Alicia offered a graceful curtsey. “There is nothing further to say that I did not impart before, Sir.”
He dismounted, grimaced as his boot sank into a pile of horse dung. “But I think there is. Your husband owed me a great deal of money. You are his widow, you therefore carry his debt.”
From her days as a whore Alicia had been acquainted with men who regarded women as items to be used at will. Phillipe had been one of the same breed of bastards. She would be eternally grateful to Jesamiah for freeing her of him. Yet here was another conceited pop-cock who regarded her with less respect than he would a sow.
“And as I have already told you, the estate passes to Captain Acorne. See him about debts, not me.”
He never would, of course. This beast chose easy prey, the weak, the vulnerable, those who could not fight back. Were he to confront a man like Jesamiah he would be run through before he could repeat his demands – and after he had pissed his breeches.
The man grasped her arm twisting it painfully. He was a brute. “I have debts to settle of my own. I want my money, woman.” He shook her, “So pay me or I will be forced to let slip your history to all these here in Urbanna – and aye, everyone in Virginia and North Carolina. That would be a great shame, would it not, Arabella Appleyard? Would it not be unfortunate for folk to learn your real name? That you were transported to the Colonies from London, convicted for thieving? That you became a gutter slut? Where will you be, my fine lady, once I make it all public?”
She wrenched her arm free. “I have told you. Until Acorne settles the matter of the estate, I have no money.”
“Then persuade him to get on with it.”
“Acorne is not an easy man to persuade.”
He snorted derision, “ Hah, I would wager you can easily persuade him into your bed.” When she made no answer he laughed scornfully. “Once a whore, always a whore. Next time I am here in Virginia I will show you what a real man can do, shall I?”
Finding the courage to retaliate she sneered direct into his face; “You are going to watch Jesamiah bed me then, are you? He is the only real man I know.”
He slapped her, once, hard, across the cheek. “You will pay what you owe. I do not care how high you have to lift your skirts to do so, or who pokes beneath, but pay me you will.” He spun on his heel and mounted the horse, jabbing it fiercely in the mouth as he picked up the reins, forcing its head to toss, ears back, eyes rolling.
“My business will see me in Virginia again come early November, Madam. You have until then.” He kicked the horse into a trot, rode towards the jetty where a ship was awaiting the tide.
For a long while Alicia stood there blinking aside tears, trembling. Why did these vile whoresons have to ruin her life? Why of all the men she had served in Port Royal, had he been the one Phillipe owed money to? He was a spiteful little man, full of his own importance, and had made his fortune on the misfortunes of others. He would do as he said, for he did not believe in the word compassion, and she would lose all she had – the little she had left. All hope of achieving her dream of a respectable life would be taken from her. Would she have to return to the sordid existence of a prostitute? Alicia brushed at an escaped tear travelling slowly down her cheek. No, that she would not do. She would rather kill herself.
If nothing else, Alicia Mereno – the one-time London street urchin Arabella Appleyard – was resourceful. Something would happen. Something would turn up. Somehow she would persuade Jesamiah to give her what was rightfully hers, either the estate or sufficient remuneration. Meanwhile, she had a ball to prepare for and some black lace to haggle over with Agatha Chalmondy.
Returning to the carriage less than half of an hour later, a wrapped package of lace in her hand and a smirk of a bargained triumph on her face, Alicia settled herself in her seat. Told the driver to return home.
She took a long look at the river, at the forest of masts spearing the blue autumn sky. The smile as she tucked the travel blanket over her lap was one of deep satisfaction. She was no expert at identifying ships, but Agatha Chalmondy had pointed out one in particular. The woman had been in high dudgeon, her mind barely on the matter of making a sale, for her brother had returned home in a blistering temper intent on ensuring Governor Spotswood did something about the damnable pirates, for he had come close to losing his ship and his life.
Captain Lofts, a merchant trader, was often here in Urbanna and he had been chased once too often by pirates. Mrs Chalmondy was his widowed sister, her three daughters his family. Apart from his ship, the Chalmondy house above the draper’s shop was his only home.
Cooing and tutting in sympathy, Alicia had let the silly woman prattle on, her mind galloping. She needed leverage to make Jesamiah give in to her. Something to blackmail him with. The idea of suggesting she was to bear him a child had been a spur of the moment, and one that would take a few months yet to be proven true or false. But this, this she could set into action right now!
The carriage jerked forwards, the driver encouraging the pair of bays into a smart trot. All she need do was send the good Captain Lofts a letter. Written discreetly and in an anonymous hand, naturally. Her problem would be solved. She smiled to herself. Her tormentor was not the only one who could stoop to coercion. Blackmail had never been beyond Alicia’s capabilities before, and nor was it now.
Twenty Six
”I have been seeing the past.”
“The place where you are is a place for reflection,” the Witch Woman said, as if he should already have known that.
Charles sighed with tired despair. “Are you never afeared of what has already been, Mistress Oldstagh?”
“Of what has been? No. What is done has been done, you cannot fear the past, only learn from it.” She fell silent, considering, then admitted; “But I do fear what is to come. The future. I fear for the one I love. I am afraid that I will not be there for him when he needs me the most.”
Charles St Croix watched as a red-gold autumn leaf fell from the tree and landing in the River, swirled around and around before the current floated it away up the gentle incline, as if it were a little boat.
He wondered what the witch, Tiola, looked like; he had only heard her voice and seen a faint, ghost-like outline. He had the impression of hair as black as a raven’s wing, of eyes as dark, set in a pretty face. She was not tall, not much more than an inch or two above five feet in height, and she was slender. That was all he knew. His son was a lucky man to be having her to love him.
He made his own admission. “The past haunts me.”
”That is because you must lay the past to rest, forgive others, and then forgive yourself. You must close the door on what was, and open the one to what will be.”
He felt her hand on his arm, a comforting feeling of her nearness as the despair saturated him.
“It will be hard to do, Witch Woman.”
Sadness touched her. “Perhaps if you can find a way for Jesamiah to forgive you, then you will be able to forgive yourself?”
”If only it were that simple! If only it were that simple.”
“Important things are rarely easy to do, that is why they are important.”
”I made mistakes. I am afraid I will make yet another and never find the peace I crave.”
“We all make mistakes,” she said. “A mistake made the once can be forgiven. It is the lesson that is not learnt and the mistake that is deliberately made over again that is more difficult to forgive.”
Do I not know that? he thought. Ah, do I not know that!
She breathed a light kiss to his cheek. “On the night when all here is reversed. When west becomes east, when what flows up, flows down and when the River of Death freezes with the memory of Life. On that night, I will come and help you to return to the world of the living. There, you can, perhaps, put right what is wrong.”
He sat for a long while. Sat alone, and as silent, as the River that was impassable to any living soul as it flowed uphill on its eternal journey, separa
ting one level of existence from the other.
Things here were wrong, small things that went unnoticed at first; water flowing up hill, coldness when the sun shone, heat when there was ice. It was a lonely, solitary, place, neither one nor the other. Not Heaven, not Hell. Not alive, not dead. He hated it here.
“I have been watching my son,” Charles said to the rippling water. “But he is so full of bitterness. Because of me, because I abandoned him, and left him to fend for himself.”
His eyes reflected the tears that sobbed in his heart. “I am so afraid,” he admitted to the River. ”I am haunted by what I have and have not done. Haunted by the future, for what I must do. That which I started I must end. It is the only way for me to find peace. But the way is hard. If only I could explain! Make my son listen!”
He brought his clenched hand up to his mouth, bit the knuckles to stifle the rise of panic and fear. The tears falling, wet, down his face.
“I am so tired,” he whispered. “So tired of carrying this burden of guilt. I so want to rest and be forgiven.”
He looked out across the River at another dawn rising in the west.
He wept, for he knew what he had to do to gain what he so craved. To put things right, to pay the penance of the guilt he carried, he had to erase what he had created.
Twenty Seven
Saturday 19th October
As Rue had predicted, the graving dock had been hard work. With the overgrowth of weeds and debris cleared, the man-made channel was re-exposed. Dug lower than the river’s high tide level, its gravel floor had a slight curve echoing the shape of a ship’s bottom and sloped towards the open sluice gates – which Chippy had more or less rebuilt with thickly tarred timber.
With the rising tide they had warped Sea Witch into her dry dock and when the tide fell again they had partially chocked her up with spars and blocks of wood, and heaving the gates shut had pumped the last of the water out. The ground would remain wet and muddy; some water inevitably seeped under the gates, but it did not take long to place a few upright timbers and lay a basic walkway.
With all the upper masts unstepped, her rigging gone, and stripped of all that was removable – including her cannons, she looked sad and forlorn. No longer an elegant beauty but naked and vulnerable. The open gunports stared empty, like blind eyes, worm had bored into the woodwork and barnacles clung everywhere. Her thin plating of copper along the keel had partially protected her, though it was worn and dented in several places. The men wasted no time and set to work breeming her with torches, burning off all the weed and barnacles.
The split in her side was quite clear and several other weak points were also noticeable now she was out of the water and was rolled partially to her side.
His neck craning backwards, Jesamiah looked up at the spaces where the great cabin windows should be; it was odd to squint through the funnelled hole that was the seat-of-ease, his personal ‘necessary’ situated in the larboard quarter cabin. The chute could do with a good clean, he noticed. No wonder it stank.
He wandered on, walked all the way round, his boots squelching in the wetness beneath his feet, stopping every so often to inspect any damage that attracted his attention.
Beneath where the spar of the bowsprit and jib-boom would point forward once they were re-rigged, he peered up at the lonely-looking figurehead leaning outward above the cut-water, the foremost part of the prow. A semi-naked woman, her ample wares well displayed, she was suspended there, her arm pointing the way ahead. A finger was damaged and her face was worn and scraped; some of her hair was splintered and the nipple of her left breast was broken off. She looked so neglected.
“You’ll be beautiful again when we’ve finished with you, darlin’,” Jesamiah said, patting the stem where the bow planks met at the very front.
He felt a murmur from the ship herself as his hand rested against the damp wood. He frowned, head cocked on one side, listening intently. They were not words audible by ear, were more of a feeling, a presence, similar to what he shared with Tiola, but fainter. He was always aware of Tiola, he could not see or touch her, but she was there, within him – like his heart, there, inside him. And now this second presence, an awareness of wood and cordage, canvas and tar. Of the sound and smell of the sea, the ripple of river water and the lift of an ocean roller. And more distant, a faint whispered echo, of what she had been before; a living tree. An oak, growing in the greenwood, branches reaching to the sky, roots spreading down and down into the good earth. The living spirit of the Sea Witch touching his soul.
She was lost and frightened, aware of her vulnerability, of her enforced helplessness. Jesamiah rested his head against the stem, closed his eyes and pictured her in his mind under full sail, heeling slightly, the wind pressing against her spread of canvas, foam churning at her bow. Spindrift surging over her fo’c’sle. She was alive and he loved her.
All his affection and reassurance poured into her; “You’ll be all right, sweetheart. You’re safe here, I won’t let anyone harm you.”
“Talking to yourself now, Captain?” Nat Crocker said from behind him. “They say as how that’s a bad sign.”
Jesamiah swung around, his free hand going to the dagger sheathed in the small of his back. He took a breath to calm the rapid beat of his heart, the sudden beading of sweat on his skin. He hated people coming up behind him. Another legacy from his damned brother.
“Bad for crew members who come sneaking up,” he grumbled. “Aside I was talking to my ship.”
Nat sniffed, reached forward to pat the wooden planking. Grinned. “Guess I’ll only start worrying when she answers you back then.”
Turning away, Jesamiah sniffed disdainfully, wiped his tarred hands on the seat of his breeches and walked away. After a few yards, tossed over his shoulder, “Better start worryin’ then.”
Apart from supervising, there was not much he could do. He had been avoiding Alicia and the house by insisting he had to see to his ship, but now that Sea Witch was laid up and the men were ready to start work on her, he was running out of excuses. And tonight he had to attend a ball. The last thing he wanted was to prance around like a London fop, but to satisfy Alicia he had agreed to escort her. When he had made the promise, two days ago, his intention had been to keep her quiet about discussing the future of the plantation. Today, with both Finch and her wittering on about best clothes, baths and society manners, he was regretting the rash agreement.
On the other hand, maybe some of the residents of these parts could divulge something interesting about his father’s past? Maybe it would be worth going, worth putting on an air of pleasant charm. Maybe tonight he could uncover a few of the answers he was searching for?
There was one thing he had to do first. Something else that he had been deliberately putting off since stepping ashore.
A little way up the hill, overlooking the river, the first of the tobacco fields and the formal gardens, was the cemetery plot. As a child there had been only one grave in the especially cleared space set within the boundary of a neat, white-painted picket fence. The final resting place of Phillipe’s mother: Carlos Mereno’s widow; Charles Mereno’s first wife. On the night Jesamiah had left, after he had almost beaten Phillipe to a pulp, there had been two more graves. His own mother’s and the fresh-dug, fresh filled grave of his father. He knew all trace of his mother had been obliterated, Phillipe had seen to that. Jesamiah walked across the short grass to where it should have been, to the left of his father. No headstone, no marker, not even an undulation or a shadow in the ground; the mound had been flattened, grass had grown over every sign of it ever being there. He had learnt, a few years ago now, that Phillipe had disinterred her and thrown her corpse into the cesspit behind the house. He did not know if it was true. Had Phillipe despised her enough to risk eternal damnation?
Impulsively Jesamiah decided to fetch a spade and find out. He turned back with a shake of his head. Leave it. Let her rest, wherever she was. She needed no grave or marker to be re
membered, and a body corrupted whether it was placed to rot in a buried coffin or a debris-filled cesspit. She was dead, her soul had no need of the shell that had been her body. Tiola had taught him that.
To the far side was a stone marking the grave of his father’s right-hand man, Halyard Calpin. He had been Jesamiah’s only friend; had been his father’s quartermaster upon the privateer they had both sailed in. Privateer? That’s what Father had liked people to believe; that he had sailed with the authority of the Government with a Letter of Marque safe in the drawer of his Captain’s desk. Hah! Once the wars were ended, Father had been as much a pirate as had Jesamiah!
Three much smaller graves were laid alongside the fence. Alicia’s two boys and the daughter who had died a few days after birth. His daughter, Alicia had said. Was it the truth or was she just being spiteful? He never knew with Alicia; her lies tripped so easily off her tongue. He doubted she could recognise what was truth and what was not.
He walked over to the grave, the hand not thrust through the sling deep in his coat pocket. A plain wooden crucifix marker announced a single name, Charlotte.
He would like a daughter. A little girl to hug and fuss, to preen over and spoil. To buy fancy dresses for and expensive jewellery. To worry over when it came time for young men to come a-courting. He smiled. He’d see most of them off with his pistol. There would never be anyone good enough for a daughter of his!
Was Alicia expecting his child? She had said she was – what, almost three weeks ago now, but how had she known so quickly? How soon would the signs be showing? He tried to think, to picture her figure, tried to recall other women who were with child. All he could visualise was the large belly of an obvious pregnancy.
Why was Tiola not carrying? The thoughts swirled in his head as he stood staring down at the tiny grave. They did not use the lamb’s intestine sheaths Tiola insisted on giving to all the men, and it was certainly not anything to do with lack of opportunity or technique. Jesamiah always fulfilled his exertions of passion when making love to her. And yet, only Alicia had claimed he’d sired a child. No other woman had demanded he acknowledge his planted seed. Was he infertile? Was this, perhaps, a punishment from God for all the wicked things he had done in the past? And the ones he was, no doubt, going to do in the future?
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