The White Witch of Rosehall

by Herbert G. De Lisser

  ‘Who is that?’ Robert called out sharply.

  ‘I. Can I see you for a few minutes?’

  ‘Mrs. Palmer!’ whispered Robert, startled and guiltily ill at ease. ‘Slip into the next room, Millie, and be quick, for God’s sake.’

  ‘In a moment!’ he said aloud.

  In a couple of minutes he opened the door and stepped outside; but Annie Palmer did not choose to talk with him on the veranda. She passed into the room, he following. She glanced keenly around, noticed the door that led into the adjoining apartment and pointed to it. ‘Who lives in there?’ she asked directly.

  Robert, glancing at her face, saw it dark with anger and suspicion. Another thing about her surprised him. She was dressed in man’s clothing, in a black suit which had evidently been made for her. Millicent had told him that she was in the habit of riding about the estates at night, habited like a man, but he had thought that this was but one of the inventions of the slaves, who felt that their mistress’s eyes were always upon them. Now he knew that it was but the sober truth. Annie, looking more diminutive than ever in her man’s clothes, stood before him, a heavy riding whip in her hand. And her manner was imperative and stormy.

  He was about to answer her question, saying that the apartment was occupied by the girl who looked after his meals and room, when she suddenly walked over to the door and gave it a push. It yielded, after a slight resistance; for Millicent realised that nothing was to be gained by her struggling against Mrs. Palmer’s determined resolve to enter.

  Millicent was standing and breathing heavily. Annie Palmer looked her up and down with a wide-eyed contemptuous stare. ‘So you have Ashman’s woman as your servant and “housekeeper”?’ was the question she flung at Robert.

  ‘I am not Mr. Ashman’s woman,’ volleyed back Millicent, stung to a spirited protest by Mrs. Palmer’s assertion. She looked sharply at Robert to see how he took this remark.

  ‘Speak when you are spoken to!’ ordered Mrs. Palmer. She turned to Robert. ‘I could not sleep; I thought I would go for a ride about the estate; I have to do that sometimes, to see that everything is in order. I fancied that perhaps you might like to come with me. You didn’t tell me it was this woman who was looking after your room, Robert, or I would have told you she is the last person that I care to have on Rosehall. She is a well-known character about here. I suppose she is trying to get you to make her your “housekeeper”, isn’t she? And has perhaps already succeeded?’ Annie spoke with an effort at composure, thinking no more about what Millicent might feel than she would have done had she been speaking about a dog. ‘If you want one of this type,’ she went on, ‘you might select a better specimen. This one is rather notorious. Anyhow, if I had known she was here I should have seen to it that she did not remain. I only hope she hasn’t yet stolen anything from you. They all steal.’

  ‘I am not a thief, Mrs. Palmer!’ cried Millicent, furious now beyond the restraint of fear. ‘I am neither a thief or a murderer, an’ that is more than everybody can say!’

  ‘Indeed!’

  ‘Yes; an’ the reason why you don’t want the Squire to have me for his housekeeper is because you want him for you’self an’ you are jealous!’

  ‘Jealous of you, of a creature like you—you? Girl, are you mad? Do you want to be whipped within an inch of your life? Do you remember who you are talking to? Dirt that you are, how dare you! Leave Rosehall this minute, or—’

  ‘I won’t!’

  ‘You won’t?’ shrilled Mrs. Palmer, and that shrilling voice was new to Robert and shocked him. ‘You won’t! Surely you must be mad!’

  ‘I am not one of your slaves. Dis place is yours, but the Squire is a free man an’ a white man, an’ if he say I am to stay here tonight I can stay. And you can’t flog me. You can’t!’

  ‘We’ll test that now,’ said Annie softly, narrowing her eyes. She lifted her riding whip and brought it down sharply on the girl’s shoulders. Swiftly she raised it again for another blow.

  Robert darted between them.

  ‘Annie, Annie,’ he implored,’ remember your position.’

  ‘I am a mistress of slaves, that is my position,’ she retorted; ‘and this woman is little better than a slave. Leave me to deal with her, Robert; I know her kind.’

  ‘If you touch me again I will dash your brain out,’ shrieked Millicent, seizing a chair. ‘I am free like you are, and, so help me God, I rather die than let you beat me!’

  ‘We shall see,’ replied Annie, shaking off Robert’s arm. Her face was set; there was a light in her eye which indicated an irrevocable determination to chastise and humiliate this girl in the young man’s presence. Robert realised her resolve, and nerved himself to frustrate it. He felt sick, ashamed, loathing himself and the scene in which he played a part. Yet Annie seemed to have no reproaches for him. It was the girl alone upon whom she was bent upon exhausting all her fury.

  ‘You cannot help her, Robert,’ she said with icy finality. ‘She has to be flogged for her impertinence, and if not by me it will be by one of my drivers.’

  ‘Annie be reasonable: she will do you hurt!’

  ‘She wouldn’t dare. Stand aside. She won’t lift a finger to me.’

  The whip was raised again. It was about to descend when it was suddenly seized.

  She swung round, furious and astonished. A tall, gaunt, savage-looking black man, with grizzled hair and heavy features, held the whip. Deep-set eyes glowed as they answered the glare from Mrs. Palmer’s eyes; a long, deeply-lined upper lip closed firmly over the projecting lower lip; old though he was there was nothing feeble about his appearance.

  ‘Takoo!’ The name came in a gasp from Mrs. Palmer.

  ‘Grandpa!’ cried Millicent, frantically joyous.

  Robert gazed at the man bewildered. To him it was a thing astonishing that a negro should thus have dared to stay the hand of Annie Palmer.

  ‘Patience, missis,’ said the old man calmly. ‘Remember Millie is my gran’-child; I am begging you, for my sake to spare her.’

  He spoke very good English, but though his words were humble his demeanour was not particularly so. He still held the whip.

  ‘What are you doing here, Takoo?’ demanded Mrs. Palmer.

  ‘I was about you’ estate tonight, as you sometimes allow me to come, missis. I knew Millie was this new massa’s housekeeper, an’ I wanted to see how she was getting on. I was out there for some time; I see you ride up. We didn’t know you would have any objection to Millie; but as you object I will take her away.’

  But Millicent, who was never a coward, would not stand silently by and hear her fate decided by others. ‘Grandpa,’ she sobbed, ‘Mrs. Palmer say all sort of bad things about me. I never had anything to do wid Mr. Ashman. I love the young squire, an’ the squire love me—’

  ‘You fool!’ Mrs. Palmer burst out. ‘How could a gentleman love you? Do you still forget yourself?’

  ‘Patience, missis, I beg you to have a little patience. She is my gran’daughter,’ said Takoo. ‘Get your clothes an’ come, Millie.’

  Millicent glanced at Robert, but knew in her heart that from the doom pronounced there could be no appeal. He could not help her. She was to go, and that immediately. Just when she had triumphed her cup of joy was dashed from her lips.

  She went into her own room to gather her few articles of apparel, while the others waited silent. She returned within a couple of minutes, and looked with open-eyed malignancy at Annie Palmer. She passed out of the room followed by her grandfather, but at the steps of the veranda she turned round and flung out her hand with a fierce gesture.

  ‘You will try to murder Marse Robert as you murder you’ husbands,’ she hurled at the stern woman who stood tapping the table with her whip. ‘I done tell him all about you, you bloody witch! Someday I will live to see them hang you in Montego Bay?’

  Old Takoo uttered a cry of warning and anger, and literally pushed his granddaughter down the steps; Annie made no reply, but a rush of blood to
her head showed itself in the sudden crimsoning of her complexion. The accusation, openly and defiantly thrown at her, was terrible: that it should have come from a native woman constituted the quintessence of an unbearable insult. This girl regarded her as a rival, had dared to struggle with her for the affection of her own bookkeeper. She trembled with passion, held now in restraint by an almost superhuman effort of will. But she said never a word.

  ‘Fool,’ hissed old Takoo to his granddaughter, ‘you want to dead? She will never forgive you!’

  ‘I don’t care! ‘exclaimed Millicent. ‘If there is a God in heaven He will see that she is a beast. An’ sooner or later she will kill him, Tata.’

  ‘She may kill you first,’ muttered the old man, as they hurried away. ‘You must go far from here, Millie, an’ you must go tonight. It is hell you have to face now.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘So you say now, but wait.’

  ‘She is a she-devil. She is a witch!’

  ‘Yes; an’ what that mean for you?’

  ‘I have you, gran’pa; you can protect me, and bring the young squire back to me.’

  Takoo answered nothing; he was thinking of the blow with the whip which Annie Palmer had dealt to the one being on earth whom he cared for. He was thinking also of Annie’s certain future vengeance for the words so daringly spoken by Millicent. He knew the mistress of Rosehall; she would strike at Millicent; such an affront could never be forgiven.

  He had been Mrs. Palmer’s tool more than once; they had been secret allies. Now he saw her as an enemy and an antagonist. And he feared her.

  Chapter Eleven—THE APPARITION

  ON the chair upon which Robert had been sitting Annie seated herself. She was thinking moodily, her fingers tapping the wood, her eyes bent upon the floor. She had seen Robert’s face when Millicent had openly flung at her the charge of murder. Its expression had not been wholly reassuring.

  She mastered her voice; she wished to speak calmly.

  ‘You see,’ she said, ‘it would have been better if you had decided to live up at the Great House. You would have escaped all this. These girls hang about the white men on the estates for what they can get out of them, and often they have their own nigger lovers at the same time. This one seems to have deceived you badly, Robert. She was Ashman’s mistress; he told me so himself.’

  ‘He is quite capable of lying.’

  ‘You are defending her, then?’

  ‘There is nothing to defend. She is gone; you saw to that. But don’t you understand, Annie, how revolting all this is? You are a white woman, a lady, the mistress of Rosehall, and you come here and engage in a row with a coloured girl, a row that might have been a fight if her grandfather had not happened to come in when he did. You say that she is a common woman, and she says that—’

  ‘I killed my husbands. Oh, yes, I heard her very distinctly. Well, and what do you say to her story?’

  ‘It is all rubbish, of course; yet she will repeat it. She or her grandfather will probably tell other people, white people, about what happened tonight. There doesn’t seem to be much reticence in this country. Your name—’

  ‘Is gone already,’ interrupted Annie brutally. ‘Any number of people here know that you have stayed all night at the Great House with me; there is no secret about that. Why should you care? Why are you always dwelling on what other people may think or say?’

  He gave no answer.

  ‘You will soon get over your prudishness,’ she smiled bitterly. ‘Indeed, considering the company you had tonight, and after having been with me last night, too, I should say that you were already the complete West Indian gentleman! ‘She sprang up, placed both her hands on his shoulders and looked searchingly into his face. ‘Robert, don’t let us quarrel over a woman—especially a woman like that. You know I love you; I am yours entirely; you believe that, don’t you? This is my own little kingdom; we have no need to bother ourselves about outsiders. Come to the Great House with me, stay there; if you want me to marry you, I will, and as soon as you like. If you don’t want to get married, it doesn’t matter, so long as you are mine and I yours. You can be master here if you like. You will stick to me, won’t you, darling?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, but without any great heartiness, ‘but I won’t live in the Great House, Annie.’

  ‘And that girl will not come back to Rosehall,’ she rapped out, her naturally high temper getting the better of the prudence with which she was endeavouring to regulate her words and conduct just then.

  ‘She would be wise not to,’ he answered dryly, and she winced. He was alluding, quite obviously, to Annie’s thirst for inflicting corporal punishment on others.

  She changed the subject.

  ‘We have a new bookkeeper, Robert, I told you we were going to get one. You will see him tomorrow,’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And I want you to come up to the Great House tomorrow for lunch, and we’ll talk over matters. You must not be hard in your judgment of me; remember, if I lost my temper tonight it was because of you. I could not bear to see that girl making some sort of claim on you. You don’t blame me for that, do you? It wouldn’t have mattered to me if I did not love you.’

  He could not but be mollified by this; she was pleading now, not fighting, and there were actually tears in her eyes as she gazed at him.

  ‘It is all right, Annie, don’t dwell upon it. Yes, I will come to the house tomorrow.’

  ‘Good,’ she cried. ‘Good night, Robert!’

  She kissed him warmly; he took her to where her horse was standing; she leapt into the saddle easily and rode away. He returned to his room to think.

  As his room-door closed behind him a man, who had been hidden in the shadows on the southern side of the building, came forth cautiously and made his way on foot towards the overseer’s quarters. Ashman had heard enough to know that his plan had failed. He had not calculated upon all the possibilities of failure; indeed, how could he have foreseen everything? After Millicent had left him that night he had hurried up to Mrs. Palmer and told her bluntly that the girl and Robert Rutherford were lovers. He had pretended jealous anger; he knew that that alone could be his excuse for going to her with the story. He had told her bluntly that Robert was her special protégé and therefore could protect Millicent on the estate, but that, for his part, he wished to forbid Millicent to come near the estate again, and would like to chastise her for deceiving him. He had suggested deep resentment that Robert should have taken both herself and Millicent from him. Then he had left, still in simulated anger, had ridden to within a furlong of Robert’s quarters, dismounted, and given his horse a slap on the buttock which had sent that animal cantering to its stables. On foot he had crept down quietly to the bookkeepers’ house, intent upon learning all that should subsequently happen. For he knew Annie Palmer. He expected that, on that same night, without delay, she would bring matters to a crisis.

  What he hoped was that she would surprise Robert with Millicent (as indeed she had done) and that Robert, not daring to oppose her, would allow the girl to be badly treated. Ashman, living mainly for his own advancement, of a naturally coarse disposition, and feeling confident that the opportunity of being Annie Palmer’s lover (and so virtually master of Rosehall) would outweigh any tender feeling that Robert might have for Millicent, had not imagined that the young man would try to aid the girl. Millicent would therefore feel the full effects of Mrs. Palmer’s wrath and vengeance, and would be sent ignominiously and in bitter pain and humiliation from Robert’s presence. Her grandfather would hear of it: Mr. Ashman had made up his mind that Takoo should, and Takoo would hold the young man at least partly responsible. He would hesitate to strike directly at Mrs. Palmer; everybody feared that lady, who in her turn despised others. But of Robert, Takoo would have no dread at all, and would injure him, thus avenging his granddaughter and at the same time hurting Mrs. Palmer. Ashman hoped that the old wizard and murderer—for no one doubted that Takoo was both—wou
ld poison Robert Rutherford before a week had elapsed. Thus a dangerous rival would be disposed of, and white men of the better sort, already suspicious of Rosehall and its mistress, would in the future come no nearer that property than its gate.

  But Takoo, it now was clear, was watching over his grandchild; by a cursed mischance the old African had been on the spot during the stormy scene in Robert’s room. He had taken Millicent safely away; he must have noticed that Robert had endeavoured to help and befriend the girl. Takoo would not now move against the new bookkeeper, whom he knew was guiltless of any wrong—or what Takoo would consider to be wrong—against Millicent. The plot had failed.

  When Ashman got back to his house it was to find Mrs. Palmer awaiting him. He was surprised at this, but had a tale ready to account for his absence from home. To her query where he had been, since she had expected to find him at home, he replied that he had gone for a walk, as usual, to see that everything was fixed for the night. It was what he sometimes did, and Annie never suspected that there was any reason to doubt him.

  ‘And why are you here?’ he asked. ‘Anything important?’

  ‘Yes.’ She came to the point at once; she knew that in another few hours Ashman must hear of the encounter in the bookkeeper’s room. Annie was too well acquainted with the customs of her estate and its people to doubt that there had been ears to hear and eyes to see what had passed; Burbridge’s housekeeper, she realised, must have been awakened by the sound of voices, if indeed she had been asleep. And there may have been others in the neighbourhood; you never could tell. Ashman would know. Just as well that he should hear about it all from her lips.

  She told him briefly. ‘And your girl went off with her grandfather after speaking to me as no one ever did before. She doesn’t care a straw about me, John.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘She ought to be punished for her impertinence, and worse, to me.’