by Sarah Lark
Nora began to halfheartedly pack medicaments into her bag.
“Máanu won’t want me there and Nanny certainly won’t,” she predicted.
But now Akwasi had joined in. He had dressed and was now standing in front of Mansah.
“What did you say, girl? The baby won’t come? My son will die inside of Máanu?”
“First Máanu will die,” Nora remarked. “And the child will inevitably die with her — if a miracle doesn’t happen.”
“Nanny is calling upon the gods,” Mansah explained. “Burning herbs—”
“That will surely help,” Nora said, sarcastically. “I can try to do something, Akwasi, but you have to come with me and force Máanu to let me near her. Tell Nanny that the gods made a star fall on my head and used it to summon me, or something like that. Maybe she will believe it. I will do my best, Akwasi, but don’t blame me if your son or daughter dies anyway.”
Akwasi was willing to do or say anything to save his eagerly awaited heir. He carried the bag for Nora so that she could run there faster. As she wrapped her scarf around her hair on the way to Máanu’s hut, Akwasi criticized her vanity.
“I am not doing it because I want to look beautiful, but so that my hair doesn’t fall in my face,” Nora shouted at him. “And you, Mansah, don’t come with us — there’s nothing you can do. Dede is all alone in the hut. Go to her and keep an eye on her — or bring her with you if you don’t want to be alone. And above all, stop crying! I know this is hard for you, but you have to start behaving like a grown woman!”
Mansah turned around, whimpering, and Nora went faster. Máanu’s hut smelled like blood and burned herbs. Nanny sat beside a bowl of smoldering incense giving off fragrance, heat, and smoke. “It has to stop,” she whimpered. “Nanny, do something!”
Then, during another contraction, she began to loudly moan and wail. Mansah had probably been right; Máanu had been fighting this battle for several hours. Her body writhed under the contraction, but the baby’s head was still not visible.
Akwasi kneeled beside his wailing wife. “Máanu, I brought the Missis. I want her to take a look at you. I want that, so don’t fight back. She only wants to help you.”
Máanu took a look at her husband, her eyes were bloodshot. “If someone can make this stop, then I would even welcome the devil!” she uttered, before she cried out again.
Nora pushed Nanny aside. The healer seemed to have sung herself into a sort of trance — she was probably closer to the gods at that point than her patient.
Nora pushed Máanu’s legs further apart. It had to have been a long time since her water broke. She was completely dry, but was bleeding, although it didn’t seem as bad as Mansah had described it.
Nora reached into a pot of ointment made of aloe vera and lard to soften her hands. She first felt around Máanu’s stomach and then examined her.
“The queen is right, the child is positioned properly,” she said, briefly. “But it is very large. I will try to feel you properly but you have to help the child and me …” Nora looked for a vial in her bag — another potion from Tolo that relieved pain. Nora didn’t know how it was made, but she suspected that Tolo grew plants that produced laudanum. Máanu was actually a bit quieter because of the potion and Nora could feel the head of the child when she relaxed a bit. It was stuck.
“I don’t know if it’s still alive,” Nora said, nervously. “But it has to come out anyway; it can’t survive very long like this. You have to help me, Akwasi. And you have to push, Máanu, as awful as it is. Lift her up, so that she is squatting and press on her stomach, Akwasi, when the next contraction comes.” Nora had small, narrow hands, which slipped off the child’s head when she tried to grip it and pull it out. But at least the fat on her hands helped; the birth canal was smooth — and the child eventually moved. While Máanu let out almost inhuman screams, the baby slid through. It was an unusually large boy. When she held him up by the feet and gave him a pat on the back, he roared in protest.
Blood oozed from Máanu’s vagina, but that was something Nora knew how to deal with. She gave the baby to the helpless Akwasi and Granny Nanny, who had been slowly returning to awareness. The priestess immediately began to invoke the blessings of the gods on his head. Nora took care of Máanu, who was now crying from exhaustion. She bled, but it was not gushing out of her, and nothing seemed injured internally. Before long, the afterbirth came and the bleeding noticeably subsided. When Mansah entered the hut half an hour later with the crying baby Dede — since she could no longer put up with the child alone — the newborn was neatly wrapped in his mother’s arms.
“Come here, Mansah,” Nora said wearily, and took her daughter from the girl’s arms. “You have a little nephew. And don’t worry about your sister. They will both survive.”
She was surprised that instead of turning to her sister, Máanu turned to speak to Nora.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you, Missis.”
Nora sighed. “You are not my slave anymore, Máanu, as you never seem to grow tired of reminding me. So, if you would now start calling me Nora …”
REVENGE
Cascarilla Gardens, Nanny Town, Spanish Town
Fall 1738 to fall 1739
CHAPTER 1
“You have so many girls running around here, Mr. Fortnam, and they all seem so well-trained. Can you not offer me one as a maid?”
Lady Hollister waved her fan. By Jamaican standards, it was pleasantly cool on Doug Fortnam’s new terrace, but the somewhat corpulent lady was hot from dancing. Doug had spared no expense. After he had finally had his new house planned and built, the celebratory inaugural ball took place with a specially appointed dance master to keep the guests moving. For Lady Hollister, it was almost too much. Doug took the breathless woman back to her husband’s table and waved to one of the maids to serve her a drink.
“If I can convince one of the girls,” Doug replied to her question good-naturedly. “You are right; in fact, I actually have too many house slaves. And Adwea has them all wonderfully under control, even the children from Africa.”
“You use the African imports as house slaves?” Lord Hollister asked in surprise, while his wife frowned about Doug’s notion of asking the girls first. “That seems to be more suited to the slaves of … um … the second generation.”
Doug thought about Lord Hollister’s personal method of creating dutiful house servants. No female house slave was safe from the planter’s wandering eye.
He shrugged. “What should I do? I have many very young blacks. They can’t just be sent out to the fields. So, the young men apprentice to the craftsmen — I have many good carpenters, as you can see …” he pointed to the handrail around the terrace of his new house, the playful, wooden garden house, and the finely carved turrets and balconies that adorned the new construction. “And an excellent distillery.” Doug lifted his glass and toasted to his neighbors. “Well, for the girls there’s nothing to do outside, so they are all with Adwea in the kitchen and in the house.”
“You should really sell some of them,” the lady said, enviously. “They are in each other’s way here, while people are desperately looking for good house servants everywhere else.”
Doug’s lips narrowed. “Cascarilla Gardens doesn’t sell slaves,” he said. “The slaves here live together in families. They have my word that I will not tear them apart.”
Lord Hollister laughed and Christopher Keensley, who had just sat down at the table and gasped nearly as loudly as Lady Hollister, immediately chimed in.
“And because of that you also have so many black mouths to feed that don’t contribute anything!” he sneered. “The slave traders are always happy to see you. Doug Fortnam, the man who will take whatever scraps they can’t sell!”
Doug rubbed his forehead. He didn’t want to fight with his neighbors, and of course he knew that people made fun of him in Kingston. He no longer bought slaves, but when he had been forced to purchase new slaves after the Maroon attac
k, he had had qualms about separating husbands and wives, and especially mothers and children, which was why he’d purchased entire families. He did not regret it, since these people were now actually among his most diligent workers. They were grateful and seemed to nurture no thoughts of escape.
Ian McCloud had been Cascarilla Gardens’ only overseer in the almost five years since the Maroon attack. The money that Doug had saved on salaries in running things outweighed the purchase price for a couple of children by ten times the amount. However, he had long since given up on any attempt to explain his calculations to Hollister and Keensley. They continued to stick to whippings and strict discipline.
“Well, as you see, the scraps have proven to be outstanding,” Doug remarked and took a new glass for a tray that a curtsying girl held out to him in the proper manner. “Alima here, for example.”
The girl lowered her eyes. Alima was shy, her parents stayed true to their Muslim faith and carefully made sure that she didn’t flirt or have any dalliances with the boys like some of the girls her age in the slave settlement.
“Alima is now sixteen and she came from Africa when she was ten or eleven. Adwea says she is very clever, hardworking, and especially honest. She would surely like a position as a maid, would you not, Alima?”
The girl looked up at him. Her curiosity was piqued. Doug smiled at the girl. Alima had finely chiseled features, with high cheekbones, and round, walnut-brown eyes that still saw the world with complete innocence. She had combined her lace-trimmed uniform — Doug had really tried to make everything proper for the celebration — with a sky-blue head covering that hid her short, curly hair.
“I like pretty things, Backra Doug,” she said with a soft voice. She spoke English with a singing, African accent. “Like to polish new furniture!”
Alima let her eyes drift admiringly over the delicate, finely contoured armchairs, tables, and commodes that Doug had sent over from England for the new house. Most of them were picked out by Lady Hollister and her niece — Doug hadn’t the slightest interest in elegant furnishings and would have been just as content with simple tables and chairs made by the plantation’s own woodworkers. But he tried not to stray too far from the norm. There were enough differences of opinion between him and the other planters — he didn’t need to add home management to the list. In the long run, it would also mean having to look for a wife.
Doug dreaded even the thought of it. It had now been many years since he’d lost Nora, but he still awoke every day thinking of her, and he needed rum every night to keep her spirit from getting so close to him that he would cry over her again. He often thought that he would have preferred die with her than go on living alone. On the other hand, however, it would have undoubtedly pleased her to see what he had done with Cascarilla Gardens. No one knew it, but the house, the slave settlement, the new customs in dealing with the workers, and Doug’s interest in their children, were all in memory of Nora Fortnam. Doug had even built a hut by the sea out of wood and palm leaves by hand. Whenever his longing got the better of him, he rode Aurora to the beach, tied her in a safe spot, and walked across the sand where Nora had walked, swam where she had swum, and surrendered to his grief in the hut that she had dreamed of. He sometimes wondered if Simon Greenborough’s spirit was laughing at him. Maybe Doug had just built a shrine to him and not his lover. But he felt closer to her here than at the grave in the Fortnam family cemetery, where they had buried the gruesome remains of the dead that night.
“Maybe you would also like to take care of beautiful dresses,” Doug turned back to Alima.
He could not let his thoughts wander. This was his party, his neighbors and business partners should know that the Fortnam plantation once again was what it had always been: a strong enterprise with a leader who knew what he was doing. Even if his methods were somewhat unorthodox.
Alima beamed. “Very much, Backra!” she said excitedly.
Doug nodded to her. “Then we’ll have to talk about it,” he said, dismissing the girl after she had also served Hollister and Keensley from the tray. Hollister stared at the girl. Doug didn’t like his expression. Maybe it was not such a good idea to send Alima into his household.
“You hear that, Lady Hollister,” he said cheerfully, anyway. “The little one would be willing. But, of course, I have to speak with her parents.”
“To begin with, we should discuss a price!” Lord Hollister said. “We don’t want anything for free and this comely child cannot be cheap.”
Doug pressed his lips together again. “I have already said that no one here is for sale,” he explained. Then he looked at Hollister’s wife. “If I send you Alima, milady, it would only be as a loan. I will make her available to you for a few years and you then send back a perfectly trained maid.”
Christopher Keensley grinned suggestively. “What is it you want with the chamber kitten?” he asked. “Can you not get into your knee breeches alone? Or out of them?”
The men laughed heartily.
Doug tried not to show his growing anger. “I prefer trousers,” he then remarked, while Lady Hollister smiled, knowingly.
“Mr Fortnam probably won’t need the girl for himself,” she said, and her voice sounded like a cat’s purr. “Surely there is a going to be a Mrs. Fortnam …?”
Doug forced a smile. “I was just thinking about that,” he said. “And since we are on such a stimulating topic — where is your beautiful niece, Lady Hollister? I think she hasn’t done me the pleasure of a single dance today. Does she possibly find our charming dance master more appealing than me?”
Lady Hollister’s plump face was beaming.
“You should look for her,” she said. “To be sure no one gets to her before you.”
Doug got up dutifully, knowing that there would surely be no one standing in line to court Lucille Hornby. The girl was not only silly and plump, but also came from an impoverished family of civil servants in London.
“Well, gentlemen, it seems I must excuse myself.”
Doug straightened his elegant, light-blue waistcoat and lace shirt cuffs as he crossed the airy ballroom. It was large enough for gatherings like these and did not seem overly ornate, but rather like a playful atrium, connected with terraces and side rooms. Nora would have loved it … Doug pulled himself together. He had to eventually stop constantly thinking of her. If only to be able to see more in the daughters and nieces of the other planters than an endless series of silly, giggling brats in white dresses who spoke of nothing but the heat and hardships of life in the colonies. Perhaps he would otherwise just stick with Lucille Hornby.
Doug straightened up and asked the nearest girl to dance.
He had to get over Nora.
The girl Alima cried a bit when Doug suggested that she serve Lady Hollister for the next few years. But Alima’s mother, Khadja, cried even more, unable to imagine being separated from her daughter. Her father, a strong, stocky African named Maalik, took it more calmly.
“If married, also gone,” he explained. “And here no man for her. Hollister more Kingston, Kingston more Muslims.”
Doug could see complications on the horizon. If a young man were interested in Alima, he might possibly also have to buy him. He was pessimistic about there being a member of Maalik’s religious community in the Hollister household. The house slaves in Kingston were rarely of African-Arab descent and Alima was unlikely to come in contact with the field slaves at the Hollister plantation. Not to mention the fact that Reverend Stevens visited the Hollisters just as frequently as the Fortnams, and there, attending services was mandatory. If the Hollisters really had a slave who was still holding onto his old beliefs, which were even quite rare in Africa, then he had to be doing it in secret. Reverend Stevens considered Islam to be an invention of the devil. Doug had only once cautiously brought it up — and was immediately punished with a several-hour-long sermon. He had no idea what Maalik and his family actually believed, but could easily see the reverend as a preacher of hate on a cr
usade.
“Alima would by no means be gone,” he then reassured the sobbing mother. “If the Hollisters are on the plantation or if they visit me here, the lady will of course take her maid along. And you can also visit Alima on Sundays in Kingston. I don’t think that the lady will give her the whole day free, and it is a long way to get there — you could just be with her an hour — but I won’t stand in the way. I give you a pass from here every Sunday.”
“She would also not sell?”
That was Kwadwo. He still served as the Busha to the slave community and Doug often consulted him. Doug shook his head. “No, Alima won’t be sold. She remains in my possession and eventually we get her back. If … If I …” He trailed off.
Kwadwo looked at him sympathetically. There was compassion in his eyes. He knew exactly what had happened between his master and Nora.
“You shouldn’t have built her Duppy a house,” he said to Doug in an offhanded manner. “Now it will never go …”
Kwadwo had watched Doug’s hut construction with extreme scepticism. “Maybe I don’t want it to go, Kwadwo,” he muttered. “But let’s drop that; we are talking about Alima. I will make it very clear to Lady Hollister that she is not her property, that she will be treated properly, and that her virtue will remain intact.” With the last promise, Doug’s voice sounded almost grim. He would even say it firmly to Lady Hollister’s husband. “It would be conducive to the general peace if she would attend the reverend’s services, but there are also excuses, if she can’t bring herself to do it. Regarding praying, the lady won’t stop her as long as it doesn’t have to be during working hours. But you know that yourself.”
The Muslims at Cascarilla Gardens also had to conduct their prayers after work.
“So, what do you think, Alima, are you interested?” Doug finally asked.
Alima looked down again. “If Mama not too sad and Papa not angry, then happy. I glad with beautiful dresses, Lady Hollister very beautiful lady. And Missy Hornby — such a beautiful lady …”