by Smith, Skye
Once they were both in the ladies' retirement room, Lydia Caldwell shut the door and stepped quickly to the mirror. She loved to look at her complexion and the effect that the colored silk had on it. She raised her arms to brush her hair with her fingers and smiled gleefully at the visual effect of the jiggle of her breasts, and then thought of the effect it would have on men.
"Try a dab of that perfume. Just a drop, and don't get it on the serge as it will stain. Here, let me." She put some on her fingers and then pressed her damp fingers behind each of Britta's ears and then tugged the serge neck downward and pressed her damp fingers gently on the cleft between her breasts.
They were the same height, though Britta was slimmer. Lydia was now twenty-three and Britta just seventeen. Lydia met her eyes and said, "I have many nice clothes that will never fit me again. Not since the baby. If you live with me you will have a complete wardrobe to choose from. Some are of silk, like this one."
"How could any woman resist such a fabric? I have never touched silk before other than cheap scarves in the market. I would love to wear some, someday," Britta whispered.
"Did it bother you that my husband was undressing you with his eyes?"
"Was he, I didn't notice." Britta lied. When Lydia scoffed at her answer, she added, "I have never been embarrassed by nudity or by my body, so even if he was it would not bother me. Looking is free. It is what most men do best. Besides, from what I noticed, all of the men were undressing you."
"I did pop their eyes out, didn't I," Lydia giggled.
"Oh, so it was their eyes that were popping out then? Eyes below their belts, how unusual." Britta gave her a naughty look and the both started to laugh.
"Thank you," said Britta softly, "I am so glad you pulled me away from that room so that I can think. I had no idea that I was up for sale. No one has yet mentioned my brother, and yet part of our agreement with James was that we would never be parted. Without him, I am alone in this world. Oh, that scent is divine. I have never used perfume before. In my village we used to rub flower petals on our skin."
"This scent is from the lily of the valley. I make it myself. As a child I used to sell perfumes in the market in Boston. That was before the war ended, and before all the easy money dried up. You are new here, so you cannot imagine how good the life was, when the Empire's wealth was running fast and loose though these provinces."
Britta's voice turned serious. "If you bought my bond, what would that mean for me?"
"I need an upstairs maid and someone to care for my baby."
"But you have a large farm with many women slaves," Britta pointed out.
"My husband does not allow Blacks above the ground floor. Perhaps I should explain, at least the quick version. I was his first wife's bond servant. Her upstairs maid. How I came to be under bond I'll explain some other time. She was much older, almost as old as Robert, and had a late pregnancy. Her daughter was already married and living in Boston at the time. It was a hard pregnancy and she spent most of it in bed. Well, what can I say. Robert is typical of slave masters."
"He had sex with his slaves while his wife was indisposed?" Britta guessed wrong on purpose.
"He had sex with me. By the time his wife was due, I was pregnant. Then the poor woman died in child birth."
"And he asked you to marry him. That was very honest of him," Britta said.
"Actually I arranged to have a freeman neighbor witness him fu... ah, take me, so that I could claim that the child was his. The women at the village church pressured him to be honest. We were married five days before my due date."
"But what if the wife had not died?" asked Britta.
"I can't rightly say because so much would have depended on my relationship with her. The law in this valley states that if a bond servant is made pregnant by the bond master, then as punishment for her sins, she must stay in bond service for an additional two years to a local church."
"Really, no that cannot be so," said Britta in amazement, "that is so unfair."
"Think about it. It protects the masters from paternity suits. It is the masters that write the laws and the masters that judge the cases," Lydia looked at Britta and sighed. "I was never as pretty as you even before I had a child."
"Then why do you want to buy my bond. Surely you must assume that your husband will do to me what he did to you, and take my virginity."
"You are still a virgin? Can I believe you?" Lydia said in wonder. Britta shrugged and blushed, and she knew it was true. "Then the question is the other way around. Will you mind losing your virginity to my husband?"
"Yes, I would mind. I wish to keep it for my future husband, whoever he may be. What are my chances of marrying a wealthy and kind man if I cannot offer that to him?"
"Wealthy unmarried men are few in this valley, for they tend to be trapped quickly into a marriage. Well, you heard my story. His poor wife was still fresh in her grave." Lydia was thoughtful. "Kind, I don't think I have ever met a kind man. Even the neighbor who witnessed on my behalf was not kind. I had to repay him, in kind. Wealthy and kind. Well, that is the stuff of dreams."
"A dream, yes," Britta said slowly, thinking, weighing her options. A wench in a rough tavern with an owner in financial trouble, in a town that was dangerous for Jon; or a ladies maid for a slaver who may use some trick to turn her into a chattel slave, but where she could live in a fine house and wear silk.
Was Jon's safety worth her virginity, for the slaver was bound to bed her at his first opportunity? "So, Lydia, what about my brother. What will happen to him?"
"I will make him part of the deal. Robert's health is not good, and managing his interests means he works long hours. With Jon here he will have more time to relax, more time for his family. Don't worry about your brother. He will do well."
"If you can promise that, then you may buy our bonds." Britta said softly. As soon as she said it, she felt the relief of having made a decision and she beamed at Lydia.
"Despite the likeliness of, well, you know?"
"It was only a matter of time at the tavern. At least here I need hold only one man at bay."
Lydia grabbed both her hands and squeezed them, "Oh good! You don't know how lost I have been in this big house. Look at me today. Before you arrived I was so frantic for attention that I dressed like a hussy for Red's visit."
"Your husband doesn't mind when you tease other men?" asked Britta.
"Oh, it makes him furious. He is so possessive of what is his. Well, not so much with Red because they are forming a partnership. The man is a widower, and so lonely, and he has been my husband's closest neighbor for over ten years now. I wasn't expecting anyone else. Oh, it was so naughty of me to tease James and Jon, strangers. I only did it because of the way that Robert was eyeing you. It was tit for tat. Your brother was staring at my bosom, and my husband was staring at yours."
"You say that Red Jennison is lonely?" Britta asked in a slow voice.
"No, oh no, do not even think it. He is wealthy yes, but he is as distant from being kind as any man can be. He gains his wealth by being ruthless, almost evilly so. My husband is a slave master, but Jennison is something far worse. He is a moneylender. Keep looking for your kind man and stay far, far away from Red Jennison."
* * * * *
The men had switched to drinking rum. Finest quality sipping rum. They all rose when the women entered. Lydia and Britta sat together and gained courage from each others touch.
Lydia took a deep breath and spoke first. "Well, James, my offer stands. Your cost plus ten pounds for both Britta's and Jon's bonds." She smiled and looked around at each of the men to see which one would mention that the offer had been changed to include the lad. No one seemed to have noticed.
Robert smiled at his wife. "Lydia, that is a lot of money for two teens for two years." As soon as the words left his lips he realized that for a woman as desirable as Britta, the price was cheap. He could use her for two years and then sell her into a brothel for at least double that
. He decided to say no more in case he soured the bargaining.
Red looked like he was going to speak, but Lydia shook her head at him so he swallowed his words. Had he been about to make a better offer. Probably. He knew better than any of them what prices were being paid for comely young women up and down this coast.
"Britta, will you hate me if I sell your bonds?" asked James.
"No, James," Britta replied in a forgiving voice, "I think it for the best, for both you and Jon."
"Agreed then, Lydia," James whispered, "the bonds are yours." He suddenly felt crushed with guilt. The Caldwells were slavers and he truly feared for the future of his two wards once they were in their hands.
Lydia stood and reached forward to shake James'. There was a mad scramble as all the men stood out of politeness to the hostess, and then James looked at her offered hand, and looked into her eyes searching for any sign of trickery. He sighed and shook on the deal.
Britta was now standing too, and Lydia took her by the hand to lead her from the room. She put her hand on her husband's shoulder and said, "Robert, please make it so. James and Red, I must beg your leave for I have much to show Britta before nightfall. Jon, stay with Robert. He will give you a tour of the grounds."
Jon simply nodded. He was again lost in an opium daze caused by taking more of his pain medicine.
"Come Britta, let us go upstairs and put on clothes more suitable to bathing and feeding a baby."
When they were gone, Robert held up his rum, and he was joined by the other men. Instead of toasting the women he told them, "I trust you all not to mention my wife's, er, choice of clothes. She fears that she has lost her appeal due to the baby. Her immodesty this afternoon was simply in reaction to that fear. We have all benefited, but I ask that none of you encourage her to stray so far from the ways of this old-fashioned Puritan valley."
* * * * *
Britta looked at the skirt that Lydia had just handed her, and then quickly put it on and twirled in the mirror so that she could see how it swirled around her legs. All her life she had dreamed of wearing clothes so fine. When Lydia had said that they must change in order to care for the baby, she was thinking of aprons or dusters, not a skirt of such fine fabric.
Lydia watched her twirl and smiled warmly. "I was going to have it altered to fit me again, but now I think not. It is yours. Here, put this apron on to protect it from Robby. He sometimes pees straight up when you wake him." Robby was her darling. Her eleven-month-old cherub. Almost old enough to be allowed to walk.
Once Robby was changed, and hugged, and dressed, and in Britta's arms, Lydia produced a key from the pocket of her own apron. "This is your key. Put the ribbon around your neck. You must never let it out of your sight, and you must never, ever loan it to Robert."
"What is it a key to?"
"The spice cupboard down the hall," replied Lydia. "Put Robby in his crib and I will show you." She led Britta out of the nursery, through the bedroom and into the hallway. "The ground floor is open to everyone on the farm, but upstairs is our family space. We moved everything of value upstairs, including the library and the spice cupboard. Here it is."
Lydia used her own key to open the solid door and led her into a small room filled with shelves and drawers. The room smelled of spices and herbs. Britta followed her inside and her eyes roved over the shelves while Lydia pulled a heavy curtain away from the long thin windows so that daylight could stream in.
"I call it the spice cupboard, but really it is for anything that we must keep locked up." She pointed to racks of bottles. "Rum for instance. And over there, the spices, and here medicine. Hmmm, this will take some explaining." She motioned Britta forward to look into a small sealed jar. She opened it and took out a small ball of something black.
"Robert served as an officer in the war. He was badly injured. The army surgeons kept him alive by keeping him quiet using a syrup containing this. Opium. Like a great many of the wounded from that war, he became addicted to the syrup. He has continued to use it for many years though his wounds long ago were healed. We are trying to wean him from the syrup, but it is difficult after so many years.
Ordinary soldiers do not have the money to buy the syrup once the army no longer supplies it. Money was not a problem for Robert, so he bought his own. This is what opium looks like when it arrives here from India. They heat it with alcohol and sugar to form the syrup." She handed the small black ball to Britta to look at.
Britta squeezed it. It was sticky and some of it stuck to her finger. She touched her finger to her tongue. It was bitter. "This is the sap of the poppy pod. I know it. In England my mother was a midwife. She grew the poppies for the sap and the seeds. My brother is using opium syrup right now, to mute the pain of his face."
"Jon should stop using it now, before he becomes addicted. These other jars contain herbal teas that I use to calm Robert when he is fighting his cravings. This one works best, coca." She showed Britta some dried leaves that looked like bay laurel.
"It saved his life. The opium put a second soul inside him, a demon. The two souls would fight for control. He would go from nice to nasty. From soft to hard. From confident to fearful. He thought that the opium was curing him, but it was the lack of opium that was making him ill in the mind. It was sometimes quite frightening. The coca tea calmed him, let him be longer without the opium, and kept the demons at bay."
Britta took one of the leaves and crushed it and smelled it, "I have not seen these before." She chewed a tiny piece, and spat it out. "Bitter, either medicine or poison."
"They are from Peru in New Spain, so you will not have seen them in England. It is called Peruvian Tea or matea. The Red Indians of Peru use them in times of hunger to calm their stomachs. You must boil ten of these leaves with two cups of water. It is very bitter, so it needs a lot of sugar when served." She pointed to large waxed boxes running along the floor.
Britta opened the lid of the closest sugar box. "Sugar, I have never seen so much sugar." She picked up a small brown chip off one of the cone shaped lumps and let it dissolve in her mouth. "Mmmm, I love sugar."
"Everyone does. That is why we keep it upstairs and locked away. When the cooks need some in the kitchen, you will have to fetch it for them. They are not allowed upstairs." Lydia put the coca tea leaves back in the jar and closed it. "It not only saved him from the opium, it saved his sanity."
She showed Britta a row of large tins. "These are the other teas. Mint, Green and Black Chinese, and Indian. In that sack over there are coffee beans."
"I know all of these. I used to serve them in the tavern to, well, you know, to ladies and older men waiting for the coach. The green Chinese is served with honey. The black. Did you know it is just the green but fermented before it is dried? The black is served with milk and sugar. The Indian is not from here, but from India. It is the fresh small leaves of the hemp plant called bhang. It is served with honey or sugar. A lot of honey or sugar because it does not have a pleasant taste."
Lydia lifted the jar to see how much they had left. "Robert used to drink it to curb his need for the syrup, but sometimes it made the demon worse. We buy them all in Boston. The same shop that sells us the Peruvian tea also sells a bark that cures fevers. It is very expensive. Everything in that shop is very expensive because it is all smuggled here from New Spain."
"You mean elm bark. My mother used to use that too."
"Not elm. This is another bark from Peru. It is only for fevers that risk a life, not for fevers that risk a headache. We keep it with the medicines. Use just a small amount. It costs so much."
She pointed Britta to a jar filled with what looked like giant beans. "Those are from the same shop in Boston. Now close your eyes and open your mouth. Please. Trust me." She took one of the oversized beans and peeled the skin off, and then put it against Britta's lips and said, "Take a small bite, and then mush it in your mouth."
Britta took the tiniest of bites and mushed it, and then regretted not taking a larger bite. "M
mm, oh my, oh my, mmm." She opened her eyes and savored the buttery texture and the wonderful taste.
"That is a cocoa bean. If you grind it together with powdered Guinea spice and then mix it with warm milk and sugar, it makes a thick sweet peppery drink called chocolate," Lydia gave Britta another bite, and then popped some into her own mouth. "Isn't it heavenly? You have to stop yourself at one bite, else you never stop."
Lydia picked up some smaller jars. "Ahh, these you will not have seen before." She showed Britta another small black ball.
Britta looked at the new ball. It was black like the opium, but when she scratched it with her fingernail, the mark was actually green. "What is it?"
"It is from the same hemp plant from India as the Indian tea. It is the resin from the leaves that are too tough and old to make tea from. It is called charas. Robert used to smoke the opium, but now when he needs a strong smoke he uses charas. Too much of it can bring out his demon, so I am sparing with it."
"Then," Britta handed it back and pointed to Lydia's key, "then that is why I should not let Robert have the key. Because you don't want him having these drugs without you knowing."
"Exactly," replied Lydia, "Here is another part of the Indian tea plant. This is the flower of the plant. When Robert first tried to stop smoking opium, he would mix it with these buds so as to smoke less opium. Now when he forces me to fill his opium pipe, I use this and almost no opium. Just enough opium so that he can taste it, and no more."
"Will he expect me to fill his pipe for him?"
"Eventually, but not yet. I will show you how when he next asks." She put everything back and closed the jars. "And then there is this." She hand Britta a tiny ball. It was almost yellow. "This is also from India and also from the same Indian tea plant. It is the sex organs of the flowers. They call it kief."
"And when does Robert use it?" asked Britta.
Lydia blushed. "He only uses it when I am having some. When I smoke I cough, so he smokes it in a pipe and then passes the smoke to me within a kiss. You must hold the smoke in as long as you can." She giggled. "We only smoke it in our bedroom. It is very, very expensive. It is the drug of passion. A love potion." She paused in thought, and then pulled a tiny pipe from the kief jar, put a tiny bit into the pipe and then put the pipe in her apron pocket.
