Return to Paradise

by Erica Brown

  Tom knew it. Shacks that had once housed slaves were slowly being reclaimed by the wilderness. The trees were thick there, the last remnant of an ancient forest.

  ‘I thought that place was long abandoned.’

  Trevor smiled and admiration shone in his eyes. ‘Not by her.’

  Rupert insisted on coming with him. ‘You need me to look after you. See?’ He held up his fists and posed like a bare-knuckle fighter.

  Grinning broadly, Tom took hold of Rupert’s hand, forced it open and fingered the unblemished palm. ‘As soft as a baby’s bottom.’

  Rupert looked peeved, but quickly recovered. ‘I’m still coming with you.’

  * * *

  The old slave compound at Cleveland Rise was approached by a narrow path that wound through thick undergrowth.

  Little sunlight penetrated through the overhead canopy of tangled branches. Brightly coloured birds and butterflies flashed through the gloom and Rupert chased them with his butterfly net, the true reason he had wanted to come.

  Desdemona DeWitt’s house was built of rough stone, with a roof of thatched palm leaves. A plume of smoke crawled skywards from a single clay pot that looked as if it had been stuck on as an afterthought. It seemed far too grand for such a shabby hut.

  The lizards sunbathing on the roof fascinated Rupert.

  ‘We’re not here to study the wildlife,’ said Tom with an air of impatience.

  Instantly taking the criticism to heart, Rupert poked his nose forward and shouted, ‘Is anyone there?’

  The silence was strangely deafening. Tom kept his gaze fixed on the lop-sided door of odd-sized planks, which were nailed together in haphazard fashion.

  ‘Perhaps she’s dead,’ whispered Rupert.

  Tom told him to be quiet.

  ‘You be members of the Strong family?’ The voice was high-pitched, oddly attractive and took them unaware.

  Rupert looked at Tom astounded. ‘How did she know that?’

  Tom shrugged. ‘Can we come in? I mean no harm. I just want to thank your grandson for saving my life and perhaps save his, but I can’t find him.’

  Again a pause. ‘Come in, but be careful with my door.’

  There was no sign of wavering in her voice, no thin wail of old age.

  Tom opened the door carefully, catching a piece of wood as it slid off its frame. He leaned the whole thing against the side of the hut, bent his head and entered. Rupert followed.

  The hut was small, the floor packed mud and the shutters woven grass. There was a bed made from saplings, its mattress a single blanket tied with string to the frame. A cooking pot hung from a tripod over a bed of glowing embers. A curtain of mauve muslin hung from the wall, though on closer inspection Tom saw it was a dress of the style women wore at the turn of the century. The cloth had yellowed in places and it looked in danger of falling to pieces, but at one time it had been beautiful.

  Desdemona DeWitt was tiny. She was sitting in an armchair that might once have graced a plantation mansion. The wooden arms were shiny from years of use, their lion heads polished by years of restless hands. The old woman’s bare feet hung ten inches short of the floor. Her eyes were like glossy black buttons gazing out from sunken hollows, and her face was a mass of wrinkles, like the tough skin of an old russet apple.

  She waved her hand as though bidding them to sit down.

  Tom barely glanced around him before hunkering down in front of her. Rupert still looked for a non-existent chair.

  Desdemona looked amused. The only chair was the one she was sitting in.

  Tom began to explain. ‘I owe your grandson my life. I feel I have to do something for him.’

  ‘Hmm!’

  He spread his hands to emphasize the point. ‘I wouldn’t want to think he put himself in any danger at my expense.’

  ‘Hmm!’

  Tom exchanged a look with Rupert. He wasn’t getting anywhere, but if he expected any help from Rupert, he was very much mistaken. Rupert seemed as stuck for words as he was.

  He persisted. ‘Does he lack for anything?’

  Desdemona closed one eye and fixed him hard and fast with the other. ‘Lack fer anything? We darkies have always lacked, Master Strong. Know what an in’eritance is?’

  Tom nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘No!’ Her voice rang like a bell. Wings in the nearby thicket fluttered and took off. A lizard lazing in the sunlight that fell through the door scurried into the shadows.

  ‘No,’ she said again. ‘You knows yer own, but you don’t know ours.’ She waved the stem of her pipe at him.

  Resting his elbows on his knees, Tom clasped his hands together and considered what to say. He also considered leaving and was aware that Rupert was fidgeting. We can’t face what an old woman has to say, he thought. Why is that? Rupert coughed and excused himself.

  The silence, the sound of insects and birds and the rustling of dark-green foliage in an itinerant breeze made the heat seem more than usually oppressing. Unblinking, her gaze stayed fixed on his face.

  ‘I’ll tell ye of my in’eritance,’ she said then. ‘There was a woman of Africa, brought ‘ere to be a slave. One day, she wanted fuel for her cooking pot and didn’t have any. Nor did she ‘ave the money to buy any. Desperate she was, and ‘er children were hungry, so she stole some fuel and got found out.’

  The old woman paused, took a puff of her pipe. Tom heard Rupert kicking at dust and stones outside.

  ‘This woman was fierce for her children. Fierce for their lives. When she got found out, she proclaimed she didn’t care; that she’d die for her children if need be. It was the worse thing she could have said. She wadn’t regretful about what she done, you see. She wadn’t regretful at all, and the master, Mister Oliver, he was angry. So they cart-whipped her.’

  A kind of adverse loyalty to plantation owners, and more particularly to the Strong family, made Tom want to protest that this couldn’t be true, that no man could do this to a mother who simply wanted to feed her family. But the words stuck in his throat.

  ‘You know what that means?’ she asked him.

  He nodded. ‘That means they tied her to a cart-wheel to whip her.’

  The pipe wobbled at the corner of her mouth but her eyes held no hate.

  ‘They stripped my ma naked in front of everybody.’ She shook her head. ‘Nothing shames a woman more. Her body’s only fer her family and her man to see. But they didn’t care. They whipped her. Thirty-nine times. Her back was a mass of red stripes after that. The next day they asked her whether she repented her sin and would never do it again. My mother refused. She swore at them and told them she’d do anything for her children.’ The old woman shook her head again. ‘So they decided another thirty-nine stripes might make her more repentant. By the following day her back was a mass of blood and she could barely stand. But that wadn’t good enough for them, no, sir it wadn’t. They said they didn’t believe she wadn’t fit to work, so to prove it one way or t’other, they boiled up pepper and poured it over her back. If she jumped up she was fine for work. But she didn’t jump up. The shock killed her.’

  Tom felt his stomach churning. ‘I’m ashamed,’ he said, his hands clasped between his knees.

  Tilting her head to one side, the old woman looked at him speculatively, as if she didn’t quite understand why he should say that. ‘You weren’t there. T’ain’t nothin’ to do with you. It’s my in’eritance and my grandson’s in’eritance and I’m tellin’ you all about it. Ain’t very pretty, is it?’

  He shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘That’s why he’s gone and shifted fer ‘imself. Had enough of all this…’ She took the pipe from her mouth and waved at her surroundings. ‘We DeWitts is a bit of everythin’, not just African. Dutch, British, African; we got a bit of everythin’ in our blood.’ She chuckled wickedly to herself. ‘Men is men. Hot climates, hot men. My grandson – his name is Samson, Master Strong – he gives respect to his African ancestors and his English ancestors. He’d always fel
t split in half like that and he was tired of the plantation.’ She shook her head again. ‘It ain’t what it used to be. So he’s gone to England. Once he’s there he’ll find his aunt’s cousin. She married a sugar refiner. Don’t know her married name. Don’t know where he come from. Just know she’s there and that Samson is set on finding her.’ She chuckled again. ‘But there, you knows how this Strong family is; and my Samson, like his aunt’s relative and a few other of us, got more than a cupful of Strong blood in our veins.’

  Tom heard his heart ticking, louder and louder, rising up through his body and thudding behind his aching eyes. Samson’s relative in England was married to a sugar refiner. Dare he ask her name? His throat was parched and he was sure that if he got to his feet too quickly, he’d fall down again. Although he was sure he knew the identity of the woman Samson sought, he wanted it confirmed in the dank, shadowy surroundings of the mud-plastered hut with its roof of leaves and twigs.

  ‘This relative. What is her name?’

  Desdemona tapped out the contents of her pipe on the flaking plaster of the hut wall. ‘Blanche,’ she said with an air of affection. ‘Blanche Bianca, and a pretty little girl she used to be.’

  With the name ringing like a bell in his head, Tom got to his feet and thanked her. ‘One more question,’ he said, his muscular frame filling the doorway. ‘Were you ever whipped?’

  Her eyes glittered as she stared at him. She seemed to weigh him up with unblinking eyes before she slid down from her chair, turned her back on him and lifted the worn cotton bodice she wore with a blue skirt. Her back was a mass of healed stripes, a welter of raised lines criss-crossing and scaly, like the skin of the lizards that ran over her roof and bathed in the sunlit doorway.

  * * *

  ‘Do you believe that?’ Rupert asked him as he mounted his horse.

  ‘You heard?’

  Rupert shrugged. ‘I didn’t like hearing all that about whipping. It makes me feel uncomfortable.’

  Urging his horse forward, Tom nodded grimly. ‘It should make us all feel uncomfortable. A civilized man shouldn’t have such a thing in his history. It’s a blot on the soul.’

  Rupert fell silent. He clearly didn’t want to be reminded that the Strong wealth was based on sugar and enslavement of others.

  Tom’s brow was furrowed as they rode back through the lush green vegetation that divided the old compound from the biggest cane field. Powder-puff clouds spilled from the interior into a sky so blue he wanted to dive into it. The sun was warm, and vivid birds skimmed the tops of the cane spears.

  If the Garden of Eden had ever existed, it would have looked like this, thought Tom, yet even now, some sought exile in a land of grey skies and gales. Samson’s running away to England troubled him. Escaping his problems was understandable, but arriving on Blanche’s doorstep could cause enormous problems for her. Things had changed since the young Blanche Bianca had first arrived in England. At the beginning of the century, so long as a person had money and a family name, he or she would be accepted despite their origins. The burgeoning of a mighty empire had changed all that.

  ‘Will you tell her?’ Rupert asked, reining his horse alongside that of Tom’s on their arrival back at Rivermead House. The same thought had obviously occurred to him.

  ‘So you heard that, too?’

  Rupert nodded. ‘Look, Tom. I know how you felt about Blanche.’

  ‘It was a long time ago. We both married.’ Tom avoided looking at Rupert.

  ‘You don’t need to see her to warn her. You can just send word. I won’t have you slighting my sister, but I have an affection for Blanche too, you know.’

  ‘As a servant.’

  Rupert seemed stuck for words at first. ‘Well… yes. She was our nanny when I was young.’

  Tom shook his head. ‘What good would it do?’

  Rupert scratched at his forehead with the butt of his riding crop. ‘At least she’d be forewarned and could ensure the matter was dealt with as discretely as possible. Perhaps I should tell her. You know most people think her dark colouring is due to Spanish descent not Negro. She could never be accepted in polite society again if her true origins were known.’

  Tom stiffened, dismounted and loosened his horse’s girth. Rupert’s words were like splinters piercing his heart. Exasperated, he leaned his head against the saddle, breathing in the smell of leather and sweating horseflesh. He had an overwhelming urge to turn round and fling another truth into Rupert’s face: She’s your half-sister. Your father raped her mother. It would be possible that Rupert would never speak to him again. If the episode in Desdemona’s hut was anything to go by, Rupert could not cope with unsavoury truths.

  * * *

  Despite the attack and warnings from Dr Penfold that it was dangerous to be out after sundown, Tom walked through the darkness towards a house where climbing plants had run riot over a wrought-iron veranda. He settled himself in a rickety chair and eyed the dark silhouettes of trees against an indigo sky.

  This was the old house where Blanche Bianca had grown up. He closed his eyes. The feeling of peace here was extraordinary and the night breeze was cool on his face. The sound of singing insects and rustling leaves was hypnotic.

  One day I will bring my son here, he thought, opened his eyes and caught a glimpse of the sparkling sea through the black curtains of foliage.

  One day, my son will go to the best school in Bristol. I will teach him to box, to ride and to sail.

  And we will be happy, he thought as he drifted into sleep. We will all be happy.

  Chapter Three

  The cough had started in the spring. The doctor prescribed rest and suggested a stay in the city of Bath and the drinking of its famous water.

  Feeling pressurized, and not liking it one little bit, Blanche had protested that she was not an invalid.

  The doctor had adopted a fierce look and peered at her over the top of his pince-nez. ‘You will be if you ignore my advice.’

  She’d acquiesced, but only on the understanding he would not tell her family just how sick she was. The waters would cure the little tickle she had…

  To her great surprise, she enjoyed the genteel atmosphere and old world charm of a once-fashionable city. There was less traffic than in Bristol and besides the imposing crescents, quaint alleys and walkthroughs designed for sedan chairs, there were open spaces of grass and well-tended gardens.

  Her cough improved with the spring sunshine and the blossoming daffodils, narcissi, tulips and lilies-of-the-valley.

  The Ambassador Hotel, recommended to her by the doctor, became like a second home, and she enjoyed watching people, passing the time of day with both the residents and the staff. It became an antidote to the silence of her home in Somerset Parade where she had only servants for company.

  The house in Bristol once rang with the sound of happy children and the big, bluff presence of Conrad, her husband. Now it seemed so empty. The children were grown and married, all but Lucy, the youngest, and Max, her eldest son. Lucy attended a ladies’ college and Max had stepped into Conrad’s shoes, which he sometimes found far too big, though would never admit it. He was very protective of the Heinkel family interests and was determined to be accepted on equal terms by the older, more experienced men with whom he did business. Sometimes his intensity clutched at her heart because he still seemed so boyish, a minnow striving to be noticed in the pond where the big fish swam.

  The Ambassador Hotel had spacious rooms, attentive staff and an aloof clientele, which suited her well. She did not seek company, only the sights and sounds of people bustling around her, confirmation that life went on regardless. In her solitude, she had time to think and ponder on life, death and eternity.

  A fellow guest nodded and doffed his hat now as she entered the hotel. Blanche smiled at him. He winked. She feigned embarrassment and looked away. Middle-aged ladies no longer attracted the attention of men – at least that’s what she’d come to believe on reaching her fortieth birthday. Her
cheeks dimpled as she smiled into her gloved hand and caught a glimpse of herself in the glass of the hotel’s revolving door.

  Black suits me, she thought. I might never return to wearing violet, pink, lemon and powder-blue again. But I would definitely like a new hat. Despite the lack of sunshine and her illness, her complexion was still darker than average and glowed against the blackness of her clothes.

  ‘Your tea is served, madam,’ said the concierge, inviting her to take it in the lounge.

  The hotel’s lounge had comfortable chairs and huge glass windows overlooking Pulteney Weir. The view was splendid. A painting of the Rialto Bridge in Venice hung in close proximity to the windows, its position, obviously in a bid to elicit a favourable comparison, making Blanche smile.

  She didn’t accept the chair offered in a quiet corner, but chose one with a good view of the bridge. The tea tray followed, the waiter trying to maintain the waxwork disdain his employer preferred, though his eyes shone with admiration. Solitary females usually opted for seclusion behind a potted palm or a strategically placed Chinese screen, a kind of imposed purdah if they had no chaperone or man to keep them company. Mrs Blanche Heinkel pleased herself.

  ‘And how is your daughter Mary, Sam?’ she asked the concierge as he personally poured her tea.

  ‘Very well, madam. She has only been working here just one month, and has already made her mark.’

  Blanche smiled in a way that some might construe as being too friendly towards a servant. But she liked Sam. He’d always taken care of her and there had been a mutual warmth between them from the first time they’d met.

  ‘You’re lucky she has found an appointment so close to home.’

  ‘I’m most grateful, madam. She enjoys looking after children.’

  The years fell away, and Blanche remembered when she’d first come to England and, to her great surprise, ended up as the Strongs’ nanny at Marstone Court. ‘I trust she is well treated?’