Island of a Thousand Springs

by Sarah Lark

  Doug had disrespectful thoughts about the latter, people could indeed be of very different opinions, but if Alima liked her new mistress, all the better.

  In fact, the initial arrangement was enjoyable for everyone involved. Doug took the girl to Kingston and discussed all of the important details with the lady. Unfortunately, the lord was not there. Nevertheless, Doug very clearly discussed the issue of her virtue.

  “But of course, Mr. Fortnam, what are you thinking!” Lady Hollister laughed. “The girl is as safe with me as in Abraham’s bosom. Even though, of course, we have some very handsome house boys.” She giggled.

  Doug had to strain not to roll his eyes. Had the lady really not noticed the similarity between all these young mulattos and her husband?

  “I am sure, Alima will be able to contain herself,” he then said, without returning the lady’s smile. “But it is your job to ensure that all of the men of this household contain themselves.”

  The lady nodded, obviously still amused. Doug sighed. He couldn’t be clearer. But he took the time to visit Alima just a week later in her new home and was met with general satisfaction. Lady Hollister was pleased with Alima’s vigilance and how quickly she learned. Alima was delighted by the lace dress and apron that she was permitted to wear there on a daily basis. And she didn’t just love Lady Hollister’s pretty things, but she also babbled on about makeup and hairstyles. If this continues as such, she will soon start sounding like Lucille, Doug thought with a bit of regret. He found most of the slave girls much more interesting than the young society ladies, though of course he would never have touched them.

  A week later, Maalik and Khadija walked to Kingston — Doug always wondered how little the native Africans actually noticed the blistering heat when going long distances. Both came back beaming. Khadija was delighted with how well-liked Alima was in her new position and everything that she was learning.

  “She puts white stuff on the mistress’s face,” she described the lady’s daily makeup routines to Doug’s amusement. “Why do it, Backra? Is already white!”

  Doug left it to Kwadwo to explain the fashions of the white backras and listened to the no-less enthusiastic Maalik with a bit more concern. At the market, he had met a black Muslim brother who had belonged to the same tribe as his family.

  “Maybe man for Alima. Backra says good. Maybe buy Alima …”

  Doug rubbed his forehead again. Suddenly, the father who had been so worried, no longer worried about selling his daughter. It was too bad that Nora couldn’t hear it.

  For several weeks, he heard nothing more about Alima except for a few occasional remarks from Adwea, from which he gathered that things were going well for the girl. The cook used Alima as a shining example to encourage the other house slaves. Phrases like, “If you don’t work hard, never get beautiful dresses like Alima” and “You do good and maybe also become maid to beautiful lady like Alima” were soon added to her standard threats or encouragements. Maalik and Khadja asked permission to travel every second or third Sunday and when Doug sent an invitation, Alima would come along to Cascarilla Gardens and spend half the night telling her jealous friends about the wonders of her life with Lady Hollister.

  For her part, the lady — and even her niece—were full of praise for Alima and couldn’t thank Doug enough at the various Christmas events and balls at which the Kingston society regularly met after the sugar cane harvest.

  “We’ve made everyone happy there,” he said to his overseer, the gentle Mr. McCloud, with whom he shared a rum punch on Christmas Eve. “But see to it that there is a gift ready for Alima tomorrow.” Doug would remember his people on Christmas with small special gifts — usually rum, and coffee beans, or tea for the Muslims. “The Hollisters are in Kingston, but it will be important to her parents that we don’t forget the girl. She does still belong to Cascarilla Gardens, after all.”

  Ian McCloud nodded. “And she is coming next week,” he said. “Maalik told me quite happily that the Hollister’s are moving to their plantation for a few days.”

  Doug grinned. “Yes, it’s time to distill the rum. The old man won’t let that be taken from him — and the results are also nothing to sneeze at.” He raised his glass and winked. “I must confess that I also lent them Alima because a few barrels of it came in return.”

  McCloud laughed. “Anyway, I told the father that she could sleep in his hut again. I hope that’s all right with you.”

  Doug shrugged. “If the lady doesn’t insist that she sleeps on her doorstep … some of these woman can’t even be separated from their maids for a few minutes. But otherwise—”

  McCloud’s face grew serious. “I don’t want to be disrespectful towards Lord Hollister,” he remarked, “but I don’t think it advisable here that the little one spends the night on her mistress’s doorstep. In Kingston, the Hollisters keep a large house. But here …”

  Doug nodded knowingly. “Here, her doorstep is also his doorstep. Already understood, Mr. McCloud. You are entirely correct. If there is some problem, I’ll find a reasonable justification to give the Hollisters. The girl’s virtue cannot be put in danger.”

  CHAPTER 2

  A week later, Alima moved back into her parents’ hut, even though Lady Hollister was reluctant to let her go. She argued that the girl would have to go late at night and that therefore she might as well just sleep in the Hollisters’ slave quarters.

  “But she doesn’t know anyone there,” Doug insisted. “And alone among so many foreign field niggers, she would be more vulnerable on the way home after everyone has long returned to their beds. Let the girl finish at sunset, and then she’ll get home in the last daylight, and everyone is happy.”

  Lady Hollister sullenly agreed to comply, but Alima nonetheless appeared late at Cascarilla Gardens on the first evening. Her arrival deprived Maalik and Khadija of sleep, since they naturally wanted to talk to her and give her something to eat. Doug was not thrilled about it, but did not say a word.

  Until one day, when Alima came home much earlier than usual — and a disaster happened.

  Doug was already comfortable in his room, reading a book in the study in his dressing gown, when there was a knock on the door of the manor house that was so loud, that he heard it all the way through the other rooms.

  The house servant who had opened the door was excitedly talking with several men and Doug recognized the voice of his overseer. Sighing, he stood up to see that everything was in order, but the servant had already let the visitors enter. When Doug approached them in his spacious entrance area, he saw McCloud, Kwadwo, and Maalik. All of them were clearly extremely agitated. The field slave threw himself on the floor in front of Doug as soon as he caught sight of him.

  “Good girl. She good girl. Don’t kill, don’t want, don’t—”

  The man sobbed and went to grab Doug’s ankle. Kwadwo stopped him.

  “Stop it, Maalik, we don’t do that here.” McCloud uncomfortably looked up from the desperate man.

  “She good. She not hang. She—”

  “Can someone explain to me what is going on here?” Doug asked. “Get up, Maalik, and speak properly. Or let one of the others explain. Mr. McCloud …?”

  “I also don’t fully understand, Mr. Fortnam,” the overseer confessed. “I have just heard from the other slaves that Alima is back. I first thought that the lady had released her a bit earlier. But then Maalik came … well, he did the same to me as he just did to you. He is completely beside himself. Then I called Kwadwo. He spoke to him. And I went to his hut, looking for the girl. When I went in, she hid herself away in the corner and just moaned that she just didn’t want to, and what would happen now, and she would certainly be hanged. The mother screamed and howled. Anyway, the only think that I got out of it was that Alima ran away.”

  Doug shrugged. “And so what? Surely it’s some misunderstanding. We can sort it out in the morning. She probably did something wrong and the lady immediately threatened to whip her. The Hollisters
are so rash with these things. And now she’s run away. But she needn’t have worried: she belongs here by law. The authorities won’t do anything to her, even if the lady turns her in. And hanging—” he laughed.

  McCloud shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fortnam, but it looks like the issue is a great deal more serious. After what Kwadwo has told me, it may well be that the girl is in danger of going to the gallows. In any case, it can’t wait until tomorrow, as sorry as I am to disturb you.”

  Ian McCloud was sometimes a bit longwinded, but his judgements usually proved to be correct. Doug braced himself with patience.

  “Then tell me, Kwadwo,” he said. “Come to my room and we’ll all sit down. And we’ll have a glass of rum — and Maalik gets a particularly large one, no matter what his God has to say about it. It is medicine, the man must calm down.”

  Kwadwo sat down, visibly impressed by the heavy furniture and the many bottles in the cabinet on the carpet in the study. He took a glass, and also pushed one into Maalik’s hand.

  “So, if I’ve understood everything correctly, then it happened this afternoon,” the stable master and Obeah man began to report. “It seems that Alima was … how do you say that, when someone smoothes clothes?”

  “Ironing,” McCloud said.

  Kwadwo nodded. “The girl was … ironing …”

  Alima had been going about her work in her mistress’ dressing room as she always did. However, it was much more cramped than in Kingston, as the Hollisters’ farmhouse was much smaller than the manor houses of Cascarilla Gardens or the Keensley plantation. So, there was hardly any room for visitors, and the lord and lady had to share the dressing room. Now, that was of no particular consequence: Lady Hollister liked to sleep in. When Alima came in the morning to bring her tea, do her hair and makeup, and help her dress, the lord had already long been in his distillery, looking after the famous Hollister rum.

  Alima didn’t foresee any trouble when Hollister came in unexpectedly. She lowered her eyes shyly, as she always did when she crossed paths with the backra and mumbled a polite greeting. However, she immediately noticed that something was amiss when the lord didn’t continue onto his bedroom, but instead, stopped and stared at her. Alima felt awkward but carried on with her work: she heated the flat iron with a bucket of hot coals that she had brought down from the kitchen. They were smoldering under the window in front of her and, along with the flat iron itself, let off a blistering heat on top of an already sweltering day. Although Alima had been accustomed to the heat, sweat droplets formed on her forehead.

  “You’re a pretty girl,” the lord remarked.

  Alima blushed. She didn’t know how to respond.

  “I think you would very much like a new dress.”

  Alima was surprised. Why would the lord give her a new dress? But, of course, it had just been Christmas. At Cascarilla Gardens, the slaves always got new clothes. Was Hollister just late with his gifts?

  “Now tell me, Chocolate …” The lord’s voice sounded urgent and sort of choked. “Aren’t you hot? You are so black … I’ve never seen anyone as black as you.”

  Alima would have most liked to hurry out of there, especially as the lord was then approaching her. Of course she was black, she came from Africa. Everyone in her tribe was black. Well, the slaves at the Hollister plantation were more of a light brown, but why should that be important?

  “Well, Chocolate?”

  “Like to have pretty clothes,” Alima said, evasively.

  “Me too,” he said with a strangely hoarse, low voice as he shared a secret with the girl. “But sometimes … when it is so hot … then you also want to take them off.”

  Alima watched in horror, as the lord removed his silk stockings and undid the straps on his breeches. Sure, this was his dressing room. And he had every right. But couldn’t he dismiss her first?

  Alima tried her best not to look over at her master. If she just went on as if she didn’t notice anything, maybe he would put on other breeches and go … She turned away and filled her iron with fresh burning coals. It was now red hot, and she had to focus to make sure she didn’t singe her mistress’s lace shirt. Alima directed all of her attention onto her work and was scared to death when Hollister suddenly grabbed her from behind.

  “Come, little Chocolate. Undress yourself, too. Wait, I’ll help you.”

  The lord turned the girl to face his bare abdomen, much to her dismay. Of course she had seen naked men before from time to time in Africa or from the corner of her eye while bathing at Cascarilla Gardens. However, it had never looked so big. The boys’ genitals had never been stretched out like that in front of her like a pole that could skewer her. He got closer to Alima. She ducked away from him, scared.

  “No, Backra. Don’t want new dress…”

  Alima backed away. She tried to avert her gaze from Hollister’s genitals. But then there was no way to escape other than maybe going into the Missis’ room. The man grabbed for her arm, wanted to pull her towards him—

  Alima was still holding the iron in her hand — stretched out away from her to keep from setting her own skirt on fire. But now the iron was the only weapon she had. Wild with fear, the girl took a swing. The smoldering hot, heavy iron hit Lord Hollister between the legs — exactly where the pole was hovering. Alima held it there until the master’s screams brought her back to consciousness. Hollister collapsed, howling in pain, and Alima dropped the iron.

  Of course, the iron opened, and the coals fell out onto the lord, who now was screaming even louder. Alima ran and met the Missis in the door, who also began to scream when she saw the backra on the floor. Meanwhile, his shirt had caught fire. Alima ran past her. And the girl doesn’t know about anything after that. She just ran down the stairs, and then out of the house towards Cascarilla Gardens. The only thing she could hear was the mistress screaming, “You will hang for this!”

  “She hit him in the private parts with an iron?” Doug asked.

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, he had to suppress a grin. The old lecher got exactly what he deserved.

  “That’s how I’ve understood things,” Kwadwo said.

  He pointed to Maalik, who was crouching beside him. Kwadwo sounded extremely worried.

  “And the girl said the same,” McCloud added. “At first I didn’t quite understand, but now—”

  Doug rubbed his forehead. “It looks bad for her,” he muttered and then turned to Maalik, who saw a bit more hope in the world after a large cup of rum. A hope that his master now had to destroy. “I’m sorry, Maalik, but if Alima hurt the man quite badly, especially if he might die, then I can’t protect her.” Maalik let out a howl.

  Doug sighed. “She’s my property; I can protect her from arbitrary punishments. But murder is under the law of the Crown, whether it be a slave or free man.”

  “She good girl—” Maalik whimpered.

  “She was just defending herself,” McCloud said.

  Doug made a face. “I know that, but first they’ll have to believe her. Moreover, she would have to prove that he wanted to force himself on her. And even if she could — I don’t have to tell anyone here how little the honor of a black woman is worth!”

  McCloud lowered his head while Kwadwo tried to things to Maalik.

  Doug straightened himself up. “Whatever the case may be, we have to somehow cope with the situation. It will be best if I ride over first thing tomorrow and find out what is going on. Maybe it’s not so bad. And if it is … the girl should pack her things and you explain toin to her, Kwadwo, how she gets to from Kingston into the mountains.”

  “You want …? She will…? You want to set her free?”

  Ian McCloud stared at Doug with complete astonishment, and Kwadwo did the same.

  Doug shrugged. “If she is hanged, then I also lose her,” he said pragmatically. “And on toon top of that, I’ll have a guilty conscience. It was ultimately my fault. I should have never sent her into that house.”

  “But
if that catches on…”

  It was not that Ian McCloud was hard-nosed, but to simply let a slave run away and to even encourage her to run away seemed like madness …

  “She will not go,” Kwadwo pointed out. “Think about it, Backra, the little girl, all alone in the Blue mountains…”

  Doug rolled his eyes. “Máanu did it.”

  “But Alima is not Máanu.” Kwadwo shook his head.

  “Alima was always protected, always with her family — and this strange god.” When it came to Islam, the reverend and the Obeah man tended to agree. “And then she wasn’t even allowed to go to an Obeah ceremony. She doesn’t even dare to look at a man. And you think she will be able to go into the mountains … among the Maroon warriors?”

  Doug sighed. He had no idea that the arrangement with the Hollisters could end up being so costly.

  “All right, Kwadwo. Tell Maalik the way. If they are going to disappear , it should be the whole family. But only if there is no other way.” He stood up.

  Ian McCloud was still shocked. Kwadwo looked at his master with a new respect, almost awe.

  “What if something happens tonight?” McCloud then asked. Doug shook his head. “I think that unlikely. The Lady will have other things on her mind than turning the girl in — and the Lord even more so. The redcoats will come tomorrow at the earliest. But if someone does show up: the girl has never been here. Maybe she hid somewhere else, but she never showed up here. Now don’t look so scared, McCloud! They will believe us; I am considered an honorable man. If the governor has doubts, he can always come have the slave quarters searched later …”

  Later, Alima and her family would be gone — slaves valued at over five hundred pounds. Doug could not really feel sorry for Lord Hollister.

  By the next morning, of course, nothing had happened, but Kwadwo had Amigo saddled and ready when Doug got to the stables early. He looked very concerned; Alima and Khadja didn’t want to go into the mountains — nor did Maalik either … Doug rubbed his forehead. Yet another experience that he would have gladly shared with Nora.