by Chris Dolan
On their last walk together before the grand concert, they talked avidly and more urgently than ever coming down through the gully to the shore, along towards their cave. Gideón was worried: Bathsheba was being reckless all of a sudden. In the things she was saying, proposing to him. The concert and the rehearsal were aggravating her, but he was worried, too, that he was to blame for this new impulsiveness.
“We’re not ready yet, Ba’sheba. Las cosas are not at their height.”
He spoke in a mix of Spanish and English and phrases of Golondrina’s translated from the African. Bathsheba followed him in language as she had tried to in everything else.
“What height, amor?”
For months they had been planning their escape. They would steal a boat. Better still, they would commandeer one. The best to be found in Carlisle Bay: they’d creep up in the night, storm it – an army of them! All the Millers and the Fairweather girls and Alexanders, the Edmondsons, Gideón’s boys and Roseta, old blind Mary. They’d overpower the crew and set sail for an island where only gentle natives lived.
More seriously, they would find help in Bridgetown. A lawman to win back her mother’s and aunts’ earnings. They could present themselves at the Colonial Governor’s palace, make their case. Or, like the runaways of legend, lose themselves in a hidden glen. Now, before the recital for Lord Coak, they had to take real decisions, make proper plans.
“Ahora no! Too early. You must refuse.”
She was tired arguing. Not only with him, but with mama and grannie and – fretting more than either of them – Diana Moore. She couldn’t think more today. She got up from the floor of the cave where they had been sitting close together in the dark. Water dropped on her from the cave’s ceiling, making her shiver and revealing the pattern of her skin through her wet gown. She took the gown off, the evening sun crouching down to spy inside their secret grotto. Until now, Gideón had always remained seated, marvelling at the beauty of her body, but resisting touching her while she was naked. Now he reached up for her, and brought her to him.
Her lovemaking was urgent and though he tried to slow her down, all the desire for her that he had kept violently in check for so long came flooding out. When they broke apart, glistening, struck dumb, the sun had still not set. They sat against the hard rock, momentarily robbed of their senses, as if God had given them one transcendent moment, then confiscated their powers of speech, hearing and reason. To each the entire world was filled only with the other. When their hearing returned it was the breathing of the other they heard; when their vision became unblurred it contained nothing but each other’s nakedness. They tried to speak but couldn’t find words. Only a new ache between her legs, and the sweat cooling on her skin brought Bathsheba round.
“What about your promises of marriage?”
He shrugged sleepily and smiled, “I told you. I’m weak.”
Shaw would be looking for Brazos, and Lady Elspeth would be sending out for Bathsheba. They had no choice but to return to the problem they had still not solved. The rehearsal for the grand concert would take place the following night and Bathsheba still insisted on doing whatever was asked of her; Gideón tried again to dissuade her.
“What can I do? Hide?”
“You were right, before. We go now. Find fishermen along the east coast to help us.”
“No, Gideón. You were right. What about my mother? Gola? Your children?”
Their discussions had gone round and round like this for days, getting them nowhere. Bathsheba got up and sighed, stepped out of the cave, cooling the heat of the evening by stepping into it. Gideón brought out her gown and cowl, to cover up that beautiful, mutinous body. They shared a last kiss under the capitulating sun. So rapt were they by the salt and tang of each others’ lips they didn’t see the children in the trees, spying on them. Not staring at the preposterousness of the naked Bathsheba, not scandalised or afraid of her, but giggling at the lovers’ embrace.
They felt the eyes on them, and broke their kiss. Gideón flinched, ready to run for cover. But Bathsheba held him tight. A girl – one of the Glovers – stepped out, then another girl, next a boy, then one of Bess’s grandsons. The children stood and stared until finally the smallest of them smiled. Gideón smiled too, even though this display must mean the end of all their plans. The children stood on the sands, sniggering at the woman’s nakedness, and at their cove being blessed by something as ordinary as a kiss.
Elspeth watched Bathsheba return from the cove. She had looked out for her pupil most days, since she’d taken to practising out in the grounds. She had even tried to follow her, hoping to surprise her, on the far side of the hill, or down on the beach. Hold her in her arms, the way she used to when Bathsheba was small, and tell her she was her own daughter. Now Elspeth noticed something different in her gait. Worry, perhaps, at the concert ahead. She remembered how, when George wasn’t with her, she herself used to wander the Overtons’ gardens at Savannah, imagining her big day, forgetting even the first lines of her recital, panicking, and calming herself, over and over.
Bathsheba was too locked up in herself. It was obvious from the way her head hung down, her feet trailed, how she nervously wrung her fingers. It was a defect in her performances too. Not only in front of an audience, but rehearsing, or in the schoolroom with Diana – a part of her was always held back. Experience would teach her to open up – Elspeth was sure of it. She tried to tell her the wonder of it – the exhilaration an actress feels when her very soul is laid bare before the public. How it cleansed you, cleared away the clutter of the mind, leaving only the role, the words, your presence.
“No one here can understand, Bathsheba,” she spoke out loud to herself, watching the girl stumbling in the dark towards the porch below, going in to help prepare dinner. “But you will.” You will feel alive. Feel the blood in your veins, your urgent heart. Like a wild beast who has no use for thoughts. Just simply being. There, in front of people, who might as well be all the people on earth. Every hair on your head, every eyelash, each tiny movement of your wrists, legs, lips witnessed, recorded, remembered. The rest of your life you’re sleeping; the world hides behind a muslin drape. Then the curtain opens and, suddenly, completely, inescapably, you’re alive.
The night before the concert, the big house was in an uproar of preparation. In the kitchen, Susan Millar and Bessy Riddoch tippled as they worked alongside Moira Campbell, Mary Riach, several daughters and two granddaughters. Young men and girls put the large hall in order and set the room up for the concert. The strongest men, under Elspeth’s supervision, hung the old heavy cloth at the back of the room.
At eight o’clock the men left the house, as they had done every year, to drink together outside, so that Lady Elspeth could show the women the dress she was intending to wear. She was no longer as tall and slim as she once had been, but everyone agreed she could still carry herself. She had not grown in girth like most of the other older women. Bess and Mary Miller and Martha and the Marys had swollen in the sun like breadfruit swells on the branch. Elspeth, rather, had diminished a little.
This year there were two new costumes on show: Elspeth’s and Bathsheba’s. Lord Coak had offered to order Bathsheba a new dress, but Elspeth preferred to gift the young debutante an old but never-worn dress she had intended to wear on her first night at the Lyric. A present from George Lisle, it had lain untouched in its original box ever since. Nan and Diana nipped and tucked and remodelled the material – so fine it was apt to tear at the approach of a needle – until it fitted the contours of a woman of an entirely different shape: Bathsheba, taller than even the young Elspeth, less buxom but sturdier at the hips and broader in the shoulder.
This was to be the largest gathering of Roseneythians in their history, invitations being extended to day-labourers, ex- workers, children, and one or two factor friends of Shaw’s from neighbouring lands. They would number over two hundred, itself cause for celebration, even if they had not increased quite as much as Captain
Shaw had predicted. Second and third generation Rosies were everywhere to be seen – cooking, hammering, lugging furniture, hanging the old cloth.
It was traditional that, after the house had been prepared for the following evening and Lady Elspeth had displayed her costume, a round of mauby with rum was set up for the women. Elspeth would join them all for a glass, every year finding new ways of toasting the women and girls from the hoard of poems and dramatic lines she knew:
“Here’s to the maid with a bosom of snow,
Now to her that’s as brown as a berry;
Here’s to the wife with a face full of woe;
And now to the damsel that’s merry!”
Or, with a mischievous grin and a wink: “To a penniless lass wi’ a lang pedigree!”
She would then retire to join Albert upstairs. This year, however, as their drinks were being poured and Elspeth raised her cup, every mind was more concerned at how Bathsheba’s first rehearsal would be conducted.
Half past eight o’clock came and went without the girl appearing in the house. As darkness grew, however, and just before the clock in the hallway struck nine, Bathsheba stepped in. She was not wearing Elspeth’s dress, but one of her daily work-gowns. She looked simple and clean and fresh; had washed and tied up her hair, the curls kept in place by a splinter of polished driftwood, the sweet smell of cochineal and frangipani around her. She wore earrings and a necklace, gifted her by Elspeth, and bangles made by Golondrina Segunda from cherry stones and petals of dried hibiscus.
She curtsied to Elspeth, but all those present could feel the older woman’s disappointment. Why had the girl not worn the dress? Quickly, the guests slipped away, keeping their silence till they were outside the house, where their rumours and theories immediately thickened the blackening night. Diana and Nan left, too – Diana to her chattel-house, Nan to her room below the kitchen – both of them fearful but unable to affect any longer the outcome of the night. Elspeth left behind them, having given Bathsheba a cup of lemonade.
“Finish your drink, my dear. Come when you’re ready.”
“I’ll be there shortly.”
Bathsheba remained sitting for a moment, saying her lines quietly to herself before giving herself up for final examination.
While they waited for her to arrive, Albert patted his bed, inviting Elspeth to sit near him. He took her hand, and, though his fingers were dry and crooked, she took pleasure in the fatherly warmth of his weakened grip. He told her that, no matter how proficient this young lass might be in her presentation, no one could ever match the depth and beauty of her own.
“It will sound sweeter on a young woman’s lips.”
“It will have nothing of the depth. Your art has matured and improved every day of your life, my dear.” He sighed, “It’ll be like starting all over again – and with nothing like the same certainty of outcome.”
Elspeth smiled and kissed his forehead, hearing Bathsheba’s footstep in the hall below. He tightened his grasp and asked if Elspeth would be so kind, after the child had finished her attempt, to repeat the ballad for him, alone.
Bathsheba bounded up the stairs, a surprising heaviness in the stride of such a young person. Her knock was gentler and Elspeth called out for her to enter. The older woman was still puzzled that Bathsheba had elected to wear a plain gown instead of the costume that had such symbolic value. The deep pang of rejection she had felt on first seeing her downstairs had subsided a little now, but in its place came an uneasy feeling that Bathsheba’s decision had some mysterious implication of its own. Bathsheba closed the door behind her, curtsied, looking a little flushed despite Golondrina’s cosmetic skill, her eyes betraying a childish excitement. Albert asked after her health and Bathsheba replied she was well. He inquired if she was apprehensive about tomorrow’s performance.
“Maybe a little nervous, yes.”
Elspeth plumped up Albert’s pillows, then sat in her seat by the window. The old man signalled for the girl to begin. Bathsheba looked lost for a moment, as though the first lines of the long poem had already escaped her memory. Then she stepped back from the bedstead, raised her right arm, and recited in a strong if shaky voice.
“Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hung
On the witch-elm that shades Saint Philip’s spring…”
Elspeth, with a wave of her hand, stopped her before she had scarcely begun.
“Saint Fillan, not Saint Philip, Bathsheba. You know that.”
The old man in bed explained that the poet sir Walter Scott was referring to was a Celtic missionary who had converted Scotland to Christianity. St. Philip, on the other hand, is a parish of Barbados. Bathsheba apologised for the fault, but Elspeth remained worried by it – it seemed too simple a mistake, and committed so early in the poem. She wondered if Bathsheba, though seeming contrite, had not intended some deep suggestion by it.
The girl continued, her intonation clear and her delivery so strong and sweet that Elspeth couldn’t criticise her. Yet she was aware of wanting to find fault. Bathsheba had learned the entire poem but selected different verses from those traditionally chosen by Elspeth, and she had found her own rhythm and accent, quite contrary to the way she had been taught. In all this Elspeth thought she detected artfulness – hidden messages in the narration of the ballad. The phrase “envious ivy” was given more prominence than it needed, and “to teach a maid to weep” made overly dramatic. His lordship, however, nodded and smiled and closed his eyes, revelling in the music of the words.
“Not thus, in ancient days of Caledon,
Was thy voice mute amid the festal crowd,
When lay of hopeless love, or glory won,
Aroused the fearful or subdued the proud.”
Despite Bathsheba’s little eccentricities in delivery and movement, there was no doubt that Elspeth had chosen her successor well. At certain turns of her head and in particular gestures she saw with clarity the shadow of George when she laughed; and when she was whispering softer lines her expression reminded Elspeth of the young man’s serious face as he sat on the shelf beside her the night of the storm. She was all the more convinced that, in a magic beyond her ken, her lover and true husband had somehow entered Bathsheba’s soul. Yet still, something in the recitation disturbed the older woman – maternal pride mixed with bitterer emotions of jealousy and loss.
“The wizard note has not been touched in vain.
Then silent be no more! Enchantress, wake again!”
Elspeth allowed Bathsheba a few more verses and then raised her hand to put a halt to the recital. Bathsheba carried on for a line or two, compelling Elspeth to raise her hand higher still and stare directly into the girl’s eyes. When Bathsheba finally fell quiet, her mentor congratulated her and told her she could go. An early night and a long sleep were now the best preparation for her. The girl did not turn to leave, however, but looked towards Coak who lay in his bed, glancing from Elspeth to Bathsheba. She asked if there was not something more he required? Coak appeared confused for a moment, and then he blanched, and looked in panic at Elspeth. Bathsheba put her hand to the ribbon around her neck, and he held his hand in front of his face. Elspeth cried out, “Stop! Leave at once!”
Bathsheba looked as if she were about to speak again and continued to loosen the ribbon at her throat, but then fell silent, and turned to leave.
Once she had left the room, Elspeth sat stunned. When it had occurred to her that people might have known of her private performances she had laughed. Was proud, even, that they knew that someone still liked to gaze upon her. Now she felt foolish and squalid. But what had impelled Bathsheba to provoke the matter, and allude so bluntly to it? Had the girl actually wanted the old man to agree to her nakedness? With just that merest motion of putting her hand to the ribbon at her neck the impudent lass had shone a piercing light on the void that had always marooned husband and wife one from the other.
All their lives Elspeth had considered her presentation of herself to Albert el
egant. For the only time in forty years she saw shame in a ritual that had pleased them both. She wondered if Albert had suffered her vanity just to humour her. Only a few moments ago she had felt graceful and strong; still charming despite her years. As she pulled herself up from her window seat and made for the door, she thought of herself differently: used and pitiable. She had not only lost flesh, but sinew and bone, her once young, strong body had shrunk and hardened – not through age but from being imprisoned in her chrysalis – to a nutmeg seed. Albert turned his head away in the bed, mortified by the exposure of both of them.
Elspeth fled downstairs, and out into the night. The air was cool and the breeze light, but the storm that had torn her from her promised future nearly half a century ago still raged around her. It had never stopped raging: the wind and thunder had lodged themselves in her heart and mind. She felt that gale on her face even now; the rain lashing, though the night was mild, as she made her way instinctively down the driveway, towards Roseneythe’s gates and Captain Shaw’s little stone house. The only way of containing the hurricane was to drive it deeper and deeper inside herself, until it blew and rumbled in the small, hard nut of her soul.
The children’s games began at noon. Ropes were attached to cabbage palms and the youngest swung and shouted to their hearts’ content. Teenagers, bored by the all the talk of Bathsheba and Lady Elspeth and Captain Shaw, played in the water, using shaddocks and watermelons in perilous ball games of their own invention. Aunts, uncles and older cousins busied themselves in the kitchen, whispers passing between them that Elspeth had been seen entering the factor’s home and only returning at dawn. Others said they had heard Bathsheba talk all night in Gideón and Golondrina’s hut, and was joined there by her mother. Several parties argued that the girl had been asked to strip off but had refused; that she had acquiesced; that she showed no shame, or was mortified; or that nothing of the sort ever happened.