‘Rowan – or should I say Davina?’
So engrossed had I been in little Alice, I had not noticed Lady Avonbridge coming towards us. The bright sunlight accentuated the deep furrows in the brow beneath her powdered wig, and the folds of skin drooping around her jawline, so that she looked older than when I had first met her at Mr Paterson’s reception, but just as imposing.
‘Lady Avonbridge,’ I murmured dutifully.
Her hooded eyes flickered towards the bushes, where a flash of blue silk was all that was now visible of Alice.
‘She is a charming child, is she not? If a little too fond of poor Bessy, who she torments mercilessly with her attentions whenever she comes to visit! All Bessy wants to do is bask in a pool of sunshine, all Alice wants to do is hug her, poke at her eyes and pull her tail. All in the name of love, of course.’
‘The cat won’t scratch her, will she?’ I asked, alarmed.
‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so. The worst she’ll get is a flea,’ Lady Avonbridge said carelessly. ‘A mother’s concern is beginning to assert itself then? Well, I must say I’m glad – for all your sakes. And glad that I was able to play my part. I’ll be vilified for doing so, no doubt, in polite society, but I’ve never been one to pay much attention to what people say about me.’
‘It may not ever become public knowledge,’ Richard said tersely. ‘Rowan has not yet agreed to leave Mr Paterson.’
‘Ah.’ Lady Avonbridge raised an eyebrow, so that her expression was more arch than ever. ‘But now that she has seen Alice, surely…?’
At that very moment, for the first time, I felt my unborn baby move. Just a tiny tick, high in my waist, yet unmistakable, nevertheless, serving to remind me that I had other responsibilities than the ones that were tugging now at my heartstrings. I pressed my hand to the place where I had felt my baby move, and caught my lip between my teeth, overwhelmed by the impossibility of the choice I was being forced to make, swamped by conflicting emotions.
Richard’s eyes were on me, narrowed, observant.
‘I think perhaps Rowan should leave now,’ he said. ‘I don’t want Alice upset.’
Lady Avonbridge touched my sleeve.
‘Flouting convention takes a great deal of courage, my dear,’ she said. ‘But I think you may well find it worth it.’
Her words struck me as deeply ironic. My mother had flouted convention – and look where that had led! But I said nothing of it. I took my leave of her and let Richard lead me back towards the house. In the doorway I paused, looking back. Alice was emerging from the bushes, still pursuing the luckless Bessy, a small bundle of fair hair and blue silk. Then she was gone from my view. My heart went with her.
‘Well?’ Richard said. ‘Has meeting Alice made up your mind for you? Will you come back to us?’
I shook my head, which was spinning. ‘This has all been such a shock. You must give me time to think…’
‘What’s there to think about?’ he demanded. ‘I can understand that I am not the catch Mr Paterson is. My whole life is a gamble. But how can you turn your back on your own child, Rowan? Surely she is worth more to you than a fine carriage and a houseful of servants?’
‘Oh, it’s not that!’ I cried passionately. ‘But it’s not so simple!’
‘Why not?’
‘Because…’ I could keep it to myself no longer. ‘Because I am with child! I am carrying Mr Paterson’s child!’
Richard Wells stiffened, his features, his whole body, going as frighteningly still as if he had been turned to stone.
‘What?’
‘It’s true,’ I said wretchedly. ‘So, you see, whatever decisions I make about the future are not for me alone.’
‘I see.’ If I had thought him cold and hard before, I had seen nothing. He had gone from me. Utterly. Completely. Suddenly, more than anything in the world, I wanted to reach for him, throw myself into his arms, let him make the decision for me. But I knew I could not, must not, and even if I did he might put me from him as ruthlessly as he had attempted to reel me in. The knowledge of my pregnancy had hurt him in a way my marriage had not; the shock of learning of it had made him withdraw into a place I could not reach.
‘You don’t want me now – now that you know I am carrying another man’s child,’ I said recklessly.
And he replied: ‘It puts a whole new complexion on things, certainly.’
He strode ahead of me down the passageway. A maid appeared, ready to open the door for me; he waved her aside, opening it himself.
I turned, looking at him imploringly, not wanting to leave him like this. Not wanting to leave him – or Alice – at all.
‘If you want to talk to me again, Rowan, you know where to find me.’ His tone was as remote as his face.
‘You’d take me back?’ I whispered. ‘You would still take me back even though—’
‘Let us say we both have a great deal to think about, Rowan,’ he said in that same cold tone.
Thomas, who had been waiting outside with the carriage, stepped forward. I bowed my head in an effort to hide the tears that were filling my eyes, and walked towards him.
At the carriage steps, I looked back. Richard Wells had disappeared and the great front door was closed. A great black despair filled me. Had I learned today something of the truth of my past, or was it all a great deception? And if it was the truth, had I learned it, only to lose it again?
* * *
I had hoped that when we returned to Clifton I would have some time alone. More than anything I wanted to retreat to my room, throw myself down on to my bed, and weep. A cowardly and useless attempt to retreat from reality, perhaps, but the well of tears aching inside me was preventing me from thinking of anything but controlling them; they needed to be spilled, and in private, before I could move on.
It was not to be. Mr Paterson was at home and the moment I walked through the front door, he called me into the parlour.
‘Davina, my dear! You have been out! Where have you been?’
Guilt washed over me. I could feel the colour rising in my cheeks and the tears still pricking behind my eyes, and I felt sure he must notice.
‘Visiting,’ I said vaguely.
‘Ah! Good! I’m pleased you are beginning to make a social circle,’ he said, without bothering to ask who I had visited, and not appearing to notice my lack of composure either. ‘I have a surprise for you, my dear.’
He was looking pleased with himself, I thought.
‘A surprise?’ I repeated, striving to sound normal. ‘What sort of surprise?’
‘I thought we could do with more help in the house,’ Mr Paterson said. ‘With a new baby on the way there will be extra work, and if one of the maids should leave to marry, as they have an unfortunate habit of doing, we should be left shorthanded at quite the wrong time.’
‘You have taken on another maid?’ I said, wondering why he thought this would be a treat for me, especially since it was usually the prerogative of the mistress of the house to oversee the engagement of servants.
‘Better than that!’ He was beaming proudly. ‘We’ll have no trouble with this one leaving to wed, or for any other reason. I’ve bought a little black girl for you.’
My first and immediate instinctive reaction was horror.
‘A slave!’ I exclaimed. ‘You have bought me a slave?’
‘I think you’ll be pleased with her,’ Mr Paterson said with satisfaction. ‘She’s a pretty little thing – very pretty indeed for what she is. She was brought to England as a child and the family who bought her have taught her to speak excellent English. We can soon have her trained up in our ways and to our standards, I’m sure. It will give you something to interest you when you’re confined to the house and not able to go out on these visits of yours.’
I did not know what to say. I had not the first idea of how to set about training a slave in our ways, and no stomach for it either.
‘You can even choose her name,’ Mr Paterson went on magnanimously. �
�You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
‘Doesn’t she already have a name?’ I asked shortly.
‘Well, yes, I suppose she does, but I don’t know what it is, and it’s of no importance anyway. What we call her is up to us now that she belongs to us.’
All my own confusion and unhappiness suddenly metamorphosed into anger on behalf of this poor unknown girl, and I was furious, more furious than I could ever remember being.
‘You bought a slave and you don’t even know her name!’ I exploded. ‘And you expect me to be pleased at the prospect of deciding what she should be called, as if she were a pet puppy dog! Her name, John, is very likely the only thing she has that she can call her own!’
His jaw dropped in surprise, both at my angry reaction and the fact that I had, for the first time outside the bedroom, when he cajoled me into it, called him by his own given name. Looking back, I think I did so because it was somehow important to me at that moment to be his equal. At the time, of course, I was thinking of no such thing. My only concern was the dignity of this girl on whom I had not yet even set eyes.
I half expected Mr Paterson to be angry with me in return, both for criticizing him and for my lack of gratitude. But he merely threw back his head and laughed.
‘My, Davina, but pregnancy is making you fiery!’
‘It is not a laughing matter!’ I snapped.
‘No, and not one to get upset about either. The remedy is simple, my dear. Ask her what her name is and call her by it, if that’s what you want to do. But, if I were you, I’d settle for the one her last owners knew her by. The African one she was given by her parents will be a mouthful of mumbo-jumbo, if I know anything about it!’
He crossed to the bell pull and gave it a few sharp tugs; a moment later Daltry answered it.
‘Bring the new slave in, will you?’ he instructed. ‘Mrs Paterson wants to see her.’
I did not want to see her. More than ever, I wanted the privacy of my room. But I could do nothing but wait. It was my duty as mistress of the house, my duty as Mr Paterson’s wife.
A few moments later and Daltry was back, pushing the poor little girl into the parlour as if she were a heifer being taken to market. It was, I suppose, Daltry’s way of exerting her one little bit of superiority. She was a housemaid, with only the scullery maids beneath her in the pecking order of servants, but at least she was free. She was paid a wage – albeit a meagre one – and she had her days off when she was free to visit her mother. The slave girl would not be paid and she would have no days off unless I could persuade Mr Paterson to allow it, which I thought was unlikely. He would be too afraid she might try to run away. Daltry knew all this, and was glad to have someone she could order about, someone who made her feel important.
The new slave was even younger than Mr Paterson had led me to expect, little more than a child, though I suppose her slight, underdeveloped frame, lost in the too-large dress that had been found for her, and her big frightened eyes may have heightened the impression. But even so, I did not think she could be much past thirteen or fourteen. If she had already been in England long enough to learn the language, she must have been snatched and put on a slaving ship when she was very young indeed. And she certainly was very pretty, her features clear and smooth beneath her cap of tight black curls.
‘Thank you, Daltry, that will be all,’ I said, thinking the slave child might feel less uncomfortable if she was not under the baleful, rather mean, and certainly triumphant eye of the housemaid. Daltry’s expression turned to one of disappointment, but she bobbed dutifully and left.
‘Straighten up, girl,’ Mr Paterson said sharply. ‘We don’t have slouches in this house. Now, this is your new mistress, Mrs Paterson. I expect you to do as she tells you, and show her the respect she deserves, or it will be the worse for you.’
The poor little girl looked so overwhelmed by what was happening to her, so small and lost, I could not imagine her doing anything else.
‘Don’t be frightened,’ I said gently. ‘I won’t harm you.’
She caught her full upper lip between her teeth, standing there as still as a rabbit caught in the light of a poacher’s flare, her little body shrinking still further inside the voluminous dress. I would get something to fit her better as soon as I was able, I decided.
‘What is your name?’ I asked.
Her mouth worked as if she were trying to speak, but no words came.
‘Come on, girl!’ Mr Paterson said impatiently. ‘Your mistress asked you a question. Don’t you understand it? I was told you speak our language.’
‘Yessuh.’ It was just a whisper.
‘So, what do they call you? Your English name, if you please.’
The jet-black eyes fell from his face to fasten on a spot on the carpet.
‘Dorcas, sir.’
‘That’s better. Now, answer any other questions Mrs Paterson may have for you properly. Savvy?’
I could not think of a single thing I wanted to ask Dorcas, and I hated hearing him speak to her so. I wished I could put my arms around her and comfort her, but of course I could not, and in any case my touch would have been no solace to her. I was an alien being, a white woman who lived in a grand house and wore fine clothes, a white woman who owned her, body and soul.
‘Have you been shown your room yet?’ I asked. ‘The room where you will sleep?’
‘She can sleep in the cellar,’ Mr Paterson said. ‘We’ll have a bed made up for her there.’
‘The, cellar!’ I exclaimed. ‘But it’s dark there, and cold in the winter.’
‘She can have a candle, and it’s bone dry down there,’ Mr Paterson said. ‘I had it built to the strictest specifications.’
‘But… the cellar…!’ I was horrified.
‘She’s used to far worse, I’m sure,’ Mr Paterson said dismissively. ‘And it’s not right for the maids to have to share with one of her kind.’
We’ll see about that! I thought furiously.
‘You won’t have met Thomas yet,’ I said to the girl. ‘But I think you will find you have a friend in him. Like you, he was brought here from Africa, but he has been here a very long time and he’s quite accustomed to our ways, so I am sure he will help you to settle in. He’s kind, too, and…’
Mr Paterson snorted his derision. Trusted though Thomas was, he was still a slave.
I ignored him. ‘And you are not to be afraid to come to me if anything is troubling you,’ I said. ‘I want you to be happy here, Dorcas.’
Mr Paterson snorted again. He would, I felt sure, remind me of my position the moment the little slave was not there to hear him. He would tell me the feelings of the servants were secondary to running a good efficient house and the feelings of a slave were certainly beneath consideration. He would tell me that if I wished to retain their respect, I must be certain to assert my authority, not mollycoddle them and give them credit for emotions they almost certainly did not have, since they were, after all, savages. He was going to be cross with me, I could tell, and I did not care. If I could bring a little comfort, a little relief, into the life of this poor child, I would do it, and the devil take the consequences.
But all the while I knew there was no real comfort or relief I could offer her. She was a slave, I was the mistress, and whatever I said, she would continue to be afraid of me until I could prove to her by my actions, not mere words, that she had no need for fear.
* * *
I had no time, the whole of that day, to be alone with my thoughts, though of course they whirled constantly as I went through the motions of normal living. I seemed to hear in snatches all the things Richard had told me, not in the ordered way he had related them, but jumping out at me higgledy-piggledy, one aspect engaging me completely for a while, only to be replaced by another, just as perplexing, just as unsettling, just as all-consuming. The life he said I had led, the love he claimed we had shared, the birth of a daughter of whom I could remember nothing at all, the deception my grandparents
had practised upon me, their heartlessness – for I could see it as nothing less, even though I knew they would have done whatever they did with my best interests in mind. That, as much as anything, had rocked the foundations of my world, for they had been the only constant since my accident, the only people I had felt sure I could trust.
And all the time, whether I was thinking of her or not, the ache of longing for Alice never left me. Some deep force was drawing me to her, much as I had felt drawn to Richard Wells, yet it was stronger, even, than that, instinctive and primal. It was in every breath I breathed, in every beat of my heart.
What was I to do? What could I do, torn as I was? On the one hand was my forgotten past, which even now I wavered between believing and not believing, my lover and my daughter, my longing for them adulterated by my fear that not only was Richard Wells deceiving me for his own ends, but I was deceiving myself. And on the other, my marriage vows to Mr Paterson, the baby I undoubtedly carried – his baby – and my overwhelming sense of duty to them both. Mr Paterson had never been anything but kind to me; he did not deserve to be hurt and shamed. And my baby needed security, a loving home, an assured future. Should I follow my heart, or my head? Whichever, someone was bound to be hurt. And did I even have a choice any more? I remembered Richard Wells’ face when I had told him that I was with child – hard, cold, shocked. Perhaps he no longer wanted me. Perhaps the door to that other world was already shut and bolted. Perhaps it had never existed at all outside his imagination – and mine.
The confusion grew in me until I thought I would burst with it. And still I went about my duties in the house and carried on a social intercourse of sorts, and no one, unbelievably, seemed any the wiser.
* * *
That night, though I had thought I would not, I slept, exhausted, no doubt, by a day of worrying and wondering. And when I slept, the dreams came.
At first they were jumbled, all mixed up with the events of the day – most poignantly, I saw Alice on the lawn, searching in the grass for something, but when I asked her what it was she was looking for, she replied not, A four-leaf clover, but, I am looking for my mama. And then, incongruously, the new slave, Dorcas, was there, little and frail in her too-large dress, and she said: I am your mama. And Thomas is your papa. And I felt bereft, and also surprised that I had not realized it, though since Alice was fair-haired and fair-skinned, and Dorcas and Thomas both black as ebony, I supposed it was unsurprising that I had not. But now, of course, it was clear, crystal clear; I could not doubt it, but it made me dreadfully sad all the same.
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