HF - 03 - Mistress of Darkness

by Christopher Nicole

  He had already made her stand beneath the hose with the blacks; the drying salt clung to her flesh with constant irritation. Now she abandoned her shift altogether, wore only her petticoat and gown, and felt positively uncomfortable to be restrained by clothes after so many months. And what else did she feel? Why, nothing at all. It was merely a matter of waiting; she had not expected Runner to be persuaded to carry her on to Jamaica. So, there was James Hodge to be anticipated. She remembered him only vaguely, could recall neither his features nor his voice. But he was undoubtedly a man, who would wish exactly the things Runner and Penny had wished. And she knew by now how to accommodate such men; she merely needed to lie on her back with her legs apart. Then he would not hurt her, and then she could prepare her escape. Jamaica might be a long and dangerous two days distant, but Antigua remained hull down on the eastern horizon, and St. Kitts was scarce five miles away.

  Survival; there was the key. She even combed her hair with her fingers; it remained soaked and stiff from its wash. And regretted the absence of her bonnet. It must have fallen off during that terrible journey from London to Bristol, and she had thought nothing of it, until now.

  Runner appeared in the companionway. 'We're in luck,' he said. 'Penny's back, with news that Hodge is in town. And most other planters too. They must have come running when they heard we was dropping anchor. I'll get rid of you now, and advertise my wares a little.'

  Gislane gave him a curtsey; she was almost light-hearted at the prospect of leaving this hellship. 'And will I please my new master, Mr. Runner?'

  The captain winked at her. 'Oh, aye, you'll do that all right, me darling. Come on, now.'

  She went on deck. Still the blacks waited, a huge mass in the waist of the ship. And still Dinshad stared at her. She wanted to wave, but dared not. She would doubtless not see him again. And they had touched each other but once, her head against his chest. Yet they had communicated more than their names. They had allowed their thoughts to mingle, and if she sought freedom, no less did he. But he was too clearly a slave, and freedom for Dinshad must lie at the end of a rope. There was a disheartening thought.

  And for Gislane Nicholson? Or should she now once again call herself Gislane Hodge?

  She went down the rope ladder, swaying against the side of the ship, Runner close above her. She sat in the transom of the boat as it pulled for the shore, gazed at the island where she had been born. Nevis was unforgettable, hardly more than a huge mountain rising steeply from the sea for a height of nearly four thousand feet. Charleston huddled at the foot of this immense extinct volcano, in the shelter of the only bay the island boasted, and the plantations, limited to occasional valleys in the steep mountainside, had never the opportunity to grow to the size of those in St. Kitts and Antigua, much less compare with Jamaica or the vast French holdings in St. Domingue, the half of the island of Hispaniola the buccaneers had appropriated from Spain.

  And the smallness of the place made any occasion one of universal importance. As Runner had truly said, the prospect of dropping anchor in the bay had brought almost every planter on the island hurrying into town; the narrow-dock was a mass of poorly dressed white men, accompanied by their servants, hardly dressed at all, behind which equally starved looking mules waited in front of the store wagons. Paint peeled from the walls of the buildings; roofs revealed gaping holes to the sky; great potholes dotted the road, and the dock itself seemed about to rot away into the quiet green water.

  Runner helped her up the creaking wooden steps. 'Stand back there,' he shouted. 'Stand back. She is for Hodge.'

  The men ignored him, clustered close to stare at her. 'A mustee you say,' someone remarked. 'By Christ, what a splendid filly.'

  She glanced at him, and did not even blush. So the news of her arrival had reached them all. As if she cared for the opinions, lewd or flattering, of any planter. She tossed her head at them, and would have followed Runner to the shore, had he not also stopped.

  'Aye,' another man was saying. 'Now there's a windfall, Jamie, lad. You'll not sleep tonight, I'll wager.'

  There was a burst of laughter, and Gislane felt her lungs constricting. For Runner was stepping aside, and allowing Hodge to approach. And suddenly her courage evaporated, and for all the heat she felt a shiver trickle down her spine.

  James Hodge was only a few years her elder, and no taller; a short, slender man, with narrow shoulders and a thin but surprisingly handsome face; his features were as regular as her own and he sported a little black moustache, clinging to his upper lip and drifting down each side of his mouth in a very French fashion. His clothes were threadbare, like those of his fellows, and as soiled; he wore no coat, and there were sweat stains at his armpits, but his boots, if cracked, were polished. He had, as she noticed immediately, singularly long and slender fingers, and as he now removed his hat, perhaps to greet her, but if so very rapidly converted into a fan for his cheeks, she could observe that his hair was cut short. His eyes were the coldest she had ever seen, colder even than those of Robert Hilton after he had kissed her hand, and they drifted up and down her like an icy wind, so that she felt naked.

  'Gad,' he muttered.' 'Tis her, right enough. Gislane, Gad. Where did you find her, Runner?'

  'London, she was, Mr. Hodge,' Runner said. 'Playing the lady.'

  Gislane attempted to meet his stare, which had finally settled on her face, and cursed herself at the heat which filled her cheeks.

  'Gad,' Hodge said again, and glanced from left to right at his grinning companions. 'I've a wagon waiting.'

  'What of her account, Mr. Hodge?' Runner asked. 'I was told you'd pay well for this one, and she was that expensive to feed.'

  'Account?' Hodge asked. 'And here was I supposing you were but being an honest man. I'll let you have a bill on my agent. Follow me, Gislane.'

  He turned and shouldered his way through the crowd. Gislane hesitated, looked at Runner, who shrugged. She walked behind her cousin.

  'Now come, gentlemen,' Runner said. 'Surely you can afford some new slaves? If you do not, how will you harvest your next crop?'

  'We cannot feed ourselves,' a man said.

  'Aye,' said another. 'You'd best hurry to Jamaica, Runner.'

  The voices faded. Gislane found herself on the beaten dust of the road, and paused in surprise; it was the first time she had stood on anything other than wood in her bare feet since she had been a child. Now her toes itched and yet felt wonderfully free.

  Hodge looked over his shoulder. 'You'll make haste,' he said. 'There is the wagon.'

  It was open, drawn by two mules, and contained a woman. Gislane hurried forward behind her cousin and checked again. Mrs. Hodge, for the hostility which gloomed from the brown eyes implied she could be none other, was even thinner than her husband, her features pinched at once with privation and ill-temper, her body a bag of bones doing no more than support the muslin gown which drooped from her shoulders, her hair wisping rat-tails beneath an old-fashioned and decrepit bonnet. But she wore shoes.

  And she is to be my mistress, Gislane reminded herself, and did a half curtsey.

  'They were not lying,' Hodge cried. ' 'Tis Gislane, after all.'

  'You mean you did not know I was coming, Mr. Hodge?' Gislane asked in surprise.

  'Not I, girl. Not I. I was like to have died with surprise when that lout of a mate appeared with his information. Get in, girl, get in. We've a distance to travel.'

  Gislane lifted her skirt, placed her left hand on the side of the wagon to pull herself up, and withdrew it as a riding-crop slammed the wood immediately beside her fingers. She stared at the woman in horror, suddenly aware that a large part of the crowd had followed her from the dock, and were watching, whistling and making obscene comments.

  'Janet?' Hodge asked in surprise.

  Janet Hodge's cheeks were flushed. 'What is she then, Jamie? Your cousin or your slave?' 'Why, I... no doubt she is both.'

  'No, no, Jamie. The decision is entirely yours. I will but say this;
if she is your cousin she shall ride up here beside me, and I will treat her as a member of the family, and you'll not touch her. Understand me that. Not even a finger on her arm. If she is a slave, you'll use her as you use any other female when the mood takes you, and I'll not even murmur. But if she is a slave then will I also use her.'

  Hodge hesitated, and glanced at Gislane. But his wife knew her husband too well. The returning confidence began to drain from Gislane's mind, from her shoulders in rolling sweat, from her very belly.

  'Well, of course, she is a slave,' Hodge said.

  ‘You're positive of that, Jamie?' Janet Hodge asked, her voice soft.

  'Oh, aye, positive. 'Tis just chance she is also my cousin.'

  'Then is she also an absconder,' Janet Hodge shouted. 'And shall be punished for it.' Her whole body heaved as she moved, rising to her feet in the wagon, and Gislane realized that the riding-crop had been held in her left hand; her right hand held the cart-whip, which was now flailing through the air. She was too concerned to escape the full force of the lash to scream. She dropped to her hands and knees beside the wagon, and the thong curled around the top of the wheel, and just flicked her flesh at the shoulder, tearing through gown and petticoat. Never in her life had she felt such pain, it drove all the breath from her body, all the ability to think from her mind, all the humanity from her heart. She was aware only of lying in the dust, grovelling in her attempt to escape the lash, of screaming and choking in the same instant, of a further succession of shocks racing through her system, of a hubbub of confused noise, of stamping feet and chattering conversation.

  A boot kicked her in the thigh, and a hand pulled at her arm. She wanted to scream again, for the touch sent more pain coursing through her body, but she could only moan. Yet she was urgently aware of the necessity to comply, or she would be whipped again. She reached her knees, face rubbing against the grease of the axle, dragged herself upright. She could still hear the noise, but she could distinguish no words; her entire brain was a hubbub of tremendous sound. She looked to left and right, saw amused faces and watched their mouths move in jeering comment. Yet they had no existence to her. She was alone, with her agony, her horror, and the arm which was urging her on; at that instant she did not even feel shame.

  The tail-gate was down, and she crawled on to the uneven wooden boards. The gate banged up, and she hugged her knees against her body. She could feel the sun scorching her back and shoulders, which suggested her clothes had been torn, yet she shivered with cold as the cart started to bounce and rattle its way over the uneven road. And slowly the shock began to wear away, and the pain became more intense. She seemed to have deep ravines of it, crisscrossing her back, stretching down to her thighs. She dared not attempt to look at herself, to touch where it hurt; she was too afraid of what she might find. Tears rolled out of her eyes unceasingly, and her hair kept blowing into her mouth. She found herself staring out of the back of the cart, at the road, which climbed slowly between steep embankments, which themselves disappeared into the hills on either side. She heard voices, and would not move, to look at them. To look at her.

  Afterwards she could never quite remember how long the journey took. Presumably it was some considerable time, for she had landed from the Antelope - how sweet the Antelope, in retrospect - just before noon, and the sun was drooping fast towards the western horizon when at last the wagon ground to a halt. By then the pain had settled into an all embracing misery, which stretched from the nape of her neck to the backs of her knees, and her mind, too, had settled into an all embracing dullness, which she was terrified would end. If she would live, then she must live like this, at least until the pain ended, or she would go mad.

  But she was not to be fortunate. The tail-gate was dropping, and Hodge stood there, with two Negro drivers, and a white overseer, peering at her and grinning.

  'Come on, girl. You've rested long enough,' Hodge declared.

  She raised her head. She remembered the house. William Hodge had never been very wealthy: it was all but impossible to be wealthy on Nevis; thus his Great House contained no more than a single storey, and there had been little enough luxury within. Yet had the walls always been painted, as there had been flowerbeds by the front staircase, as the little factory had always been kept in a state of greasy perfection, as the barracoons had been orderly and the slaves dressed in clean cotton. Now she could do no more than recognize the shapes of what had been. Paint peeled on the walls, the flowerbeds had disappeared into mud, and a quick glance to her left showed that the factory was hardly more than a rusting pile of metal. While the Negroes, gathered in a group before the gate to their village - they would just have come in from the field - were as dirty and ill-clad a lot as she could possibly have imagined.

  'Down, girl,' Hodge said again. 'Would you have another taste of the whip?'

  Hastily she climbed down, felt the dust on her toes. Her legs shook, and she remained standing with an effort.

  'By Christ, Mr. Hodge,' said the overseer. 'There's a charmer, to be sure.'

  'She's for the house, Talbot,' said Janet Hodge. Gislane's head started to turn, and then checked. She dared not look at the woman; she was afraid she would spit, and she was even more afraid she would again burst into tears. 'You'll see to her, Eunice,' Janet Hodge continued. 'You'll season her. Understood? 'Tis undoubted she has ideas above her station.'

  ‘Yes'm. You coming, child?'

  The Negress was tall and big-boned; she wore a white gown and had a turban on her head. Her face was hard, although her broad smile was not unfriendly. But now the smile was fading as she looked past her master and Talbot the overseer at the drive leading to the gate; a pony and trap were coming towards them, at speed. 'Eh-eh,' she remarked. 'But is Dr. Nisbet.'

  Gislane insensibly attempted to gather her torn gown in front of her; where it scarce mattered how much of her was revealed to these people, she knew this was a gentleman. And a lady, for there was a slender, dark young woman sitting beside the doctor. He was also thin, like most of the people she had encountered on Nevis; but his was the thinness of ill-health, and his face wore an unhealthy flush below its tan. 'Hodge,' he cried. 'Is it true, then?'

  'Aye, Dr. Nisbet,' Hodge agreed. 'There she stands. The prodigal returns.'

  The trap came to a halt, the doctor stepped down. His wife remained seated, but her brows drew together in concern as she gazed at Gislane. 'She's not been whipped?'

  'She's a returned absconder, Fanny,' Janet Hodge said.

  'I'll thank you to address me properly, mistress,' Mrs. Nisbet demanded.

  'Oh, aye, you're a great lady,' Janet remarked. 'I whipped her myself.'

  'My God.' Dr. Nisbet stood in front of Gislane, stretched out a hand. Instinctively she shrank from his fingers, and he checked. 'She's a white woman, Hodge. All but.'

  'All but,' Hodge agreed.

  'My God,' the doctor said again. 'There'll be a complaint laid about this, Hodge. 'Tis no way to treat a lady.'

  'A lady?' Janet Hodge burst out laughing. 'She's for Jamie's bed. And my floor. There's no lady.'

  'Madam, you nauseate me,' Nisbet declared. 'I'd best see to those cuts, Hodge.'

  'She's not for the likes of you, doctor,' Hodge growled. 'She's a slave, and there's an end to it. The cuts'll heal. Now be off my property.'

  'You can't just leave her, John,' Fanny Nisbet whispered.

  The doctor's face was a picture of irresolution. 'There'll be a complaint laid,' he said again.

  'Aye,' Janet Hodge said. 'You go and complain until you're black in the face, Nisbet. She belongs to Hodges and there's an end to it.'

  The doctor hesitated for a moment longer, then got back into his trap. He flicked the whip and the horses turned and trotted down the drive.

  'Interfering bastard,' Janet Hodge said. 'As for that Fanny, I'd like to have her at the end of my whip, I would. Will you be standing there the day, Jamie. So she's nice to look at. She'll look better when she's had a wash. See to it, Eunice
.'

  'Is here you going sleep.' Eunice pointed to the pile of straw in the corner of the stone-floored room. 'You see she, Wilma?'

  Gislane blinked in the sudden gloom, and found that she was shivering again. But perhaps now she was actually chilled. Water still ran down her shoulders and legs from her sudden immersion under the pump, and her cuts were stinging all over again. But the chill was also caused by fear. Even on board the Antelope she had always been segregated from the blacks, a thing apart, a thing superior. Now she was in a small chamber off the cellar, below the ground level of the house itself, and lit by a single smoky lantern, and she was naked, and she was surrounded by black women. And not only women. There were men here as well, the house servants, staring at her, more in bewilderment than hostility at the moment.

  'But is true she black like we?' the woman Wilma asked.