The Curse at Rose Hill

by Camille Oster

  Their supper had been in a darkened dining room, with only a few candles along the length of the table. The size of the table hadn't been conducive to conversation, so they had eaten mostly in silence. In fact, Emmeline had struggled to keep her eyes open through the meal. As soon as her hunger appeased, she wanted nothing but sleep.

  The window of her room revealed a waterlogged landscape. Puddles of water sat throughout the road and probably in the fields, although it was hard to tell what lay underneath the sugar canes. The sky was blue and there was no rain in the immediate future. It was time to return home and she moved to dress.

  A quick knock on the door stopped her. Surely, he wasn't knocking on the door. "Who is it?"

  "It's Tilly," said the light voice of the maid. "I have your dress."

  "Oh, wonderful," Emmeline replied, discarding the muslin dress where she had placed it last night over the back of a chair. Tilly came in and laid the dress on her bed.

  "The carriage has been prepared for you. His lordship assumed you would like to be off at the earliest opportunity."

  "Yes, of course. I should perhaps thank him."

  "He isn't here," Tilly said. "Left this morning."

  "Oh." Emmeline hadn't heard him leave. Where was he rushing off to at first light? It was none of her affair.

  "Would you like something to eat?"

  "No, I should probably go home right away."

  Emmeline looked at the muslin dress. He had given it to her, and it was a beautiful dress. Could she bring it with her without Mrs. Thornton noticing? Well, the woman wouldn't be awake at this time of day, and the journey by carriage couldn't be more than twenty minutes, she guessed. A short distance that had been insurmountable the day before.

  She could really use another dress. The temptation became too strong to resist, especially as it served no use here. It was the perfect dress for the climate, if not a little too fancy for what she could afford herself, but not so it would be immediately commented on. People would simply assume her sewing skills were better than they really were.

  Bundling up the dress, she sat down by the mirror while Tilly brushed and pinned her hair. Tilly had been quite insistent in wanting to dress her hair. At Rose Hill, no maid was assigned to do such work, and at her school, such things were well beyond expectations. It felt strange having someone else do her hair, and by the look of it, Tilly wasn't particularly experienced either, which wasn't a wonder considering her age. There would have been no one for her to learn on. At one point, the comb dug into Emmeline’s scalp quite painfully, but she refused to acknowledge it, wanting to avoid any apologies or any suggestion Tilly was doing a terrible job. Emmeline was basically allowing her to practice.

  "Thank you," she said once Tilly was done. "I better get going. Please give my thanks and regard to his lordship when he returns."

  "I will," Tilly said. "Although it might be a while."

  "Oh?"

  "His lordship spends long periods of time away from here."

  "He must have a foreman he trusts."

  "Mr. Roderick left some months back," Tilly said with a sniff. Clearly, she felt some distaste for this man. It seemed she wasn't sorry he was gone.

  "And he hasn't been replaced?"

  "No," Tilly said as she moved to straighten the bed. "No foreman here."

  That was odd. How could Cresswell spend so much time away from here if there wasn't anyone to oversee the plantation? "Then who is managing the place?"

  "We do," Tilly stated with a smile.

  Emmeline blinked, realizing how different things were here. The slaves were trusted to run the estate in the lordship’s absence. He must have a very good relationship with them. The thought warmed her heart. The idea of such good cooperation and mutual respect was commendable. There was always a hope harbored in her heart that the people under the care of these plantation owners weren’t suffering. There was always that fear that she would turn over a rock and see a jumble of squiggling worms, some horribleness she wouldn't be able to forget.

  So far, she hadn't seen any suffering and was eminently grateful, but then the slaves and the plantation owners were completely separated from each other, from what she would see. Other than Joseph, and now Tilly, she hadn't actually met any of them.

  Mr. Hart was the one managing the slaves and he watched them like a hawk. Lord Cresswell, didn't watch them at all, instead trusted them to care for him and the estate. It was a radically different way of managing.

  "Best you go now," Tilly said. "Felix is waiting."

  "Yes, of course. Thank you," Emmeline said again and made her way out of the room and down the stairs. The house was deathly silent, only her soft footsteps being heard. Even in daylight, the place was dark and gloomy. Emmeline much preferred the light and airy Rose Hill.

  The front door was open and below stood a small chaise with a perch for the driver ahead of the main seat. An older colored man stood waiting. He didn't smile as Emmeline approached, but held his hand out to help her up. The horse was white with black spots on its rump. It wasn't the horse she had been conveyed on coming here, which Lord Cresswell had likely taken with him when he’d left, which must have been at the very crack of dawn.

  Felix, she assumed, took to the driver's perch and got the horse moving with some clicks of his tongue. The leather of the seat was cracked, which showed this was quite an old carriage. It would be easy to fix, but no one seemed to have bothered. Then again, Lord Cresswell probably didn't use the carriage himself.

  The horse carefully made its way through the puddles along the road and Emmeline looked around. She saw people for the first time, standing around in the distance, some walking. There was no one in the fields, though. Mr. Hart would have had his charges working by now, but there was no one working the fields. On closer inspection, the fields weren't the lush green of those at Rose Hill, either. There were brown patches, where canes had died. There weren't the neat rows she would have expected either. These fields were not as productive, or else managed very differently.

  Leaving the fields without management didn't seem to result in healthy and productive plants. The idea was worrisome, but it was, again, none of her affair how Lord Cresswell decided to manage his estate. It just seemed strange, that was all. What farmer would decide to let their crop run unattended like this?

  A dark-skinned man stood by the side of the road as she passed, a deep frown on his weather-beaten face. He said something as she passed, in a language she didn't understand. By the body language, she assumed it wasn't a greeting. There had definitely been hostility in his expression.

  Emmeline turned to look at the man, who spat on the road, still watching her as the carriage moved further away. Goosebumps rose along her arms. She had never come across such hostility before. Sure, there had been the odd drunk who yelled obscenities back in Boston, but this man didn't appear drunk; he was just hostile.

  Turning back in her seat, she didn't know what to make of it. The man driving her, Felix, said nothing by way of explanation, just kept driving. Was he glad to be rid of her at the earliest opportunity, too? What had she done to deserve such hostility? She hadn't even met this man before. But then, perhaps it was nothing personal. It could just be that she was despised for what she was.

  Mr. Hart's words returned to her. She'd thought he was being melodramatic and teasing when he'd said they all cursed them to horrible deaths. Seeing that man, she could well believe it. It could even be that he'd thrown some ill wishing her way just then. Extraordinary.

  Emmeline didn't know how to react to this. This was beyond her experience. Never had she been on a particular side of a divide before, especially a side that oppressed the other—even as she had no direct involvement or even power in any such thing. She was guilty by association, and living on a plantation itself, it would be hard to insist there was no association.

  Saying that, she was very glad to be leaving the Cresswell estate, to return to Rose Hill. Actually, for a moment, she wan
ted to keep going to the port to jump on the next ship sailing north to escape the challenge to her sense of justice and fairness, and obligation to the equality of all men on this earth, but she hadn't the money for passage, nor the leeway to abandon her post. Fortitude had been bred into her beyond anything else, and a few unpleasant experiences were not going to make her bend like wet paper.

  It could be that Mrs. Thornton sent her packing, but right now, she wanted the comfort and safety of the house at Rose Hill, ready to put this whole experience behind her. It had all left a nagging discomfort along her spine. All for some shells. Those turned out to be very expensive shells. Never again would she venture off the plantation without the carriage. This venture had turned into an absolute disaster, leaving her utterly vulnerable and helpless, a feeling she didn't want to experience again.

  Chapter 11

  Emmeline had no such luck that Mrs. Thornton was asleep by the time she returned. For once, the woman had risen early and was sitting in the dining room with her breakfast. She turned her eyes on Emmeline as she stood by the door. "So, it seemed you had to seek refuge with the devil himself last night," she said tartly.

  Emmeline opened her mouth to speak, but couldn't think what to say. "I was trying to return home, but was trapped behind a torrent of water, a drain apparently. Too wide to cross. He came across me and insisted I could not safely make it back."

  Mouth drawn tight, Mrs. Thornton pinned Emmeline with her eyes. "Is that so?"

  As expected the woman wasn't pleased, but it wasn't as though Emmeline had done this on purpose. Perhaps Mrs. Thornton would have preferred she'd drown instead of accepting refuge from the storm. "I returned at the first opportunity."

  "Obviously, this will not spell well for your reputation, spending the night with a debauched man like him."

  "He behaved perfectly gentlemanly." That was a stretch, but he hadn't imposed on her in any inappropriate way—besides hauling her across the saddle like a sack of potatoes. Tactless, was perhaps a better description of the man. "There was a maid that took care of me."

  Also a stretching of the truth, but the accusation was unfair, suggesting she would simply give herself over to some man's attention because she was too weak to withstand it. It was unfair and unjust. She would be bruised and battered if someone had tried to force themselves on her, because she would fight tooth and nail.

  Mrs. Thornton snorted. "You have done yourself some damage, girl."

  "Well, it couldn't be helped," Emmeline said, her patience running out. She'd just endured a stressful event and was at the end of her nerves. "It was categorically unsafe to be out in that weather, and I prefer myself alive instead of drowned with my body washed out to sea."

  The woman's eyebrows rose at the impertinence. Emmeline didn't care if she was impertinent. She was not groveling for something she didn't do. If this woman was to dismiss her, then that wouldn't perhaps be a great loss. Actually, it would be devastating returning within a month of service without a reference. The only chance she'd have would be to plead with her school to take her back. They knew her character and wouldn't believe any slanderous rumors that could potentially follow her back from the Caribbean.

  "None of us would, of course, want to see that," Mrs. Thornton said sharply. "It was just all rather unfortunate."

  "According to the maid, the Cresswell estate doesn't have a foreman," Emmeline said carefully after a while, the ill-at-ease feeling from the morning still with her. "If fact, the whole management seemed a little lackadaisical."

  "That is because the man refuses to invest a penny in the plantation. He is running it into the ground. Although one has to question how much control he has. He seems positively enslaved to his own vices. He has never been entirely respectable. From the day he was born, he has been trouble."

  Emmeline didn't normally engage in gossip, but there had been something off about the Cresswell estate, and its owner. Well, she wasn't entirely sure if something was off with him so much as his lack of propriety and decorum. He seemed to hold little respect for his station, possessions or how he was perceived.

  According to his words, his relationship with the Thorntons had been favorable until he'd chosen not to accept the marriage Mrs. Thornton had promoted. Emmeline didn't know if that was true; she didn't have any evidence to the contrary, other than Mrs. Thornton saying he had always been trouble. Surely, she wouldn't have promoted her niece marrying him if she'd always thought so.

  It seemed he admitted he had made some poor choices in his life, especially with regards to his wife. But then she only had his words for it. For all she knew, he could have been a terrible husband and his wife had fled the island in fear of him. That sentiment was a bit melodramatic, perhaps, but such things had been known to happen.

  Emmeline sighed. Despite sleeping, she was still tired. The previous day was still taxing her resources and she needed to rest.

  "Well, you best go wash," Mrs. Thornton said, "lest filth be following you back."

  It was a strange notion and Emmeline didn't exactly know what she meant, but it wasn't worth querying just now. It seemed that for now, Mrs. Thornton wasn't kicking her out onto the street. It would probably serve her to be grateful.

  Actually, a bath sounded wonderful.

  *

  The humidity was horrendous. Her hair didn't dry after her bath, instead stayed wet until she repeatedly dried it with a towel. The heat was sticky and uncomfortable, and the absent breeze wasn’t clearing away the discomfort.

  Pools of water stood over the Rose Hill land as well, but the slaves were out cutting sugar cane as they did each day. From her position on the veranda, she saw Mr. Hart in the distance, sitting on his horse and keeping an eye on everything.

  A noise a little further away caught her attention and she saw Joseph tending to the roses around the house. The water had destroyed the blooming flowers and he was diligently cutting the buds.

  "Would you like some help?" she asked as she walked down the stairs to join him.

  "No, that's alright, Miss."

  "I don't mind. It will give me something to do. Mrs. Thornton has taken to her bed again, it seems."

  "Yes, Miss," Joseph confirmed.

  "It makes you wonder why she asked for a companion at all? She seems to want very little company."

  "The blues take her sometimes." Joseph spoke softly, cutting a pummeled bloom of damaged and soggy pink petals.

  Maybe Emmeline was being a little ungenerous. Lord Cresswell, was definitely ungenerous, calling her a dragon. Emmeline had almost chuckled at the time, because she had seen his perspective. "There is little love lost between Mrs. Thornton and Lord Cresswell."

  "’Familiarity breeds contempt’ I once heard a gentleman say. I think that is true in this case. Lord Cresswell is not always an amiable man, and Mrs. Thornton likes things a certain way."

  "He insinuated his wife left him."

  "I believe so."

  "It's a very gloomy house."

  "It was built by his grandfather, a long time back. They said there was some scandal back in England that made the then Lord Cresswell flee and this is where he ended up. The old ones say his wife never joined him, but eventually the son inherited."

  "So, they are relatively new to the island."

  "In the scheme of things. Not so new as the Thorntons, though."

  "I hadn't realized," Emmeline said.

  "The late master took over the plantation some twenty years ago, maybe a bit more now. The years seem to fly these days. At my age, I can't keep track from one to another."

  "But you were born here."

  "Yes, Miss. Although, I wasn't with the family back then. The Rosenblooms, they were called. Nice family, but troubled."

  That must have been where the Rose Hill name came from. "If I am completely honest, Joseph, I haven't met many families here, but they all seem troubled."

  Joseph chuckled. "You might be right there."

  Emmeline was quiet for a moment
, snipping the heads off a couple of buds. "How did Philip Thornton die?" she asked quietly.

  "Sudden illness. Same with the youngest. One minute they were there, happy and healthy, the next day, they were dead."

  Death from sudden illness wasn't unheard of. Fevers could take people quickly, as did heart disorders or colic inflictions.

  "And the older boy, Harold?"

  "Fell from his horse riding back from Plymouth. They said he'd had a good fill of liquor. Never made it home, but his horse did. We found him the next day. It was close to a year ago now."

  "That's awful."

  "I think Harold's death was the hardest for Mrs. Thornton. Her firstborn. Always had a special place in her heart."

  Now Mrs. Thornton only had Percy left, who'd been sent to England for his education. All her hopes were now invested in her one remaining child. It had to be heartbreaking to lose most of one's family such.

  "Was Percy here at the time?"

  "No, he had already left. Although he was here when his younger brother died. Rufus was first to go."

  "That's awful," Emmeline said again. As privileged as they were, the Thorntons had no defense against tragedy and circumstance. Percy was the only future for the family now. "Poor Mrs. Thornton." It couldn't be said that they'd ever hit it off, but the woman had had her fair share of tragedy and heartache. It made Emmeline wish they had a better relationship than they did. For some reason, Mrs. Thornton didn't find her fit for the purpose she was brought here. "I don't think Mrs. Thornton likes me," she admitted. "I suspect she will send me away again."

  Joseph didn't say anything. What was it he could say? No one could say her arrival here had met with success.

  Putting her garden shears down, Emmeline sighed. "How long will it be before this humidity lifts?" It felt as though a thick invisible blanket had been laid across the whole land."

  "A day or two. The sun will take away the water quickly."

  Chapter 12

  Joseph was true to his word. The next day, the water in the fields and on the road was substantially less. Everything returned to normal, as did everything within the house. Emmeline sat on the veranda with her book and occasionally she heard Mrs. Thornton inside, commanding Joseph to do something.