of Sukey, I believe?” He asked the question casually, as if he had no connection to her.
“Yes, sir, and she is a very capable person,” I replied. “I feel fortunate to have her. And Alexander as well,” I added.
Mr. Mason settled back into his chair and puffed on his cigar. “Fine,” he said, the smoke drifting from his mouth as he spoke. “Very good.” He may well have wondered about the nature of my relationship with Sukey, but I was not about to embarrass myself by trying a clarification, and I said nothing more.
A few moments later Richard rose. “We must be on our way,” he said. “Dinner will be on the table and the musicians warming up by the time we arrive.”
“And Richard could not bear to miss out on anything like that,” his father added sardonically. “But you would be wise,” he said to me, “to wait an hour or so if you don’t want to be caught in a downpour.”
“Don’t tease us, Father,” Richard said. “Anyone can see there’s not a cloud in the sky.”
“And as anyone who has lived here all his life should know, that makes no difference at all,” his father responded.
I sensed that I was in the middle of a low-level battle that had been going on for a long time, and I sat back in my chair to await the outcome. But once energized to go, Richard would not back down. “Come on, Rochester,” he said. “We have diddled here more than we should have already.”
“So?” his father said. “You have diddled all your life.”
Ignoring him, Richard was already descending the steps, and I had little choice but to follow. I gave Mr. Mason a departing tip of my hat and asked if he would be following soon. He responded that he would come when it was appropriate, which I did not quite understand, but I left him there and hurried after Richard.
It should have been less than an hour’s trot to Monteith, but twenty minutes into our journey the skies opened and we urged our mounts forward until we could find shelter under the fat fronds of a banana plant. “He is always so sure of himself,” Richard grumbled. “It makes a person want to defy him just as a matter of principle.”
I said nothing, which seemed the soundest policy, until Richard turned on me. “I suppose you think I am a fool.”
“What goes on between you and your father is no concern of mine,” I said. It was perhaps not the wisest thing to have said, but I had no interest in taking sides between them.
“Fathers!” he said in a dismissive tone. He had lived since birth in close quarters with his father; I, on the other hand, had spent nearly my whole life wishing for a connection with mine. Neither of us could fathom how the other felt.
The rain stopped as quickly as it had come, the sky was blue again, and by the time we arrived at Monteith we were nearly dry. Once inside, I could not help stopping to gaze about. I had not gone indoors at Valley View, so this was my first plantation house.
Most of the big houses in Jamaica seem built with the weather in mind. The breezes flow through the many open windows, and indoors from room to room. Roofs overhang enough to keep the sun from shining directly in and the rain from soaking the veranda furniture, and the floors are bare of carpets. A massive repast was laid out on a large table, and a staff of negro house servants was busy filling and replacing platters and bowls as the guests—who were already quite numerous—nibbled and drank and chatted. I was interested in seeing if I recognized anyone there, for I had harbored hopes of seeing at least one of my fellow passengers from the Badger—Whitledge or Osmon or, less likely, Stafford—but none was in evidence.
With his hand on my arm, Richard guided me through the room, stopping now and then to introduce me to clusters of gentlemen. They were mostly planters from nearby, and a few merchants from Spanish Town and one from as far away as Kingston. I discovered I could almost always tell the planters from the merchants, for the planters had the same kind of languidity about them that I had noticed in Richard, while the merchants seemed at the same time intense and easily distracted, as if, like my father and his friends, they were always looking for a way to earn an advantage. It passed through my mind that I was to be a bit of both—planter and merchant—and I wondered how I would appear to others.
As we strolled about the room, a young lady attached herself to Richard’s other side and simpered up at him that he had not yet introduced his handsome friend. “Ah yes,” he said, turning to me. “This is the recently arrived owner of a small plantation near Valley View, Edward Fairfax Rochester—Miss Mary MacKinnon, whose hospitality we are so much enjoying here at Monteith.”
I made a bow. “My pleasure, Miss MacKinnon,” I said.
“And mine as well, Mr. Rochester.” She had fair skin but a poor complexion, but she did have dimples, which she showed off at every opportunity. “Will you stay for the ball?” she asked.
“Of course,” Richard replied before I could respond.
“Lovely,” she said, “I will count on it.” She was gazing straight at me as she spoke, and I understood her meaning, but I already had Richard’s sister on my mind. Had she been the one peering through the window at Valley View?
“Not very attractive,” Richard commented rather crudely as she hurried off, no doubt to report to her friends what she had learned of me. “And did you notice? She lisps.”
We had been making our way toward another, larger room, and now I could hear the intriguing sounds of unfamiliar instruments. As we entered that next room I saw a half dozen or so negroes clustered in a far corner with two or three drumlike instruments and a fiddle or two and some horns, which they played with nearly professional skill.
In time, the dancing began. Miss MacKinnon claimed me for a reel almost immediately and for several dances thereafter. She was pleasant enough, but not a particularly interesting conversationalist. Her attention was flattering, I suppose, but I didn’t want it to appear that I was particularly attached to her. I danced with various other young women as well, though I think it was not that I was so desirable a partner, but simply that their lives were so limited that any stranger was a welcome change. Despite the attention I garnered, I kept my eye on Richard, hoping he would give me some kind of sign when his sister appeared. Yet it was well into the evening before a bustle of activity at the doorway announced the arrival of a cluster of young ladies. Everyone paused to watch them flit into the room like a covey of bright birds. No sooner had I stopped to watch than I felt a hand on my arm. Expecting Richard, I turned—and found myself once more in the company of Miss MacKinnon. “It’s your Miss Mason,” she whispered.
“My Miss Mason?”
“Well, you are staying with them, are you not?”
“In truth, I am not,” I said.
“Truly?”
I could not help smiling at her obvious pleasure with that news. “Truly.”
But Richard was there at my elbow by then, pulling me away from Miss MacKinnon. “You must meet her; you simply must,” he urged.
The circle parted as we approached, almost as if they were expecting us, and I saw in the center of that group the most astonishing-looking woman I have ever seen. She was tall, as tall as I at least, and she had masses of black hair that shone as if it had been oiled and that fell into curls that framed her face and clustered on her shoulders and hung down her back nearly to her waist. She was dark skinned, but not as dark as I, and her eyes were black, with thick black lashes. She wore a dress of brilliant red with some sort of bangles on it, and that dress was cut in such a way as to leave little to the imagination. She stood among her coterie of friends like a queen
, proud and elegant and stunning.
“My dear sister,” Richard said as we came close, “may I present Mr. Edward Fairfax Rochester. Rochester, my sister, Miss Mason—Miss Bertha Antoinetta Mason.”
Bowing over her hand, I said, “I prefer Edward, if you please.”
She smiled broadly. “But I don’t please,” she said. “I prefer Fairfax. And you may call me Antoinetta.”
It was my turn to smile then. And to be unconventional. “I shall call you Bertha,” I said.
Her eyes clouded for a moment, but her smile remained.
Chapter 5
We danced a few times that evening, she radiant and glowing, the silk of her dress slipping through my hands as I struggled to hold her in a fashion that would not appear unseemly. I was nervous and found myself nearly stumbling through the sets. She laughed at my missteps, a deep, vibrant laugh, her breath warm against my cheek when the dance brought us close. “You are new to this music?” she asked.
“Yes, I am,” I replied. “But I am sure I will learn.”
“You will, Fairfax, you will indeed,” she said. She smiled at me, her lips parting to reveal perfect teeth, the hint of a tongue flashing between them. I felt as if she owned me already.
I reminded myself as we danced that I had never cared for dark-haired women, but I had never known—never seen—a creature like her. When she stared directly into my eyes, which, unlike so many women, she often did, I felt as if she saw into my soul, saw all that I was, and when she smiled, I felt the kind of approbation I had always hoped for. When she danced with other men, my heart turned in my chest. I knew it was jealousy, and it made no difference at all that I had no claim to be jealous. She was courted at that ball, and at the balls to come, by nearly all the eligible young men in the neighborhood, and some who were neither eligible nor young. I looked for signs that she preferred me, but I never saw any, but neither did I see a sign that she preferred anyone else.
“So!” Richard grinned as we rode back to Valley View the following afternoon, still recovering from the ball, which had lasted through the night. “Is she not the most beautiful woman you have ever seen?”
“Actually,” I responded, just to tease him, “I have always preferred fair ladies.”
Richard’s head turned so quickly toward me that I thought it might fall right off his neck. “Really? Really? In preference to my sister?”
I laughed. “She is striking,” I admitted. And she was. But I would not allow myself to fall so easily as that. No, it took at least another event or two before I could admit to myself that I must have Miss Bertha Antoinetta Mason as my bride. However, I was sure I wasn’t the only young man with such thoughts, for wherever Bertha went, men dropped whatever they were doing and clustered around her as honeybees to clover. But I hoped, given what my father had told me about his friendship and history with Mr. Mason, that my chances might be higher than most. Indeed, it had almost seemed that my father had promised her to me.
It was Bertha’s custom to arrive late in order to make the kind of entrance I had seen at Monteith. She would dance for an hour or two and then leave. She did not single me out particularly, but we usually danced together two or three or four times, and she always managed to charm and flatter me to the point where it was all I could do to keep myself from running off with her. But inevitably she would flit away with another man, or with her friends, and be, once again, lost to me.
And then one day I had occasion to arrive at Valley View unexpected and unannounced, for I had developed a business idea that I was eager to discuss with Mr. Mason. Although Jamaica was not on the normal sailing route between England and North America, I had noticed that immigration along that route was increasing mightily. In addition, I knew that abolitionist forces within the English Parliament were growing stronger, and I was sure they would win out sooner or later. Moreover, even the short acquaintance that I had with the sugar plantation system made clear to me that such an economy could not endure once slavery was abolished. Then what? I had asked myself: my plantation and the ships that carried its products would be worthless. But, I calculated, the ships could be refitted to carry loads of passengers. I had broached the subject once with Mr. Mason, but he had waved me off, assuring me that while it was true that abolition could end the sugar trade as we knew it, that very fact would prevent Parliament from acting in a way that would endanger such profitable enterprises on both sides of the Atlantic.
At the time I had not been able to convince him otherwise, but I had recently come across a beauty of a ship: a three-masted square-rigged vessel, speedy and reliable for the transatlantic passenger and packet trade. Mr. Mason and I could get our feet into that trade while my current ships were still in sugar. The Sea Nymph was at that time lying in Kingston Harbor, available for purchase, but I hadn’t the funds on hand for it. Somehow, I needed to convince Mr. Mason to take it on with me.
Since my father had handed over all his interests in Jamaica to me, Mr. Mason and I were partners now, our operations intertwined with each other, and this idea of a passenger venture would only solidify that partnership. In my eagerness to consult with Mr. Mason, I hurried to Valley View without sending advance word to him or to his son; I had visited often enough and discussed business on occasion before leaving for various balls, and I just assumed that Mr. Mason would be there, for he always was; he much preferred it to anyplace else on the island.
But that day, as I climbed up the steps to the veranda, a servant opened the door and welcomed me inside with a wordless smile. The vast reception room was empty but for its furnishings. I turned back toward the servant, but she had disappeared. Muffled voices and even a quick outburst of laughter came from an adjoining room, and, not knowing what else to do, I stepped toward the sound and opened the door. I could not have been more astonished at the sight that greeted me there.
The room’s shutters were closed, and in the gloom I could see three or four young women sitting cross-legged on the floor in a far corner, dipping their hands into a bowl of some kind of food and licking their fingers with boisterous appreciation. They were all dressed in the plain and simple shifts that the negro children wore, which all of them—even Bertha—had pulled up above their knees. Even Bertha.
She was not facing me, but I recognized her by her hair, pulled together with a string and falling carelessly down her back. She did not see me until the others, caught suddenly in an indiscretion, silenced their laughter, and she turned to look, her fingers still in her mouth. Staring at me, she slowly rose. I saw that she was barefoot, as the others were—the others, all negroes, suddenly scattering away out of sight—but she stood her ground. “Fairfax,” she said, her low voice caressing my name in a way I had never before heard. “What an unexpected surprise.” But there was neither surprise nor warmth in her countenance. Instead, she simply watched, her head tipped coyly downward, but her eyes on mine.
I made my bow. “But not an unpleasant one, I hope,” I said.
“You have come for my father, I presume,” she said.
“Yes, I have, but it’s a pleasure for me to have encountered you.” That was my manners still speaking, for I hardly knew what to make of the scene I had just witnessed, or of the way she was clothed—barely—or the way she was behaving.
And then she broke into a broad, impish smile, her eyes still holding mine, and she seemed at that moment like nothing more than a child caught with her hand in the biscuit jar. I could not help smiling in return. Then, with another shift equally abrupt, she turned from me and called for the negress who had allowed me into the house. “He has come to see my father, as you should well have known,” she snapped as the woman appeared. “You will wait for me in the kitchen.”
Wordlessly the girl ran out of the room, and without a further glance at me, Bertha left the room as well, her final acknowledgment of me only the words that trailed behind her: “He is not at home. You should have saved yourself the trouble.”
I watched her go, stunned at t
he mystery of her. The outlines of her body were clear through the flimsy muslin of the shift, and at that moment when I should have been shocked, I could not have wanted her more.
* * *
Mr. Mason and I were sitting on the veranda, mugs of grog in hand. I had sent him a note the day after my unannounced visit, to ensure his presence when I came this time, and I put my proposition to him immediately on my arrival. I could tell he was not impressed with my notion that abolition would come well within his lifetime, nor was he particularly taken with the idea of partnering with me in the purchase of the Sea Nymph. “What do you know about buying boats?” he asked abruptly, and I had to agree that I could only take the word of another shipping agent. He responded to that with a long draw on his cigar. And then he said, “My daughter seems quite taken with you.”
“She is indeed beautiful and charming,” I responded cautiously.
He turned to face me, and I scrambled for more.
“Any man would be proud to have her on his arm. Any man”—suddenly I threw caution to the wind—“I would be proud to have her on my arm. As my wife. If she would have me.”
He was still gazing at me. “You come from a good family. I know your father well, and admire him.”
“And you know my circumstances,” I said. “My plantation is not as big as yours, but, nevertheless…And there is the importing and exporting business.” I did not repeat a mention of the immigrant trade, though it was heavily on my mind. “I am young and in good health, and, as you have said—”
“You are still stuck on that ship, of course,” he interrupted. “You think that this…this migration across the Atlantic would be profitable.”
“I do.”
“But you have never actually started an endeavor on your own, have you. You have no idea of the risks.”
“I have not founded anything, it’s true, but I have worked closely with men who have. I know the way they think, the way they evaluate opportunities.”
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