Of Noble Family

by Mary Robinette Kowal

  “Oh! Mrs. Hamilton, I am so very sorry for your loss.” She dropped her husband’s arm before he had a chance to address either of them and crossed the room, hands outstretched to Jane. “It is so good of you to come all this way.”

  “Of course. I could not let Mr. Hamilton come on his own.” Jane was surprised into a smile at having her hands clutched with such sincerity.

  Behind the two Pridmores came a third person, a mulatto maid of middle height with general prettiness, a clear brown complexion, and a face that was round rather than long. She took up a station against the wall with her eyes downcast. Neither Pridmore acknowledged that she was in the room.

  By this time, Mr. Pridmore had reached Vincent. “Indeed, you have my sincere sympathy. Frank told us the news last night. We expected your brother and had not the slightest idea that something had occurred. Dreadfully sorry to hear it.”

  “It was a shock to us all.”

  “Frank said you wished a tour of the estate today? Are you certain? There is nothing so pressing that it will not wait a few days to give you time to recover from your journey.”

  “Now, you gentlemen must take your business elsewhere. I have charge of making Mrs. Hamilton feel at home in our little rustic estate, and simply cannot do it while you are speaking of business. Have you been out on the veranda, Mrs. Hamilton? I say that there is nothing like a veranda for taking in the air, provided that it is in the shade, of course. Here above all other places, one does not want a brush of the tawny. People might get the wrong idea. But you have not that difficulty at all, I am certain. With my dark curls, I do have to be so very careful.”

  “I did have the opportunity to enjoy the veranda attached to our rooms last night.” Though enjoy was perhaps the wrong word, given Vincent’s illness.

  Mrs. Pridmore squeezed Jane’s hand. “Oh, I am so glad you have come. I have been ever so lonely.”

  Mr. Pridmore laughed at her. “Lonely? Why, you are chattering all day and all night with Betsy. Honestly, Mrs. Hamilton, she does not go anywhere without her maid.”

  “Indeed?” Jane raised a brow and turned back to Mrs. Pridmore. “Betsy must be a comfort to you.”

  Wrinkling her nose, Mrs. Pridmore waved a hand to chase the idea away. “Oh! As to that, it is not at all the same as the company of an Englishwoman. You have lived in London, I understand. I do so miss London, but no matter how much I tease, Mr. Pridmore will not agree to our going.”

  “My dear, you know well that I cannot be away. I have business to attend to for his lordship. “

  Vincent cleared his throat. “Speaking of business, I should like that tour of the plantation.”

  Mr. Pridmore closed his mouth around whatever his first reply was and gave a nod of his head. He smiled. “Of course. I see that you are a man of business, like your father. I admire that. Mrs. Hamilton, should you like to accompany us on the early part of our tour? You might like to see the shrubbery.”

  Jane stood, brushing off her dress. “I should be delighted to come. It would do me good to see where we are to live.”

  “What?” Mrs. Pridmore cried. “Oh, you cannot mean it. Mr. Pridmore, you are not thinking of the heat today. You would be much better to stay in the shade of the veranda. Really, the heat quite does one in when you first arrive. I fainted my second day here, truly I did.”

  Mr. Pridmore waved her objection away. “We will start close to the great house so that you may return easily.” He picked up the bell on the side table and rang it. Jane might have been affronted to have him call their servants, were it not for the fact that as overseer he had charge of all the workers on the estate.

  Frank appeared in the door on the instant. “Sir?”

  He addressed Vincent, but Mr. Pridmore answered him. “Fetch Mr. Hamilton’s hat and send Mrs. Hamilton’s maid with her parasol and bonnet. Betsy? Go with him to fetch our own.”

  Betsy curtsied and left the room, all without raising her eyes.

  Jane smiled at Mrs. Pridmore. “You must have become used to having this house empty.”

  “Oh, indeed we did! How lovely to have neighbours again. I do so miss Lord Verbury. You must miss him terribly. He was such a sweet old man, and always so wonderfully condescending with his attentions. Why, do you know that he gave me an orange tree to plant at our house when we married? Such a kindness. It has grown quite tall, and bears such lovely fruit. Oh! And I have just had a thought. As we walk, I shall be able to show you our house. You must come to take tea with me as soon as you are settled.”

  Louisa entered then with Jane’s black bonnet and her parasol. She offered the bonnet with a curtsy and Jane noticed that she had a second bonnet hanging by the cord. “We are only taking a tour of the property, Louisa. I do not think I shall require you. Perhaps you could attend to Betsy while we are out?”

  “Oh!” Mrs. Pridmore put a hand to her bosom. “But I could not do without Betsy on our walk. Who should hold my parasol?”

  Louisa donned her own bonnet. “Indeed, madam. You are not used to the climate here. I should be remiss in my duties if I did not carry your parasol.”

  And of course, it would also be difficult for her to report to Lord Verbury about Jane if she did not accompany them. “Thank you, Louisa.”

  Once they were all equipped with bonnets, hats, and parasols, Mr. Pridmore led them out the back of the great house. The two wings of it extended to make an open yard at the back. A broad stretch of lawn had palmetto trees at intervals to provide welcome shade. In the centre of the lawn stood a narrow brick building. It had a low ground floor, and then a set of steep steps leading up to the first floor. Iron shutters hung open from the windows. Vines twined up trellises affixed to the sides, which did something to relieve its harshness.

  Mr. Pridmore gestured to the building. “Our counting house. You and I shall be spending quite a bit of time there, eh, Mr. Hamilton?”

  “Likely.” Vincent followed him with his hands clasped behind his back.

  As they rounded the building, strolling towards a shrubbery at the back of the yard, Mr. Pridmore stopped by a heavy iron door. “This is for you, Mrs. Hamilton. I don’t expect you’ll have much interest in the accounts, but you will be glad to know where the safe house is.”

  Mr. Pridmore produced a key from the ring he carried and unlocked the door. Inside astonishingly thick walls was a low room without any windows to relieve the dark. Several beds lay within, as well as barrels and shelves of food. The simple brick floor had been covered with a braided rug, but there was no other ornament of any sort.

  Vincent removed his hat to avoid knocking it off on the low ceiling and stepped inside. He put a hand to the wall, frowning. “Are you so worried about uprisings?”

  “After the rebellion in Haiti? Yes. Every plantation put them in.” He pulled a copy of the key from his ring and handed it to Vincent. “Every couple of years, some planter is happy they built one. Food is there. The large barrels hold water. The small ones have rum, though we have to keep that locked down.”

  Jane moved farther into the room and looked at the stores. Impressively, the safe house had modern Appert jars to hold fruits and vegetables. She picked up one of the jars and frowned as the lid shifted. The food inside was quite spoilt. Putting it back on the shelf, she took a quick survey of the other jars and could see that nearly half of the visible ones had spoilt.

  Vincent stooped over one of the rum barrels. “When was the last uprising here?”

  “The last bad one was back in 1736. We’ve had some minor incidents. Sir Thomas’s estate on the north part of the island had trouble with arson for a while. Lost most of the harvest. But he came out himself, and has had no troubles since.”

  “And this estate?”

  Mr. Pridmore frowned and counted on his fingers. “Eleven years ago? Before my time, that. Do not let it worry you, though. My introduction of the Rock Dungeon has reduced the number of incidents considerably.”

  Jane shivered and wrapped her arms around
herself before remembering what it did to her gown. She lowered them quickly, hoping that the dim room hid her movement.

  “Oh, you have frightened poor Mrs. Hamilton!” Mrs. Pridmore attached herself to Jane’s arm and directed her outside. “It sounds horrid. I should know, having lived here as long as I have. But there are nearly forty naval forts, so you only have to wait a little before soldiers come to put the uprising down.”

  Jane extricated herself from Mrs. Pridmore’s grip. “Have you had occasion to use one?”

  “No! Heavens, no. Mr. Pridmore is much too clever to allow anything like an uprising to occur. Our slaves—that is to say, your slaves—are all contented.”

  They were at least silent. Louisa and Betsy both moved to stand by the ladies as they left the shade of the safe house. After her experience with the coldmongers in England, Jane could not think that either woman was content.

  “How is it ventilated?” Vincent reached up to touch the low ceiling before ducking back out into the sunlight.

  “Oh. I—I am uncertain.…” Mr. Pridmore frowned back into the room. “It must be—er … I, um…”

  Jane walked at her husband’s side as they left the safe house behind and headed down the hill towards the slave quarters. Louisa stayed close by her, keeping the parasol in place with a diligence that was impressive. In a low voice, Jane asked, “No ventilation, really?”

  Frowning, Vincent settled his hat back upon his head. He offered her his arm and glanced back at Mr. Pridmore, who was still looking for ventilation. “There is a gap at the base of the door, so it would be a simple matter to smoke someone out.”

  “I should add that many of the preserves are clearly spoilt.”

  Vincent gave a little snort. “And the wax seal on the rum barrel has already been cracked.”

  “Mr. Hamilton! Wait—the shrubbery is this way.”

  Without checking his pace, Vincent said, “I am not interested in the shrubbery.”

  “But the ladies—”

  “Can see well enough where it is.” Vincent tucked his chin into his cravat. The dark cloth framed his face with even more severity than his usual. “What I am interested in seeing next are the slave quarters. The ones we passed on the way in had significant decay.”

  “It’s shameful, really, how lazy they are.” Mr. Pridmore took Vincent’s arm. “Allow me to show you the gardens, lovely places.”

  Vincent looked at Mr. Pridmore’s hand on his arm. “Perhaps later.”

  “Oh, but the ladies have no wish to see the slave quarters, I am certain. They are vulgar places.”

  “Jane?”

  Jane smiled at her husband. “I am not afraid of a little dirt. At least it is only dry dust here. You know how my gown gets when I go walking in the shrubbery after a rain.”

  “Then we are agreed.” Vincent walked forward, but he dipped his head and murmured to Jane. “You will let me know if you become fatigued?”

  “As we have thus far walked no farther than the length of the house, I am in no danger of fatigue.”

  “But you will let me know.”

  She sighed. “Yes.”

  He pressed his hand over hers, where it rested on his arm. “Thank you.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Pridmore stayed close on their heels, with Betsy and her parasol providing continual shade. As they passed through the hedge that formed the boundary of the lawn, Mr. Pridmore cleared his throat. “I must say again that this is not a place to take a lady, quite apart from the dirt. They are animals, and frequently engage in carnal acts, quite in public, that a lady should not see.”

  “Mr. Pridmore!” His wife fluttered her handkerchief. “It is not genteel to speak of such things, and most especially not in front of Mrs. Hamilton.”

  The overseer seemed to come to his senses about the topic he had been discussing. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Hamilton. We are so unused to being in company that I forget how such things must seem to one who is newly to our island. I do not tend to think of it as any more untoward than discussing the breeding of hounds.”

  “And yet, it is quite different.”

  “Of course. Of course…” He did not seem as if he quite agreed with her, but he had the grace not to argue the point further. Turning at an angle to the hedge, he gestured along a well-beaten path through the lawn “Well … this way, then, to the slave quarters.”

  Vincent frowned. “I recall them being closer to the road.”

  “You are thinking of the old buildings you passed by on your way in. These are closer, which would be better for the ladies, do you not agree?”

  Vincent inclined his head and gestured for the overseer to lead on. As they walked, Mrs. Pridmore drew even with Jane and engaged her in conversation about fashion and music, to which Jane had very little to offer, as the overseer’s wife was more than capable of carrying on nearly the whole of the discussion by herself. Due to the narrowness of the path, Louisa and Betsy were forced to walk in the grass to either side of them in order to keep the parasols overhead.

  They rounded the slope of the hill and came upon a set of little white cottages, surely no more than one room apiece. Each had a small garden plot of vegetables in front, and one had pea vines trained on a trellis up the side.

  Mr. Pridmore gestured broadly. “There you are. Pretty as a picture, eh?”

  Jane counted ten houses and then thought of the number of slaves that Louisa had said were on the estate. There was not enough space to accommodate anywhere near the two hundred slaves she had mentioned. “And where are the others?”

  “The others?”

  “The other houses. I wonder if they have so pleasant a prospect.”

  Vincent narrowed his eyes and strode towards the nearest cottage. “The quarters by the road are still in use, are they not?”

  “Yes.…”

  “Why are not all of the slaves supplied with cottages such as these?”

  Mr. Pridmore laughed, slapping his hands together. “Oh ho! A romantic. My dear sir, once you have an opportunity to go over the accounts you will see that we have too many slaves to make that economical. Given the mild weather here, those are more than sufficient. Cottages such as these are reserved for the house slaves. In general, the coloured slaves are more adept than the blacks, but they are also more delicate in constitution, so cottages such as these are necessary. It comes from the mixing of the bloodlines, I fear. Their rate of births is alarmingly low.”

  Vincent humphed as he walked down the row of houses.

  Mr. Pridmore appeared to take that as an encouragement to continue. “I have been thinking of starting a breeding catalogue to improve the stock. After all, cattle ranchers do it to great effect. It would be a simple matter, I would think, to breed for a docile temperament. Why, take Betsy here. As calm and steady a maid as you could ask for. Why not breed her with someone like your Frank? It might improve the birth rate as well.”

  “Mr. Pridmore! Remember Mrs. Hamilton!”

  “I am not concerned for myself.” Jane studied Betsy, who walked behind Mrs. Pridmore with an elegant deportment but two spots of red upon her cheeks. “But a change of subject would be welcome, I think.”

  The maid’s eyelids fluttered as though she was restraining the impulse to look up. In no other manner did she display that she had even heard the conversation. Jane was accustomed to pretending that servants were not in the room, in part because that social convention made it easier for them to go about their work rather than requiring constant courtesies, but she was not used to, nor comfortable with, the idea of discussing them as if they were not present.

  “Ah—yes.” Mr. Pridmore cleared his throat. “My apologies. Should you like to go in one of the cottages?”

  “I have seen enough.” Vincent’s hands were behind his back, and he had tilted his head down into his cravat. More telling to Jane than his habitual stance was the tension around his eyes and mouth. “The rum distillery should be next, I believe.”

  “Of course.” Mr. Pridmore gave
a little chuckle. “Though, to that, I really must insist that we not take the ladies. It is not safe.”

  “If it is safe enough for you gentlemen, then surely it is safe enough for me.” It might have been Jane’s imagination, but she could not help feeling that his reasons for avoiding the distillery had little to do with her safety.

  “I am afraid not, Mrs. Hamilton. Should there be an accident with the boiler, or simply a careless movement by a slave, your muslin would be inadequate to protect you.”

  Vincent turned from the group and met Jane’s gaze. He then glanced from Mrs. Pridmore to Mr. Pridmore. Someone who was not intimately acquainted with him would see no more than that. Jane took it to mean that his next sentence would be for them, not for her. “Perhaps you should return to the house with Mrs. Pridmore. I am afraid we have business to discuss that could not be of any possible interest to ladies.”

  He gave a slight tilt of his head towards Mrs. Pridmore with an even smaller head shake. Jane inhaled with understanding. He thought that Mrs. Pridmore did not know about Lord Verbury. Her continued presence meant he could not be direct in his conversation with the overseer. “Of course, but I hope you will tell me all about it when you return.”

  He relaxed ever so slightly as he saw that she understood. “You have my word. I am looking forward to seeing what Mr. Pridmore chooses to show me. The tour has been instructive thus far.” Again, beneath his words and in the slight shift of his weight when he said “chooses” lay another message for Jane, which confirmed her own thought.

  Mr. Pridmore had been steering the tour very carefully. Given what they had seen, she was certain that the rickety sheds by the road would be far from the worst thing. She did not like letting Vincent bear the burden of this alone, but given Mrs. Pridmore’s tendency to chatter, Jane might be able to gain a different perspective of how things lay without them present.

  Jane gave her husband an encouraging smile. “I shall find ways to occupy myself while you are busy with men’s work.”