by Laura Frantz
But it is not to be.
He felt a wee bit like the biblical Joseph. Sold into slavery by his kinsmen, then placed in a position of authority in a strange land. But ’twas the prophet Isaiah who held him captive and gave him courage.
And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day: And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
His mindset as a laird did not alter though he’d lost his Scottish holdings. Though Jamaica was more like Hades to him—affliction and hunger abounding in this strange land in far more profound, soul-tearing ways than on Kerrera—he grappled with what could be done.
He assembled Osbourne’s overseers, a hardened trio who made the excise men in Alba seem like saints. One had his whip at his thigh, which prompted Magnus to say, “There’ll be no more use of the whip until any quarrels are brought to me straightaway. If I hear of ye breaking the new mandate, ’twill be yer own back that’s striped.” He paused to let the words find purchase, unsurprised by the flare of ire and indignation in their eyes. “Any incident of insubordination is to be brought to me first for a fair hearing, aye?”
Their grudging grunts were belated.
He plunged ahead regardless. “There are two matters that need mending. The first concerns the weekly ration of the workers.” He refused to call them slaves. “A peck of corn, a pint of salt, and a pound of meat is akin to starvation. ’Tis an outright disgrace. Ye’ll oversee a tripling of the rations and assign a rotation where a number of workers have days to cook for their fellows in the fields, each getting a turn. The fare will be supplemented with ample quantity of fresh produce sold in Montego Bay.”
“Triple rations? Are you daft, sir?” the oldest of the three said. “You’ll bankrupt Osbourne—”
“Nay. ’Twill simply ensure the laborers are fit for the work and reduce the sick and infirm, thus helping quell the ongoing threat of uprising.” He went to a window and lowered a shade where the afternoon sun slanted blindingly across the ledgers on his desk. “Ye’ll also set about repairing their dwellings, many of which are in poor condition, and ye’ll spare no expense doing so.”
“But there are countless huts. Will you have us refurbish them all?” said the youngest, a florid-faced Dutchman with a thick accent.
“Every one of them, aye, beginning today. Enlist those whom ye will to assist ye. I’ll keep a close tally of expenses. D’ye have questions?”
A sore silence. Hats in hand, they eyed each other, and then the eldest spoke again. “I say it cannot be done—should not be done. Our tasks are many, yet you heap more on our backs, all for an ungrateful, shiftless lot of slaves who require the whip to do the slightest task. What if we refuse you? Object to do as you bid?”
“Refuse?” Magnus looked toward the open door where three Negro men waited. “Then ye’ll be replaced by the Ashanti themselves—Kwasi, Gaddo, and Yaw.”
A curse split the stunned silence.
Magnus stared at the offender. “And ye’ll keep a clean tongue in yer head, at least in my company. Good day to ye.”
Where had Osbourne gotten these men? Granted, the work of an overseer was arduous and unenviable, but would their lot not be made better by improving the lots of the workers?
The overseers trudged out. The three Ashanti took their places, their dark eyes never settling as they assessed a place they’d never been—this inner sanctum, a chamber considered too grand for slaves.
Rojay, Magnus’s manservant, stood to his left, facing the Africans. All were understandably wary. Their dealings with Europeans had been dark from their first point of capture on the Ivory Coast. Their ingrained, justified guardedness might never lessen. But he would stay true to Scripture and attempt to satisfy the afflicted souls in his keeping, no matter the cost or consequence.
“How do you say ‘welcome’ in Ashanti Twi?” he asked Rojay.
The older man hesitated, his sweat-dampened features lined with surprise. “Akwaaba.”
“Akwaaba,” Magnus repeated, wanting to meet the men’s eyes though they would not look at him. Would they ever? “Today I call ye here to tell ye of coming changes. From this day forward ye will have more to eat. Better huts to lodge in.”
He paused to allow Rojay to translate. The words were oddly melodic.
He continued slowly. “Today is the day we find other ways to benefit yer people and this plantation. Every sennight we will meet here and ye’ll bring word of what is happening in the homes ye live in and the fields where ye labor—any and all injustices, sickness, and unrest. Anything that might be made better by coming to me. If I do not know of these things I cannot fix them. Yer to be my eyes and ears since I cannot be everywhere at once all the time. Only Almighty God has that power.”
Rojay translated in short bursts, sometimes grappling for a word not easily had in Twi. Listening, Magnus felt at sea. Mightn’t it be better if he tried to learn their language? Could he? No doubt he’d be among the first white men in Jamaica to do so. Or even want to.
He trod carefully, saying little else. No need to overwhelm them with too many words. Too many changes. They spoke among themselves, their gestures and intonations fascinating and wholly unfamiliar.
’Twas said there were ten Africans for every white man in Jamaica. Yet he felt more comfortable in the presence of these men than he had the overseers.
The Ashanti filed out, backs straight, their tall, underfed frames a wonder of muscle and sinew, their faces masks of composure. Magnus’s gaze lingered longest on Kwasi’s back, crisscrossed with a horror of scars from a whipping scarcely healed. They’d all been branded with Osbourne’s mark.
How would it be to own a man? A fellow human being? A body, if not a soul? To embed one’s name in another’s skin till death? That side of Osbourne was unknown to him.
At the end of the veranda, the tallest of the Africans turned back and gave Magnus a lingering look before disappearing from sight. He had said something to Rojay at the last. Something that escaped Magnus completely.
The slight smile touching the translator’s mouth was mirrored in his eyes. “They call you Adofo.”
“Adofo?” Magnus echoed.
Rojay nodded slowly. “In Ashanti, it means ‘the special one from God.’”
30
Dark and sour humours, especially those which have a spice of malevolence in them, are vastly disagreeable. Such men have no music in their souls.
Abigail Adams
’Twas November. In Scotland, the seasons were more muted. In Virginia, autumn seemed all aflame. Everywhere Lark looked was a burst of color, even in the fading garden. Sally had finally harvested the last of the vegetables. Larkin grew plumper on roasted pumpkin and boiled squash and delicious mincemeat tarts.
“You no longer a scarecrow yo’self,” Sally told Lark as she served her another piece of cushaw pie with cream. “Gettin’ plumper by the day.”
“Not so peely-wally?” Lark replied with a smile, Larkin on her lap.
“None o’ that neither, whatever it is.” Sally chuckled as the babe tried to grab Lark’s spoon. “He’s goin’ throw hisself a fit lest you share that pie.”
Lark fed him the pie. “Am I wrong to want to keep him wee?”
“Naw. A lap baby’s easier than one with legs. Pert soon he’ll be runnin’ to the quarters.”
“He’s fond of the other children. They’re good to him, toting him around and making much of his hair.”
“’Tis a mess o’ curls, all right. Bright as the noonday sun. Yours is a bit lighter since you in the garden so much.” Sally set down a kettle of greens. “Don’t the sun ever shine in Scotland?”
Lark regarded her through a ray of light dancing with dust motes. Would her homesickness never lessen? Did Magnus feel the same? “The sun isna so strong, nor so warm there.
Scotland’s a land of clouds and mist, mostly.”
“Well, you goin’ to be more Virginian when you is through. And yo’ man, he’ll be more Jamaican.”
“Nay,” Lark said. “Scots to the bone, the both of us, as is wee Larkin.” Flushing, she added, “And the laird is not mine, truly.”
Not yet.
“Now whatever made me think that, I wonder?” Sally winked. “You just mention his name night and day.”
Did she? They talked often of her former life, she and Sally. Stifling a sigh, Lark spoke what she’d mulled in her mind countless times. “Jamaica is too far for courting.”
“But not letter writin’. Flowerdew tol’ me you send posts right regular—and done got a reply all the way from Jamaica.”
“Just once.” There, she had voiced it. “I fear he’s ill.”
“’Tis the seasoning, likely,” Sally muttered. “He’ll either get well or die, and nothin’ you can do but pray.”
Magnus had the kit she’d given him from the stillroom—the Jesuit’s bark and ample herbs and simples—to sustain him. But she was not there to dispense them if he was too ill to fend for himself. This was a new worry, added to her hogshead of angst. Was there a physic to be had in Jamaica?
She looked to Larkin, a reason for praise. Here he sat, a wingless cherub, the picture of health, thriving like a hardy Scottish thistle in Virginia’s rich soil.
She left the kitchen, Larkin in arm. Situating him on a quilt with a wooden spoon and playthings, she surveyed what needed doing. There were never enough hands for the work. With the former gardener felled by the pox and an advertisement for a replacement just posted in the Virginia Gazette, her days were longer even as daylight grew shorter.
Dropping to her knees in the pleasure garden, the formal beds hedged by tall yew, she began uprooting stubborn weeds even as new worries sprouted in her mind. When she was most tired, most overwhelmed by the work, she fretted most. Lord, forgive me. The distance, the unknown, chafed like never before.
Was Magnus lying there, friendless and far from home, too sick to hold a quill and pen a letter? Had he gotten her replies? Had he done the unthinkable and died? Was he even now buried in fine Jamaican sand? Her thoughts swerved to Granny, who could neither read nor write. Lark had not penned her a single sentence, yet the very thought pained her so. Mayhap a letter should be sent to Kerrera’s reverend, a man of letters who could reassure Granny she was all right.
Pondering it, she sat back on her heels as a shadow snuffed the sun. A tall, uncommonly lean shadow.
The captain stood over her as in days of old. Rory MacPherson.
Her backside collided with the soil even as her mouth made an O of astonishment.
He looked over his shoulder as if certain of being followed. “I heard ye were at the main house. I’m at one of Osbourne’s smaller farms. In the fields. Brutal, backbreaking work.”
She believed it. He wasn’t made for land but for sea. Even his cheekbones were sharper, his frame hollowed out when it had been so solid before.
His hopeful glance at the kitchen house reminded her Sally and Cleve had gone to the quarters. “Are ye . . . hungert?”
“Always. Barely enough to keep a bird alive.”
She stood, shaking the soil from her skirt. In minutes, she’d returned with some corn cakes. He made a face but took them. While he ate, she drew water from the well and gave him a drink too, wishing for a little sweet milk. Or ale. He was partial to the latter, or once was at the Thistle.
“Cursed country.” The epithet spilled from his lips like bread crumbs. “How goes it for ye?”
“’Tis not Scotland.”
“Nay. And for Scotland I’m bound. But first Cape Fear in Carolina. A few of us are set on making our escape.”
“But Mr. Granger—ye ken what’s done to runaways.”
“Only if they’re caught.” He finished drinking and swiped the water from his chin with the back of his hand. “The overseers are worthless. And the factor ye mention isna in the fields much as he’s ailing.”
This she knew. Granger’s wife was oft at the stillroom door, seeking a remedy. And Mistress Flowerdew fretted, secretly confiding she hoped both the factor and his wife would move on.
His eyes pinned her. “Will ye run with us?”
“With a bairn?” She got back on her knees and began pulling weeds with a vengeance. “And break my contract?”
His eyes flashed. “An unjust indenture, based on a crime ye didna commit.”
“Be that as it may, I’m here and here I’ll stay.” She wouldn’t say she had more to eat in British America than she’d had in Scotland, or that Mistress Flowerdew, nigh starved for company, spoiled her and Larkin by having them to the house and giving them privileges. Rory knew no such niceties in the fields.
“Yer waiting for the laird to return, no doubt.” He dropped to his haunches, gaze on the chain she wore, the heirloom locket now hidden beneath her bodice where once she’d worn the coral beads. She’d placed the beads in a stillroom cupboard, unsure of what to do with them. “Ye’d as soon resurrect the dead. The sugar islands devour outlanders like us. The laird’s done.”
He’d spoken her greatest fear aside from losing Larkin. All her carefully constructed hopes flew away like startled sparrows.
He spat into the dirt again. “Leave the bairn behind. He’s not yers—”
“Aye, he is. I couldna love him more if I’d borne him.” Even now her heart squeezed as she looked at him babbling and cooing across the grass. “He calls me Mim as he canna say mither. I’ll not tell him any different.”
He shrugged her sentiment aside. “There’ll be other bairns. Blood kin. And a husband if ye were not so stubborn.”
Bidding him wait, she retrieved the coral beads from the stillroom cupboard. His brow raised when she returned them. “They’re yers and may make yer journey better. I can wear them no longer. My heart belongs to another.” She braced herself for any questions, but he simply pocketed the necklace without a murmur of displeasure.
A door banged shut and he shot to his feet. “Star Farm. Send word to me there by month’s end and we’ll arrange to meet should ye change yer mind.”
November’s end? Star Farm was unknown to her, though she’d heard it produced Osbourne’s best tobacco.
Rory vanished behind the hedge and she let out a long sigh. She continued her work through the afternoon, finishing with the bees.
Late in the day Larkin gave a loud mewl—his restless cry upon rousing from his nap—and Sally rounded the corner, making a beeline toward the stillroom to fetch the babe. He quieted when he saw Lark, reaching out his arms to her. Lark took him, thanking the woman. The day was almost done. At nearly six o’clock, Sally needed to mind supper.
Lark kissed the babe’s soft brow. Clad in a linen shirt and clout with pilchard, he gave a sleepy smile as she took him to see the new pony in the stables. Brushing aside one of many autumn cobwebs, she passed several shadowed stalls, breathing in pungent hay and horse droppings. Simple, earthy smells that reminded her of Scotland.
Larkin squirmed in her arms, only settling when a groom set him atop the pony’s bare back. Pleased as punch he was, making them laugh. Soon he’d need a quilted pudding cap stuffed with horsehair to protect his head when he toddled and fell. Mistress Flowerdew had recently shown her a milliner’s advertisement that read, “Thin Bone and Packthread stays for Children of three Months old and upwards.” How she hated to put him in stays.
Mistress Flowerdew talked of taking her to shop at the capital, Williamsburg, less than five miles distant. Would the housekeeper feel differently if she knew of Lark’s convict status and Larkin’s own dubious birth? Was she not being forthcoming by keeping silent?
That evening the two of them did their usual handwork in the mansion’s sitting room, where the housekeeper worked on embroidery while Lark sewed a handkerchief.
“I have something that needs saying,” Lark began, hating the dread arisi
ng in her like indigestion. “Ye’ve been so kind. I dinna want any secrets between us.”
She took a deep breath and the story poured forth—Isla, tolbooth, Osbourne’s timely intervention, Larkin’s sad beginnings. To her credit, the housekeeper’s expression remained unchanged. She didn’t miss a stitch.
“’Tis the stuff of novels!” she exclaimed when Lark finished. “Mr. Osbourne simply said in his letter you’d been falsely accused by powerful people anxious to place blame. He didn’t give details. The laird’s offense is laughable, as I’ve said from the very beginning. Kilt wearing, indeed! As for the babe, ’tis no accident but the highest workings of Providence that Larkin came to be in your hands. The Almighty takes special care of widows and orphans and the fatherless. That includes us three.” She put away her handwork. “Now, shall we have a dish of tea?”
No more was said about the past. Lark felt a burden lift like a slate wiped clean. The lovely porcelain tea set appeared, the cozy room suffused with the fragrance of souchong. Though the housekeeper took her tea plain, she remembered Lark liked otherwise. Silver sugar tongs and a small jug of cream sat on the tea table. Truly, tea was the cup that cheered.
“Only the finest, though I do favor Caribbean coffee,” Mistress Flowerdew said.
At this, Lark’s thoughts spun south again. She offered up another silent petition on Magnus’s behalf. What could she do but pray, as Sally said?
“Why don’t we go to Williamsburg next market day?” Mistress Flowerdew said. “I’m in need of some things that only town can offer. I daresay ’tis naught but a speck compared to your Edinburgh and Glasgow. But the Virginia capital has a charm all its own, and an outing will do us good.”
At their feet, Larkin waved two silver spoons and smiled up at them as if understanding every word.
“We shall leave you, sir, at home with Sally. But we’ll bring you back a special play-pretty from one of the shops.”
He gave a gurgling shout and they laughed, savoring the coveted tea.
Williamsburg, a new venture, awaited.