Island Queen

by Vanessa Riley

  “You are the best. And my Elizabeth is brilliant. She’s already figuring out ways to improve our inventory accounting.”

  She straightened another of my hats on Anna. This one was straw with a wide brim decorated with rust-colored flowers made of silk and crowned with orange, white, and blue feathers. My favorite hat.

  Beaming, she hugged her niece. “All your daughters and sons and grands are smart.”

  “If ever you want one, I made a bedroom for you, too. This is my dream home. Wait until I’m finished with the cistern to decorate my yard.”

  Her finger splayed my curls, which had started to silver. “Papa Cells will be here tonight.”

  “As will Rebecca Ritchie and the entire Entertainment Society. Your papa Cells won’t know what to do with himself.”

  She offered me a sly eye, but I was unmoved. “He’ll do fine, even if I ignore him.”

  “Mama.” My daughter looked at me like I was lying about not caring what that man did. Or who enjoyed his humor.

  Well, I was lying.

  There would always be a thing between Cells and me, and as much as I only wanted it to be our shared daughters and grands, I knew there was more, just wasn’t ready to admit it.

  In my formal dining room with white trim and molding and rose-painted walls, my godson William King pushed away from my large oval table and lifted his glass.

  He waited for my server to place a fresh platter of yams in the center near a shiny candelabra that Cells gave to me as a gift for my new house.

  “Ma’am, Mrs. Thomas, I need to ask you a question.”

  I started to pick up my glass of bubbling Sourire de Reims Rosé. “Young King, you have the floor.”

  “I know I was quite upset getting marooned in Demerara because of the blockades, but there are hidden blessings.”

  “You sound very serious,” I said and fingered my glass.

  Cells looked particularly guilty in his indigo-blue waistcoat and black tailcoat and ridiculously wide cravat. He knew something.

  “Mrs. Thomas, I’d like your permission.” He let out a long sigh. “I wish to marry Elizabeth. May I have her hand?”

  I fell back against the stiles of my mahogany chair.

  Didn’t see that coming.

  Rebecca, who’d moved closer to Robb Street to sup at my table, giggled and emptied her goblet. “I knew it. Charlotte, did you know?”

  My daughter shook her head.

  I believed her. Lying wasn’t for her, and anything that wasn’t Kensington Plantation or our store or her nieces, she didn’t much notice. Her husband didn’t occupy her time. They weren’t happy. Maybe she should use that bedroom I made for her.

  The door to the dining room swung open and in came Josephy. He looked tired but he’d had the decency to go up to his room and freshen up. The boy had put on a clean shirt and breeches. “Did I miss it?”

  William looked his way with his eyes stretched wide. “I’m asking now.”

  “Oh.” Josephy took a seat next to Cells and began filling his plate with crusty pigeon pie, salted cod, yams and garlic, then dove into the compote of baked mangos. He waved as he started eating. “Continue, sir.”

  My son’s antic made my shy Elizabeth Penner, my beloved grandniece, my little damfo, cover her face. A blush turned her brown cheeks the color of my pink champagne. When she first came to live with me after losing Ella and Sally, I took her on walks along the shore and told her that good things would be in her life. All the losses she’d endured would never stop her. We promised to be special friends, my damfo.

  If this was to be, I’d be happy.

  My son gobbled and drank the champagne Cells poured him. “Come on, King, tell my mother how much you love Elizabeth and would die without her.”

  My godson coughed. “You just did.”

  I smothered a laugh. Both Elizabeth and William were reserved. I didn’t see this working.

  Then he knelt and took her hand. “What he said.” He bent his head and kissed my niece’s hand like she was pie and yams and champagne.

  Her face was cherry red. “Yes.”

  I’d come to love Elizabeth’s presence in my house, loved the way she was a critical thinker.

  Thomas King and I had been close all these years. He’d helped my business grow. Now the son of a former slave trader was going to marry the daughter of a former slave.

  Cells, who kept barging his way to my table, stood. “To the happy young couple. I’ve known your father, William, a long time, and Elizabeth, I’ve grown to know you these past three years. You’re bright and sweet, and King is damn lucky.”

  William rose and brought her hand to his chest. Elizabeth grinned. “We say tarn, Uncle Cells.”

  Could I smirk at tarn and fume at Elizabeth’s endearment of uncle? Cells and I weren’t married. I could barely stand him, though I saw him two or three times a week, once with Charlotte, then again with Catharina and Simon. Then he’d show up with one of my vendors or when Lieutenant Governor Codd managed an invitation.

  I tapped my knife on my glass. “Before this goes any further, I have a few questions.”

  Keeping Elizabeth’s fingers, William finally looked at me. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What does your father think? He’s liberal and changed, but England is still England, unless you intend to stay in Demerara. Mixing of races in London—”

  “Is not novel. Many planters are sending their daughters for education. Many are marrying there. We won’t be the only ones. We’re ready to take the challenge. A love like ours can’t be denied.”

  Cells glanced at me. “He’s right. Tarn right.”

  “We”—William looked to Elizabeth—“we’ll live mostly in London, but we’ll visit here as often as possible. Working on investments for my father between here and Trinidad had me frustrated. Then the simplest conversations with this one intrigued me. I think I loved her when she lent me a stick of charcoal. It was the best borrow.”

  “Sir, you actually still owe me. My aunt sells them in her store for three shillings.”

  He took a ring from his pocket. “Perhaps this will settle my debt.”

  The band of gold looked old and set with a small diamond. Thomas King did approve. That had to come by post. Letters were the only things getting through the British navy.

  Rebecca signaled one of my servers. “I think we need another bottle of Sourire de Reims Rosé.”

  “This was the last, Rebecca. Nasty blockade. We will have to settle for Rosé de Saignée. It’s just as good.”

  Cells looked amused.

  Josephy, too.

  I finished my glass. I did like my table full. My house on Robb Street should always be like this. Then I grew sad, for it wouldn’t. The children and grandchildren would keep growing up and leaving. I’d enjoy them for as long as I could, even if I had to share with Cells.

  Demerara 1816: Torment

  I sat by Josephy’s bed.

  He was pained. The yellow fever hit him hard. They called it that here, but I knew this was bulam, black vomit and all.

  “Mama.” He coughed. “You need to go. Can’t get you sick.”

  “Nonsense, boy.” I mopped his brow, trying to keep his spirits up. His poor lungs kept working hard, too hard.

  Like the Fédons, Josephy never asked of an enslaved man anything he would not do himself. They were workers to him. He treated them like humans, and he could not avoid the diseases that befell them too. Many were gathered outside this big house he’d built at Kensington Plantation.

  His eyes had changed from beautiful and dark, to bluish brown to red and then full yellow.

  Now, they remained closed.

  “Josephy, no. You need to get up. We need to talk about the fields.”

  “Mama, Charlotte can do it. She’s a good one. Eliza’s husband too. Robertson was mighty helpful last year for harvest. Don’t fret, Mama.”

  My eyes leaked badly. I didn’t know how to make it stop. Charlotte thought she might be wi
th child. I’d sent her home to protect her. I’d lived a good life. If I went now, they just needed to lay me out with my best hat.

  At sixty, I wasn’t ready to go.

  At twenty-six, neither was my son.

  “The doctor’s outside. I could get him.”

  “No, Ma.”

  “What about something to drink?”

  He nodded.

  I held a glass to his lips. He took one swallow, then pushed the glass away.

  My shaking fingers barely set it on the nightstand.

  “Mama, I see Papa’s boat coming for me.”

  “No. No. Don’t take him, Thomas. Don’t.”

  “You gave me the best father, you know. You chose right for me.”

  Did he know?

  Josephy was a brilliant young man, a prince among them. “The doctor said something about the bad air. I’ll open a window.”

  He held my hand. “Just sit with me.”

  “Kensington needs you. You love this place.”

  His eyes opened, just slits. “I did it, Ma. My dream. I did. This house . . . All the fields. Papa, see. Even Aunt Kitty sees—” He fell back.

  “Josephy. Josephy!!!”

  The door opened. The doctor I hired from town ran in and waved under my son’s nose. Then he put his ear to Josephy’s chest. “He’s gone, Mrs. Thomas.”

  “No. He’s just asleep. He’s going to wake up and get out of this bed. He’s just asleep. Asleep like Thomas, Edward, like Edward.”

  “Mrs. Thomas.”

  I fell on Josephy, wrinkling his nightshirt, trying to feel a rhythm, any rhythm.

  I heard nothing, not even a short small breath.

  “Mrs. Thomas, we have to deal with his body. He’s still contagious. You need to get out. You can’t get sick too.”

  “Come on, Dolly. The doctor said to leave. You have to listen to someone sometimes.”

  “Cells?”

  I turned my wet face to him.

  He was in all black except his cravat.

  “You dressed for the grave, Cells?”

  “Charlotte sent for me, Dolly. Is Joseph Thomas Jr. gone?”

  “Yes,” the doctor said. “Take her out of here, Mr. Cells.”

  Cells’s arms grabbed my shoulders. He made me stand and walk out of the house and onto the porch.

  With his arms about me, he called to Smithy, my cooper. “Mr. Thomas has died. We must mourn him. Tell everyone.”

  Smithy took off his hat and covered his jacket over his chest. “Sorry, Mrs. Thomas. I just started savin’. Massa wanted to see me free.”

  “You keep at things. You will be.” My voice was mostly gone. I leaned against the post supporting the deep porch.

  “I’m taking you home.” Cells tugged me to his carriage. “We are going to drive real slow.”

  “Cells.”

  “And you’re not going to be Mrs. Dorothy Kirwan Thomas. You’re Dolly, the girl who could be weak to her old friend, Coseveldt.”

  “I don’t know who she is anymore. Maybe she’s asleep, too.”

  “She’s there beneath all the heavy armor. She’s there, and I believe in her.”

  He held me tight. I breathed him, citrus and rum, but someone needed to do the breathing and the thinking. “He was such a good boy.”

  “All your sons are good men, Dolly. You raised them to be fine men, regardless of their fathers.”

  I buried myself in Cells. The well, the bottomless well in my chest, broke like a flood, all my tears cut ghauts and ruts into my soul. What was the use of building a legacy if the ones who deserved the fruit never lived long enough for the harvest?

  Grenada 1816: Testing

  Polk guided his sloop close to the docks of St. George’s, Grenada. “Mrs. Dolly, you need to stay calm.”

  I surely looked at that bald head like it should roll. How could Crissy do this?

  Before I could fuss, soulful Polk smiled big. “Kitty used to skip down to the docks to greet me. She was some kind of special.”

  How could I stay angry at a big old bear who loved my lost sister almost as much as I did?

  I gave him a hug and climbed onto the dock. “I promise not to kill or go to jail. Come back for me in a week.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Dolly.”

  Dressed in mourning black, I sweated as I walked up Blaize Street toward my old dwelling house. Frances and Ann met me halfway. I hugged and kissed on them. “We are so sorry about Josephy.”

  Swatting at tears for them, for my lost sons, I caught my breath. “I wished you’d all seen each other one last time, but tell me of Crissy.”

  “Mama, Robert Garraway has left her. She’s delicate now. You can’t fuss—”

  I cut my eyes at Ann so hard, I must have sliced her throat. Her husband’s brother had done this. He’d ruined my youngest.

  Frances pulled her palms together. She needed to pray that there was enough mercy for everyone. “I trusted you all to protect your sister.”

  “Mama, we tried to stop her. She even signed a contract with him thinking it was marriage paperwork.”

  “A concubine contract? Didn’t she come to you with it? Frances, you use Mr. Bates’s firm for all my business here. Did they look at it?”

  “Not until we discovered them, and she claimed they were married.”

  “Are they?”

  “No.” Ann’s head shook so hard, it might fall off. “My brother-in-law used her innocence up. I’m sorry, Mama. If he returns to England before she becomes twenty-one, this marriage is null and void.”

  Crissy was just twenty. That man had a whole year to escape. “She gave away her virtue on a promise to marry?”

  “Yes, but sis thought she was married, and she loves Robert Garraway.”

  I threaded my fingers together to keep from fisting my hands. “Where is Garraway now?”

  Frances stepped back and shrugged. “He disappeared.”

  “Why? Why is he gone now? Knowing I was coming, did that make him hide?”

  Ann looked at Frances, and she returned the same blank look.

  Then I started running. My sandals pounded the pavement. I had to reach my house to see what else could be wrong.

  I knew she was flirty, but chancing her future on a promise? Love doesn’t make contracts with “leave you” clauses.

  With Ann and Frances panting behind me, I leaped the stairs, then jumped through the door.

  Mamaí sat next to Crissy.

  My daughter appeared alive and breathing, but her back was to me.

  My mother came to me. She threw her arms about me and held me. Her grip was still tight, her hair was short and full white. Her wrinkles and dimples had merged, but she was a blessed sight.

  “The peacock flower tea is in the silver pot. Crissy wanted it. Now she won’t drink.” She kissed my forehead then left the room.

  My head spun.

  Pregnant.

  And Crissy wanted to miscarry.

  I rounded the couch and my baby sat with her hand on her stomach, one that barely showed.

  Ten minutes flew by as I glared at the tea service I gave Ann, Mr. Foden’s prized gift. The filigree on the sides was too pretty to house liquid death, not the way he loved life.

  “I’m sorry, Mama.”

  My voice left. Our Thomas’s blood was in her veins, in this child, one of choice, not rape. The tea that controlled the menses of enslaved women wasn’t meant for this.

  Sitting next to her, I held my breath. I wanted to yell, to rage, but one glance at her apple face said she’d already called herself that and fool and harlot—probably every evil name.

  Instead, I laced my arms about her. “I love you, Crissy. Your father and I, we loved each other. You were the baby I gave him to finish his dream of a big family.”

  “Sorry, Mama.” Her voice was a wet whisper. “I thought a baby would bind us together, not make him run.”

  “You wanted this baby when you thought Garraway wanted you? Don’t drink then. This tea is for
hate, not for love.”

  I pushed the cold cup away. “I’ll love and support you. But think it through. Don’t do this as punishment. Garraway doesn’t matter.”

  “I wanted this baby and his love. Mama, is it wrong to want both?”

  “Listen. You’re strong. You come from a line of strong women. We will help you, but you need to be thinking right. Thomas’s blood is precious.”

  “What if I have this baby and Robert never comes back? I’ll always be tied to him.”

  “You’ll be tied to the memory of love, nothing more. I’ll make sure this baby knows the best kind of love.”

  Crissy sobbed. “You won’t hate me?”

  The girl feared my condemnation more than anything. I had to stop sulking over the dreams I wanted for Crissy and replace them with new ones. I rubbed her back. “You’ll come back with me. I have a room—”

  “No, I have to stay. We’ll come to you as two or three if Robert returns.”

  I wanted to wring his neck, but it sounded like Crissy had that frantic type of love. Catharina and Crissy, had they inherited this desperation from me?

  “Crissy, I didn’t get things right with your pa until our second chance. Maybe when this baby is born, you and Garraway will have that second chance too.”

  “Mama, I can’t do this without you.”

  Almost smothering her in my embrace, I held and rocked this grown child of mine.

  “I built a room for you in Demerara. It has a big window to view the stars. I can put a cradle in there, too.

  She started blubbering, and I called to Ann and Francis. “I know you two are at the door. Come in.”

  The door creaked open and in they trotted.

  “Come sit. I have a story to tell you all. I need to tell you about your blood, how strong you all are. You are made from iron and sacrifice.”

  My girls listened to all the horrible tales, the sick house, Nicholas, everything including the loves of my life, the plantation owner, the solicitor, and a prince. I ended with my greatest loves, my children and me. Somewhere on my journey, I started to love me.

  I won’t ever stop.

  My girls needed to love themselves, too, and to believe they were worthy of their dreams.