She cocked her head. ‘Maybe so. But preacher-man not only ting troubling you. Eh, soldierman?’
No hiding from Grace, not even in the dark. Especially not in the dark.
She drew her finger down his cheek. ‘Walk a while. Reason wid I.’
He shook his head. ‘I’d be poor company tonight.’
She took the hint and gave him a crooked smile. ‘It don’ mind. You wait. Preacher-man reckon wid
out Gracie McFarlane. She fix it so he get no boy-child.’
‘Grace,’ he said sharply. ‘Don’t go touching him.’
The smile widened to a grin. ‘Oh, I don’ need fe go touching him, soldierman. Don’ trouble yourself about dat.’
‘That’s not what I meant . . .’
But she had gone, melting into the darkness and calling to Evie and Victory as she went.
He stayed in the garden, smoking and thinking, until Abigail’s impatient bark reminded him that it was time for bed.
Back on the verandah he poured himself another drink and scowled at it. On the campaign chest beside his bed was a pile of books. On most nights he read a few pages, but tonight he couldn’t concentrate. He kept seeing Sinclair in the pony-trap with his pretty young wife.
With a muttered curse he threw the book aside and turned down the lamp.
You’re being ridiculous, he told himself. This is Sinclair. You wouldn’t want the sort of woman who’d marry him.
That was the most agreeable thought he’d had all day.
Chapter Fourteen
The Seventh of March, Eighteen Ninety-Five
The West Gallery, Fever Hill Great House
Parish of Trelawny
Jamaica
The West Indies
Maddy has given me this BEAUTIFUL writing-book for my birthday, so I am starting a Journal. I intend to discover:
1) Everything about Jamaican magic;
2) What is troubling Maddy; and
3) What Sinclair’s wicked brother actually did.
Dr Pritchard came today and is DELIGHTED with my progress! But he reminded me that staying in bed on the voyage greatly benefited my knee, so I must be patient. (I am glad the voyage did some good, for it was truly horrible and I ran out of books.)
I ADORE Jamaica. It has sugar-cane, magic and alligators, and instead of pigeons they have vultures called john crows. Everything here comes from another country: the mango and banana trees were brought over in olden times, and so were the coffee bushes, the breadfruit, the sugar-cane, the bamboo and the black people. It is exceedingly hot, and there is no rain, for it is the dry season; but there is a sea breeze in the morning and a land breeze at night, which keeps us tolerably cool.
Terrible things have happened in Jamaica, but no-one mentions them, or clears away the mess. At the bottom of the hill on which we live there is a ruined sugar-mill which the slaves burnt sixty years ago in the Christmas Rebellion. They also burnt the original great house (that is Jamaican for mansion), and the Lawe great house on the other side of Falmouth, which is now a sanatorium called Burntwood. Sinclair says that hundreds of estates have since been sold or abandoned. He blames it on when they freed the slaves, which he says was a great mistake.
I don’t think Maddy cares for Jamaica. Or perhaps it is just Fever Hill that she doesn’t like. I ADORE Fever Hill. Sometimes it smells of rum from the New Works, and always of orange peel from the floor polish, and everything about it is strange. The slates on the roof were originally ballast brought over from Cornwall in the sugar boats; the great pots by the steps are the boilers they used in the olden days for extracting the sugar; and even the cement in the undercroft walls contains molasses!
There is no gaslight, only kerosene lamps and candles, and as it is so very shut in, the house is dark and mysterious even in daytime. The walls are wooden, with slats to let through the breeze, so one can absolutely hear what is said three rooms away. Maddy calls it a House of Whispers.
When we first arrived, she was dismayed to learn that we wouldn’t have our own house, but would live here with the family. It is hard for her, as she is only allowed to go for walks at night, for Great-Aunt May disapproves of ladies going out during the day, which they never did when she was a girl. My new friend Evie says that elsewhere things are different now. So does the gazetteer which Maddy bought me in London. It says that in Jamaica, white ladies go about unaccompanied at all times, and it is perfectly safe and respectable. What a shame for Maddy! She says the darkness and confinement are what turned Clemency mad.
Occasionally, however, Maddy does get permission to visit Mrs Herapath during the day, and yesterday Sinclair took her to see the sanatorium at Burntwood. When she came back, she told me that I won’t be going there under ANY circumstances, as it is a pulmonary hospital.
That is a great relief, because my room here is PERFECTION. Actually my real room is just for clothes, I mean the gallery outside it where I live!! A gallery is Jamaican for a verandah which is enclosed by louvres to keep out the sun. This makes it shadowy and hard to see out, but luckily for me, three of the louvres in front of my bed are broken! To begin with, the croton hedge blocked the view, but Maddy cut away some branches with a fruit knife. Her maid Jessie told on her to Great-Aunt May, who was vexed, and so was Sinclair.
My part of the gallery has my own steps down into the garden!!! But of course I mayn’t use them yet, and the doors are kept shut to keep out the sun.
Fever Hill was once the greatest estate on the Northside, but now most of the cane-fields are let to the Trahernes, or are left in ruinate. Sinclair says that Uncle Jocelyn has allowed the estate to slide, because he has lost heart. I believe that is because of Sinclair’s wicked brother, but no-one will talk of him.
Maddy says she doesn’t care to know about the past. But I do.
Ninth of March
Sinclair has just found an egg beneath his bed, and is greatly perturbed. It was only a little pale-blue egg, but he wouldn’t touch it and nor would the helpers, and there was quite a to-do. Eventually Daphne took it to the cook-house and threw it in the oven. She said she is too old to be frightened of obeah.
Evie says obeah is Jamaican black magic, and that an egg is a bad obeah sign. I asked what it signifies, but she said she didn’t know, which is Jamaican for I’m not telling.
Tenth of March – Just before supper
I have just seen my first RATBAT!!! I was so excited I spilt ink on Pablo Grey, but luckily I didn’t overturn the kerosene lamp and set fire to the musquito curtains!!
I hope to see more ratbats and an ALLIGATOR. The stream which runs at the bottom of our hill sounds perfect for such beasts. I also long to see a PARROT like the ones in Aunt Lett Letitia’s window; however there are no trees near the house for them to sit upon, only the croton hedge. Once I got Maddy to open the door to the garden a crack, and put out a dish of sugar-water to entice hummingbirds, but we only got two beetles and a moth.
Clemency has a cat but it prefers to stay with her, and sadly the dogs (Remus and Cleo) are not allowed in the house. However I have seen many beautiful green lizards, several cling-clings (big glossy blackbirds), lots of john crows and jabbling crows, and some fireflies. In Jamaica these are called peenywallies, and Clemency says that in olden times ladies used to pin them to the hems of their ballgowns, which I think is absolutely disgusting.
Twelfth of March – After supper
Maddy has just gone to dinner. She says the talk is always of sugar and that they freed the slaves too soon, which is embarassing in front of the helpers. Sinclair says they don’t understand, but I bet they do. Kean is the butler, and very clever and quiet; Maddy calls him the ‘eyes and ears of Fever Hill’, as he reports everything to Great-Aunt May. Maddy’s maid Jessie is also a sneak, but the others are nicer. There is Daphne the cook, and Rebecca and Susan the housemaids, and Doshey the groom, and Thomas the garden boy, who is extremely old.
I thought Maddy was looking tired tonight. She said she doesn’t understa
nd Sinclair, and neither do I. He doesn’t like to touch me because of my illness, and I don’t care about that, but I cannot forgive that he never compliments Maddy. She looked BEAUTIFUL in her amber evening gown, and Uncle Jocelyn said so too, so it wasn’t just me.
Fourteenth
I can see across the lawn to the duppy tree, but after what Evie told me this afternoon, I wish I couldn’t. The English name for it is a silk-cotton tree, but in Jamaican it is called a duppy tree. It is tall and wide like an oak, with creepers hanging down, and spiky wild pines clinging to the branches. In the dark they look like giant spiders.
Evie says that on nights with no moon, all the duppy trees for miles around transport themselves to the deep woods to hold secret conference together. Tonight I woke myself up, to check that our duppy tree was still in place.
Sixteenth
For the first time I have had breakfast with the family! I ADORE Jamaican food. My favourite fruits are mangoes, naseberries, tamarinds and cocoanuts, which Evie calls jelly-fruit. For breakfast I like green banana porridge with muscovado sugar, and fried plantain (which resembles banana and is MAGNIFICENT), and johnny cakes (scones), and bammies, which are made of something called cassava. But this morning I had avocado pear on toast. Uncle Jocelyn calls it midshipman’s butter, and has it every single day. I thought it tasted soapy, but extremely nutritious.
Seventeenth – After tea
What a day! I have just had my first walk on the lawns with my new crutches!!!! I was very wobbly and it only lasted five minutes, but I did get a look at the outside of Fever Hill. (I was asleep when we first arrived.)
The house faces north towards the sea, and has two storeys with galleries all the way round, and a great flight of marble steps down to the carriage-drive. I was surprised to see that on the outside the louvres are peeling, and eaten by termites. It makes the house look ruined, and boarded up.
The ground floor where we live is up the main steps, with the undercroft underneath, where Maddy has her darkroom. In the middle is the huge empty ballroom, and to the east is the dining-room (which is never used), the breakfast-room where the family has its meals, then the morning-room, drawing-room and Uncle Jocelyn’s library. That is at the back, with a view of the hills, and has books from floor to ceiling – but I’m not allowed in, as Uncle Jocelyn doesn’t care for children. Behind the stairs are the strongroom, cloakroom and the downstairs bathroom, and then on the west side, Clemency’s rooms, then mine, and finally Maddy and Sinclair’s bedroom and dressing-room, and Sinclair’s study.
Upstairs are Uncle Jocelyn’s rooms and that of his wife Kitty, who died after they were married just a year. From the upper gallery I am told that one can see the sea, but that is Great-Aunt May’s domain.
Through my gap in the louvres I have a good view of the garden, although it is just brown lawns. Clemency says there was once a Rose Walk and an aviary, but when Kitty died Uncle Jocelyn had them all destroyed. Sometimes at night, Clemency goes down onto the lawns, if she hears her baby crying in Hell.
My view looks south-west towards the hills, like Uncle Jocelyn’s library. Beyond the lawns I can see the duppy tree, and behind it there is a rise, for our house isn’t quite at the top of the hill, but about two-thirds up. On the other side of the rise I understand there is the Burying-place, which has all the family graves. Maddy went there when we first arrived, but returned perplexed. I don’t know why.
I wish I could see the Burying-place, for it is the one place at Fever Hill that Sinclair’s wicked brother Cameron is allowed to visit. He goes there once a month, but never comes near the house. Uncle Jocelyn used to think the world of him until he did something unspeakable, and got sent to prison. They haven’t spoken since. Clemency misses Cameron dreadfully, but Sinclair says it is a great trial to have such a brother. I wonder if Cameron was wrongly accused, like the Count of Monte Cristo.
Somewhere beyond the Burying-place there is a ruined ‘hothouse’, which is Jamaican for slave hospital. Evie says it is a very bad place, and she wouldn’t go there at night for anything, because of the duppies.
A duppy is an evil ghost which appears when someone dies. Evie says that no matter how nice a person was when they were alive, when they die their duppy is always horrid. I asked Evie if I will become a duppy, but she said she didn’t know. I don’t want to become a duppy and be nasty to Maddy.
Evie says that beyond the hothouse there are cane-fields and cattle pastures all the way to the hills, and on the edge of the estate there is an old hunting lodge called Providence. Beyond that is the Cockpit Country, a terrible place where runaway slaves used to hide, and their descendants still live there. It has no roads, rivers or streams: just ravines and sink-holes, where they used to leave disobedient slaves to die of thirst. White people don’t go into the Cockpits any more.
Twentieth of March
I asked Sinclair if white people become duppies, and he became greatly vexed. He said only blacks believe in such nonsense, for they have no moral faculties. Uncle Jocelyn said that black people’s magic doesn’t work on white people, but Maddy said that she doesn’t know enough to say one way or the other, which I think is SO clever and so right.
Uncle Jocelyn is seventy-three, extremely tall, lean and stiff. He has a silver moustache and bushy eyebrows, and his eyes are silvery too. He reads all the time, and calls England ‘home’, although he hasn’t been there since he was a boy. He likes Maddy, and sometimes comes out to the gallery to hear her read aloud. I don’t know what she thinks of him.
He keeps a polo-stick by his bed to deal with croaker lizards, which can be noisy at night. I want a polo-stick too, but when I asked him, he said no. He always says no to me and walks away. Maddy says he ‘flees’. But I am sewing a pen-wiper for him, and I hope that some day he will allow me in his library.
Great-Aunt May is seventy-six and wears grey kid gloves, for she doesn’t care to touch people. Great-Aunt May is in fact Uncle Jocelyn’s aunt, the youngest child of his grandfather Alasdair (who died of apoplexy after they freed the slaves). Uncle Jocelyn never calls her ‘Aunt’, but only ‘May’. Everyone else in the family calls her ‘Great-Aunt May’. She is narrow and straight and has angry eyes, and wears tight grey gowns and high heels, but she never slips. She often sits in the upper gallery where she watches what goes on, and she used to be a Beauty, but she never married. She doesn’t like me. Once she said That Child must have a backboard, and Maddy said that’s the last thing she needs, and Great-Aunt May was vexed. Sinclair was too.
Clemency is my FAVOURITE person (apart from Maddy!!!). She is forty-three but still pretty, although she dyed her hair grey when her baby died. She expected her hair to turn grey on its own because she was so grief-stricken, and when it didn’t, she dyed it. It is a great shame that she has no other children, for she would have been an extremely good mother.
Clemency is the widow of Uncle Jocelyn’s only son, Ainsley. He did something bad, like Cameron Lawe, and no-one mentions him either. Clemency told me she can hardly remember Ainsley, and that she only married him because her brother, Cornelius Traherne, told her to. Clemency always does what she is told. I think that irritates Maddy.
Clemency is frequently unwell, and a great expert on medicines. Her favourites are tincture of henbane, and Dr Hay’s Ginger Lozenges for Purifying the Blood. She always wears white in mourning for the baby, and when she laughs she doesn’t make a sound. She is scared of everyone (except me), and Sinclair says she is an hysteric. But I do not think that can be right. Clemency isn’t mad. She has just spent too much time in the dark.
She sleeps with a cat on her bed and basins of water on the floor to guard against centipedes. Once the cat fell in a basin and I heard it sneeze. Clemency takes henbane to make her sleep, and when she forgets, she hears her baby crying in Hell, and walks in the garden. Sometimes she goes all the way to the hothouse, and Grace fetches her back and tucks her in.
Clemency is planning a Journey, which is extremely secret. Sh
e has only told me, which is why I must hide this Journal!! I asked where she will go on the Journey, and she said, Why, dear, to Hell, to be with my baby. I asked why the baby is in Hell, and she said that when he was born he had to be baptized quickly, for he would soon die. Clemency wanted to send for the Reverend Fitch who is closest, but Great-Aunt May said no, he is practically a Baptist, it must be the Reverend Grant. But the Reverend Grant arrived too late, so the baby died and went to Hell. Clemency blames herself. The only reason she hasn’t gone on her Journey yet is that she doesn’t want to inconvenience Uncle Jocelyn.
She spends her days preparing for the Journey. Occasionally when there is no-one about she has a dress rehearsal, but mostly she just prepares by cutting out items from the Gleaner about sunhats and sleeping-powders, and so on. She lets me paste these into her extract book, and never minds if I put them in crooked by mistake.
Yesterday I asked her about dead people, and she showed me the funeral photograph of her baby. Uncle Jocelyn arranged for Mrs Herapath to take it on the day the baby died, and Clemency is eternally grateful to him for that, as she was too distracted to think of it herself.
So now I know what dead people look like.
Twenty-fifth of March
Black people are healthier than white people, and have more fun. They wear more comfortable clothes, go about in the sun, sing a lot, and swim in the river – so clearly they are not afraid of alligators. They do all the work and have no money, except for a few who are teachers, vicars, policemen and banana farmers.
Black ladies do not need husbands in order to have babies. For example, Grace who does the laundry has never had a husband. Sinclair says she is an ‘abhorrence’, but Great-Aunt May keeps her on because the other helpers are scared of her, which makes them easier to manage. Grace has never told anyone who is the father of Evie and Victory. They don’t even know themselves.
The Daughters of Eden Trilogy Page 15
