Daughter of Destiny

by Erica Brown

  ‘Well, you can’t have Nelson. He’s a Strong. He could never have married you.’

  ‘Is it because we’re cousins?’

  Blanche saw her mother flinch. ‘No! Not really…’

  Blanche slumped back in the carriage seat, distraught. ‘I won’t marry anyone except Nelson.’

  ‘Then you’ll not marry at all.’

  ‘Then I’ll be like you, a mistress.’

  She’d fully expected another slap, but her mother seemed suddenly tired as she shook her head and said, ‘There’s no security in being a kept woman. Be a wife. There’s respect and security in that. This is a man’s world. The best a woman can be is a wife.’

  ‘You have security.’

  ‘But I don’t have respect, which means being respectable. I could never give you that because I’ve never been a wife. So you must give it to your children, and to do that you must have a husband.’

  ‘Otis Strong wouldn’t marry you!’ Blanche snapped the name like a turtle about to take a bite out of something far larger than itself.

  ‘He couldn’t marry me, but he’s always taken care of me.’ Her mother’s eyes met her searching gaze.

  All her life Blanche had wanted Otis Strong to claim her as his daughter, but he never had, even though his pale, English wife had given him no heirs.

  ‘I love Nelson.’

  ‘Love someone else.’

  Blanche slumped back against the warm leather of the carriage seat. ‘I’ll write to him. I’m good at writing. I like teaching it too.’

  ‘So I notice,’ said Viola. ‘You bin teaching Melville’s grandchildren to write their own names and suchlike, and look what that’s led to!’

  Viola pointed at the wooden door of a disused counting house. Scrawled on it with a chalky yellow stone was one word: Samson. Blanche smiled. ‘He’s very good at writing.’

  ‘I can believe it,’ said Viola as they passed a tumbledown tin hut where barrels were stored. ‘It’s all down to practice!’

  Samson. Samson. Samson. His name was everywhere and the enterprising young lad had also written it in what looked like the hot, black stuff that shipbuilders used with rope to caulk ships and boats.

  ‘But it’s got him a place at the school,’ remarked Melville from the front of the carriage.

  Blanche sensed Melville’s pride and her own mother’s resentment. Reading and writing was something her mother had never been taught and had never needed.

  ‘People ain’t never satisfied,’ Viola grumbled. Lines furrowed her brow and the vibrant voice lapsed into silence.

  ‘I mean it,’ said Blanche suddenly. ‘I will write to him!’

  Her mother said nothing, her face immovable.

  Blanche persisted. ‘I have his address. I will write to him!’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘You won’t mind?’

  Her mother shrugged.

  ‘We could have married. Wouldn’t that have been possible?’

  Her mother smiled as she shook her head and gently touched her daughter’s cheek. ‘No. He’s not for you. He’ll have an English bride.’

  Blanche sat with folded arms, the handle of her parasol tucked into the crook of her arm, studying her toes in preference to the sea, the unending fields or the verdant greenness of the centre of the island where fluffy white clouds seemed to sit like hats on the hills.

  Melville did all the talking for the rest of the journey, his conversation instigated by Blanche’s mention of schooling.

  The afternoon was warm and the dusty road that wound between fields of high-growing cane was hard-packed mud, sticky in the rainy season, but dusty at this time of year. The smell of frangipani blossoming in the heat mixed with the salt smell from the sea and the sweetness of the smoke from the curing house chimneys.

  Blanche remembered Nelson’s paintings of the neglected sugar building on the island. He’d made Barbados more colourful with the flick of a paintbrush and the touch of his lips. Without him she saw only shabbiness, smelled only decay and the stale sweat of tired men.

  ‘I’ll never forget him,’ she said resolutely.

  Her mother didn’t answer.

  ‘I won’t,’ she said more vehemently, harbouring a childish determination to cause an argument.

  At first she presumed the warm afternoon had sent her mother asleep. When she looked, her arm was resting, on the side of the carriage and her head had flopped forward on to that.

  ‘Ma!’ she said, and nudged her mother’s arm. She tried again. ‘Ma?’

  Her mother groaned and her head lolled forward on to her chest. Then she crumpled to the floor.

  ‘Stop!’ Blanche screamed.

  Melville pulled the horses to an instant halt and looked over his shoulder.

  ‘She’s sick,’ shouted Blanche.

  Melville got down from his perch and came back to investigate.

  ‘Her belly’s big,’ he said matter-of-factly, pointing at her mother’s stomach.

  Round-eyed, Blanche looked too. Why hadn’t she noticed it before? The seam of high-waisted dresses came just below the breasts. A big belly was easily hidden.

  ‘We need a doctor perhaps,’ said Blanche.

  ‘Or a midwife,’ said Melville.

  Blanche did not meet his gaze. It was too much of a shock to believe that her mother might be pregnant.

  ‘I’ll get Miss Pinkerty,’ said Melville.

  Blanche let him take charge, convinced that her mother would be all right. Lots of women her mother’s age got pregnant; though it seemed strange after all these years. But the only man she ever saw was Otis Strong… and everyone knew his wife couldn’t give him children. But Viola could.

  Blanche seethed with anger. Otis Strong had to face up to his responsibilities and she would make sure he did. In the past she would never have dared knock at his door. But if he wanted to be left alone, then he should have left her mother alone or married her, and he should never have dared send Nelson away.

  Once her mother was in bed and Miss Pinkerty sent for, Blanche took one of the matching greys from the stable.

  ‘That’s a tired horse,’ remarked Melville. ‘Where you going?’

  Blanche mounted astride. Sidesaddle was a skill she’d never quite mastered.

  ‘Rivermead. I won’t be long.’

  Digging her heels into the grey’s side, she cantered off along the dirt track that joined the road to Rivermead.

  At the Strongs’ house men were hoeing around flowering shrubs and young boys were sweeping dead leaves. They looked up, as Blanche cantered down the winding drive between carefully planted bushes, each spot chosen to throw shade over the drive.

  A servant in brown and yellow livery held her horse as she dismounted. ‘I want to see Mr Otis Strong,’ she said in the most imperious voice she could muster, though her stomach churned with nerves.

  The servant looked her up and down as though trying to reach a decision.

  ‘He don’t see coloureds.’

  Blanche felt the blood rushing to her cheeks. ‘Well, he’s damn well going to see me!’

  With that, she flounced up the steps. Just as she reached the top, a set of glazed French doors swung open. A tall woman in a striped dress and a large bonnet stepped out into the sunshine carrying a trug. Her eyes were like marbles; their colour something between brown and hazel and set into a floury-white complexion. Her dress was like a large bell and swung slightly as she moved, so different to the high-waisted dress of pale yellow muslin that Blanche wore.

  It was obvious from the start that the woman knew who she was. Her mouth was set poker straight, and her eyes bored into Blanche as if she were of no more worth than the sheep her mother had bought that morning.

  She plucked up all her courage. ‘I want to see Otis.’

  Mistress Strong stood absolutely still, raised her eyebrows contemptously but said nothing.

  ‘My mother’s having a baby. It’s his responsibility.’

  The woman’s
cheeks quivered as if she were swallowing her shock. Suddenly there was a scream and the trug came flying past Blanche’s head. She ducked, the trug missed her, and she saw Otis’s wife running off into the house, still screaming hysterically and calling for her husband.

  The servant told her to go. ‘He ain’t going to be pleased.’

  ‘I’ll stay,’ she said.

  The servant judged that he’d lose any argument, so left her alone but he told her that someone had gone to fetch his master from the fields he was currently inspecting.

  It was an hour or so before Otis Strong came riding in astride a striking chestnut.

  He stared down at her, swallowed and seemed almost nervous in her presence. He was also strangely pale, had dark rings beneath his eyes and a stoic look, as if he were half expecting the news she brought.

  After a groom had taken his horse and was well out of ear-shot, he asked what she wanted.

  ‘It’s my mother. I think she’s having a baby.’

  He showed no emotion as he said, ‘She’s not having a child.’

  Blanche prepared herself to argue, glaring at him with fire in her eyes. ‘Look, her belly’s big and she’s feeling ill. I’ve never seen my mother looking like this, so don’t tell me that she’s not having a child.’

  For a man of such power, he seemed oddly silent, as though not wanting to say anything else. ‘She’s not having a baby. Go home.’ He turned away.

  His attitude angered her more than she could bear. She rushed up behind him, grabbed his arm so that he had to face her.

  ‘How can you say that?’

  She saw that his eyes were moist and for one solitary moment, she was sure he was on the verge of crying. He looked at her then towards the house where his wife had resumed her screaming.

  ‘My wife is a little highly strung,’ he said. ‘I have to go to her.’

  The tears were for his wife!

  The sight of his turned back was unbearable. There was so much she wanted to ask him, but she had promised her mother – long ago – that she wouldn’t. But at least she could ask him about Nelson.

  She followed him as far as the wide veranda that ran along the front of the house.

  ‘Why am I not good enough to join your family? I want to know why Nelson has been sent home. We love each other!’ She held her head high. He’d never told her he’d loved her, but she assumed he did. ‘I want to know,’ she said again.

  Otis shook his head and wouldn’t meet her eyes. ‘He’s not for you.’

  Briefly, they looked at each other before he gave a servant orders to help her remount and be seen off the premises.

  Blanche was dumbstruck. It no longer seemed of any importance whether this man was her father. She hated him. He would never acknowledge her, just as he would never acknowledge the fact that her mother was having a baby. He was hard-hearted and a coward.

  Before going home, she went one last time to the beach. Tying the horse to a tree, she stepped on to the warm sand just at the spot where the stream marked the boundary of Rivermead. Taking off her shoes, she forded the cool waters, not running this time, but merely striding to the spot where she’d last lain with Nelson.

  It seemed desolate now, empty of everything that had once been. All the evenings were gone.

  The sun had sunk into the sea and left a purple sky by the time she got back home. To her surprise, Miss Pinkerty’s donkey and cart were still there and Uncle Melville was sitting on the porch steps, holding his head in his hands.

  Instinctively aware that something was wrong, she slid down from her mount.

  ‘Is it born?’ she asked.

  Her heart sank when she saw the tears squeezing out from between Melville’s fingers. ‘She’s dying,’ he said lamely, a trail of spittle running from the side of his mouth.

  Open-mouthed and feeling terribly cold, Blanche entered the house, knowing that she wouldn’t welcome what she was about to be told.

  Her footsteps seemed to echo off the stone corridor as she made her way to her mother’s bedroom.

  Miss Pinkerty, her turbaned head as high as a steeple, was singing soft and low as she held her mother’s hand.

  Blanche approached the bed hesitantly, afraid to look around the room in case she saw a bloodied bundle of what might have been a life.

  ‘Is the baby not coming?’ She directed her question at Miss Pinkerty, whose eyes were like brown moons beneath thick eyebrows.

  ‘There ain’t no baby, child. That’s a cancer she got there. Somethin’ that won’t stop growin’.’

  Blanche glanced at the small phial beside the candles on the bedside table. Even before she asked the question, she knew with chilling certainty what the answer was likely to be.

  ‘Will the medicine make her better?’

  Miss Pinkerty shook her head. ‘Laudanum – opium mixed with a little rum. It will take the pain away, but it won’t cure her, child.’

  Fear clutched at Blanche’s heart. Her mother couldn’t die. It wasn’t possible.

  ‘What about if you give her more of it? Won’t that work?’ she asked.

  Miss Pinkerty shook her head. ‘Just wine and moondust,’ she said. ‘It will take you to paradise and back again, but take you to hell if you’re not careful.’

  Blanche sank on the opposite side of the bed to Miss Pinkerty and reached for her mother’s hand.

  Just before midnight, Viola’s eyes blinked open.

  ‘You’re going to get better,’ said Blanche, smiling at her mother as if she were telling the truth, her eyes moist with tears.

  Her mother shook her head. ‘I’m dying, Blanche.’

  Blanche shook her head. ‘No. No, of course you’re not.’

  Viola’s lips were dry, and her breathing shallow. The sound of fluttering wings drew Blanche’s attention to the candle burning at the side of the bed. Mesmerised by the light, a brown-winged moth dived carelessly into the flame and perished. By the time she looked back at her mother, she’d gone too.

  * * *

  The funeral passed in a blur. Otis Strong paid for everything, but did not attend. Blanche leaned for support on the arm of her uncle.

  ‘Why didn’t he come?’ she asked Uncle Melville after it was all over.

  Melville shrugged. ‘He couldn’t I s’pose.’ As always, he seemed disinclined to talk about Otis.

  Blanche hung her head. Her mother was dead and her father refused to acknowledge her. All she had left was Uncle Melville and a clutch of relatives scattered around the island.

  A sea breeze was blowing straight into her mother’s bedroom when word came from a solicitor in Bridgetown that she was to attend a meeting with regard to the settling of her mother’s estate.

  ‘What do they mean by that?’ she asked no one in particular as she looked down at the letter.

  Before leaving the room, she looked round at the pale colours, the patchwork counterpane, the hairbrushes, perfumes and creams sitting neatly before an oval mirror on cherub supports. It was her mother’s smell she would miss, that hint of spice mixed with a heady perfume that arrived from England once a year. It was contained in a stout bottle of dark blue glass with a silver stopper attached to the bottle by a fine silver chain. She picked it up, pulled out the stopper and sniffed. The smell was comforting, so much so, that when she went to see the solicitor, she wrapped the bottle in a lace-trimmed handkerchief, pushed it to the bottom of her purse and took it with her. So long as she had that bottle, her mother would never be too far away.

  The solicitor’s office was stone built and had started life as a counting house, a place in which past plantation owners had once done business. As Bridgetown had grown, planters had set up counting houses and crushing mills closer to the fields, the former so they could keep a better eye on things, the latter because the cane had to be crushed immediately after being cut before its moisture was sucked up by the Caribbean sun.

  Otis Strong was there, standing at the window with his back to the room.

&n
bsp; ‘Everything reverts to the Strong estate,’ began the solicitor, a refined gentleman with a thin face and an old-fashioned wig that sat askew on his meagre head.

  He seemed nervous, constantly deferring to the broad-shouldered figure silently looking out of the open window. Not once did he acknowledge her.

  Hardly listening, Blanche sat very still in her pale green day dress with matching bonnet, her net-gloved hands folded primly on her lap. Her gaze remained fixed on the man at the window. She so wanted him to look at her and to like her, to declare that she was his daughter and to embrace her with the love and affection a father should give his child.

  If only this was a dream, she thought, and closed her eyes as she waited for the solicitor to finish rustling his papers and get on with whatever it was he had to do. It was a vain hope, but she found herself wishing that when she reopened her eyes she would be laid against crisp linen pillows in her own bedroom and this little man and his musty office would have disappeared.

  ‘Miss Bianca?’

  The solicitor’s voice was as thin as his body and pierced her thoughts like a bodkin.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  She blinked. The musty office and the little man were still there. So was Otis Strong, his shadow falling on to the dusty floorboards like a cloud across the sun. He chose that moment to speak. ‘Get on with it, Morgan. I haven’t got all day.’

  Angry and grief-stricken, Blanche couldn’t help herself. ‘No! Of course not. Your wife’s waiting for you at home, glad my mother’s dead. So, what are you to do with me? What does your wife want you to do with me? If it wasn’t for abolition, she’d have got you to sell us on by now, wouldn’t she? Both me and my mother!’

  Otis Strong’s broad shoulders stiffened as though he were holding himself back.

  He wants to hit me, she thought, and didn’t care if he did.

  But he remained looking out of the window. ‘Your mother had every comfort,’ he said, his voice seeming to rumble like distant thunder.

  Blanche thought of the brightness of the company at her mother’s house, the men and women who had danced and sang on the lawn, where frangipanis shed their ice-white blossom and filled the air with a scent reminiscent of almonds.