Millicent had evidently been preparing for his morning arrival. She went to the back of the house and presently returned with a large mug of steaming coffee and a roasted yam, and a hunch of roasted saltfish flavoured with coconut-oil. She placed these on the table and waited to see him eat.
He drank the coffee, which refreshed him somewhat; the food did not appeal to him, though it was ordinary, good bookkeeper’s fare.
He felt in a better mood after his coffee; he looked at Millicent good-humouredly. ‘So you were up all night, eh? You have taken charge early, but sitting up is not a part of your job.’
‘I know that,’ she replied calmly, and, to his astonishment, seated herself on the bed beside him. ‘But I was anxious about you. You went to a bad place.’
‘The devil! My good girl, you may be free, as you have told me more than once; but if you are going to be too free with your tongue you will certainly regret it. How dare you speak of your mistress’s house as a bad place?’
‘She not my mistress, for I am free—an’ educated,’ added Millie with emphasis. ‘I don’t belong to her. An’ it is a bad place; it is haunted. All sort of noise and cries you hear in dat house at night, an’ sometimes in the day too. A lot of people die in there—an’ they die funny. You going back, again, Squire?’
‘This is impertinence, Millie,’ Robert coldly replied. ‘You can go now; I don’t need you anymore.’
Tears gathered in Millie’s eyes; she looked hurt. And Robert, who was naturally kind-hearted, and who could not but see that this was a very handsome, well-built girl who had not the slightest intention of offending him, relented. After all, he thought, manners were very free and easy in this country; he had noticed in Montego Bay that even slaves seemed able to take liberties with their masters. And this girl was no slave. ‘Now, don’t be silly,’ he said, ‘I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.’
‘But you hurt them all the same, an’ I only tell you what I tell you because I don’t want nothing to happen to you. I couldn’t sleep all night because I was fretting for you. Evil spirit is in that Great House, an’ God help you if you get in their way!’
‘But Mrs. Palmer lives there, Millie, and she is not afraid of these evil spirits you speak of.’
‘She know why she is not afraid,’ returned Millicent significantly, ‘though she should be de first to be afraid. You was with her last night?’
‘That will do! Just take those things and go!’
‘I will go if you send me away; but I told you yesterday that I like you, an’ I thought you was going to like me, too, an’ that is why I come to keep your house. I am not a poor girl looking for work. Me gran’father—you will soon hear who he is—don’t want me to work for any man; he is rich an’ strong—as strong as Mrs. Palmer.’ Millie sprang to her feet. ‘And that is why I can talk to you as I talk; I don’t afraid of Mrs. Palmer and all she can do. She take you up to de Great House last night—oh, I know—like she take up other men; an’ you will come to the same end if you don’t careful. I pray to God all night last night for you, and I going to ask me gran’father to protect you. But he can’t help you if you don’t help yourself.’
Robert looked at the girl as though she were insane; and indeed it did seem to him that she must be slightly touched. Of what was she raving?
‘I don’t think I need even your grandfather’s protection,’ he laughed; ‘but your prayers will no doubt be useful.’
‘You laugh at what you don’t understand,’ she answered sadly. ‘Wait till you know more, an’ then you might want to cry. I wish you would leave dis place!’ she exclaimed fervently. ‘Don’t stay here; leave as quick as you can—and take me wid you. I will go wid you anywhere. Harm will come to you if you remain, an’ then me heart would break.’
‘You are excited by your long night’s vigil,’ he said gently; then, seeing that she did not understand him quite, he added: ‘you should not have stayed awake last night. Well, run outside now; I have got to go to work at once. By the way, I am feeling weary; can I get a rum punch or anything like that here? There must be some rum in Mr. Burbridge’s room. Perhaps Psyche—’
‘I can get it out of the room without calling Psyche,’ said the girl; ‘but rum so early in the morning is bad. Many squires from England die because they drink soon in the morning. You don’t want some more coffee instead?’
‘No; I need something stronger. Everything that I seem to want you consider bad, Millie, and death is ever in your mind. You are the funniest servant I have ever had.’
‘I came as your housekeeper, not as a servant,’ she retorted, emphasising the word housekeeper, giving it the significance of its Jamaica meaning. ‘And,’ she boldly added, ‘I wouldn’t care what you did, or whether you live or die, if I didn’t love you. So there!’
She went to get the rum, and he mused awhile. This was extraordinary; two women, one white, the other brown, and both indubitably handsome in their respective ways, had told him within a very few hours that they loved him. This was flattering to his vanity, but he perceived that jealousy might be engendered between the two; this brown girl already spoke as one bitterly jealous. She had just said something about Annie taking to the Great House other men who had come to some unpleasant end—other men: what the devil did the little nigger mean? Other men...Oh! Annie’s former husbands of course, and because these had died poor Annie was held as in some way responsible for their death. She had said that some talk went about. But he was not going to have a servant, even if she had independent manners and openly professed love for him, speaking insolently and disrespectfully of Rosehall’s mistress!
Millie came back with the liquor and handed it to him with evident reluctance; he took it silently and gulped it down; at once he felt new energy course through his veins. His head swam, for the rum was potent and the quantity plentiful, but it put him in good spirits. He was not disposed to be harsh with Millie now; indeed he suddenly realised that he rather liked this brown spitfire who dared to go great lengths because she was ‘free and educated’ and her grandfather was a man of wealth and power. He developed an interest in this wonderful grandfather; evidently he was a person of mark. He began to eat his breakfast, and as he ate he talked.
‘Is your grandfather a white man, Millie?’ he asked.
‘One of them was; but he’s dead; he was me father’s father.’
‘Then this other grandfather of yours whom you invoke with such reverence and awe?’
She looked puzzled.
‘My language,’ he smiled, ‘is perhaps not sufficiently “educated.” I mean who and of what colour is this other grandfather of yours?’
‘He is black, coal black, and he tall and old, very old: he is a Guinea man and wise! He can talk to spirits, like the old witch in de Bible, who call up Samuel. Me gran’father is very great; everybody here ’fraid for him—even Mrs. Palmer!’
‘I see! An African and what you call out here an obeahman. Is that it?’
‘Y-e-e-e-s; but he’s more than a obeahman. More powerful.’
‘Originally an African witch-doctor, I suppose, and: hoary old scoundrel. Let him take care he doesn’t get into trouble, Millie.’
‘They can’t do him anything; him is too strong. He protect me, an’ he can protect you, too, if you want. But so long as you stay here you are out of his reach. You better leave, Squire. Trouble coming for you.’
‘I will stay and meet it. And look here, Millie, I won’t send you away as I threatened to do a while ago. But you are to understand that you must say nothing rude about the lady of this property. Do you hear?’
Millie nodded her head sadly. ‘I hear,’ she answered, ‘and I understand. You love her, an’ you don’t love me!’
‘Perfectly incorrigible,’ laughed Robert, now restored to the best of humour by his drink, for that was the effect which drink usually had upon him. ‘Perhaps,’ he added, ‘I will love you too.’ Then, to his own amazing surprise, for he had not contemplated any such action, h
e bent over and kissed Millie on the mouth, and gaily sallied forth. As for the girl, she stood stock still, thrilled to the marrow, exalted to the seventh heaven of delight. A triumphant glare shone in her eyes, the light of victory. Just when she had thought she had lost everything, she glimpsed a prospect of ultimate triumph and success.
On the instant her mind was made up, and Millicent had a resolute mind. She was going to fight with Mrs. Palmer herself for possession of this man. Other girls like her had fought with as highly-placed ladies before in this same parish, and had won. Millie determined to seek Mr. Ashman without delay and to enlist him as her ally.
Chapter Eight—MILLICENT ACTS
FIRST she tidied Robert’s room, though that had not been much disturbed, and she attended to the room in which she had stayed the night before. Then she went to the trash-house, where Psyche was usually to be found piling the dried refuse of the pressed cane, which was used when required as fuel for the mill. She told Psyche that she must look after the lunch of both of the young massas that day, and after their dinner, if necessary; she, Millicent, might not be back before night. She already knew that Mr. Ashman was going to Palmyra that day; one of the lads had whispered the news early that morning. He might not be back for a couple of days, and she wished to see him as early as possible. She was of a quick, impulsive character; she hated procrastination; and now especially she was in a fever-heat of impatience. She must act. She prepared at once for her journey to Palmyra.
That estate, which was much larger than Rosehall, was situated behind and to the south of it, and was connected with Rosehall by a bridle-path leading over the intervening hills. It lay in a hollow; it was ‘worked’ by far more slaves than were to be found on Rosehall; it had its own Great House and overseer’s residence, and all the other appurtenances of a great sugar estate. Mr. Ashman was in charge of both properties, his energy and capacity rendering him quite capable of handling both. Ashman was an able man in his way; the financial success of Rosehall and of Palmyra in these last two years had been due to his competent management.
Millicent knew that he would ride over to Palmyra, and so be there long before she could come up with him—she did not know that Mrs. Palmer was riding with him that morning. But she calculated that she could get to the next property soon enough to catch him at the overseer’s house; if he were out riding round the estate, however, she would have to await her opportunity of speaking to him. What she was going to say she had not yet thought out; she must feel her way when she met him. But she knew that everybody said he had been Mrs. Palmer’s lover, that everybody said he was still enamoured of her, and that lately there had been a coldness between them that had preyed upon his mind and worsened an already nasty temper. That he was a strong and determined man Millicent was well aware; that he would fight to regain his old ascendancy over the mistress of Rosehall she guessed. She wanted him to do that, without harming Robert, of course, whom Millicent regarded as merely a victim of Annie Palmer’s. Millicent, young and, on the whole, unsophisticated though she was, shared to the full the ordinary feminine distrust of her own sex and was ready to attribute what a man did that was not right in her sight to the wiles and machinations of some other woman. Robert, having come to Rosehall but two days ago, she told herself, could not be blamed for anything he did in connection with Mrs. Palmer. It was the lady who was responsible; it was from the lady—a very terrible character—that the young squire must be rescued by any means; and if those means were not fair Millicent would have not the smallest objection to them or experience the slightest sting of self-reproach in employing them.
She walked with a rapid stride, swinging her upright body smartly and easily as she marched, communing with herself, filled wholly with her purpose. The young ‘massa’—she called him so in her mind, yielding to custom, in spite of her freedom and education—had kissed her, and, in spite of all that she had said about Mrs. Palmer, had decided to let her stay on in his service. He had confessed that he might come to like her. But he had been with the white lady all the night before, as other men had been, and she had heard a great deal about the fascination which that woman exercised over those who loved her until she wearied of them. If she could break that enthralment at once, the young, handsome squire would be saved and would leave Rosehall, taking her with him, as she was absolutely determined that he should do. He was not the first young white man that had liked her; others had suggested an establishment to her, and they were not mere overseers either, but owners of their own properties. If she had remained ‘single’ up to now, it was of her choosing; none of her suitors had touched her heart, or, as she put it, ‘filled her eye.’ But Robert Rutherford did; he stood forth in her imagination like a god. She had seen and loved him, just as Annie Palmer had done. She was as resolved to fight for possession of him as Annie Palmer was.
It was pleasant walking; the path led through leafy woods and the sun was not yet strong enough to cause discomfort. Besides, Millie was well accustomed to lengthy peregrinations; walking was second nature to her. But she was some time behind Mr. Ashman when she came to Palmyra, and as she neared the overseer’s house she saw at once something unusual was forward.
A sort of court was being held. Haifa dozen men were being tried for plotting something; just what, no one was certain of, for the men were obstinately reticent and asserted that they had met the night before, in the hut in which they had been caught by Mr. Ashman, for purely social purposes. Ashman again and again pointed out to them that, if that had been so, they would not have ceased suddenly to talk when they, much to his annoyance, heard his footsteps, and would not have attempted to bolt, an effort which he had frustrated by flinging himself into the doorway and barring their egress with his body. That they had been planning some mischief, he averred, was beyond all doubt, and Mrs. Palmer, who stood listening to him and to them, nodded her head in agreement.
She was looking very grim and serious this morning. There was resentment in her heart against Ashman, who had spoken plainly to her about Robert Rutherford as they rode over to Palmyra; she had repressed her feelings (a matter of difficulty with her), and that repression was clamouring for explosive relief. There was relief to hand. These slaves were unruly, secretive, dangerous; at the very least they had no sort of right to be where they had been found by the overseer last night. To punish them severely might be to lose their services in field and sugar works for some time, but to order their condign chastisement, and to look on while the lashes were inflicted, was a joy and satisfaction which she could not at that moment forgo.
Annie ruled her people by terror, white and black alike. She had witnessed whippings for years and years, and her appetite had grown with what it fed on. The first flogging she had seen had made her ill, yet she had found a terrible fascination in it. She had gone to see another, and yet another; that first tasting of blood as it were, had awakened a certain lust in her which had grown and strengthened until it had become a powerful and abiding obsession. Had she lived fifty years before, when slaves could still be procured from the coasts of Africa, and when the law gave the slave-owner far more power over the life of a slave than it did in these days, she would sometimes have had an erring bondsman or woman whipped to death in her presence. At this moment her full lips were set hard, and the little lines running from the nostrils to the corners of her mouth were grimly perceptible. When she spoke it was in tones of cruel finality.
‘Give them twenty-one lashes each: it ought to be more, but we want their labour today. Lay on the lashes well, though; make them feel! That will teach them to plot mischief again! ‘
There were two executors on this occasion, for one would be too tired to apply the blows with sufficient vigour on all the culprits condemned. Millicent had seen something of this sort before; she was sick with disgust and anger, but she did not forget her purpose. She worked her way as close to Ashman as she could, and then fixed her gaze upon his face with the idea of communicating to him by movements of her eyes that
she wished to speak to him.
When the flogging was finished and the men ordered to resume their work immediately, Mrs. Palmer, casting a glance over those who had been summoned to witness this vindication of authority, observed Millicent staring at Ashman and, not remembering her, noticing too the girl’s good looks and superior attire, asked sharply: ‘Who is that young woman? Not one of my people, is she?’
Ashman turned and saw Millie for the first time. ‘No,’ he said, ‘she’s old Takoo’s granddaughter.’
‘Oh! ‘A note of interest crept into Mrs. Palmer’s voice. ‘I have heard of her; I must have seen her before, too.’ She looked piercingly at Ashman.
‘She evidently has come to you; she is staring at you. She is very pretty, John.’
‘Yes,’ dryly.
‘Treat her nicely; she looks as if she was worth it. You like pretty things. I shall see you at the Great House when you come up.’
Mrs. Palmer rode off with a knowing smile, a smile of great satisfaction. She had at once concluded that this girl wished to see Ashman for intimate reasons, upon which but one construction could be placed, and she was glad that Millicent was so well favoured. Ashman’s talk that morning had aroused in Mrs. Palmer’s heart a dangerous feeling towards him, but she wished to avoid trouble with him if it were at all possible. He was too useful to be dispensed with lightly.
‘You want me?’ briefly demanded Ashman. He was in something of a hurry and did not wish to devote too much of his time to a girl on whom he had smiled in the past, but who had shown only too clearly that for him she had not the slightest use, and was never likely to have.
‘Yes, sir’—Millie strove to speak her best; ‘I want to speak to you—private.’
‘Well, I haven’t much time. Come this way and tell me what it is.’
The White Witch of Rosehall Page 7
