A Certain Latitude

by Janet Mullany

  “I’m quite well, sir.” And I know when the tide is. He was becoming tired of his father’s solicitude, of being treated like a child, and then felt guilty about his irritation.

  His mother came to his side and they stood together in silence. Allen had insisted on the married form of address as a courtesy—slaves did not marry. She had mentioned, with her usual stoicism, four other children she had lost as babies, to Allen’s dismay and sadness. She volunteered no information on who had fathered them.

  “Look.” She pointed to a smudge of smoke inland that blossomed into a dark column. “Lemarchand’s boiling house.”

  Others joined them at the rail, talking excitedly of the conflagration, the damage that would be caused by such a catastrophic fire. As they watched, another column of smoke arose.

  “By God, the slaves must have done it!” Frensham trained a telescope on the shore.

  “A slave uprising?” Allen asked.

  Frensham lowered the telescope. “Oh, yes. It happens from time to time, and God knows we all warned March of keeping such vermin as Blight in his employ…well, I trust he and his daughter got out in time.”

  Allen stared at the columns of smoke. What if March had not escaped? And what of Clarissa and Celia?

  He turned to his father. “I must make sure they are safe.”

  “Allen, I beg of you, don’t go!”

  “I’ll do nothing rash.”

  His father thumped one fist onto the rail. “You don’t need to do anything rash to be in danger. You don’t understand. The slaves will kill indiscriminately without reason or pity. They—”

  “They’re like animals. Yes, I understand. Remember you talk to a man who carries his manumission in his pocket.” He walked away from his father and addressed the captain. “Sir, if you please, lower the longboat. I need to go ashore.”

  “There’s not much time before the tide turns, sir,” the Captain said.

  “Allen!” His father was almost in tears, and Allen could understand his fear that he was about to risk losing his son again.

  “Let ’im go.” Mrs. Silcombe touched the earl’s sleeve. It was the first time Allen had seen either of them break the wary silence they maintained.

  His father nodded.

  “Good-bye, Papa.” He embraced his father, and then, for the first time, his mother, before swinging overboard on a loop of rope into the longboat.

  Allen told the sailors who rowed him to the jetty to wait until the tide turned, and if he had not returned, they should leave. He walked up the beach through pristine white sand, hoping he’d be able to recognize the opening in the mangroves that led to March’s house. Yes, here it was—he recognized the fantastically bent and knobbled tree under which he’d loitered, watching March and Clarissa caress each other.

  The air was moist and thick with insects intent on flying up his nose and into his mouth and eyes. He wished he had a cheroot to ward them off. He removed his coat, waistcoat, and neck-cloth, his shirt becoming drenched with sweat. The scent of burning, overlaid with the acrid stink of burning sugar, became stronger as he started up the slope to the house, making his way along the oyster shell path that wound through walls of hanging vines. He could hear voices now—yelling and shouting—and an insistent heavy thudding.

  As Allen came to the edge of the wilderness, he heard the sound of a horse tearing at grass. A horse harnessed to a trap, presumably for the Lemarchands’ departure, had wandered onto the lawn and was contentedly grazing. So they must still be here. Allen captured the horse’s reins and tethered it to a nearby branch.

  Something that looked like a crumpled heap of cloth lay a little way off. Still keeping in the shade of the tropical greenery, he moved to investigate. As he drew nearer, the buzzing flies and the heap of cloth became a human shape, and one he knew. Finch. Finch with his throat slashed, blood soaking into his clothes and into the green of the lawn, eyes staring blank at the sky.

  A group of slaves, using a huge timber as a battering ram, attacked the front door of the house. Every window was shuttered and presumably bolted from inside.

  He tossed his outer clothes into the trap and ran toward the house. He hoped that his initial impression, of a dark man in shirtsleeves, would be enough to make him blend in for as long as he needed, until they saw he was wearing shoes and heard him speak. Then, he’d have to rely on his own wits.

  Allen got as far as the steps, before someone recognized him and let out an angry shout. A young boy—he could only have been about twelve—ran up to him, waving a machete, dark eyes wide with fear and excitement.

  Allen stood still, hands spread to show he was unarmed, and then, as the lad didn’t stop, sidestepped, grasped his wrist, and disarmed him. He tossed the machete down and away, then ran to the top of the steps and turned to face the slaves. He’d seen riots before; he knew how a crowd could be swayed, or cowed, or enraged. He knew he could not stop them, nor could he condemn them.

  This crowd, faced with a man they knew to be a white master, who was yet something else, slowed, muttering.

  Allen looked down upon them, at men maddened beyond endurance, machetes glinting in the sunlight, and knew this might be the last thing he ever saw. Within seconds he could be dead meat like Finch, a butchered thing.

  “I’m Allen Pendale,” he said in the relative silence, “and I have been abused as you have been, but only for a few days, not my entire life. You know my story. You know I’m lucky enough that I had family to help me and can go to England. I’ll offer safe passage to any of you who want to come with me and take your chances there. You’ll still have to work hard, but no one will own you. You can’t be a slave in England.

  “I’m only one man, and although the white master in me wants to stop you from taking the house, I know I can’t. But leave Lemarchand and his family to me.”

  There was some hesitation. One of the men—Allen recognized him as a groom in Lemarchand’s stable—held out a strangely shaped object to Allen. He took it with some hesitation before he realized it was a goatskin filled with sour beer, which he took and drank from, spilling some down his shirt.

  Another man, whom Allen didn’t recognize, nodded. “You take de master, den.”

  “And his wife and daughter,” Allen said.

  They nodded and grinned at Allen.

  Allen passed the goatskin to the boy he’d disarmed, stepped back, and let the assault on the front door continue.

  The solid mahogany shuddered, splintered and caved in, and the slaves poured into the house. A large china vase that stood on a plinth in the entrance hall flew against the wall and smashed into pieces on the floor. Allen winced, thinking of china shards like glass under bare feet, but the men rampaged into the house in a wave of anger.

  Let them. He couldn’t stop them. He glanced up the stairs and saw someone move on the landing—a whisk of skirts. “Clarissa!” He shouted. “Celia! It’s I, Allen.” He ran up the stairs, in the direction he’d seen the fleeing figure take.

  “Stop!” Celia stood outside her father’s bedchamber, a pistol in her hands. She was shaking, but the muzzle of the pistol wavered up and down at his chest level. He had no doubt it was loaded.

  “Put the pistol down, Miss Celia, if you please.” This was a far more troublesome situation than a wildly excited young lad with a machete.

  “No! You’re one of them. I’ll shoot you.”

  “I’m Allen Pendale. I’m the man who treads on your feet when we dance.”

  “Stay away!”

  “I can crack you Brazil nuts and keep the kernel whole, remember?” He walked toward her slowly, his voice calm and soothing, hoping she wouldn’t panic and pull the trigger. “Give me the pistol.”

  “No,” Celia wailed, and burst into tears.

  He gripped her wrist, pointed the pistol away from them both, and uncocked it. He took her in his arms. “You’re a brave girl. All is well.”

  March’s bedchamber door opened, revealing Clarissa. Like Celia, she w
as dressed for travel in a bonnet and long cloak. “Where’s Finch? He went to fetch the trap. What’s happening? They’ve broken in, haven’t they?”

  “They have indeed, and I expect they’ll set it afire soon when they’re finished looting,” Allen said. “Come with me and I’ll get you out of here. We must make haste. Fetch March.”

  “Mr. Allen!” Nerissa ran toward them. “I want to come to England wid you.”

  “Oh, thank God, they don’t all hate us,” Celia cried.

  Nerissa looked at her with contempt. “I want to be free like ’im said downstairs, ’cause you a silly, spoiled girl, Miss Celia. I want to work and be paid.”

  “Excellent,” Allen said. “You can start earning right now by helping me carry Mr. Lemarchand’s belongings outside.”

  Allen pushed past Clarissa and into the bedchamber.

  March, wearing a hat and greatcoat, stood at the window, watching the smoke swirl outside. “The roof of the boiling house has just fallen in,” he remarked. “The smithy and the dairy are both gone, too.”

  “Your house is next, sir. We must leave, and Clarissa will not budge unless you do.”

  March drew on his gloves and took up a cane, as though he was about to walk in a London park. He took Allen’s arm. “I am gladder than I can say to see you once more, my dear. But where shall we go?”

  “To my father’s ship. But we must make haste, sir.”

  He turned March over to Clarissa and Celia, and he and Nerissa dragged the large trunk of belongings, which, apart from smaller bags the women carried, seemed to be all that they had had time to pack.

  The smell of burning wafted up from downstairs, although the sound of the voices and some drunken singing suggested the slaves had broached March’s cellars.

  The descent of the staircase took longer than Allen would have liked. March was frail enough that he was required to rest every few steps, and the smoke in the house, now quite thick, made all of them cough. As they crossed the entry hall, a ceiling beam came down in a burst of flames from one of the flanking rooms. Allen wondered how long the house could last—and how long it would be before one of the slaves saw them leave and reconsidered the tenuous bargain they had struck.

  Outside on the steps a few slaves lingered: several boys, including the one with the machete, who now clutched a porcelain figure of a shepherdess, a man with a knife chest, busily bashing the lock open with a rock, and an elderly man leaning on a stick. They had been joined by a couple of women whom Allen recognized as kitchen slaves.

  “We come to England wid you,” said the boy with the porcelain.

  “Very well,” Allen said, pushing aside problems of extra provisions and clothes for a long cold voyage, let alone sleeping quarters aboard ship. “That ornament does not belong to you. Put it down. And you, sir, the chest and the cutlery inside it are not your property.”

  “It’s a pretty t’ing,” the boy said, clutching the china to his chest. “It’s mine.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” March said with a flash of his old manner, “what the devil do I care for porcelain and cutlery now? If they do not keep the things, others will take them. Keep the shepherdess if you must, Jack. And Hercules, if you can carry the knife chest to make the tide, you are welcome to it.”

  “Very well,” Allen said, trying not to let his impatience show. He helped Lemarchand, Celia, and Clarissa into the trap, and allowed the elderly man with the stick to ride in it too. Jack and his porcelain shepherdess jumped aboard before Allen could stop him.

  “Get that dirty boy out of here!” Celia squealed. “There’s no room.”

  “Hold your tongue,” Clarissa said, and hauled the boy onto her lap. He protested at first, then laughed and snuggled close to her.

  “The rest of you, take the path through the trees,” Allen said. “Go to the jetty. We will meet you there.” He whipped the horse into a fast trot—best not to make it seem as if they were in too much of a hurry to leave. The horse was made nervous by the flames and smoke now coming from the house, and Allen had to concentrate on keeping the pace steady.

  Behind him, Celia screamed, and he turned to see the crowd of slaves emerging from the house, arms laden with loot, yelling angrily. Something crashed into the trap—one of March’s bottles of claret, splashing them with red, and scattering splinters of glass—and Allen whipped the horse to a gallop across the lawn and along the road that led to the sea.

  One month later, aboard the Persephone

  “Get some air, my dear.” The words were little more than a whisper. Clarissa had to lean close to March to hear them.

  “Later,” she said. “I want to stay with you.”

  “You need daylight.”

  His hand uncurled from hers. Every day, it seemed, his bones became more prominent, his skin waxier and yellowish, and he retreated into a place where she could not reach him. The light of the lamp overhead threw the bones of his face into sharp relief, his beauty diminished by sickness.

  Don’t watch the lamp sway, she reminded herself.

  “If you’re sure…” She snatched her cloak, trying not to appear too hurried as the nausea threatened to return. She bolted out of the cabin and onto the deck, breathing cold, salty air through her nose. Above the sails roared like wind through tall trees—how she longed for England, for the gentle misty green of lawns and trees and hedges. But every day they sailed closer to home, was a day closer to March’s death.

  On deck, a familiar scene played itself out. Allen and his mother strolled together, her hand on his arm, deep in conversation. Now and again, she turned her head to his and smiled. Lord Frensham, tall and silver-haired, hovered—there was no other way to put it—occasionally staggering with the movement of the ship, looking mostly at the son he had nearly lost, but occasionally at the woman who had borne him.

  The three of them had their backs to her, and she was glad because, at that moment, the nausea returned and she lurched for the side of the ship.

  Someone put a hand on her shoulder. Even in her wretchedness she knew whose it was—a large, square hand, clad in a leather glove.

  “I’ve lost a guinea on you.” Allen Pendale pushed a cup of steaming liquid into her hand.

  “Thank you.” Tears rose to her eyes, not so much from gratitude for the ginger tea, but that he had enough regard still to include her in the seasickness stakes. At the same time, she scolded herself for how a small scrap of kindness could undo her so thoroughly.

  Allen stood next to her at the rail, swaying easily with the rhythm of the ship. “Take small sips.” He sighed and handed her a handkerchief. “Don’t cry.”

  “May I remind you I have quite a lot to cry about?”

  “Well, let’s see. You’re about to inherit a great deal of money—you know March rewrote his will leaving you a considerable legacy. Ah, don’t Clarissa. I’m sorry.”

  She blew her nose into his handkerchief, noting with a certain sour pleasure that it would not be of much use to him after, and took stock of her belly; would the tea stay there?

  He rested his elbows on the side, hands linked, and stared out at the wilderness of shifting gray-green waves. “How is March?”

  “Weaker every day. He sleeps most of the time, from the laudanum.” She stared into the bottom of the cup, twisting it between her hands. A few specks of grated ginger clung to the bottom.

  “Will he allow me to see him?” Allen’s voice was so quiet and raw with pain she barely made out the words.

  She laid a hand on his arm. “He’s dying, Allen, and he barely speaks to me now. It’s as though he sets out on his own voyage.”

  He shrugged. “There is so much left unsaid. I never told him I loved him, even if it was not how he wanted me to love him. And I have not adequately apologized for doubting him.”

  “I think he knows. I hope so. I’m sorry.” She didn’t want to start saying she was sorry; there was so much to be sorry for she was afraid she would not stop. “What is Celia doing? Maybe I sh
ould send her to sit with him, although he is probably asleep.”

  “She’s below, and I expect she fights with Nerissa. They’re usually at it like cats and dogs, according to Mrs. Silcombe.” He paused. “I’m curious about something—the circumstances of your marriage. Do tell me about it.”

  She turned to him, surprised, and somewhat suspicious of his innocent tone. “Well, we were married in the middle of the night by Father O’Brien. March thought he was dying, so…”

  “And that was it? A marriage by the rites of the Catholic Church?”

  “Yes.” She had the nasty feeling she was on trial, being needled by a clever lawyer.

  He threw back his head and laughed. “You’re not married, Clarissa. There is nothing remotely legal about such a marriage, whatever March may have told you. There’s no way now to even make it valid under the law.”

  Tears rose to her eyes. “I made a vow, Allen.”

  “Ah, don’t cry any more, Clarissa.” He wrapped his cloak around her, around them both. His body, warm and familiar and solid, was a comforting presence. “Whose child is it, my love?”

  So he’d guessed. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t even know if you want it to be yours.”

  He grinned. “Well, to put it delicately, there was rather a lot of spunk flying around.”

  She snorted. “Delicately, Mr. Pendale?” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I am so sorry, Allen. So sorry for what happened.”

  “I too.”

  “I have always liked you above any man I ever knew.”

  “I must admit, I’d hoped for a more passionate declaration,” he said, but held her closer.

  She broke away. “I am pregnant, sad, and either vomiting or on the brink of doing so all the time, Allen, and you can hardly expect more from me at the moment. I lost my notes and report on slavery in the chaos of leaving March’s house, and all my work is for naught. I have to try to write it all again from memory, and my condition makes my mind plod along like an old foundered horse. Now you tell me I am not married to Lemarchand after all, so I am in no position to look after his daughter as he asked. And I feel I am a fool.”