HF - 03 - Mistress of Darkness

by Christopher Nicole

  A fresh cause for hatred. Her eyes had filled with tears. And how long was it since she had known that comfort.

  'Do you not believe me?' he asked.

  'Dare I believe you, Mr. Corbeau?' she asked. 'It makes no sense to me, that you should pay so much to set me free.'

  'Ah,' he said. 'There are, of course, many forms of freedom. There is mine, for example, mademoiselle. I think of something I wish, and I snap my fingers, and voila, I own it. I think of somewhere I wish to go, and I snap my fingers, and voila, I am on my way. I am freer than the strongest eagle in the sky, because my range is unlimited.'

  'You are fortunate, sir.'

  'Oh, indeed. Below me, of course, there are infinite reaches of freedom. The freedom of the army commander, who has power of life or death over his men, but yet must answer with his reputation, perhaps his own life, for his successes or failure. The freedom of the overseer, who dominates the slave beneath him, but yet walks in fear of his employer. The freedom of the whore, who bows to no man, but must lie before them all. Or the freedom of freedom, which as often as not leads to starvation in a gutter.'

  Gislane stared at him, her colour fading, her brows slowly drawing together as she began to understand.

  'So, you see, my dear, you must choose, which of those freedoms is to be yours. I make a virtue of necessity, perhaps. I wish to possess you, the woman. I wish that very badly. To do that, I gave away a large sum of money. Not large to me, but none the less large. Perhaps then I was not sure, but now I am. There would be scant pleasure in commanding you to lie down before me, and thrusting my member into you, and knowing that you merely waited for my weight to be removed. There would be some pleasure, but not enough, in applying the bastinado to make sure your body moved. It is your mind I wish to respond to me. And a mind, to respond, must be free. But of course, as I said, when I purchased you, I knew that I was also freeing you from slavery.' He smiled at her. 'I knew I must win you.'

  Slowly Gislane left the bunk, and reached for her robe. She draped it round her shoulders. 'There is only freedom, Mr. Corbeau. Did you suppose that because you for a week treated me as a lady, I would stay with you of my own free will?'

  'Of course I did,' Corbeau said, still smiling. ‘I supposed it not merely because I consider myself to be a charming and attractive man, and a wealthy one, but because I understand you to be a most intelligent young woman. As my housekeeper, you will enjoy every privilege I can grant you.'

  'Save that of being your wife, perhaps,' she said. 'Or do you already have a wife?'

  'I am betrothed, certainly. But the marriage will not take place before next year. And even after it does take place, your position in my household will be unaffected. I give you my word on that. Rio Blanco is amply large enough for two mistresses.'

  'As you say,' she agreed. 'Whatever you wish, you take, and have.'

  'There is common sense,' he agreed. 'Now I can ask you, for the first time, to take off both that robe and that nightgown, and come here. I have waited for this, I sometimes think before I ever saw you, when a woman like you was no more than a dream.'

  'And I am still your slave,' she said. 'Until we touch land. So I must obey.'

  ‘You do not seem to understand,' he said. 'I gave you your freedom the moment I bought you. I merely sought to break news of such importance in its proper place and time.'

  She stared at him. 'And if I refuse to undress for you now, you will not beat me?'

  ‘I shall never beat you, Gislane.'

  'Then, sir,' she said, 'undoubtedly I owe you an enormous debt of gratitude, and believe me, I am grateful. Yet sir, as you appear to be a man of such sensibility, I am sure you can understand that I doubt I can at this moment look at anyone with a white skin without a shudder, deep in my heart. Certainly any planter. And in any event, upon this I am resolved; when next I share my body with any man, it must be for love of him, unless I am forced to it.'

  'And you do not love me,' Corbeau said. 'There is a pity. But do you not suppose you could grow to do so?'

  'You are a planter. Will I not be constantly surrounded by memories of my former life?'

  ‘I should have thought there would be a constant cause for self-congratulation. But no matter. Well, then, I seem to have erred in my judgement. But I am not a man who breaks his word. You shall be set ashore as soon as possible, this morning in fact. There is no point in sailing all the way round the island to Cap Francois when you surely wish only to be rid of me. I'll give my captain orders to set you ashore at the first village we reach.'

  'You would do that?' she asked. 'Then, sir, my gratitude is redoubled.'

  'But your determination is unchanged.' Corbeau stood up. 'Then you had best prepare yourself. You'll undress, if you please, and take the deck.'

  Her head came up. 'Sir?'

  'I give you your freedom, Gislane. The clothes, you may recall are mine. So is this cabin, reserved for my most intimate companions. This you are declining to be.'

  Her mouth slowly dropped open, and then she snapped it shut again. 'And so is this ship.'

  'Ah, but I would not murder you, sweet Gislane. I am a generous man. You may enjoy the deck until we can set you ashore.'

  'Naked.'

  'But of course. You possess nothing save your skin, do you not?'

  'And you think I shall immediately starve?' she demanded, a touch of her old anger surging back to the surface. 'As you say, I have my skin.'

  'Yet will it avail you naught,' he said. 'I am Louis Corbeau. In St. Domingue, I make or break men with a snap of my fingers. Within a week of my gaining Cap Francois there is not a soul, white, brown or black, who will so much as dare to offer you shelter for the night, not a sea captain who will offer you passage, not a beggar who will dare offer you a share in his crumb.'

  She found herself panting. For a moment she had almost believed. 'And that is the freedom you offer me?'

  'Did I not explain that freedom is a matter of choice, my sweet child? You can be as free as air, but then you must make your own way, and the world is full of dangers and difficulties. Or you can be equally free, acknowledging only that you are my mistress, bound to me by ties of love and no other.'

  Gislane licked her lips. 'And suppose I promise you that I -could never love you, that I should always hate you?'

  Corbeau continued to smile. 'My father told me, long ago, that it is futile for any man to attempt to understand the workings of a woman's mind. If you stay, Gislane, it will be because you wish to, and that surely can only be because, whether you are aware of it or not, you love me. I will insist at the least that if you stay, you reveal your love for me every day and all day, whether or not you are in my company. In return, I shall accord you every honour I may. Short of marriage. But that is an accident of your birth, is it not?'

  'Or I can starve.' She hesitated, and then threw back her head and laughed. And was rewarded with an expression of surprise on his face. But then, she remembered, she had not heard herself laugh for a long time, either, and never in that tone. It was a laugh compounded at once of despair and hatred and frustration. But of determination, too. For she would still survive, and Damballah would still be waiting for her, but in even newer and perhaps more positive guise; certainly the poor half-starved fellow who had acted the hougan in Essequibo had scarce measured up even to old Charlie.

  And Louis Corbeau was probably the most attractive man she had ever encountered, superior even to Matt, as a man is to a boy.

  She released the robe and allowed it to fall to the deck. She raised the nightgown over her head, and threw it also at her feet. She crossed the cabin and stood in front of him, and when he would not move, she put her arms round his head and brought his face against her belly. 'Then shall I love you, Louis, sweet. You do not mind if I call you Louis?'

  'I should wish you to.' His voice was indistinct.

  Gislane looked down on the lank black hair. 'I shall love you, and I shall be your mistress, and I shall act every part you w
ish. And one day, Louis, I will kill you.'

  Perhaps she had expected another reaction. But she merely felt his breath on her flesh as he smiled. 'That will be a pleasure,' he said. 'One day, sweetheart, when I am old and ill, I will ask you to place those magnificent breasts on my face and hold them there, until I expire.'

  At last his hands caught her thighs, and she turned, to sit beside him. 'Must I wait that long, my sweet?'

  He was. after all, no more than a man. His fingers moved upwards, from her hips to her breasts, and he was pleased at the responsive hardening of her nipples. Because he was at the least far more gentle than any man she had ever met. And now he kissed her on the lips. 'They would break you on the wheel,' he whispered. 'For murdering a Corbeau. Have you any conception of what it is like to be broken on a wheel?'

  'They?' she asked.

  'The authorities, of course. The government of St. Domingue.'

  'Ah,' she said, and put her arms around his body to hold him close, and smile at the bulkhead beyond. Nothing had changed, except perhaps her comfort. It was still necessary to wait, for Damballah Oueddo to come to her. But then, it was only necessary, to wait that long.

  And perhaps she had never known comfort. Certainly, she reflected, as she once again lay in bed beneath cambric sheets, and listened to the house awakening around her, and watched the shafts of brilliant sunlight playing along the verandah outside her bedchamber, had she not experienced this she would not have believed it to exist. Her first month on Rio Blanco was spent in a continual daze. She felt she needed signposts to tell here where to go and what to do, minute by minute, hour by hour. The house itself was quite unlike any she had ever known, and totally different to any English Great House, where however splendid the comforts within, the accent was always on possible defence. In St. Domingue this did not seem to be considered necessary, although Rio Blanco itself was situated on the coast, and indeed took its name from the pale-watered river which tumbled through the very heart of the plantation before losing itself in the white-sanded beach which fringed the shore; the house rambled, from a vast central hall, into wings and towers and conservatories; it was a ten-minute walk along oak-panelled corridors to reach the library from the main doorway. But then it took half an hour to walk round the library even if one never chose to stop and examine the title of a book.

  As for her suite, it involved a carefully planned expedition, up a broad flight of grand stairs, lined with paintings of the Corbeaux, along a corridor wide enough for a regiment to march in column, down a short flight of steps and into another, somewhat narrower corridor, a right turn down yet another passage, a climb up another flight of stairs, another horizontal march, and then yet another descent. Then she passed through a pair of double doors in white wood decorated with the ice-pink motif which was as much the mark of the Corbeaux as the hawk's beak, and after traversing a lobby, in white and pink, entered her withdrawing-room, also in white and pink, and containing, amongst other magnificent pieces of furniture, a white and pink harpsichord. She had been almost afraid to touch it, so long was it since her fingers had been permitted such a luxury. But it was hers, as the three bedrooms of this apartment were hers, as the multitude of gowns which hung in the closet was hers, as the single gold chain with the golden hawk's head which was the only jewellery he had given her, was hers. Her only duty was to leave her doors always unlocked, and to be always smiling, and always passionate. And even this was no more than a routine, for Louis himself followed a careful routine. He rose at dawn, and went downstairs for his cup of coffee laced with rum, before going aback on his mule for his parade through the endless dams which separated the canefields. He returned to the house at ten, and sat down to breakfast, at which she was present. At this meal they were attended, like a king and his consort, by every one of the eighteen overseers, the three chemists, the nine bookkeepers, and the five engineers who formed the plantation's staff, and now it was that Louis dispensed his orders for the day. For this was no ordinary breakfast, but a seven-course meal which lasted for upwards of two hours and was accompanied by a variety of punches and wines.

  Breakfast completed, usually by half past twelve, Louis retired to bed, in his own apartment, to which she had never been admitted. He rose again at three, and took his bath. By this time the midday heat was leaving the sun, and he once again visited the fields, and on this occasion she was usually invited to accompany him, riding side-saddle on the magnificent mare he had given to her on her first day here. This inspection was completed by five of the clock, because as the sun drooped towards the mountains which hid the western horizon, then the insects came buzzing from the ditches and water-courses to make themselves as intolerable as possible to the insolent humans who would share their world. Then it was time to retire behind the gauze netting which shrouded the parlour, itself a room as large as the entire Great House on Hodges, where there was a piano rather than a harpsichord, and where she either sang to him, or read to him, or played at cards with him, according to his mood. Supper was served at seven, and they were invariably abed by nine, nor was he inclined to remain awake after eleven. And as he was always gone when she awoke in the morning, it really meant that she was totally free from eleven of every night until ten of the following morning. For if she was euphemistically described as Monsieur Corbeau's housekeeper, there was never the slightest suggestion that she take any part in the management of the vast business which was Rio Blanco Great House. Truth to tell Francois-Pierre the majordomo would have been scandalized at the idea, even had she possessed the slightest idea of how to go about it.

  So then, she thought, as she stretched and massaged her body up and down the sheets, and inhaled the musk of her perfume, only a total fool would have the slightest doubt about enjoying the life to which she had been so strangely translated. A fool, or one totally cursed. But then, she was totally cursed. Or was she not blessed, by having known the wonders of the Serpent?

  To submit to Louis, to force herself to respond to him with the passion he desired, to moan with ecstasy and even on occasion to feel a suggestion of that ecstasy, for he was an accomplished lover, there was no hardship. She could even indulge her hatred by hurting him, and pretending it was sheer passion. She could draw her nails up his back and bring blood; she could lose control of herself and forget she had teeth, and know that the sharp pain would but make him desire her the more. But she could not shrug off the emptiness with which he left her, every time he got out of her bed, the feeling of unfulfilment, the knowledge that she lived no more than a sham, that indeed, her life had been more real when she had lived in fear of the whip and the cane, and when every time she had been forced it had been rape.

  That was her physical problem. There were others, even more difficult to bear. She watched Therese, her personal maid, enter the room, softly, afraid to wake her mistress, watched her tiptoe around the room, drawing the drapes, carefully, afraid to damage or even to crush the rich material, watched her collecting the glasses used for their nightcap of iced rum punch and place them on the silver tray, carefully, afraid of breaking or even scratching a single surface. Afraid. Always afraid. Therese was representative of every black person on Rio Blanco. They feared. Well, did not slaves everywhere live in fear? Oh indeed, but not quite in such an intense atmosphere of fear, she thought. She had experienced slavery on board a slave ship, slavery on Hodges, which had been bad, and slavery up the Essequibo, which had been worse. She had seen men and women having their backs torn to shreds, their genitals deliberately smashed with wooden clubs; she herself knew the agonies of red pepper applied to her private parts, and she had watched other unfortunates staked out on red ant nests, as had been Mulder's favourite method of punishing recalcitrant females; in Essequibo she had even watched a black man being burned alive, slowly, for murdering his master. And yet she had not known such concentrated fear, as on Rio Blanco.

  Without being able to decide why? Oh, there were floggings enough, but hardly more than on Hodges. And the pe
tty treason of murdering a white man was apparently rewarded in St. Domingue by breaking on the wheel rather than by burning; it was difficult to see that one could be worse than the other. Yet Louise Corbeau moved in an atmosphere of fear, of which, remarkably, he seemed to be unaware. So then, there was a side to his character which he had so far concealed from her, and indeed, which he had apparently concealed from everyone during the months she had lived here. Yet everyone else on the plantation knew of its existence, and feared its reappearance. Saving her. So then, was she living in a fool's paradise?

  But she was the master's woman, and thus classed with him. There was a disconcerting fact. They feared her as much as they feared Louis, because they did not know what she whispered in his ear at night. Because they could not see past her skin, and her skin was white. Because they did not understand her hatred was as great as their own, because she could not convey to them how much her desires followed

  theirs, how she longed once again to find Damballah, in whatever guise he might assume.