The White Witch of Rosehall

by Herbert G. De Lisser

He took her out of the hearing of the people around, but he did not get off his horse to listen. ‘What is it?’ he demanded impatiently, seeing that she hesitated.

  She took her courage in both hands; she plunged into her tale without circumlocutory preliminary, though it had been in her mind to lead gradually up to the heart of it.

  ‘You know that the new bookkeeper sleep at the Great House last night? You know he was there wid Mrs. Palmer?’

  ‘And what the hell has that got to do with you?’ he burst out, scandalised at her telling him this, regarding it as a gross offence, partly because the very fact that she stated was rankling in his heart.

  ‘Don’t hell me, Mr. Ashman! ‘returned Millicent with spirit. ‘Don’t hell me! I am not one of you’ slave that you can flog like a dog; and me gran’father know how to deal wid anybody who ill-treat me.’

  ‘Your grandfather can go to hell as well as you; some day he will swing from a gallows. And don’t be too sure that I can’t flog you and make you pay a fine for it, if you are impertinent. Mrs. Palmer would have you flogged now, on the spot, if I only told her what you have just told to me!’

  Millicent realised, with a sickening spasm of fear, that what he said was only too true; Mrs. Palmer might, in a paroxysm of fury, order her to be whipped until she bled, no matter what the after-consequences might be. She had done some daring things in the open light of day, and some still more terrible, horrifying things, by the dim light of candles within the heavy walls of Rosehall, if what was whispered about her was true. Millicent trembled.

  But she held her ground and she spoke out with courage.

  ‘Try it if you dare,’ she volleyed back. ‘Try it, an’ as sure as there is a God in Heaven me gran’father will poison both you and she before the week is over.’

  Ashman realised in his turn that that also was very probable. Takoo would undoubtedly take vengeance for any injury inflicted on his granddaughter: no one who knew him could doubt that. And he was considered in these parts a master in the art of poisoning. There was a white planter who had died in agony, and Takoo had been suspected—though nothing could be proved against him. Ashman temporised.

  ‘If that is all you have come here to say, you had better clear out,’ he ordered.

  ‘I come here to tell you that—that you should try an’ stop this thing between Mrs. Palmer an’ the new bookkeeper. If you don’t do it now it might be too late next week, and you won’t like that.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said grimly. ‘But you don’t care a curse about me; so it’s not in my interest you are speaking. What is your object?’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘What do you want? What are you telling me this for?’

  Millicent dropped her eyes.

  ‘I know you been friendly with Mrs. Palmer.’

  ‘That is none of your business. I will thank you not to mention it again.’

  ‘An’ if she love this new massa she not going to love you any more, an’ she may turn you away or—’

  ‘Yes?’ ominously.

  ‘Well, you know what happen sometimes when she done finish with anyone she used to love.’ Millicent spoke in a whisper, as one very much afraid.

  ‘Yes?’ There was now a fierce harshness in Ashman’s voice. Again had Millicent echoed his own unpleasant thoughts.

  ‘And’—desperately—‘I like the young massa, an’ I am his housekeeper.’

  ‘So that is it at last! Now we have the motive.’ He thought a moment, then suddenly looked at Millicent with a new light in his eyes. His voice became friendly on the instant. ‘What can I do, Millie? I don’t see that I can do anything.’

  ‘Can’t you turn him away as soon as you go back to Rosehall?’

  ‘I? But she would take him back if she wanted to. I would only be making a fool of myself if I did that.’

  ‘Then why don’t you tell him all about her, massa? You know everything. Tell him! ‘

  ‘He wouldn’t believe me if I did; and he would repeat to her everything I said. It would be no use. But you—you could tell him. Does he like you?’

  ‘I think so,’ diffidently.

  Ashman was ready with advice; he had made up his mind.

  ‘That is good! Make him like you more. Don’t leave him if you can possibly help it. Stick to him all the time; show that you love him. You are a very pretty girl; I am sure he will like you. And tell him all that you know, Millie; tell a little now and little more later on; but rub it in as much as you can. And look here, don’t for God’s sake, let Mrs. Palmer know that you are his housekeeper, for she would give orders that you were not to put your foot into Rosehall or Palmyra again. You understand that, don’t you?’

  ‘I know.’

  He thought a moment. ‘I tell you what,’ he said. ‘You’d better come up to my place sometimes as if you came to see me. That may make her think that you are coming to me.’

  ‘But suppose Mr. Rutherford think so, too? He’s a stranger. What will him think of me?’

  ‘He isn’t likely to have any thought like that; and you can always find a reason to give him. But if Mrs. Palmer imagines there is anything between you both—God help you! You ought to know that.’

  ‘I know that’ said Millicent miserably. ‘She is hell. She is de devil himself. She is the worse woman in Jamaica! ‘

  John Ashman looked at the girl with a lowering face, thinking that she was saying things distasteful to hear, almost unbearable. It was impertinence in her, stark impertinence which, in other circumstances, he would have regarded as intolerable, but did not the whole parish say the same? And did he not know it himself? Besides, he and Millicent must be allies now; they both had much at stake. ‘Do what I tell you,’ he urged, ‘and now go back to Rosehall.’

  She nodded understanding, turned and retraced her steps.

  Chapter Nine—THE OVERSEER

  MR. ASHMAN was sitting on his veranda, moodily looking towards the slave village where dwelt the workers on this estate; the scene was so familiar to him that, while seeing, he might be said to see it not. The huts of the slaves stood in their own little gardens in which grew the fruit-bearing trees and vegetables that these people cultivated for their own use. Breadfruit and banana spread luxuriant leaves above and around the houses, creating a welcome shade during the warmer hours of the day; yam-vines clung to sticks stuck almost upright in the soil; the purple of the potato plant showed itself on tiny hillocks in which the tubers ripened. It was a settlement, this, and those who inhabited it were mostly at home at this hour; work had ceased in the fields, and from numerous fires trailed upwards into the air blue smoke of burning wood with which the bondswomen cooked their families’ evening meal. The fires themselves could be seen shining in the dusk, lending a touch of bright picturesqueness to the village. Stars were peeping forth, and the breeze of the December evening was delightful after the heat and turmoil of a strenuous day. Mr. Ashman looked upon it all, but gave it no thought, for his mind was on far weightier and more intimate subjects. He was deeply troubled, and anger smouldered in him. His concern was to find a way by which to solve his difficulties, and no way that promised success could he discern at the moment, think he never so deeply.

  As the man in charge of Rosehall and Palmyra he was somewhat anxious about the dangerous situation which he knew was developing in this part of the country, and perhaps in every other parish, though just what and when the climax would be he could not guess. There was trouble abroad. Word had got about that a decree which freed the slaves had arrived from England and was being kept back by the masters, and the slaves were in a state of dangerous excitement. The work on estates went on as usual, force of habit and fear of the whip were still potent with these people. But there were grumblings, plottings, and the belief was spreading that, at some date not distant, and at a given signal the slaves would rise, give the properties over to the flames, loot, murder their masters, and thus would take by savage means what they believed was being withheld from them. That some outbreak wo
uld occur Mr. Ashman did not doubt; but in the meantime he knew he could do nothing. Even the whipping those six men had been given at Palmyra had not wrung a single word of confession from them. One could only wait and be vigilant. And, anyhow, the threatening danger, though it might be serious, was general; of more importance to him was the danger that menaced him personally and alone, and from an altogether different quarter.

  For three years he had been practically master of Rosehall and Palmyra, their affairs having been entrusted to his management. He had been more than that, too; he had been Annie Palmer’s lover. He recalled their first meeting, Annie’s husband had been dead a month, and had, as was the custom, been buried on the estate, and some ugly rumours had floated about as to the cause of his death. The slaves of Rosehall had whispered, the white mechanics and bookkeepers had also talked below their breath; but no one had come forward to make any positive assertion, and he would be a bold officer of the law who should charge the owner of great estates, and a woman at that, with murder, unless he possessed the amplest, most convincing proof. Yet Montego Bay wondered and hinted, and he had heard this talk. He had gone to the Bay on business at about this time, he having terminated his connection with a property in Westmoreland and being engaged in looking for another position that should suit him. He had an excellent reputation as a capable overseer; he was not doubtful about his future. Certainly he had never thought of making application to the owner of Rosehall, would have laughed at a suggestion that he should do so. But while he stayed at Montego Bay Annie Palmer had ridden into town one morning. Chance brought her to the lodging-house at which he stopped, and in the corridor leading to the dining-room they met that day.

  John Ashman was muscular, well set up, arrogant in mien, rough in manner, but of a certain handsomeness of which he was very well aware. Annie was dainty, bright, alluring, with an eye for a fine-looking man and a rage for the possession of anyone she fancied. Her impulses were lightning, her will imperious; she overrode obstacles in her path with a fine scorn and disregard of consequences. She did not know who this man was, but she saw at once that he was well-favoured and that he gazed at her intently and with admiration flaming in his eyes. He knew who she was; word had gone about the house that Mrs. Palmer of Rosehall was in it, and at first sight of her he was aware that this could be no other than the woman about whom all the town had been talking, the woman whom most people had begun to whisper of as of dreadful character even in a land where there was not much delicacy and where the uncertainties of the immediate future (due to the rumoured abolition of slavery and the equalising of master and slave) had soured tempers and turned many men into disgruntled brutes. She seemed to Ashman more lovely than common report had painted her, more fascinating than he could possibly have dreamed. Her character? What did he care about that? Or rather, it rendered her more enticing to him, for now he was filled with admiration of her force and daring. It came to him swiftly that only a bold and ambitious man deserved to win and hold such a woman, and if any man failed to hold her and perished, there was little reason to waste tears over such a weakling.

  But Ashman, even as he thought, while, with unconscious rudeness, he stared at Annie, did not dare to put himself forward, in his own mind, as the young widow’s suitor. Her husbands had been gentlemen, men in independent positions and of the class that ruled the country; he was but an overseer. A domineering, imperious man who had won upwards from the ranks of the bookkeepers; but an overseer only; and such did not aspire to the hands of great ladies unless those ladies showed for them a marked preference. And even then it was not marriage that was usually suggested. Barriers of class were upheld where sometimes every other barrier went down.

  Annie Palmer knew much about the nature and the impulses of men, and something of what was passing in Ashman’s mind she understood. She saw that his stare was not that of curiosity only. It was that of a man who was taken by a sudden admiration, one who required but little encouragement to be brought to a lovely woman’s feet. She seized the opportunity; a trifling question—‘Where is the dining-room, please?’—opened an acquaintanceship between them. She told him that she wanted someone to manage her estates, now that her last husband was dead. She learnt from him that he was free; when they parted that day he had been appointed overseer of Palmyra and Rosehall, with more than an overseer’s general authority. Within the next few days he was Annie’s accepted lover. This relationship had endured for nearly three years; then he had noticed recently that she had grown cold, more difficult to deal with, less satisfied with him. Then happened the advent of Robert Rutherford, and Ashman had realised that he must fight for his ascendancy or lose everything, must break the intimacy between Annie and this upstart or be speedily broken himself.

  He had never lived at the Great House; Mrs. Palmer had never suggested that he should do so. But then his quarters were comfortable, and an overseer must keep constant watch over his charge. He had been often and often at the Great House, and had learnt, indirectly, all that there was to hear about Rosehall and its previous owners. He did not doubt now that they had come to their end by violent means; Annie Palmer was capable of anything that her passions or her interests might suggest. When once she was on her estates she made little effort to disguise her disposition; it was irksome, painful to her to be anything but herself; she had for too long given free vent to her feelings, yielding swiftly to the inclinations she experienced, to care to pretend before him. She might make him her lover but she did not forget that he was her inferior, and she was not accustomed to caring about what her inferiors might think of her. They were there to obey, to administer to her convenience or her pleasure; if she chose to be gracious to them, that was kindness on her part, but with them she would be herself always. Queen of Rosehall by unquestioned, imprescriptible right, her subjects must submit to her will and be delighted when she showed them the smallest degree of favour.

  But if that favour were withdrawn! That was the thought which rankled in John Ashman’s brain just now. A week had passed since Robert’s coming to Rosehall, and already some ominous things had happened. Last night Robert had been to the Great House again; Ashman himself had seen him ride away from it this morning. Yesterday Annie had sent for her overseer and instructed him to employ another bookkeeper, a man who might do for a temporary job on the estate. ‘Another man is needed, John,’ Mrs. Palmer had said; ‘Mr. Rutherford is not accustomed to this work, and it would be folly to depend too much upon him.’

  ‘Then why not get rid of him?’ Ashman had not unreasonably asked. ‘Why keep a useless person on the estate?’

  ‘He is here to learn planting,’ she replied; ‘I have explained that to you before. And he is a friend of mine. That is another very good reason.’

  ‘Let us understand one another plainly, Annie,’ Ashman said. ‘This bookkeeper was with you on the very first night he came to Rosehall. What does this mean? That you have taken him as your c—’ He paused upon an ugly word. He did not wish to press the quarrel too far.

  ‘Say what is in your mind,’ she smiled, looking him straight in the eyes. ‘Don’t think about my feelings, I beg of you. Don’t let me trouble you in the slightest. Go on! I am taking him as my what?’

  ‘You are throwing me over for him?’

  ‘You haven’t been so much of a devoted lover of late, have you?’ she asked him, with a little sneer.

  ‘Are you trying to make out that I am to blame for your treatment of me?’

  ‘Well, there are your twins over at Palmyra, you know, John, and they are not yet three months old. And there is—but this is all unnecessary. You are a good man on the estate, and you know you are welcome to remain as overseer. But please remember that we are not husband and wife.’

  ‘Perhaps I am lucky in that,’ he answered grimly, stung to a significant remark.

  She started. Annie Palmer hated any allusion, however indirect, to the death of her husbands; she would occasionally speak of it herself, but grew white with ange
r (with which was blended dread) whenever she thought that someone else was hinting at it. Ashman had been wise hitherto to keep off that forbidden ground. Jealousy and temper had now betrayed him onto it.

  Annie’s gaze narrowed, and for one long minute she sat silent, her fingers beating a tattoo upon the table at which both of them were sitting. She would have ordered this man peremptorily out of her sight and off the premises at once but that the crop must be taken off day by day now, and that there were disquieting rumours about the disposition and plottings of the slaves. But, if not now, a little later certainly Ashman must go. But if he knew too much—and he could have found out much in these last three years—was it safe that he should be allowed to go, with a thirst for revenge in his heart? That was a question to be answered later on.

  Ashman saw the look in Annie’s face, had a startled realisation of the trend of her musing, and when he had left her yesterday it was with less self-assurance than he had ever felt. He had wounded Annie, who had evidently ceased to care for him; who indeed had never deeply cared for him. He must be wary in his movements now; she would plan to keep him silent if she could not keep him tame. But if Rutherford could be got rid of? In that case present disagreements might be forgotten, old relationships resumed: he wished that, for in his own fashion he loved this extraordinary woman. But how to get rid of Rutherford? Annie had killed one of her husbands, it was said, with the aid of the old devil, Takoo, and by herself the others; but Takoo was the girl Millicent’s grandfather, and Takoo would protect the boy. Besides, murder was terrible; if he struck at Rutherford he could never escape suspicion. His only hope was that Millicent would be able to convince Robert that he ran an awful risk by continuing to be Annie Palmer’s lover, that she would be able to assure the new bookkeeper that Annie had been thrice a murderess, and that, shocked and rendered afraid, young Rutherford would flee from the estate.

  As to his remaining as a bookkeeper, that was but a mere farce now. Even now he, Ashman, was waiting for the man for whom he had dispatched a messenger that same day, after receiving Mrs. Palmer’s orders that Robert was to be relieved of much of the harder work which a bookkeeper was expected to perform. Robert clung to his bookkeeper’s room, shame, pride, a feeling of loyalty to Burbridge, all operating in his mind to keep him to that decision; but Ashman wondered how long it would be before he broke down under the pressure of Annie’s wish and solicitations—for Annie had said plainly to John Ashman that Robert might come shortly to take over one of the vacant rooms in the Great House. Annie cared less than ever she had done for such public opinion as existed; her strong will would undoubtedly influence the young man. Ashman had seen many a man arrive from England with the noblest resolves and the highest ideals, and sometimes in a week these all seemed to disappear as completely as if they had never existed. Why should Rutherford be different? He was not acting differently, anyhow, thought Ashman with a bitter smile.