“Thank you.” Jane slid down in the bed. She curled onto her left side, face turned towards the window, and waited. The orange glow had grown brighter against the night sky.
The scent of smoke grew as well as the hours carried it on a steady breeze towards the house. Nkiruka held a handkerchief to her mouth and coughed into it.
“Do you want to shut the veranda door?”
Nodding, Nkiruka stood and bustled to the door. She paused to step onto the veranda and lean on the rail to look across the valley floor. When she came back in, her face was tight. “My house on fire.”
“Oh no. Oh, Nkiruka. Your grandchildren … do you need to go?” Jane pushed herself up on one elbow, trying to see out the window.
“Me too slow. Nothing cyan do by the time me get dey. Dolly will mind them.” She twisted the tie on her robe, still looking across the valley. With another cough, Nkiruka shut the veranda door. “Dem safe with Dolly.”
“I am certain you are right. Of course they are safe.”
* * *
Jane noted the time of her next bearing pain in the logbook with some trepidation. The last five had been at regular half hour intervals. Dr. Jones had said to send for her if they became regular or more frequent than twenty minutes, but there was no one to send. She looked up from the page to where Nkiruka stood by the veranda door.
The older woman frowned, her hands set on her hips. The light from the fire had grown bright enough to dimly light the room.
Jane set down the quill. “What do you see?”
“We need go.” She turned from the door. “De fire closer. Wind blowing towards us. Let’s go.”
“Go?” Jane stared stupidly at the numbers on the page, as if looking at them would change anything.
“Yes.” Nkiruka bustled across the room and pulled a stout walking dress out of the wardrobe.
As if in answer, the baby pushed against Jane’s ribs. She swallowed, resting her hand against the spot. “Vincent would come if we were in serious danger.”
“Fire jus’ cross de road. We haffu go. Now.” She carried the dress over to Jane.
Heart pounding, Jane sat up and, for the first time in two weeks, swung her legs out of bed. Nkiruka helped her slip into the dress and then knelt to put her slippers on, since Jane could no longer see her own feet. When Jane stood, she had to grasp the bedpost for support. The room spun a little, as if she had been working glamour. All of the weight she had gained seemed to have doubled in her weeks abed.
“You all right?”
“Dizzy.” Jane rubbed her eyes, trying to clear her vision.
“You lean on me. We go.”
Standing, Jane could finally look out the window at what had alarmed Nkiruka. The flames had swept up the hill, and one of the orange trees on the far side of the great house grounds had caught fire. Jane put her hand on Nkiruka’s shoulder and nodded. “I see the need for haste.”
Though Jane felt weak and had to lean on Nkiruka more than she wished, her vision cleared and she seemed to be in no danger of fainting. They went down the passage leading to the back of the house. They scarcely needed a candle—through every window, flames lit the sky. Jane sent up a prayer for Vincent’s safety.
Nkiruka opened the door into the yard, provoking both of them to cough. The air was hot and thick with smoke. Nkiruka shut the door and patted Jane’s arm. “Wait here. I go get us a couple ah damp cloths.”
Jane leaned against the wall with a hand held over her nose. “Excellent thought.”
Nkiruka hurried back down the hall and disappeared into one of the rooms they had used for the wounded. Jane thanked providence that they were all out of the house, though she was not certain they were any safer where they were.
Another bearing pain squeezed her. Though the discomfort was not great, Jane winced, knowing that half an hour had not yet passed. She hoped it was a sign that they were irregular rather than becoming more frequent.
In short order, Nkiruka reappeared with two lengths of dripping linen. She slowed as she approached Jane. “Another one?”
“Yes.” Jane took the wet cloth from her, trying to ignore the cramp. “How can you tell?”
“You frown, so.” Nkiruka drew her brows together and set her mouth in a straight line. Then she crossed her eyes.
In spite of herself, Jane laughed. “I do not.”
“Next time me’ll hold up wan mirror.” Nkiruka tied a cloth around her head, covering her mouth and nose.
Jane followed suit, knotting the wet fabric behind her head so they looked like a pair of unlikely bandits. “I feel as though we should rob a bank.”
“Later. Fus, arwe do fire walki—”
“Jane!” From the front of the house, Vincent’s bellow cut through the walls.
Jane’s knees went weak with relief. Only the fact that she was already leaning against the wall kept her on her feet. She pulled the damp cloth down and drew a breath to reply. It turned into coughing, and then a wheeze with each burning inhalation.
He ran into view in the blue parlour at the end of the hall. Knocking over a chair in his haste, he dashed through the room. “Jane!”
“Here! We are here.”
“Oh, thank God.” He slid to a halt in front of them. His face was dark with soot, and he had a damp linen cloth hanging around his neck. “The road is closed off, but the way to Frank’s house is still open and the wind is blowing away from it.”
“Dat too far fu she walk. Take she to the safe house. Good thick stone walls.”
“No—there is no ventilation. You would suffocate in short order with the way the wind is blowing.” He pulled the cloth up over his nose. Bending, he lifted Jane into his arms. “And I have no intention of letting her walk.”
“You cannot carry me all that way.”
“It is not fashionable, but Frank is bringing a cart round. Nkiruka, will you get the door?” He was sticky with sweat. “And Muse, pull up your cloth. The smoke is very bad.”
Jane pulled up the cloth as Nkiruka opened the door. Vincent swung, turning to smoothly guide Jane’s legs through. He stepped on to the back veranda, still looking back into the house to make sure her head did not hit the frame.
Mr. Pridmore stood in the yard.
Jane stiffened in Vincent’s arms. “Put me down.”
“What—? Oh, rot!”
“Told you I’d smoke him out. Clever, keeping him at Frank’s. Didn’t think his lordship would stoop to staying in slave quarters.” Pridmore smiled rakishly. “Mighty glad to see me, too. Be interesting to see what happens when people hear how you kept him prisoner.”
“You have my father, which is what you wanted, and there is a fire that threatens all of us, so this is not the time for discussion.”
“From what I hear, your brother is more tractable. Pity that I’ll have to tell your father you died in the fire.” Mr. Pridmore produced a pair of duelling pistols from behind his back. “Real mother-of-pearl inlay. A present from Mrs. Pridmore. She said all real gentlemen should have a set.”
Vincent put Jane down and stepped in front of her. “Then let us handle this like gentlemen. I see you brought two pistols.”
Nkiruka stood just inside the door, holding it open. She beckoned to Jane, eyes wide over her mask. Jane shook her head, though she was not sure what she could do.
“I wasn’t thinking to duel you.” Pridmore raised one of the pistols and aimed it at Vincent.
“You know he wants my wife alive.”
“He did say that.”
Vincent walked down the stairs, curving his steps away from Jane and Nkiruka. “And I will wager that until he is certain it is a boy child, he does not want me dead, only disabled.”
“No … that’s my own addition to his plan.” He cocked the pistol. “I’ll tell him you threatened me.”
In desperation, Jane clutched her stomach and let out a shriek that would do her mother proud. “The baby!”
Pridmore glanced at her. As he did, Vincent darted
to the right and vanished.
The pistol’s shot cracked the night. Jane grasped the rail for support. Vincent had woven a Sphère Obscurcie, but he could not have gone far holding the weave. There was no way to tell if the shot had hit him so long as he was hidden in glamour.
Clearly shaken, Pridmore took a step back, lowering the pistol now that its single shot was spent. He raised the other pistol and held it at ready. “Where are you, Hamilton?”
In the distance, flames crackled and wood popped. Jane’s own ragged breathing caught without feigning as another bearing pain wrapped around her. She kept her eyes on the yard, waiting for Vincent to reappear.
He popped into sight ten feet to the left of where he had been, moving at a run towards Pridmore. The move to the right must have been a feint. Pridmore cursed and swung to aim at him, but Vincent vanished again. Pridmore darted away and turned his loaded pistol on Jane. “Stop! Or I shoot your wife.”
Behind Jane, a brief flurry of movement caught her attention. She looked back, hoping that Vincent had somehow made his way behind her. Frank stood in the hall with Nkiruka, heads bent together in furious conference.
Vincent’s voice pulled her attention back to the yard. “At forty feet? With that trinket? Expensive, yes, but unless I miss my guess, it is of Spanish manufacture, and notoriously inaccurate.” He reappeared only fifteen feet from Pridmore.
Frank stepped on to the veranda with Nkiruka right at his back. He slowly raised a hunting rifle to his shoulder. “Whereas, you have seen me bring down geese with this. I have two shots to your one and—let me be clear—a very, very strong desire to see you dead. You have until the count of three to put down the pistol.”
Nkiruka’s head was bent. She panted while her hands worked swiftly in front of her.
“One.”
Pridmore turned the pistol back to Vincent. “You really think you can hit me first?”
“Two.”
The pistol jumped in Pridmore’s hand with a flash, a finger of fire pointing straight at Vincent. Almost simultaneously, the shotgun cracked, sound exploding in Jane’s ears.
Pridmore threw his pistols down and ran for the safe house.
Jane did not care for that. Vincent had vanished again. She had just started down the stairs when her husband reappeared twenty feet to the right of where he had been standing. He was breathing hard enough to stir the damp cloth wrapped around his head. Otherwise, he appeared untouched.
Springing forward, Vincent took her by the shoulders and looked her over. “Muse. Tell me that shriek was a pretence.”
“It was.” Though the pains were coming with concerning regularity. “A distraction seemed necessary. Now, tell me that you were not shot.”
He shook his head. “I was standing nowhere near there. Used Herr Scholes’s trick of an inverted Cruikshank’s weave. It only worked because of the dark and the cloth over my mouth.”
Frank and Nkiruka joined them. “We need to move quickly, before he comes out of the safe house and recognises that I have no gun.” Frank held up a broomstick.
Vincent’s approbation of Nkiruka was visible above his mask. “Nicely done.”
She tapped him lightly on the arm. “You haf fu show me that disappearing trick.”
He turned, following Frank towards the side. “At the first opportunity.”
“I saw you working behind Frank, but it was still quite convinc—” A sudden alarming wetness ran down Jane’s thighs. For a moment, she thought she had soiled herself, before the understanding came. “Oh dear.”
“Muse?”
“I believe my water just broke.”
Vincent had Jane in his arms before she was aware of being lifted. “Where is the cart?”
“This way.”
“Wait, wait.” Nkiruka put a hand on Frank’s shoulder. Even with the damp cloth obscuring half her face, her frown was clear. “She need Dr. Jones.”
Frank hesitated, looking at Jane and then Vincent. “There is a fire across the road.”
Nkiruka lifted her chin and stepped closer to Frank, speaking in rapid Igbo. Jane caught the words, “Dr. Jones” and “picknee” but nothing else.
To her surprise, Frank answered in the same tongue, though even to Jane’s ear his diction in that language sounded almost childish. It was a short response.
When he turned back to Jane and Vincent, his expression was guarded and fearful. “You must promise that you will not tell a soul about what I am about to say, not ever. Swear on whatever you hold most dear that you will keep this secret.”
Without hesitation, Vincent said, “I swear on my love for Jane, I will keep your secret.”
“Yes.” Jane did not know what secret they were being asked to keep, but by Frank’s expression it was dire. “And by mine for Vincent, I also swear.”
“We will take you to Dr. Jones, but I must stress that we are about to place hundreds of lives in your hands.” He glanced at the fire again, and gestured for them to follow him towards the slave quarters. “We will not be able to take the cart because the ground is too uneven once we leave the path, but it is not far.”
“Where…?”
“There is a secret village. Picknee Town.” He looked pained as he said it. “Where the map shows the ravine.”
Jane’s jaw dropped open and Vincent looked no less shocked. “The birthrate.”
“With malnutrition, beating, and overwork? It is already low. But … but we want our children to have a better life. When the village was first established, the planters noticed that live births had stopped, so we use a lottery now. Sometimes it is the mother and child, sometimes only the child.”
“Is that—was Amey…?”
“Amey had a daughter and they are both doing quite well.” Though Nkiruka’s voice was still heavily flavoured with an Igbo accent, her speech shifted so it did not sound as though English were a foreign tongue, imperfectly understood. She lifted her dress and tucked the hem into the sash of her robe so she could walk more easily. “I am sorry for that deception.”
It was fortunate that Vincent was carrying Jane, because she was not certain she would have been able to remain standing. Nkiruka had been deliberately making her comprehension of English seem deficient. Nkiruka saw her realisation and winked. “I can sound like you, if I want. But still speak language of the heart with family and dem.”
Jane began to see all the ways in which she had been carefully managed. “And … and the glamural at the Whittens’—all of the slaves who said they were coming to work for us and did not.” They had been using Jane and Vincent as a reason to be absent, to visit their families. And then the women—the women that Nkiruka had suggested Jane bring in to talk about glamour had no doubt done the same. No wonder she had been so keen to continue work on the book because it gave her the opportunity to give more women reasons to leave their estates. Jane suddenly remembered Nkiruka helping Louisa organise the wounded and the lists that they had prepared. “And you can read and write, can you not?”
Nkiruka laughed, shaking her head. “No. Reading is what Frank is for. Don’t need it for me. I came because working on the book made easy excuse for people to travel. See their families. Doc was mad about it, but I set her straight.”
“You used us.”
“Yes.” Nkiruka’s shrug very eloquently pointed out that Jane had no room to be angry about that.
Vincent tightened his grip on Jane. “But why not simply rebel? Why not free everyone?”
“There are forty naval bases on this island,” Frank said.
“They tried rebellion in 1736, before my time.” Nkiruka shook her head. “No white blood was shed, so the British only executed nine-and-eighty of us. Now, we keep as many children safe as we can. They grow up in Picknee Town. Some stay there. Others slip out and join the free population, or leave Antigua.”
Though Jane had dozens of questions, another bearing pain gripped her. She clung to Vincent and tried not to make a sound. It was not so bad. No worse than a
cramp in the leg, really.
He looked down, face tight with worry. “Are you all right?”
“Please do not ask me that with every bearing pain.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Set me down and let me walk. It eases the discomfort.”
“But you are supposed to be on bed rest.”
“That was to stop labour. We are a bit past that now.”
Frank glanced over his shoulder. “As the father of five, allow me to offer this piece of advice: do whatever she tells you.”
“Of course.” Vincent set her down with exaggerated care.
Nkiruka nudged Jane. “Take his arm, though. You don’t want to fall.”
As they walked along the rough path, Jane was grateful for Vincent’s arm. Looking back at the great house, Jane could now see that the fire near there was separate from the ones in the cane fields. Mr. Pridmore had clearly been busy.
Walking did help with the pains, but her back still felt tight and unpleasant. After two weeks in bed, Jane became quickly fatigued walking on the uneven ground. She disliked requiring help, but if she fell, Vincent would wind up blaming himself somehow. Jane sighed and leaned on Vincent more heavily. She kept her vision on the ground directly in front of her.
So when Vincent stopped dead in his path, she almost stumbled.
In the dark and the smoke, it was hard to make out why they had stopped. Frank knelt in the tall grass next to a cart that had been upset. He lifted his head and his face was terrible. “He is still alive.”
With that, Jane’s vision resolved, and she understood that she was looking at Lord Verbury’s wheeled chair. “What is he doing here?”
“I have no idea. Pridmore must have been bringing him from my house.”
Nkiruka stepped forward and peered over Frank’s shoulder. She gave a startled gasp. “He alive?” She stabbed Frank in the shoulder with a finger. “You knew!”
His shoulders sagged. “Yes … yes, I was aware he was not dead. I am surprised the news had not made its way to you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because—because the more people who knew, the more likely the secret was to get out.” Frank shifted the cloth mask. “Can you tell me that you would not have used the information?”
Of Noble Family Page 35
