Tides of Fortune

by Julia Brannan

  She heard the sound of horses’ hooves and wheels coming along the drive, and, standing, moved forward out of the shade of the frangipani tree to embrace her new life.

  * * *

  Although she had resolved to absorb every minute of the journey to Sainte Marie, she had travelled no more than a mile along the road, which was lined with a vast profusion of tropical foliage, all of it strange to her, when the heat combined with the rocking motion of the coach and her fitful sleep of the night before lulled her into a profound slumber that lasted almost the whole duration of the journey.

  At first when she woke she had no idea where she was, and gazed muzzily out of the window at the drive along which they were travelling, which was lined on both sides by tall trees casting a dappled shade along the driveway. She shook her head to clear it, then took a drink from the flask of ale that the marquis’ cook had provided for her. It was warm, but it quenched her thirst. The air was full of a sweet cloying scent, and she wondered what kind of trees edged the drive that smelt so strongly.

  The house itself as they pulled up outside it was lovely. Two storeys high, built of stone and wood with a wide-hipped roof shading the deep wraparound porch, and surrounded by a beautiful garden full of brightly blooming shrubs, it looked very inviting. As the carriage came to a halt, several servants came out of the house to unload and carry her baggage and escort her inside.

  “The master bids you welcome, madame,” a young black man in full European livery said to her as he led her up the stairs and inside the house. “The mistress is indisposed at the moment, but hopes to join you for supper. The master is expected home at any time, but told me to show you to your room and to bring you anything you want.”

  “Thank you,” Beth said, looking round with interest. She had expected to be taken into a hallway with doors leading off it to various rooms as in England, but instead she found herself immediately in the salon, which was furnished in European style with ornately carved and gilded furniture. The ground floor of the house had no interior walls, the only separation between one area and another being waist-high screens supported by thin wooden pillars. From where she was standing she could see the dining room, one end of the huge mahogany table already set for three, with a centrepiece of bright red and purple flowers.

  She pulled her attention back to the hovering footman, and smiled.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Everything is new to me, and I forgot my manners. I am Beth, and your name…?”

  The footman looked distinctly taken aback, but recovered quickly. He bowed.

  “I am Raymond, madame, and this,” pointing to a young woman who had just come running into the room, “is Eulalie, who will show you to your room and ensure that you have everything you need. We will inform you when the master returns.”

  “Thank you, Raymond. Can you tell me the name of the trees that are planted along the driveway?”

  “Yes, madame. They are tamarind trees.”

  “Tamarind.” It was a new word to her. “They have a very strong sweet scent.” In fact it was so strong that she could still smell it in the house.

  The footman looked puzzled for a moment, and then he smiled.

  “Ah! No, madame, I think it is the sugar cane that you can smell. They burnt the fields this morning ready for cutting tomorrow. You will get used to it in time, I think. It is everywhere.”

  Get used to it? God. It was horrible, sickly and nauseating.

  “Does it always smell of sugar here?” she asked.

  “I suppose it does, madame. I have been here for over twenty years, and I don’t notice it any more.”

  Her bedroom smelt the same. There was no point in opening the window, because the smell was coming from outside. Thankfully the upstairs area did have dividing walls, but they were constructed of wooden planks rather than stone as in English houses. The room was dominated by a large, ornately carved mahogany four-poster bed draped with mosquito netting. Her two trunks, both full of clothes provided by the Marquis de Caylus, had been placed at the foot of the bed, and as Beth lifted the lid of one, three women, all dressed in maid’s clothes, came in and curtseyed deeply.

  “Madame, we are here to put away your clothes and to help you to wash and change. Would you like some refreshment? Lime water, wine?” the elder of the maids asked.

  Beth agreed to some lime water, and allowed the maids to get on with their work while she went to the window and looked out. The house was built on a promontory, and gazing into the middle distance she could see various buildings including two windmills, which she supposed were to do with sugar production. Between the garden of the house and the factory buildings were fields and fields of tall swaying plants that must be sugar cane. To the right of her view were some fields that had been cut. And everywhere there were workers, all of them with dark brown skins, most of the men shirtless in spite of the blazing heat, the women in ankle-length dresses with scarves tied round their heads, and all of them working hard. Monsieur Delisle must be very wealthy, she thought, to be able to employ so many workers, including three maids to attend me where one would have done. In spite of the heat and the sickly smell, she felt a wave of elation wash over her. She was in a strange land, where everything was new and different. There was so much to learn and she had always had a thirst for knowledge.

  She had eaten sugar, of course; Lord and Lady Winter had been very partial to elaborate marchpane subtleties at their parties. But she knew nothing about its production. It would be interesting to learn. She wanted to know everything, everything about this island that was to be her home for the rest of her life.

  She made a start on her education at supper. Madame Delisle was still indisposed, her husband informed Beth as they sat down together at the dining table to drink coffee and eat small cakes, attended by two servants. He was a small, rather stout man of about forty with dark brown hair and eyes.

  “I am sorry that I did not come to Port Royal myself to bring you here, but it is a very busy time on the plantation right now, and I have to be here to ensure everything goes as it should. My dear Antoinette is unfortunately prone to megrims, which can incapacitate her for two or three days at a time,” Monsieur Delisle informed Beth. “She is most upset to be too unwell to welcome you, but I’m sure you understand.”

  “Of course,” Beth replied. She nibbled at a cake, thinking she had never tasted anything so sweet in her life. At least the Winters’ marchpane subtleties had contained a lot of almonds; this seemed to be made of pure sugar.

  “My wife is of a delicate constitution at the moment. We buried our son only a few months ago, and she seems to have taken his death very badly,” her host continued.

  “Yes, Monsieur le Marquis told me. I was very sorry to hear it,” Beth said. “How awful for you.”

  “Yes. He was our sixth child to pass in as many years. The climate, you know, it is not healthful for babies. I have assured Antoinette that the next time she is…ah…” he coughed delicately, “I will ensure that she returns to France for the birth, and stays until the child is robust enough to endure our climate.”

  “I know nothing at all of this country, monsieur,” Beth said, somewhat alarmed. It was certainly normal for one or two babies from a large family to die in infancy, but six in six years? And with such obviously privileged parents? “I don’t even know exactly where I am in the world!”

  “Oh, we can remedy that,” he replied happily. “When we have eaten, if you would care to step into my study, I have a map which will show you exactly where you are! Yes, Martinique is most beautiful, and I would not live anywhere else in the world. I have lived here since I was born and it is my home, as I hope it will become yours. My wife was born in Paris and has found it difficult to acclimatise to the tropical climate.

  “I had hoped the sojourn to Paris after Jean’s death would have helped her to come to terms with it, but alas, it does not seem to be the case. Perhaps you will be able to help her see the beauty of this island. It is full o
f treasures, which it will be my delight to show you if you are interested. But there are also dangers, many miasmas which flourish in the heat. Of course there is poison, although we have had no trouble in that quarter for a time. And then there are the snakes…do you have snakes in England, Lady Peters?”

  “Please, monsieur, call me Beth. It’s the name I prefer. Yes, we have grass snakes and vipers, but I have never seen one. They are not common.”

  “Then you must call me Pierre, and I will tell you immediately about our viper, for it is very poisonous. It only comes out in the evenings and is quite shy, so you should not have a problem, but its bite can be deadly, so you must take care if you walk out in the evenings, and you must not go into the fields after dark. They are more of a problem for the slaves, as are chiggers, little insects which get into the feet and can cause infection. I have lost three slaves this year to viper bites, which is very costly. But of course you will not have a problem with chiggers unless you delight in walking barefoot!” He laughed, and Beth resolved never to walk anywhere without shoes. “My apologies. I do not wish to frighten you on your first day! Come, I will show you where you are in the world, and then if you wish we can sit on the porch for a short time and enjoy the cool evening air, if you are not too tired.”

  “No,” she said. “I slept in the carriage for most of the journey.”

  She followed her host out of the main house and into a smaller adjoining building, which formed his office. It contained a large desk, currently strewn with papers, sturdy wooden chairs unlike the spindly-legged gilded ones in the dining room, a bookcase and several chests of drawers. Pierre Delisle turned to her and smiled, revealing a set of somewhat blackened teeth, and pointed to the wall with a hand that seemed incongruous with the rest of him, being very slender, almost feminine.

  “There, madame…my apologies…Beth, is a map of our part of the world. Here we are,” he said, indicating a speck about halfway down a small crescent of specks surrounded by sea.

  “But it’s tiny!” she said, surprised.

  “Yes, we are small, only seventy-five thousand people,” he agreed, “and of those, perhaps only fifteen thousand are civilised, but nevertheless Martinique is very important, a large source of income for His Majesty. We produce maybe thirty per cent of the world’s sugar,” he added proudly. “Here, you see,” he pointed to another speck, a little higher up on the map, “is Antigua, your original destination and at the moment a British colony, but who knows in the future, eh? Likewise here,” he tapped his finger on a huge landmass above and to the left, “are the American Colonies, also British at the moment.”

  Beth looked at the map with interest, running her finger down the coastline of North America. “My grandmother was transported here,” she said softly.

  “Really? Where? Was she with Prince Charles as well?”

  “Oh no,” Beth said. “She is over eighty now. No, it was a very long time ago. But I don’t know which part she was sent to. Your plantation is very beautiful, Pierre. I saw some of it from my window earlier.”

  “Yes, I have three hundred acres, most of that in sugar, but we also grow much of our food here too, and the slaves have their own plots where they grow food for themselves. You will not have seen from your window, and it is too dark now, but we also have pigs, cows, poultry, and there is a lake which is stocked with fish. Of course we are not far from the ocean either, so we can also enjoy the fruits of the sea.”

  “How many slaves do you own?” she asked.

  “Two hundred in the fields and mill, and another thirty house slaves, although I hope to have more soon. Several of the women are with child and I am praying for their safe delivery. Good slaves are expensive now, more than double the price I paid twenty years ago when I inherited this place from my father. And it is good to have them from birth, in spite of the cost of raising them to an age when they can be useful, because then you can make sure they are not insolent and lazy like many of the negroes brought from Africa are. Some of them are so lazy they will feign illness, even kill themselves rather than do an honest day’s work! Luckily at the moment I have an excellent manager who knows how to get the best out of them, but it is a daily struggle.”

  Beth glanced at Raymond, who was standing by the door in case they should need anything. His face was impassive, his gaze fixed on the wall straight ahead.

  “Er…so any children born to slave women belong to you as well?” she asked.

  “Indeed. That is why a healthy young woman is so expensive to buy, although I don’t know why, as so many of them seem to miscarry their children that they are not worth the price. But I can see I am tiring you, my dear,” Monsieur Delisle said, mistaking Beth’s shocked countenance for fatigue. “You have had a terrible ordeal in the past weeks and a long journey today, and everything is new to you. That alone can be tiring, particularly for a young lady of gentle birth. We can sit on the porch tomorrow evening, when I hope Antoinette will be well enough to join us. Eulalie will help you to prepare for bed tonight, and then I will assign a suitable negress to be your body servant, with your approval of course.” He smiled and raised her hand to his lips. “I will not keep you any longer tonight. Goodnight, my dear.”

  Once in bed she lay for a long time staring at the heavy net curtains shrouding the bed and protecting her from the mosquitoes which she could hear whining as they flew around the room. Indentured servitude was just another word for slavery. Her grandmother had told her that. Would any children she’d had have belonged to the owner? Was it possible to be so lazy you would rather kill yourself than work? What was it like to watch six of your children die in as many years? And what had Monsieur Delisle meant when he had said there was poison?

  It is a new way of life, she told herself fiercely. Of course it will seem strange to me. The English misunderstand the Highlanders because they don’t understand their way of life. I must not judge anyone, either Monsieur Delisle or his workers, until I have learnt about how they live. And I must adjust to that way of life, if I am to be happy.

  She closed her eyes, listened to the unfamiliar sound of the rustling cane, which sounded not unlike waves lapping against the shore, and tried to reconcile the gentle brown eyes and genuine concern of Pierre Delisle for her comfort with his apparently uncaring attitude towards his workforce, until she finally drifted to sleep.

  She was awoken early next morning by the clanging of a bell, and sat straight up in bed, instantly wide awake, wondering what was wrong. She listened for a while, but after hearing no sounds from the rest of the house assumed it must be something normal. She got out of bed, and padding over to the window, looked through the slatted blind. It was still dark, although a glow on the distant horizon heralded the imminent rising of the sun. It was already hot and it had rained in the night, which added to the humidity. Even in her thin cotton nightgown she was sweating.

  She turned and looked at the clothes for today which had been laid out on the chair for her by Eulalie the previous evening. She sighed. She could not wear all those clothes every day. It was ridiculous expecting people to wear European fashions in this heat. Maybe once she had settled in she could amend her clothing a little. At least she did not need to get dressed until the rest of the household woke.

  She waited a while until the sun rose, then after spending a short time working out how to raise the blind, she looked out across the plantation again. The cane fields were a sea of activity, the machetes of the slaves as they cut the cane flashing in the sunlight. A line of mules was being loaded with freshly cut cane, after which they set off in the direction of the cluster of buildings she had noticed the night before. From here Beth couldn’t see exactly what they were doing, but she made a resolution to ask Pierre if she could accompany him one day to learn more about sugar production. The bell that had woken her must have been the call to start work.

  A little later there came a knock on the door and Eulalie popped her head round it, clearly surprised to see the new madame already
up and at the window.

  “Good morning, Madame Beth,” she said, smiling. “I have brought you some chocolate, and can help you to wash and dress this morning. Monsieur said he will assign a maid for you today.” She came in and bustled round, setting out cups and a chocolate pot on a table in the corner of the room. She poured a cup and brought it to Beth, who accepted it gratefully. “I will go and fetch the water for you to wash, madame,” she said, curtseying before disappearing through the door.

  Beth sipped the chocolate and grimaced. It was horrible, far too sugary. She couldn’t possibly drink it. She got up and put the cup back down on the saucer, then decided to brush her hair while waiting for the water to wash.

  When Eulalie reappeared she looked somewhat taken aback that Beth was doing her own hair, but said nothing. She put down the large pail of water, sponge and soap and glanced at the chocolate cup.

  “I’m sorry, Eulalie, but I couldn’t drink it. I’m not used to so much sugar.”

  “Could I get you something else, madame? Tea, coffee?”

  “Tea would be lovely! But with only a teaspoon of sugar, please. You can have the chocolate if you like it,” Beth said.

  “Oh no, madame, I’m not allowed to drink chocolate. I’ll take it away, and be back in a moment.”

  By the time she returned five minutes later Beth had washed herself, liberally sprinkled her body with some cologne that had been on the dresser, finished brushing her hair and was already in her shift and stays.

  “Ah, thank you!” she said brightly to the maid. “I will need some help tying my laces, I’m afraid. What’s wrong?” she asked, seeing the horrified expression on Eulalie’s face.