“Mr. Nicholls,” Lorraine said gently, “I realize I can learn much from you—and believe me, I will apply myself to such lessons. But for the moment” —she drew a deep breath—“let me enjoy just being here in”—she turned to him inquisitively—“what is its name?”
“The last owners never could agree on a name. They fought it out between ‘Folly’ and ‘Seacliff’ —nobody won. An older house formerly stood on this site but it too had no name.”
“I shall call it ‘Venture,’ ” she said. “For ’twas a venture that brought me this. And perhaps . . . perhaps our ships should be named ‘venture’ too, in a way—Bonaventure, Island Venture, Proud Venture. What would you think of that?”
“I think,” he said softly, “that if you will give me leave to do so, I will blazon the name of Venture around the world!”
“Then you have my hand on it!” she cried.
Nicholls shook her slim hand energetically. He was afire with enthusiasm. “We will need good seafaring men,” he said. “Captains who know ships. Honest ones to advise me. Because,” he confessed, “I do not know what makes a fast sailer or a sound bottom—I only know capacities and prices and tonnage.”
“I know just the man!” Lorraine was entering into the spirit of their venture, swept along on the wings of Nicholls’ boundless enthusiasm for trade. “He captained the ship that brought me here. You could discuss it with Captain Bowman.”
“Later, if you please, Mistress London, I am hoping to close the deal on the small plantation I mentioned this afternoon—it is a small place on the Atlantic side of the island but it is being offered for a good price—we wouldn’t want to miss it.”
“Then I will speak to Captain Bowman on your behalf,” she said, thinking: I might as well begin to understand commerce now.
Nicholls blinked; he had not expected her to enter into the plans quite so soon. “As you wish. Mistress London—but leave it tentative, so I can shore up any problems.”
“And, Mr. Nicholls—this is a very large house. There is plenty of room for you in it if you would care to move in.”
As he helped her into the carriage, he looked up at her and said, “I am grateful for the offer but I prefer to be in the center of town in the thick of things. One hears of all sorts of business matters when one takes his meals in the common room of an inn!”
By the end of the week much had been accomplished: Lorraine soon ensured her entry into Bridgetown society by inviting Mistress Hurst and her sister-in-law to Venture and tactfully asking their advice on how to furnish it. “I have fallen in love with this huge long trestle dining table,” she admitted. “It is of polished mahogany and was considered too awkward and heavy to move all the way to England, so the last owners left it. I have thought of having mahogany furniture made locally. What do you think?”
“A wonderful idea!” breathed Mistress Hurst, eyeing the table enviously. “And your stables, you will want to keep horses—everybody does. Do you ride?”
“No,” admitted Lorraine. “I was forbidden to ride as a child because of a terrible accident that happened to my aunt,” she improvised glibly. “But now I intend to learn.”
“And your slave quarters,” pursued the sister-in-law. “It is a pity the last owners sold off all their slaves. I suppose you will be in the market to replace them?”
Lorraine, who had inspected the barren stone slave quarters, shuddered. “No, I expect to use all hired labor or indentured servants,” she said crisply. That was greeted with such astonishment that she felt constrained to add, “I am in the market to buy up the articles of indenture of likely persons who have some skills.”
For an idea had come to her. If she could offer a bondservant a shortening of his period of indenture for superior work or innovations, would she not be the winner? Not to mention the sympathy she felt for bondservants slaving away for what must seem endless years.
“I have in mind to start a furniture business,” she said. “Since there is so much good mahogany and other fine woods on this island.”
“It might thrive—but it will be so costly to ship it,” protested Mistress Hurst.
“I will be shipping it in my own bottoms,” announced Lorraine proudly.
Soon, Lorraine had assembled a small house staff and she and Nicholls had struck up a deal with Captain Bowman. The Dolphin was a stout three-masted vessel, and Bowman promised to speak to the owners about buying it. If they agreed to sell, he would captain the Bonaventure, as it would then be called.
“And I hope the first passenger the Bonaventure carries to Barbados will be your aunt, Mistress Bowman,” Lorraine said sincerely. “For nothing would please me so much as to have her come here to live with me as my companion and friend.”
The captain smiled. “I will try to convince her,” he promised.
“But be careful that the Todds or their friends do not hear of my offer,” Lorraine cautioned him. “I would prefer them to think me dead.”
“I understand.” He wrung her hand.
Captain Bowman was true to his word. No sooner had he cast anchor in Providence harbor than he repaired to Eleazer Todd’s mansion to have a word with his aunt.
He found her with her legs propped up on a sofa in the parlor nursing an ankle she had turned the day before. Despite the fact that her foot was supported by a pillow, she would have sprung up to embrace him but that he waved her back.
“Is your injury a serious one?”
“ ’Tis nothing—a day’s rest will cure it. How was your voyage, John?”
“Excellent. I came at once because I knew you’d want to hear about—” He stopped abruptly. “Are we alone in the house?”
“Oh, yes, everyone’s gone but me.”
Mistress Bowman was not quite correct in that statement. From the woods nearby Philip Dedwinton had observed Captain Bowman’s arrival, and had hurried to the house, sneaking inside on his soft Indian moccasins. He was now flattened against the wall of the next room with his ear inclined toward the door. He heard Captain Bowman say, “I saw Mistress London safely to Barbados. Her guardian has purchased a handsome plantation for her there and she hopes you will join her there to live with her as her companion and friend.”
“Oh, John, I’m so glad she’s all right! But I couldn’t be dependent upon her, you know that!”
Captain Bowman smiled upon his aunt. “I do think she’s in need of a housekeeper—and she’d like nothing better than for you to take the position. Think about it. I’m off to buy the Dolphin for her, if it can be done. When I return, you may have decided to go. Barbados is a pleasant place to live.”
“I do not have to think about it,” said his aunt with energy. “I will do it.”
“Good. Then you will sail with me on my next voyage.”
In the other room Philip was no longer listening. The words “Barbardos” and “a handsome plantation” were scudding through his brain. Lorraine had tricked him! Nicholls had taken the money to Barbados, and there she was living on “a handsome plantation” while he, cast out by Lavinia, was staying on here at Eleazer Todd’s sufferance!
He waited until Captain Bowman had left and then stole out of the house. He needed to think.
By nightfall he had decided. Lorraine had always fancied him—it was not too late to mend his fences. Besides, he could always frighten her by threatening to expose her as his bondservant! That should bring her to heel!
Long before Captain Bowman returned for his sister, Philip had taken passage to Barbados.
CHAPTER 29
Venture Plantation, Barbados
IN BRIDGETOWN THERE were only two topics of conversation: the fascinating black-sheep governor and the shipwrecked heiress.
Lord Rawlings was not at the moment in residence at Government House. He had sailed to nearby Martinique and lingered there from week to week. Gossip had it that he was having a wild affair with the beautiful and promiscuous wife of Martinique’s French governor. The general belief was that it would end i
n a duel, and the sighing ladies of Bridgetown watched the harbor brightly for his return.
Of the shipwrecked heiress there was not much at the moment to report, but any word from Venture was seized on by the gossips and exaggerated. Mistress London was, they said, a most unusual woman. She made no effort to enter into the social life of the town, gave no parties, held no balls. She spent her mornings learning to ride and her afternoons, oddly enough, attending to plantation matters. Brows lifted at this last, for it was most uncommon for a woman to take so much interest in business affairs.
In truth Lorraine was very busy—and what consumed her time would have astonished Bridgetown.
Will Shelby, Lorraine’s nearest neighbor, had been quick to call. Lorraine had come out onto her veranda one morning after she moved in and found him just dismounting from his horse.
“Mistress London!” He swept her an impetuous bow.
Lorraine looked at him quizzically. She saw a rugged-looking young gentleman in sweat-stained orange satins who looked as if he belonged more on a horse than in a drawing room. His sandy hair was unruly and tended to cascade over his eyes so that he was constantly giving his head a shake to toss it back into place and his hazel eyes held a merry gleam.
“I am Will Shelby, your neighbor at Clifftop.” He jerked his head toward the winding cliffs to the south and managed to clear his vision again. “I have come to welcome you to Barbados and to take you riding.” He peered at her. “You are more beautiful even than they said you were.”
“I do not ride,” Lorraine admitted, smiling at Will.
“Then I will teach you!”
“But at the moment I have only a carriage horse—”
“I will be back in a trice with a gentle nag from my own stables!” Before she could protest, Will had leapt back upon his horse and was thundering away down the drive.
He was back within the hour with a docile bay mare, which Lorraine timidly mounted. A little apprehensive at first, she clung to the horn of the sidesaddle, but soon found that keeping her seat was not so difficult after all.
That day was a revelation to her. Will Shelby led her down into the canefields, past his own well-run plantation, and onto the land of his neighbor farther south—a plantation that seemed not so well run. The fields were rougher, such buildings as they passed seemed to be in poor repair. Lorraine remarked on it.
“Aye,” Will agreed readily. “Pinchot is no manager, stays drunk most of the time, leaves the running of the place to his overseer.” He frowned suddenly. “I would not have brought you this way had I known we’d run into this!”
Shelby was looking slightly to his left, and Lorraine followed his gaze. She saw a man tied to a tree. He was stripped to the waist and sagged in his bonds. The sun beat down on his bare back, which was striped from the whip.
There was no one about.
Shelby would have wheeled his horse around, but Lorraine protested indignantly. “We cannot leave him there like that!”
Will Shelby sighed. “The man is a bondservant. His name is Maughan and he tries perpetually to escape. I don’t doubt that’s what brought on this whipping.” They had come up close to poor Maughan and Lorraine saw that he was a mass of bruises besides bearing the welts of the whip. A bucket of water stood nearby, and a dipper—but both were beyond Maughan’s reach.
Lorraine climbed down from her horse and proffered Maughan a dipper of water. He straightened a little from his slumped position and gave her a grateful look.
“They left it that I might gaze on it and yearn for a drink,” he told her.
“Why?”
“To torment me.”
“No, I mean why did they punish you at all?”
“He tried to escape again,” interposed Will Shelby. “Didn’t you, Maughan?”
The answer was a resigned nod of a shock of brown hair. “I’m a groom by trade, mistress,” Maughan told Lorraine. “I’m good with horses, but the owner of this plantation cares naught for his animals. I dared to tell him they were underfed and needed currying and he sent me out to the canefields—and there I’ve been ever since, working in the cane.”
“I’m in need of a groom,” said Lorraine. “Perhaps you would come to work for me?”
Maughan gave a short bitter laugh. “I’d like nothing better, but I’m indentured for four more years.”
“I see,” said Lorraine. She gave him some more water and sponged off his forehead with her kerchief.
Will Shelby looked at her anxiously as he helped her back upon her horse. “I had not meant for you to see that,” he said as they rode on through the canefields. “ ’Tis a bit strong for a lady’s tender gaze.”
She turned on him in consternation. “You mean such treatment is usual?”
Will moved his shoulders uneasily beneath that alarmed gaze. “Well, not at Clifftop it isn’t, but many plantations, like Pinchot’s, are not well run and some bondservants tend to rebel.”
Lorraine shivered. “Bondservants are no better off than slaves then!”
“Worse off,” he agreed readily. “Slaves are better treated.” At her shocked expression, he explained. “A slave’s contract is for life—his owner has a vested interest in him. But a bondservant’s contract begins to run out the day you buy him—at the most he will be with you no more than three, five, or seven years, say. If the most is to be got out of him, he must be kept tractable—and at home. Usually the whip takes care of that.”
“At least bondservants eventually regain their freedom!”
“Not always.” His voice was sober. “ ’Tis common practice in the islands to beat and starve them in the last year of their indenture until in desperation they agree to bind themselves for another term of indenture—as long as seven more years.”
Lorraine almost rode into a projecting palm frond. She brushed it back just in time. These islands in the sun were strange tropical things, she realized suddenly. Here man and beast—and even plants—vied in ferocity, in thorns, in bites and stings, in human cruelty. . . .
“But such matters need not concern a lady,” Will added pleasantly, and Lorraine gave him a wan look. A “lady” today—but perhaps a luckless bondservant whipped at the tail of a cart tomorrow!
“Mr. Shelby,” she asked impulsively, “do you know this Pinchot very well?”
He shrugged his orange satin shoulders. “Well enough. I have lent him slaves from time to time when he could not get his cane cut for one reason or another.”
She pounced on that. “Then he is in your debt? Would you do me a great favor?”
Will Shelby looked dazzled. He would do this beauty any number of favors!
“I would like to buy the articles of this man Maughan and make him my groom. Would you arrange it for me?”
“But Maughan is known to be unruly!”
“I will chance it,” was her firm reply.
It was arranged that same afternoon. Pinchot was drunk and hiccuped that he would gladly rid himself of Maughan, who was a firebrand and forever making trouble.
Maughan was delivered to Venture, and Lorraine sent immediately for a doctor, who cleansed and salved the weals of the whip and prescribed better food and rest.
“You will no longer cut cane,” Lorraine told Maughan when the doctor had gone. “Nor will anyone attack you. Are you well-acquainted with this island?”
He nodded, almost struck dumb by his good fortune at having found such a kind mistress.
“I mean to use all bondservants or hired labor for the furniture business in which I propose to engage, and they will need shelter. Decent cottages must be constructed to house them. As my groom, you can mix about under the pretext of looking for horseflesh for Venture. Actually, I wish you to find me good carpenters and other artisans skilled at their crafts. If they work for hire, I will pay them more than they are now getting—if they are bondservants, I will buy their articles of indenture. And I will need a house staff as well. All will be well-treated here and if they serve me well, I will
increase their wages or strike off part of their period of indenture.”
Maughan’s eyes filled with tears. “I had thought to be starved and beaten into signing again,” he muttered.
“Not ever again,” vowed Lorraine grimly. “Nor will anyone else on this plantation!”
Gradually she assembled a small house staff, men to work in the fields, and skilled artisans to shape and build mahogany furniture. There was a relaxed air to working at Venture, a breezy hope for the future. The food was good and plentiful and the work congenial—for Lorraine was not trying to stuff square pegs into round holes. They all adored her and word went round the island that there was no better place to work than Venture.
Nicholls watched Lorraine’s progress with interest, but he was mostly occupied with refitting a newly bought sloop, Island Venture, arranging for its cargo, and scheduling its ports of call. He had also begun to draw up plans for the new sugar mill.
Will Shelby continued to pay Lorraine court. Under his tutelage she had a surer hand on the reins and soon graduated to a more spirited mount. She was trying to fill her days so that she might forget Raile, when she met the governor.
She went riding with Will Shelby every day—and hardly a day passed but they were intercepted by some interested young buck who desired to meet the new mistress of Venture. Soon some of those fellows were paying morning calls on Venture to bring Lorraine flowers and trinkets and pay her extravagant compliments, while Will chafed at the bit to get on with their ride and frowned mightily at the interlopers.
Early one morning, Lorraine decided to escape them all. She left word that she was “indisposed” and drove down into Bridgetown in her new carriage. She observed that several of the ladies coming out of the shops on Broad Street looked askance at her—doubtless for driving about herself, but she did not care. Why should she be shackled to what servants could do for her when she had a perfectly good pair of hands and feet of her own?
She visited the market and purchased some palm-leaf fans and a large green parrot in a wicker cage. The boy who lifted the cage into her carriage was jostled. The cage door, not too securely fastened, struck the side of the carriage and the frightened bird flew free to perch upon the back of the carriage, squawking and flapping its wings.
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