by Sally Watson
“Slave ship,” he remarked laconically, one ringed blue eye fixed on the jib. Jade made a strangled sound, and he glanced at her cynically. “Pack ’em in like spoons, on their sides ’tween-decks. Lots die, of course, but that’s cheaper than cutting numbers to start with. Unless there’s a storm, of course. . . . Avast there! ’Vast hauling!” He leaped down to the waist. Jade sped him a look of passionate hate, and her father looked pained.
“Not at all the thing,” he said, but in tones that seemed to deplore the conversation more than the fact. Doubtless he had always known how slaves were shipped, and thought it all most unfortunate, but one of the facts of life and business. Almost everyone thought that way. Jade, hating him for his silent acquiescence, didn’t ask. She hated everyone. How dare God let such things go on, and unpunished? Her peeling face was pulled into a sullen scowl while a message was sent ashore for Uncle Augustus, and the slave ship at the far end of the quay proceeded to unload some of its cargo.
The hatches were opened, a mournful wailing carried over the shining water, and a string of naked, gaunt captives appeared, crawling and staggering over the deck and to the quay. Mr. Lennox turned away, his sense of decency and fastidiousness deeply offended, and his sense of propriety, as well. Young girls shouldn’t witness such things!
“Come over to this other rail at once, Melanie!” he ordered sharply.
Jade paid no attention. Shaking with outrage, she teetered on the verge of the most enormous scene she had ever perpetrated. Then Joshua was there, thrusting a parasol into her hands, staring down at her with pleading eyes. “Don’t, Missy Lanie!”
She glared at him, hating his slavishness, her eyes flashing green in a way that nearly unnerved him. He was staring at her rather as a pagan might look at a very black thunder cloud, she thought furiously, as if he very much hoped the goddess could be placated this time—but strongly doubted it. Unfairly, she turned her fury on him.
“Don’t look at me!” she spat. “Look at them! Your own parents had that done to them!” How could he be so spineless? “Don’t you care?”
“Yes, Missy Lanie,” he said humbly, but it was clear that his anxiety was more for her than the unfortunate wretches across the harbor. After all, his only tie with them was that of race and bondage; there was affection between him and Jade. She glared at him, knowing this, and knowing too that he was looking deliberately humble, his most effective weapon over her.
“Melanie! Did you hear me?”
She stalked across to the other side of the quarterdeck —but as far from her father as she could get. He at once came to her side, his long face stern and angry.
“I expect instant obedience from you, Melanie; you know that. And anyone who claims to be distressed over slavery ought to begin at home by treating her own slave with a little kindness. What have you said to poor Joshua?” Jade nearly committed violence. She was accidentally saved from it by MacDonald, who strode past just then, arrogantly unconscious of her insignificant existence, and diverting the stream of her wrath.
“If you’d let me free Joshua, he wouldn’t be a slave,” she muttered accusingly. “And I don’t care what you say, or what the Bible says, either; it’s wicked!” And she whisked herself off to her tiny sleeping cabin to sulk.
Uncle Augustus, arriving in due course with carriage and liveried slaves, was brilliantly clad for the occasion in saffron waistcoat, mauve knee breeches, and a great deal of lace at cuffs and cravat. He looked much too warm for the heat that clamped down wherever the trade winds didn’t touch—and yet he also gave Jade the vague impression of a large pale frog, white and clammy, although he was neither.
A massive man was Uncle Augustus, with a large face, round pink cheeks, pale blue eyes, and a mouth like a kindly steel trap. He patted Jade’s cheek with a benevolent and self-satisfied palm that was moist only with the heat.
“Well well, the little Melanie. What a pretty young lady you are growing to be, Liebchen. Your aunt and I will be very pleased to have you stay with us. I am sorry to hear that you are sometimes very naughty, but we will change all that, nein?”
Jade gave him her crooked little smile and declined to commit herself. She didn’t much like her mother’s sister’s Prussian husband, at best.
They drove up the seven-mile finger of peninsula and into the plantation country behind, brilliant green. Here and there were patches of fascinating jungle, a blaze of huge flowers, a whirr of bright tropical wings, and behind it all the rise of the Blue Mountains. It was beautiful country—with a slight air of menace lurking beneath the beauty. Jade’s spirits rose to the novelty and sense of adventure in spite of her sulks.
Through vast sugar canes of that violent green they rode, and then up a drive to a large airy house with shaded verandas, set in glowing garden and lawns. Inside, large fans hung from every ceiling, worked by small slave children tugging at the pulleys in slow rhythm, and Aunt Louisa waited, moist-eyed and sentimental and clad in a tight-laced full gown of a pink that set Jade’s teeth on edge.
“Dear little Melanie! Poor dear Thomas!” she cried, enveloping them both with solicitude and damp kisses. “Was it a terrible trip? Were you dreadfully seasick? Poor dears, you must be tired! You can go right up to your rooms and lie down for a nice rest before the dinner tonight; we’re having guests, and it was so nice you could get here in time, although I suppose you couldn’t know, could you? And in any case I quite understand that ships arrive whenever they please, although I do think captains could do better if they’d only put their minds to it. . . . Dear Melanie, you’re choking! Poor child! Have you caught a horrible rheum? I’m sure I shouldn’t be surprised, with all that sea air about! Now you go right upstairs with Fidelia and lie down for a while, so you’ll feel like meeting dear Dr. Hughes, and Governor Lawes and his wife and sister-in-law, and the Quayles—Dear Chester is just the right age for you—and—” Her soft face clouded a little. “—and Mr. Chidley Bayard, whom dear Augustus says is quite respectable, and who visits all the best people, but whom I must admit I can’t altogether like.” She looked apologetically at her husband, who patted her hand, tolerant.
“Now now, Louisa. You mustn’t hold it against him that he speaks with a Cockney accent. After all, he is now a very successful businessman with a great deal of power, and offices in Spanish Cuba and French Hispaniola and the Bahamas.”
His wife looked muddled. “But dear Augustus, I was sure you told me once that he was a very wicked man, and did business with all the pirates, and brought that dreadful female one to the governor’s ball, where I remember distinctly she hit Mistress Tyson and knocked her down, just because Mistress Tyson said she wasn’t fit to associate with, which was quite true, you know. . . . Oh dear, I’ve shocked poor dear Melanie,” she added remorsefully and quite inaccurately. Jade was perfectly fascinated.
“What female pirate?” she demanded. “You mean Anne Bonney? Have you really seen her?”
“Ja, Anne Bonney,” agreed her uncle, frowning. “That was when Mr. Bayard had his main office on that island of New Providence, when it was a pirate republic, and it is true he brought the pirate jezebel to that ball. Some of the men found her very attractive,” he told Father disapprovingly. “And the ladies naturally didn’t at all like it.”
“What happened?” breathed Jade, entranced. If Jamaica was a place where wicked female pirates could come to governor’s balls, she felt there might be much merit in it.
“The governor’s sister-in-law spoke very frankly,” said Uncle Augustus, clearly on the side of propriety. “It was true she was not very polite, but she is a lady accustomed to saying what she thinks, and the Bonney woman should not have been there.” He paused, thoughtful. Jade fairly wriggled with impatient curiosity, and her father looked as if he much regretted this whole conversation.
“Was that when Anne Bonney knocked her down?” demanded Jade.
“Ja. And Bayard had to rush her on to one of his ships and use all his influence to save her from being arre
sted. Governor Lawes swears he will hang her one day.” He looked at Jade’s delighted face with disapproval. “She is one of Satan’s minions. You should take warning, Liebchen.”
“I’m way ahead of her,” Jade boasted, unimpressed. “I hit guests over the head with footstools.”
“Melanie!” thundered her father.
“Dear Melanie!” bleated her aunt.
Uncle Augustus, not believing a word of it, pretended she hadn’t said it. “As for Chidley Bayard, he now hates the Bonney woman even more than Governor Lawes does, and repents ever associating with such scum, and has made Port Royal his main office, and is now quite respectable. “Besides—” Virtue slipped slightly into practical expediency. “—he is now so wealthy and powerful that not even Governor Lawes wishes to offend him.”
Jade’s cynical smile fell off her face altogether.
Hypocrisy! They’d justify anything that was to their self-interest—and they’d never forgive anything that damaged their self-importance or their pockets! It was a vicious, brutal, horrible world; Jade would never compromise with it; she loathed them all! And she looked at her elders with the air of a small garter snake wishing it were a cobra.
“Mercy me,” said her aunt, entirely misinterpreting Jade’s expression. “I’m sure this isn’t at all good for poor dear Melanie to hear! Run upstairs with Fidelia, love, and have a nice rest until time to dress for dinner.”
And Jade, her feelings much too strong to put into words, anyway, allowed herself to be led upstairs to a cool blue and white bedchamber, dim and venetian-blinded and mosquito-netted. There was a high blue-canopied four-poster in the center, and tall jars of water in a corner. Fidelia, with flat eyes and expressionless face, skilfully mixed water and scent in a large basin while Jade tried in vain to make friends.
It was no use. Fidelia had apparently decided that a slave couldn’t afford to be a person as well. She was efficient—far more efficient than the sulky Minnie, now consigned to general tasks about the house—but that was all. Efficiently she bathed Jade, unpacked her box, wrapped her in a loose silk robe, and took a brush to the untidy curls.
“Missy got pretty hair,” she observed with remote politeness, arranging the thick ringlets that clustered to Jade’s shoulders in a style all the fashion just now but decidedly hot. “Turn gold on top, where sun hits.”
Jade, mildly surprised, peered into the mirror. Sure enough, the honey-brown hair was now a distinct shade nearer honey-gold, and very becoming, she felt, to her ruined complexion. She eyed her sweet-young-girl reflection critically.
“Let’s put my hair on top of my head, Fidelia. It would be much cooler that way.”
Fidelia looked frightened. “Not done for young missies,” she protested, and produced something Mother had packed in Jade’s box, and Jade had shoved to the very depths, just above the innocent looking false bottom.
“Missy’s stays,” pronounced Fidelia.
“Well, you can put them right back again,” Jade told her firmly, “because I shan’t wear them.” Fidelia looked shocked. Young ladies always wore stays, surely? “I never wear them,” Jade explained. “Why should I? Look how skinny I am. Besides, I’ll wear a contouche most of the time, and that’s just a loose dress without a waist at all, so how can anyone know if I’m wearing stays or not? And if Aunt Louisa finds out, I’ll take all the blame.”
Fidelia gave in at last, reluctant but faced with adamantine. Jade appeared for the dinner party dressed in shift, petticoats, and her prettiest contouche, a loose-fitting overdress of pale daffodil silk over a vineembroidered petticoat stiffened with strips of whalebone.
“Dear Melanie!” said her aunt fondly. “Isn’t she sweet!”
Jade could instantly sympathize with Aunt Louisa’s dislike of Chidley Bayard. With his thin, sharp-featured face, he looked like a prosperous ferret wearing a wig; and the elegant peach satin breeches and stiff, full-skirted coat of apple green looked all wrong on him. His very expression was furtive, suspicious, cruel, and Jade couldn’t but hold a very low opinion of any woman—pirate or not—who would go anywhere at all with such a mean, cold little man. Her opinion of the intrepid Anne Bonney dropped perceptibly.
On the other hand, she could admire anyone—pirate or not—who punched the governor’s sister-in-law in the teeth. Detestable woman! Much worse than Governor Lawes, who at least was intriguing. A florid, portly man, he spoke in clichés, bounced when he got excited, and gloried in self-importance. He was unabashedly vindictive, too—but Jade found his very candor rather engaging; a welcome change from hypocrisy. He had a certain wit, as well, which was more than could be said for his visiting nephew, Chester Quayles.
Jade flickered a critical and distinctly bored green eye at Chester, an amiable young man prepared to admire and be admired. It was unfortunate that Jade was not. Affable young men—even Tom Deane—were so tiresome!
“You aren’t listening!” discovered Chester, astonished and offended.
“No,” agreed Jade rudely. “You’re saying such silly things. I don’t care about your new horse or your three slaves of your own; and I’m not in the least like a lily or a rose, and it’s stupid to say I am. And of course I know I have long lashes; I look in the mirror every day, don’t
I?”
“Then there’s no point in my paying you compliments, is there?” said Chester, justifiably peeved.
“No,” agreed Jade.
Conversation languished, and she turned a far more interested ear to the other end of the dinner table, where her father was being brought up to date on recent events in the West Indies.
Dr. Hughes, a lean, gray-wigged man who seemed both kindly and sensible, was speaking.
“You knew, of course, that England sent Captain Woodes Rogers to New Providence last July as the new governor of the Bahamas?”
“I’d heard of it,” said Mr. Lennox. “He’s been cleaning up piracy, hasn’t he?”
“Yes. He offered a free pardon to any pirate giving himself up by the end of September, and they say he’s turning New Providence into a respectable, law-abiding place.”
Jade broke into adult conversation with a want of manners that caused her father to redden and give her an ominous glance. “You mean all the pirates are reformed now?” she asked, vaguely disappointed.
At once they forgot her manners, and began talking all at once. Not all, they said. Not by any means. And they waved their arms. Look at Bartholomew Roberts, they said. And Charles Vane! Not to mention Calico Jack Rackam and the Bonney female, who, it was said, was really captain of his ship.
And at the mention of Anne Bonney, Chidley Bayard quite literally snarled. Jade stared, fascinated. It was the first time she had ever heard such a sound come from a human being. It was also the first time she had ever felt such a wave of hatred; and she stopped eating suddenly, to eye him with cold revulsion.
Governor Lawes had turned beet-color. “Just wait!” he said, bouncing. “She’ll pay for her sins! I’ll hang her if it’s the last thing I do! I’ll break her to pieces with my own two hands!” He looked delighted with the prospect.
Jade remembered the woodcut she had seen of the notorious pirate: a hefty Amazon like those beefy women Rubens painted, much more likely to break the squabby little governor in pieces. She giggled, causing his small blue eyes to fix themselves on her narrowly.
“What if she accepts the pardon?” asked Father, probably trying to divert attention.
Mr. Bayard turned a most unhealthy color and seemed unable to find words. Governor Lawes didn’t mind; he liked doing the talking.
“She can’t,” he gloated. “She’s wanted on other charges. A woman of Satan, she is! Burned down her own father’s house!”
“Why?” demanded Jade, erupting again into the conversation in a manner that caused her father to look despairing, her aunt shocked, and her uncle suddenly determined. The guests all regarded her with the kindly tolerance one paid to such inferiors as the feeble-minded, children, and fem
ales.
“Because she’s wicked,” they told her patiently, and Jade bristled at such stupidity.
“That’s silly! Even wicked people don’t do things for no reason! Why didn’t she burn down someone else’s house instead? What did he do—” She caught her father’s menacing eye and subsided into smouldering silence, while they all told her she was being irrelevant, and Aunt Louisa got up rather hastily to announce that the ladies would now retire and leave the men to their port and conversation.
“And that’s another thing,” muttered Jade subversively. “Why shouldn’t we stay for port, too?”
“Melanie!” said her goaded father. But Governor Lawes—detestable man!—laughed. Comical little thing, wasn’t she? he asked as if she weren’t there. More fun than a kitten. She could hear his laughter all the way to the parlor.
CHAPTER SIX
Domino
“But Dear Thomas, I left her right here on the veranda, with the loveliest bit of embroidery to do; she must be here. Melanie? Dear Melanie, where are you? Perhaps she’s strolling in the garden. Melanie?”
The red and blue parrot flew away. Jade said a rude word under her breath, and looked down at the grownups from her perch on a modestly low branch of the tree. “You’ve scared it off,” she told them reproachfully.
They looked at her. Her contouche was torn, her hair quite out of curl, and she had an altogether indecent expanse of petticoat and bare leg showing. “Dear Melanie!” squeaked Aunt Louisa, horrified.
“Melanie!” echoed her father, while Uncle Augustus averted embarrassed eyes. “Come down here at once!”
