“She is my baby,” she sobbed into the arm of the settee. “She is all I have. She is my little Jamaica, my little piece of Jamaica. She is not yours. You had nothing to do with her. Nothing.” She turned to glare at me. “I dressed like a whore and went out every night after you sailed, and fucked any man who would buy me a bottle, until I missed my bleed. I made her. I decided who I would fuck. Me. Me. Not you. Not my father. She is mine, and you have no right to take her from me!”
I was surprised and amused, and yet saddened as I heard a thing in between her words that confirmed what I had long sensed about her: that she was as scarred as I, though perhaps not in the same way.
I righted a chair and sat. “You do not know who the father is? Her father is some nameless buccaneer? You did not have an affair?”
She raised her chin and shook her head with dignity.
“You are not stupid and indiscreet or…” I said with wonder. “I had thought, or rather, I had heard you had an affair with some planter’s son who looked like me. I thought you were a complete idiot. But no one has said a word about what you really did, which if they had known would have been the talk of the town. So you were quite careful and sly.”
She snorted disparagingly, but she was frowning at me with speculation and hope. “Do you still not hate me?” she asked sarcastically.
I smiled. “Nay, I do not hate you. This confession here has raised you considerably in my estimation.”
She shook her head. “You are daft.”
“Nay,” I chuckled. “Mad perhaps, in that I do not choose to always see things as others do. Let us get you sober, and then you can have… Jamaica… back, and we… “
“Do not mock me,” she said.
“I am not,” I said reassuringly. “I think Jamaica is a fine name. Jamaica Williams. We can call her Jaime. Unless you had some other name for her.”
“Nay,” she said with wonder and a pained frown. “I always thought of her as my little Jamaica. Wait, you will give her your name?”
“Aye.” I decided I would not tell her this was due to my matelot and not her: that would only make her angry again.
She rubbed her temples angrily. “Damn it, my head hurts so. I will not remember all this in the morning. I will think it a dream.”
“Then I will say it again in the morning,” I said kindly. “Drink the water.” I stood and handed her the mug. “I will bring more. I will leave the lantern for now. See to yourself as you can. You will be miserable for days, and giving you anything to mitigate it will merely make it worse in the end, but it will pass.”
She gazed up at me with teary eyes. “I do not understand you.”
I smiled. “Well, many would say you are in good company. I would not, though, because generally people who do not understand me are people I do not like. Perhaps you will understand me in time.”
She shook her head with a rueful smile.
I took the medicine chest and left her. I found Gaston in the stable. He had taken our weapons and all else we might need for the night from the chests in our room, including a hammock, and he was in the process of stringing it from the beams in the half of the stable designed to be a stall, where someone would have to enter the structure to see it. I decided the place would do nicely, even though it was enclosed and had no breeze. However, we would need to acquire some of the netting if we wished to stay here.
I began to assist him and quickly relayed all that Vivian had said. He regarded me with first surprise and horror, and then perplexity.
“Jamaica,” he said at last, as if the word were suddenly unfamiliar to him. “Can one of her names be Angelique?”
“Angelique? That is a pretty name. I.. Is that what…? I thought her mother should name her, I did not know you wished to.”
He shook his head. “I was just trying to think of a name for her. It holds no great meaning for me. I like Jamaica. It is fitting. And it is a pretty name for a girl.”
“Good, then she can be Jamaica Angelique Williams.” It felt strangely ominous to name another so, with the name they would go by throughout their lives.
He smiled. “As soon as your damn wife is able, we will need to go and have her baptized.”
“I would rather not,” I sighed. “If there is a Heaven, I do not see where it should be required that we pay a priest to say words over her in order for her to reach it. If God truly requires that for one so young and innocent, He can hang Himself.”
“But Will,” Gaston protested. “It has nothing to do with God. It will mean you legally claim her as yours in the Kingdom of Men.”
“I know, I know,” I sighed. “And that is not why I am reluctant. It does have little to do with God, and all to do with placing her on the tax roll for the parish and legitimizing her as my child, but… I feel I am angered that I have to pay a priest for that, too, and by so doing, pretend God has a hand in the matter when all know it to be a lie, another shadow on the cave wall. There should be some office of the Crown that keeps such records.”
“There is,” Gaston sighed with a rueful smile. “It is called the Church. And your good King Henry made that even clearer in your country.”
I grinned. “You sound like a Protestant. Hell, we both do.”
“Non, we sound like atheists,” he said.
“Except for that part about God,” I teased.
“I have only been in one chapel where I felt the presence of… some great power not of this world, and that was at the monastery,” he said. “I have been in great cathedrals. I stood in them in awe; but not in awe of God, but in awe of the men who built them.”
I smiled at him with great regard that we ever thought so alike. “That is always what I feel when I stand in them. And when I stood in the Sistine Chapel and saw that wondrous art, I saw the hand of man, not God.”
We finished arranging our new home and I went to look in on Vivian one last time for the night. I found her sleeping on the settee. She had donned the clean gown and combed and plaited her hair. I took her soiled gown and rags away, and the chamber pot, which she had filled. When I returned, I was sure she was awake, but she held still and made no move to turn toward me. I left the empty chamber pot, a fresh mug of water, and some boucan and an apple for her, and turned out the lamp.
Gaston was naked and coating himself in grease to keep the insects at bay when I returned. I quickly joined him in that endeavor, and it soon became a thing of such pleasure we used the grease elsewhere.
When Heaven’s light receded from behind my eyes and we at last sought to move from the sated tangle we had become, Gaston shook my shoulder and regarded me with concern in the dim lantern light.
“What?” I asked.
“You must speak to the Gods,” he said earnestly. “About Jamaica.”
“What?” I asked.
“Pray,” he said. “That she lives. Claim her.”
He appeared to be in a curious state, and I saw much of the Child about him, so I did not argue that I felt I had said as much in my heart and surely the Gods had heard me and understood my intent.
“Must I do this alone?” I asked gently.
He thought on it and shook his head. Then he was prodding me to move until we sat like tailors facing one another. He took my hands. As I gazed into his eyes I could see he had fully adopted his childish mien now, and I wondered at it.
“What should we say?” I prompted him.
He gripped my hands tightly and closed his eyes; when he opened them he gazed upward toward the ceiling. “We wish to claim Jamaica Angelique Williams, the girl born of Vivian this morning, as our daughter. We promise to care for her, and we wish for her to remain with us and become healthy.”
“Oui,” I said, because amen seemed oddly inappropriate.
He smiled and regarded me with great love, and then he was crawling into my lap and pushing me back on the hammock to kiss me earnestly and sweetly. We cuddled together and I felt him drift to sleep in my arms. I lay awake until I was sure he slumbered
soundly.
Then I whispered. “I want You Gods to understand that he comes first in all things: I will not give him up for the happiness and health of any other, including myself.”
Sixty-Three
Wherein We Provide Succor and Solace to Girls
We woke to an insistent rapping on the stable’s doorframe. I had a pistol in my hand before I recalled where I was. Gaston had done likewise, and we regarded one another sleepily. Light was streaming through the doorway. I thought there was something important I should attend to, but I could not remember what it could be.
“Come in,” I grumbled.
Gaston awarded me a scandalized glare and pointed at his nakedness.
“Unless you are a lady,” I said quickly.
But it was too late: Theodore stood before us.
“Or a gentleman,” I added with a grin.
Theodore quickly turned his back as Gaston scrambled off the hammock to dress – and throw my clothes at me.
“To what do we owe this pleasure?” I asked our friend as I pulled on my breeches and tunic.
“Well,” Theodore said with great somberness, “I was sent to fetch you. There is a screaming infant at my home, and my wife wishes to speak to you about the matter.”
“Has something occurred?” Gaston asked quickly. “Does she ail… more than we know?”
That was not my concern, though I supposed it should have been. “Was your wife screaming when she asked you to fetch us?”
Theodore chuckled with little humor. “Thankfully, nay, and as to the baby’s health, well, I feel she screams because she is an infant and they all seem prone to do so for lengthy periods, such that I wonder how they can sustain such noise.” Then he asked with concern, “Does the child ail? Mistress Theodore has been so enthralled with the little one’s well-being she has said scarcely a word to me.”
“We feel the child might have been pickled in rum in her mother’s womb,” I said.
Theodore sighed. “Oh Lord, well… That probably explains my wife’s request, then. Where is Lady Marsdale?”
“We are keeping her chained in the parlor until she dries out,” I said.
He gave a lengthy sigh, and turned to face us. “I suppose that is for the best. How is she?”
“Not well,” I said, as I remembered what I should attend to. “And I need to look in on her. Perhaps you should go with Theodore and I will be along shortly,” I told Gaston.
He nodded grimly, but we did not part right away, as we both had need of the latrine.
As we walked to the back of the yard, I watched concern tighten his features, and wished I could say something to ease it, but all the platitudes I could think of were things that would have angered me if I had heard them spoken of even a dog or horse of which I was fond.
“You will do all you can for her,” I said at last, just before we returned to Theodore. “And no matter what occurs, she will know that there was someone here who cares for her.”
Gaston paused and turned to regard me with love. “Thank you.” Then he shook his head with a bitter smile. “I know so little, Will.”
“Do not chastise yourself over it,” I said gently. “You know you know far more of medicine than probably anyone else on this island.”
“That is what is pathetic,” he said. “How can we all be so damn stupid?”
“We hide in caves,” I said, and shrugged with a small smile that I hoped he would find reassuring and not mocking.
He smiled. “Take care of her damn mother.”
“I will see you soon.”
I followed them to the door and watched them leave before reluctantly entering the cave in which Vivian now dwelled. My nose recoiled at the odor of the place, but my ears were thankfully not assaulted by her cursing, and it was too dark to see most of what caused the stench. I opened a shutter and gained enough light to find her lying on the settee, trembling and seemingly oblivious to my presence. I mused on how she was descending into deepest darkness in the name of being dragged into the light.
“You are obviously miserable,” I said gently, “but other than giving you rum, what can I do to aid you?”
“Bring my baby back,” she hissed.
“Not until you are well,” I told her.
“And after the baby is well and weaned, I can drink again, correct?” she snarled.
“Nay.”
“You bastard! You cannot keep me like this!” She rattled the chain.
I could not but smile. “My dear, you are my wife, and I think no man in town, surely no magistrate – or even clergymen – would find fault with a man keeping his wife sober – by whatever means. Especially not after you burned a house… by accident. And as for my feelings on the matter. I care not if you drink yourself to death, as long as you did not cost me a cent while doing so. But I think that happy scenario will be quite unlikely, as you will never be trustworthy while drunk – no drunkard is: reason flees with the spirits, and if you happen to feel guilt or shame you will simply drink until those feelings depart. So, if you are to remain the Lady Marsdale, or even live by my support under another name, you will be sober.”
She cursed me vehemently as I collected the chamber pot and soiled rags. As much of it called into question my father and mother, I cared not, and even found some amusement in it.
Henrietta and Sam had bacon and eggs prepared, and were beginning a stock for the soup. I troubled them for a cloth-wrapped bundle of bacon I could shove in my waistband and a tin cup of broth, and then filled another unbreakable vessel with water. Vivian would not look at me when I returned. I set the cups and empty pot where she could reach them and left her.
I saw Gaston approaching the house as I walked out the front door, and immediately felt guilty that I had taken so long to leave. Then I saw how very concerned he appeared.
“How is she?” I asked as he reached me.
He did not choose to enter the house; instead he pulled me into the shade of the balcony and spoke quietly. “Rachel says that a healthy babe only eats and sleeps in the first weeks; and they do not truly hunger in the first days, so there is only the sleeping. Jamaica is so miserable that she does not. She cries and nothing else; and she is exhausted. We feel it is because she is drying out, much as her mother will do. Rachel wished to know if I could give her anything to ease her pain and let her sleep for a time.” He sighed heavily. “I do not want to give her laudanum, though. It will be worse to take from her than the damn rum if she grows accustomed to it. I have other medicines that will make her sleepy, and still others that will ease her stomach, but none will remove the pain of being without the rum.”
“So give her rum,” I said. “Maybe a little, until she gets stronger, and then we can wean her from it.”
He considered me for a time. Or rather he gazed upon me as he considered my suggestion and his own thoughts. At last he said, “I will give her laudanum.”
I frowned curiously. “But…”
“Things do not die when placed in laudanum,” he said, and entered the house. “Rum kills…”
I followed him to the stable, where we had moved his medicine chest. “So you will wean her from the laudanum when she is stronger?”
He nodded. “I am hoping I need not give her so much that it will be difficult.”
He filled a small vial and we departed for Theodore’s. We ate the packet of bacon as we walked.
I could hear Jamaica as soon as Hannah let us into the Theodores’ house. Her cries were weak but constant – and I could imagine very grating. The never-ending complaint of a being in pain who feels none will hear her: more plaintive curses at the Gods than pained wailing. Rachel greeted me with a smile that spoke both of her tiredness of hearing the babe she coddled and shushed in her arms and of her continued commitment to the matter.
Gaston carefully mixed a tincture of the laudanum with water in a small glass bowl he had brought and took it to Rachel. There he paused and regarded the child and the mixture in his hand with cons
ternation.
“Hannah, fetch one of Elizabeth’s spoons,” Rachel said with a smile.
Gaston sighed with relief.
Hannah returned with a little silver spoon: so small it would only hold a sip, yet still seemingly too large to fit in tiny Jamaica’s mouth. Gaston gingerly accepted it and scooped up some of the laudanum-laced water and ever-so-carefully dribbled it between the child’s lips. There was a great deal of sputtering and it took several attempts before she seemed to swallow a mouthful.
Gaston sighed and sat as we waited for the drug to take effect. “We need a better method of dosing her,” he said.
“A baby’s mouth is made for a teat. If you feed a babe without a teat,” Rachel said, “you can use a water skin, but that wouldn’t work for so small an amount.”
Gaston shook his head in agreement. “Nay, the skin would absorb the laudanum.”
The drug had taken effect on little Jamaica, and she was now limp in Rachel’s arms. Fear clutched at my heart. The silence was ominous, and she looked as Gaston did when I worried that he had taken too much: close to death.
Gaston felt the same as I, because he stood and took the child from Rachel to carefully hold her so that he could place his ear to her chest. “Her heart beats strongly,” he said quietly with some relief. “But slow.”
“I had hoped I could feed her,” Rachel said.
“I know,” Gaston said with worry. “I wanted to give her as little as possible, but such lack of precision in dosing her will make it difficult. All the funnels I have will be too large. We will have to inquire of the glazier to see if we can have a very small one made.”
“I would almost rather have her crying,” Rachel said with concern.
Treasure Page 26
