by Laura Frantz
28
George Washington danced upwards of three hours without once sitting down.
General Nathanael Greene
In the span of a few hours, they walked to the waterfront where a shallop awaited instead of a carriage. Their hosts lived on the other side of the James, a mile or more downriver. Stepping into the waiting boat with six oars, an awning, and both coxswain and bargeman in livery, Lark felt she’d fallen into a fairy tale.
Seated across from Mistress Flowerdew and beside Magnus, she arranged her embroidered skirts. The airy lavender lustring was a perfect pairing for the sultry Virginia eve. Thanks to the help of a housemaid, her hair was powdered, her stays breathlessly tight, her throat circled with a genteel velvet ribbon and cameo.
Mistress Flowerdew looked triumphant. “You’ll be something of a célèbre tonight,” she said to Magnus, “you and Miss MacDougall.”
“Surely yer neighbors are acquainted with the Scots who make up so much of Virginia’s economy.”
“The Scots merchants, you mean. A far cry from a landed, titled laird like yourself. You remain one of the gentry, no matter what King George may say.”
Magnus chuckled and reached up to adjust his stock. “Kilt-less and castle-less yet still welcome.”
“Yes, indeed. I daresay you’ll find none of the middling sort present tonight. Only the top tier of Virginia society, including the new French dancing master from Williamsburg.”
Lights lit up Mount Brilliant like a beacon. The slope of lawn leading to the dock was illuminated by several servants holding lanterns who accompanied them up the hill to the mansion. Virginians had a penchant for brick, this house bearing countless diamond-glass windowpanes and soaring columns.
They passed from porch to foyer and through an arched doorway to a ballroom of creamy woodwork and English wallpaper, elegant and airy but for the crush of guests. Music spilled from a raised dais at one end of the long room. Supper smells, seafood foremost, rode the humid air.
Lark pressed a lavender-lined handkerchief to her upper lip. So many candles, the lights calling out the flash of jewels and sheen of colorful dresses. Their hosts greeted them warmly as a minuet signaled the ball’s beginning. She curtsied and Magnus bowed again and again as other couples greeted them in turn.
Taking her arm, Magnus led Lark out to join the gathering dancers, those of the highest rank going first. Though she preferred the country dances, the minuet was measured and artful, and Magnus had always been a splendid partner. Though his father might have been against their marriage, he’d had few qualms about her being educated alongside his son, and that had included an itinerant dancing master. Her lovely gown gave her extra confidence amid the whispering behind fans. They were creating quite a stir.
“The laird and his lady,” someone said.
Being Scottish, they did everything a wee bit differently, and that included dancing. But the attention was approving, even admiring, and she felt the delight of it to her toes.
Soon she was singled out by other gentlemen of all ages and stations, though all had one thing in common—a love of dancing. She forgot the fierce heat. The odd mingling of accents. Her humble station. Larkin’s well-being. Even Magnus’s impending departure.
Suppertime found them full of Virginia’s remarkable fare—and syllabub, a frothy concoction that Virginians seemed as fond of as dancing. One cup left her light-headed so she declined more. Magnus claimed her for one reel, then a jig. Throat parched, she wanted to drink from the garden fountain.
How they snuck away from the crowded ballroom after hours of dancing was no small feat. The gentle pressure of his hand on her lace sleeve led to a night dazzling with stars and the perfume of late-blooming roses beyond the ballroom’s French doors. Sitting down on a wrought-iron bench near the fountain’s splash, Magnus at her side, she watched the melee of swirling dancers in a way she hadn’t been able to inside.
“These Virginians dance till dawn,” he mused.
“They seem not to mind the close quarters.”
“Their stamina is staggering.” He ran a finger around his stock as if wanting to untie it altogether. “Mayhap they have Scots blood.”
She smiled and shut her eyes as the breeze strengthened, stirring both her hair and her gown’s hem. Oh, to slow time or wind it backwards. What she would give to hold on to the few precious moments left to them before parting.
“Ye promise to pen me a letter?”
Her eyes opened. So he was thinking of the morrow too. Her voice lifted above the music. “Long ago I used to write to ye, after ye’d gone to Edinburgh.”
His buckled shoe kicked at a pebble in the grass. “I still have yer letters. All nine or so.”
Oh? “Yet ye wrote but once.”
“I owe ye a belated apology.” He angled his head toward her, arms crossed. “Yer letters were so prettily written yet so full of Kerrera, each felt like a thorn to me.”
“Ye missed the island.”
“Aye.” He hesitated. “And ye.”
She fingered the borrowed cameo at her throat, her heart so full her mind was empty.
He continued, “I have them now, in my trunk. Tied with blue silk ribbon, yer favorite color.”
Regret pummeled her. She’d saved his very first letter to her in the family Bible at the croft. As for the second, she’d fed his few penned lines to the croft fire as if doing so could ease her angst. It hadn’t. “If ye’ve kept them, ye dinna need me to pen another.”
He took her teasing with a flash of a smile. “I would have the penned musings of Lark the woman, not Lark the girl.”
“Lark the tattie bogle, ye mean.” She smoothed a crease in her lustring.
“Yer no scarecrow, Lark. Not in that gown. Whatever tolbooth and the Bonaventure stole, it wasna yer womanliness.”
The night turned warmer. She looked to her lap as his thoughtful words seared her memory and took a bold breath. “Write to me first. Then I’ll have something to remember ye by, come what may.”
“As soon as I land, then.”
She nodded. “Before ye go, I want to give ye a kit of Jesuit’s bark and some things to take for fever and the like.”
“Yer prayers are more effective.”
“Ye’ll have both. And a letter in time.”
Just how long was the distance from Virginia to the sugar islands?
As if reading her mind, he said, “A month’s sailing to Jamaica.”
She bit her lip. “So very far.”
“Closer than Kerrera. From what I’ve been told, ’tis a different world. Hectares of sugarcane, mills for refining it. Coffee, indigo, rice. Slaves and indentures. I ken little else.”
It sounded harsh. As different from Virginia as Virginia was from Scotland.
Inside the ballroom, a reel gave way to an allemande but she felt in no mood to dance. Weary to the bone she was.
Lark looked up. The moon foretold midnight. Morning came too soon.
Before she could stifle a yawn, a fast-moving Mistress Flowerdew rushed down the mansion steps into the garden, skirts a-swirl. “There you are! ’Tis after midnight and the shallop awaits.”
Bypassing the house, they took a path through the garden down to the river, where the lantern-lit vessel waited to return them to Royal Hundred. Their night of enchantment was over.
How long had he been standing there?
Lark paused in her morning’s work, taking a moment to rock a fretful Larkin in the chair near an open window, when a dark silhouette at the door caught her eye.
Hat in hand, Magnus regarded her as if unwilling to intrude. The memories they’d made the last few nights would carry her through the coming days. These were a gift.
He cleared his throat. “Goodbye for noo. See ye efter.”
The simple Scots farewell had come at last. Even Larkin quieted. Twisting on her lap, he sat up and reached out plump arms toward the deeply grounded voice.
Her heart tore in two.
Tossing h
is hat and knapsack aside, Magnus strode in and caught up Larkin in a bearish embrace. He buried his face in the lad’s downy shoulder, his coal-black hair a startling contrast to Larkin’s stark red.
Lark stood awkwardly, biting her lip till her tears retreated, and passed into the stillroom where the medicine kit she’d made him waited. Her heart, so bruised since leaving Kerrera, broke anew. So fragile she felt. Life was fragile. Only God knew if she’d see him again.
Chin firming, she took Larkin back while Magnus untied his knapsack and put her bundle inside. When he looked over at her in thanks, his blue eyes glistened like the sea about Kerrera on a clear day. Her forced composure shattered anew. Tears wet her face, the ache in her throat building toward a cry. Sob she would not. She’d not leave him with anything less than a gladsome goodbye, be it a tad tearstained. He deserved a better parting.
“Slàinte, Magnus.” She lay a hand on his sleeve, her other arm full of Larkin.
He put his arms around them both. His Gaelic came soft. “Is thu mannsachd.”
Thou art my most beloved.
He set Larkin down so that his arms were for her alone. She closed her eyes. She’d come home. All her years-long yearnings were quelled in that instant.
She stayed standing while her senses were reeling, immersed in sandalwood and clean linen and the marvel of his mouth meeting hers. Their first kiss. Kisses. Till she was breathless and astir and all thought of anything but the two of them had taken wing.
And then he was gone, her last look at him a tear-washed blur.
That evening, she found the locket. The MacLeish heirloom. It lay on the stillroom table, previously unseen, busy as she’d been with the bees. It was heart-shaped. Transparent. Yellow-gold and crowned with tiny diamonds. His mother had worn it and then his sister.
She picked it up gently, having only viewed it at arm’s length before. Inside was a lock of dark hair. Magnus’s own? She melted like candle wax.
Afraid she’d somehow mar the heirloom by wearing it as she worked, she kept it close by pocketing it. Even its slight weight brought her joy.
Of all the things he’d left behind in Scotland, the locket had not been one of them. ’Twas a tie to Kerrera. His family. The past.
And now her.
29
The Great Hall . . . and everything in it is superbly fine. . . . The front has the sea, shipping, town and a great part of the island in prospect, and the constant sea-breeze renders it most agreeable.
Janet Schaw, St. Olives Plantation, St. Kitts, 1774
Montego Bay, Jamaica
At first glance, the warm turquoise waters and lush, lyrical landscape were all Magnus saw. When his head cleared, other things tugged at his attention. The comingling of cocoa and coffee, sugarcane and spirits, a potent blend in the sultry sea air. The mishmash of languages and shades of skin, from coal black to cinnamon to tobacco. Slavers lay at anchor in the bustling harbor, their contents a great many stoop-shouldered, emaciated men, women, and children bought and sold before his eyes. His gut churned as his wary gaze landed on raucous parrots and agile monkeys in cages. Odd yellow and orange fruits. Coconuts. Plantains.
Hawkers shouted their wares as he inhaled meat-tinged smoke. The captain’s pointed finger and explanations were so plentiful they failed to find anchor in Magnus’s swirling brain.
Relief filled him as the wagon sent from Trelawny Hall to collect him left behind the colorful melee. His sole trunk had been thrown in back with a dull thud. The rutted road raised a fine red dust as it hugged the coastline. White sand glittered like diamonds. Other islands had black sand, even pink, but this creamy coastline stretched on as far as he could see, full of picturesque inlets and coves and beaches.
The Jamaican driver was mostly silent, his few words nonsensical to Magnus’s untrained ear. Pidgin or Patois, Osbourne had called it. How would he as Trelawny Hall’s factor expect to communicate here?
Osbourne had told him the former factor had died. Being hated by the indentures and slaves who often broke tools and equipment in retaliation, who shirked work by developing a system that let them avoid detection by those in charge, had surely lent to his demise. Trelawny Hall had tumbled from its standing as king of the sugar island plantations in terms of exports under the former factor’s tenure. Magnus’s charge was to regain its standing.
Was Osbourne’s placement of him here a slur on their friendship? Or more a demonstration of faith in Magnus’s abilities? Owing Osbourne a great debt for extracting him and Lark from tolbooth, he’d not shirk his duties, whatever they might be.
Even before they’d rolled past the plantation’s wrought-iron gates, his spirit grew more troubled as the facts he’d been told resurfaced. Slave uprisings were commonplace. Overseers must always watch their backs. Some had been poisoned by their own household staff, others ambushed in the fields as they made their rounds. This was always followed by a swift hanging, but the unrest still roiled. Or so he’d been told by the Bonaventure’s crew while coming here.
Osbourne had told him the worst offenders among the Ashanti, the Africans known for their superior strength who formed the bulk of the plantation’s labor. On the stormy ship’s passage, he’d committed the unique names to memory. Kwasi. Gaddo. Kenu. Okoto. Manu.
Osbourne’s longtime housekeeper and her husband, both Jamaicans by the names of Naria and Rojay, met him on the long, palm-fronted porch. Would he truly live in this place with its sweeping view of both the mist-shrouded Blue Mountains and a sheltered cove?
He’d expected a thatched roof hut, not this. The house was built on a foundation of solid stone, and the upper floors were timber, able to withstand both hurricanes and earthquakes. Window shutters and wide shades blocked the sun. The colonnaded loggia ran the length of the house on all sides.
“You, sir, are don dada, the chief of Trelawny Hall,” Naria said with a wide, flashing smile, her flamboyant dress as bright as the parrot he spied on a near sea grape tree. “Your overseers live in the huts.”
His bedchamber sat at the end of a cool, shadowed hall, a Spartan bower of mosquito netting and shuttered windows. His office was gained through a connecting door that reminded him of Lark’s quarters and the stillroom at Royal Hundred. The territorial view gave him pause. The dwelling overlooked cane fields and the mill Osbourne had described in detail, made of imported British stone.
Field hands, much like those in Virginia, toiled in the two o’clock sun, their skin a-glisten. He didn’t know their language, their customs. Their hearts.
If he’d ever missed Scotland before, he missed it fiercely now. Here he was naught but an outlander. A foreigner. Another factor to be despised and feared.
When a sudden shower snuffed the sun and drummed on the tiled roof, he wondered at the fickle weather. Ignorant as a schoolboy he was, and at the helm of a sprawling sugar empire he was expected to resurrect and return to its former glory.
Lord, help Thou me.
Within a fortnight Magnus grew used to Trelawny Hall’s house servants moving about on whispering feet, the sudden tropical squalls, the rhythmic speech of the people around him. The damp linen of his garments seemed a second skin in the steamy heat as he rode his gelding mile after mile, familiarizing himself with Osbourne’s overseers and operations.
At night, by the light of two tapers, the whine of insects outside the netting around him, he penned Lark a letter.
Dearest Lark,
I write this to you in a midnight room no less cool than midday. Though the calendar says we have been parted but a month, it seems an age. You and wee Larkin hover in my thoughts. When I left he was on the verge of crawling out of his box bed. Soon he will walk or run away from you and you’ll be hard-pressed to catch him. I wonder with some pains if he’ll remember me.
I covet your prayers. The enslaved here are of a warlike tribe, startlingly strong people from Africa’s Ivory Coast. They live in squalor made worse by careless, cruel overseers.
Tomorrow I meet with t
he foremost troublemakers of the Ashanti themselves, whom I confess to liking better than their white masters. I would sooner whip an overseer than a slave.
I do not mean to weary you with plantation talk. Just pray.
How goes it with the bees? Your colonial garden? Mistress Flowerdew? What new words does Larkin ken?
I beseech you to write as often as you are able.
Yours entire,
Magnus
Lark broke the indigo seal. ’Twas her first letter from Magnus on this side of the Atlantic. She brought the fine vellum to her nose, imagining it carried a hint of exotic spices and trade winds.
“Slow ye doon.”
Granny’s cautionary words echoed in her thoughts. Savor the letter she would. It seemed he’d been gone an age. Time and distance did strange things.
She purposed to answer his penned questions one by one. By day’s end, she’d fashioned a reply in her head, so tired by the time she inked her quill that she misspelled letters only to cross them out and try again.
All the hives are harvested. Mistress Flowerdew had a spell of the gout but found some relief with the elm leaf tea I gave her. Larkin calls me Mim. He says “ball” and “cat.” I keep your locket near at hand . . .
She folded the letter. Pondered all she kept tamped down like a hogshead of turmoil but could not pen.
I have survived my first fever. Larkin swallowed a button, and I was beside myself till it came out. Mr. Granger chides me for visiting the quarters too often and taking remedies and small conveniences there, which he says will spoil the Africans and make them unfit for work. I spoke back and said that so long as he allows them to live lowly as beggars, I will try to allay their miseries when I can. Sally cautions me and tells me he may complain to Osbourne to have me sent elsewhere, but secretly she supports me and says the people are glad of my coming.
The heat continues to be my greatest foe. Often I feel too weak for the work and long for a bracing headwind and Scottish sunset. For you.