Daughter of Destiny

by Erica Brown

  Wiping traces of bile from his mouth, Jeb shivered with fear, his face still as stone. ‘What are you saying?’ he asked without any trace of the usual sarcasm he reserved especially for his pompous brother.

  Emmanuel looked at him sidelong. ‘Sell her. Do anything.’ He sprang to the door, laid himself against it, and fixed a cold look on the girl. ‘Anything. We have to.’

  ‘That’s murder,’ said Viola, her voice calm yet forceful.

  Emmanuel tried to assess why she showed no fear. He’d been in card games with such people; Samson Strong had that same look when he was doing business. They all had one thing in common. Each of them had ulterior plans and had fixed their own agenda.

  Jeb remained silent.

  Otis was stunned, choosing to fix his gaze on Viola rather than on the dead man. Viola saw his interest, draped herself over the chair at his side and rested her chin on her hand.

  ‘No need to sell me or do anythin’ to my mind.’ She shrugged a shoulder at the dead Caradoc. ‘He tried to poke me on your papa’s bed. You was passin’ by and heard a helluva hootin’ and hollerin’ – me screamin’ an’ that. Ain’t that fer the best?’

  Emmanuel burst out laughing. ‘Clever girl. Everyone knows black men are like animals when it comes to fornication.’

  Swaying from side to side, as if she could hear a tune no one else could, she smiled as if she agreed, as if she had no intention of taking advantage of their own lust and the present situation.

  Jeb, who up until now had seemed in a shocked stupor, wailed to high heaven as he slid to his knees and clasped his hands in prayer. ‘Oh my God! Forgive me! Forgive me!’

  Emmanuel frowned at the sight. ‘For God’s sake, pull yourself together.’ He nodded at Otis. ‘Get him to his feet. His behaviour unnerves me.’

  Otis struggled with a wailing Jeb. Emmanuel’s attention returned to Viola. ‘For what price?’ he asked in measured tones.

  Viola thrust her pretty little chin that bit higher.

  ‘I don’t want to be a slave any more – I want to be a lady.’

  Emmanuel glanced at his brothers. Jeb was still distraught, begging God’s forgiveness and resisting Otis’s attempts to get him off his knees, not that Otis was putting in much of an effort. His gaze kept sliding back to Viola. He still wanted her – badly.

  Emmanuel smiled. ‘Then a lady you shall be, my dear, though one slightly spoilt in the making.’

  * * *

  Sir Samson and Lady Strong arrived from England five days later, their arrival coinciding with the advent of Otis’s twenty-first birthday. This was to be a one-off occasion, father and sons inspecting the cane fields, the threshing mills, the cooperage and transport to ship’s hold. Following this, each son would be allocated his part in the family business. One son would go home with their parents with a view to reviewing the shipping side of the business. The other two would stay on the plantations and learn about growing sugar and the management of labour.

  Tea was being served out on the veranda when the subject was aired. Sir Samson and Lady Strong had been told that Jeb had killed their butler to protect a maid.

  ‘Obviously Jeb has to go back to Bristol,’ muttered Sir Samson, his fine white hair fluttering like a cotton cloud around his gleaming pate. ‘I had thought of leaving him here, but after this bit of nonsense…’

  ‘Sugar?’ asked his wife.

  ‘Of course!’ he snapped.

  ‘I meant how many,’ she said, her smile never faltering.

  ‘Three, naturally!’

  ‘Remember your gout, dear. The doctor said—’

  ‘A quack! They’re all quacks!’

  At that precise moment a brightly coloured butterfly landed on his bandaged foot. Displeased by its presence, he swiped at it with his walking stick – and clipped his toe.

  ‘Damn and bloody blast it!’

  ‘Here’s your tea, dear.’

  ‘Damn the tea!’

  Lady Amelia Strong rose from her chair, her smile undiminished. The pinkness of her cheeks matched the tiny rosebuds that patterned her dress of palest pistachio green. ‘Business talk is one thing, my dearest. Blaspheming is another matter entirely.’ With her head in the air and a swish of silk, she went into the house.

  Otis’s eyes strayed between father and elder brother. Jeb seemed not to notice her leaving. He was still thoughtful, staring at the floor as if it were interesting. Emmanuel’s gaze remained fixed on his father, the man he most admired.

  Sir Samson nodded at his eldest son as if sensing and appreciating his admiration. ‘Now she’s gone, you can tell me more about this other matter.’ He grinned broadly as he remembered younger times when he hadn’t had gout and had picked his women with as much delight as a child choosing a sugar mouse. ‘Sly old dog, that Caradoc. ’Pon my word, I never knew the man had it in him? ’Pon my word, indeed!’ He chuckled salaciously. ‘Was she pretty?’

  Emmanuel looked to both his brothers, but each seemed preoccupied, one with guilt and one with thoughts of love. It was up to him to reply.

  ‘She’s very pretty.’ He omitted her name, but went on to explain matters further, along the lines that Viola herself had suggested.

  ‘’Pon my word,’ Sir Samson repeated, shaking his head, his fleshly jowls wobbling against his high collar. ‘The sly old fox!’

  ‘Yes, indeed, Father,’ said Emmanuel, his palms damp with nerves. He almost sighed with relief that his father had believed the story so easily, but he should have known better. His relief was short-lived.

  Sir Samson’s walking stick connected with Emmanuel’s shin. ‘That’s the truth for the law, my son. Now let’s have the real truth for me!’

  Gritting his teeth, Emmanuel considered assuring his father that he was telling the truth, then saw the flint-hard eyes, the iron jaw. So he told the truth and watched for his father’s reaction.

  At first his frown was like an overhang in a granite quarry, solid shadows over his eyes. But slowly his expression changed. Sir Samson began to laugh, his face running with sweat and bags of loose fat creasing into folds around his eyes. ‘Stallions!’ he exclaimed. ‘Fiery young stallions, just like I was in my day.’

  Reassured by his father’s exuberance, Emmanuel relaxed and began to laugh with him. Otis too joined in. Only Jeb remained unmoved.

  Sir Samson slapped the back of his eldest son, causing Emmanuel’s heart to leap in his chest. He was surely favoured, the eldest son and heir to a fortune.

  ‘Like father like son,’ Sir Samson said. ‘So, who was this midnight nymph that you took to my bed?’

  Confidence renewed, Emmanuel almost shouted her name. ‘Viola,’ he said and laughingly added, ‘She wants to be a lady – in exchange for her silence.’

  ‘Does she now!’ said Sir Samson, his voice laced with a mix of sarcasm and cruelty. ‘In exchange for her silence, she’ll have the whip across her back – or I shall sell her, ship her off to the Carolinas where she can do no harm to this family. Lady indeed! There’s no chance of that—’

  ‘Detail, my dear Samson. Detail.’ Lady Amelia, who had obviously been listening among the shadows of the house, swept back out on to the veranda and stood between her husband and his eldest son. ‘As usual, my dear, you have no idea of the detail in this delicate little drama. You can’t sell the girl, and neither can you have her whipped. You promised her father.’

  ‘Eh?’ Sir Samson looked nonplussed.

  His wife’s smile was undiminished as she towered over him. The fringes of her silk shawl fell like a waterfall from beneath her folded arms.

  ‘Viola is Captain Desmond’s daughter that he got on Magdalene. Her mother might be a slave, and so is Viola, but with stipulations. Captain Desmond is one of your best captains and you promised him you’d look after her properly. That means no whipping and no selling on.’

  Sir Samson glared at his wife, then at his sons. ‘But that means I have to adhere to the bargain that these young puppies made with her,’ he exclaimed
in amazement.

  Lady Amelia’s lips parted in an amused smile. ‘My, my. A moment ago your sons were stallions. Now they’ve become puppies.’ She pushed past Emmanuel and fondled the head of her youngest son. For the first time that day, she turned a smile-free face on her husband. ‘Either that, my dear husband, or one of our young stallions could end up on the gallows.’

  Emmanuel sprang to his feet. ‘They couldn’t hang him. He could say it was self-defence. He thought Caradoc was attacking Otis.’

  Lady Samson looked at him coldly. ‘You may be willing to take a chance on that. As his mother, I will not allow it.’ Jeb remained as silently withdrawn as he had done since that evening. His mother nestled his head beneath her breasts, her fingers running through his hair. She looked down at him. ‘Prison would be bad enough, but look at him. He’s riddled with guilt. He’ll tell them he did it in cold blood purely to save his soul.’

  For a while, time seemed suspended in silence. Only the sound of insects and the crying of seabirds disturbed the warm evening. It was Otis who finally spoke.

  ‘She’s a lovely looking young woman,’ he said and surprised everyone. It wasn’t like him to express his feelings, especially in front of his parents. ‘I think I could be fond of her,’ he said.

  Lady Samson raised her eyebrows and looked from her son to her husband. ‘I take it that this is the time when respectable women should leave the room.’

  No one responded.

  ‘I see,’ she said and, for the second time that day, she left them to cogitate.

  The men guarded their conversation until sure they were alone. Sir Samson looked to Otis. ‘I trust we’re talking about setting her up apart from the family, not moving the wench into the house?’

  ‘Well…’ Otis began in his usual nervous fashion.

  ‘He does,’ said Emmanuel.

  Otis shot him a grateful smile.

  Sir Samson turned his attention to his youngest son and frowned. His other sons had come through this easily enough, although of course they were not the perpetrators of the killing. That responsibility lay on Jeb’s shoulders.

  He said, ‘Under the circumstances, it’s best that Otis stays here in Barbados as manager of the estate.’ He smiled. ‘In time we’ll get him a wife, but no doubt he will not be lonely.’

  Otis smiled warmly and Emmanuel laughed.

  With the help of his stick, Sir Samson struggled to his feet. ‘Back to England for both of us,’ he said to Emmanuel, and looked pleased at the prospect. Turning to Jeb, he said, ‘I had planned for both you and Otis to stay here. I now think it’s best that you accompany your brother and me back to England. There’s the shipping side of the business—’

  ‘The clergy!’

  Jeb had hardly spoken for days so the sound and sharpness of his voice took them all by surprise. ‘I’ve decided to join the clergy,’ he repeated.

  His father looked fit to burst. ‘Nonsense!’

  Emmanuel was astounded. ‘You’re mad!’

  Jeb shook his head. ‘I have to do penance for my sin. It’s only right.’

  ‘Right? Right?’ Sir Samson began to splutter, his face reddening as he fought for breath. Finally, he got his coughing under control. Pointing his quivering stick at his youngest son, he said, ‘You’ll regret it, my son. You have all this!’

  Jeb ran his eyes over the rich green fields, the toiling slaves, and the sea beyond. Behind him was the stunning opulence of Rivermead House, though its construction and furnishings were nothing when compared to Marstone Court.

  ‘I’ve been walking and thinking a lot just lately. I walked down to the harbour and I saw children around the Bridgetown docks, starving they were and dressed in rags. There’s sugar growing all around, but not for the likes of them. I want to do something about it.’

  Sir Samson guffawed as though it were the funniest joke in the world. ‘Well, you can’t. You’re going back to Bristol. That’ll scupper that little plan, my son!’

  Jeb shrugged, his expression completely calm. ‘Barbados or Bristol. It makes no difference. There are street urchins in every city.’

  Sir Samson scowled. ‘You’ll regret it, my boy! Mark my words.’

  Unseen by her husband, Lady Strong watched from the shadows beyond the doorway. She smiled and there was a look of pride on her face. Jeb saw her, and knew his mother understood. He’d been born into wealth and administered to since birth. In recompense for what he had done, he would administer to the disadvantaged for the rest of his days.

  ‘You’re a fool,’ muttered Emmanuel.

  ‘And you’re the eldest son,’ Jeb said with a smile. ‘You have to follow in our father’s footsteps, but I can do as I please.’

  Their father interrupted. ‘Manny,’ he said, his face shining with the pride of a man who knows his son is exactly as he wants him to be, a perfect copy of himself, ‘not going to disappoint me and join a monastery, are you?’ He laughed loudly.

  Emmanuel clicked his fingers at the new butler, whose hands shook as he filled four glasses to the brim with dark, Barbadian rum. ‘No, Father.’ He raised his glass. ‘I promise to follow in your footsteps – only I shall take bigger strides!’

  Father and son laughed together.

  Hating to be left out, Otis laughed too, pleased to remain in Barbados with sole responsibility for the plantation, and to be regarded enough of a man to take a mistress.

  Only Jeb remained silent, his eyes locking in mute understanding with those of his mother. Perhaps she knew that he woke in a sweat in the middle of the night, unable to move and crying for something lost. The slaves believed that dreams were portents of things to come. He hoped they were wrong and that retribution would not fall on his or the heads of those he loved.

  Chapter Two

  ‘I am truly blessed,’ the Reverend Jeb Strong said to his wife Miriam on their wedding day.

  He repeated that statement frequently over the next eleven years on the birth of their six daughters and one son. Life was good, and Jeb had come to believe that God had forgiven him for killing Caradoc. He often preached from the pulpit that God forgave the wickedest sinner so long as they truly repented. Spending his life in the service of God and of those less fortunate than himself, he believed, would be his enduring act of penitence. All the same, he got down on his knees every night and prayed that his happiness would continue, that the dreaded retribution would never come.

  Unfortunately, it did.

  It had been raining for weeks. Jeb’s children – Jasper, Patience, Piety, Charity, Ruth, Rachel and Leah – pressed their faces against the rain-lashed windows, desperate for the chance to get out.

  ‘They’re like parrots in a cage,’ Miriam Strong said.

  ‘Now, where are you parrots hoping to fly?’ Jeb asked his children.

  ‘India,’ said Piety.

  ‘Jerusalem,’ Charity countered.

  Jeb shook his head, his eyes rolling as if all patience with his children was at an end, which was far from the truth. Jeb was a patient man.

  ‘And where do you want to fly?’ Jeb asked his son, Jasper, who was eight years old and not as strong a lad as he’d like him to be.

  ‘The South Seas,’ lisped Jasper, his voice full of wonder. ‘But I’d like to sail the South Seas, not fly over them. I like the water. And I like ships.’

  Jeb shook his head again. ‘Sorry. No India, no Jerusalem and no South Seas. But how about Marstone Court on Sunday? It’s your cousin Horatia’s birthday and we’re invited to tea. Nelson will be there too.’

  Just as he’d expected, the idea of getting out of the house and the city, and into the country with the prospect of a good tea, was enough to lift their spirits – and send them off in search of bread and jam.

  ‘So will Emmanuel’s new wife, no doubt,’ muttered Miriam who, although she thought it only right and proper that Emmanuel’s two children by his first marriage should have a new mother, did not approve of his choice.

  ‘I know she’s y
oung…’ Jeb began, giving her a disparaging look. It wasn’t like Miriam to dislike anyone.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ Miriam interrupted. ‘Verity may well warm his bed, but her heart’s cold, especially where Horatia and Nelson are concerned. If only Marguerite hadn’t caught smallpox…’

  ‘God’s will,’ murmured Jeb, and said a silent prayer for his sister-in-law’s soul and also for his parents, who had drowned in a Caribbean hurricane.

  ‘Amen,’ Miriam said with a heavy sigh.

  * * *

  On the day of Horatia’s birthday, thin clouds still hid the sun, but the rain had stopped. Once the children were together at Marstone Court, they were accompanied outside by their nurse whose real name was Gertie but was called Peters, as every other nurse had been.

  Peters was being courted by one of the footmen, who followed them out of the house. Some but not all of the children took advantage of her lack of attention and headed across the park – quietly past a small gathering of red deer they’d always been told not to disturb – over a stile and down to the water meadows.

  The river had broken its banks only a few days before and the meadow was partially submerged. Daring, despite his delicate appearance, Jasper chose to climb a stout oak. Some of its branches dipped into the floodwater, which swirled across' the meadow in a raging torrent.

  The girls attempted the lower branches, except Horatia, who considered herself too grown-up for that. But she didn’t like being left out.

  ‘Come down, all of you, or you won’t come to my birthday party.’

  The girls, mindful of getting their party dresses snagged on sharp twigs, got down. Much to Horatia’s annoyance, Jasper stayed put.

  ‘Jasper, if you don’t come down, you can’t come to my party.’

  Jasper did his best not to show he cared about going to his cousin’s party and swung his legs nonchalantly from either side of a branch some twelve feet or more off the ground. ‘I don’t want to go to your tiresome party, Horatia Strong!’

  Careful so as not to slip, Jasper drew his legs up on to the branch and slowly stood up, gripping branches for support. Sharp twigs scratched at his brown velvet suit, an outfit he’d willingly see ripped to shreds. ‘I can see the sea,’ he shouted, tossing his corn-coloured hair and pointing into the distance.