For Her Love (35 page)

Giles looked into the man’s distraught face. He was clearly nervous, the front of his shirt soaked in sweat, his dark-circled eyes constantly moving. Whatever it was that he spoke of, ‘twas ill news indeed.

“I’ve only just returned,” Giles said. “What word?”

The overseer took a deep breath and rattled off words that smacked of too much practice. “‘Twould seem Mistress Welbourne choked to death on those almonds she was always so fond of. When Edmund found her body, he must have been beside himself with grief. He swallowed poison.”

Giles pinned him with a penetrating gaze. “Beside himself with grief? Over Iolanthe? I can hardly credit such a thing. Were there witnesses?”

“Nay, none. Your wife’s maid found the bodies and reported it to me. I, myself, found the almonds lodged in Mistress Welbourne’s throat and vials with traces of powder in Edmund’s hand.”

“A very neat scenario, but most unlikely given their stormy relationship. I should think that Edmund would have danced upon her grave.”

The overseer scowled darkly. “The mistress’s death was an obvious accident. If Edmund did not kill himself, then the next likeliest suspect is your wife’s maid. You can accuse her if you like, but we’ve far bigger problems to face, and they’ll be all the worse if you cross Matu.”

“What problems? And what has Matu to with them?”

The questions made the overseer markedly more anxious. “We’ve been three days with no master or mistress. The slaves are growing hostile, harder to control. We have better weapons, Captain, but we Whites are outnumbered here. That dumb witch has too much power. I told Welbourne he should have sold her soon as his girl married you. ‘Tis an ill thing, the way the other slaves look at her. Think she has some kind of magic protection because she’s lived so long.”

He leaned closer and lowered his voice, although there was no one else close enough to overhear him. “Welbourne went into the house that day mad enough to throttle his wife. It may be Welbourne thought himself well rid of her when she choked. But what if he
was
murdered? The last thing any of us needs to do just now is to stir up the rest of the Blacks by confronting the one person who most likely killed him. Were I you, my first act as the new master would be to sell her.”

The new master? Giles looked back across the bay where
Reliance
floated peacefully. “I’ll not be staying,” Giles informed him, and the overseer looked on the verge of panic.

“Then you’ll have to sell your slaves off quickly. Scatter them, maybe one big auction with the neighbors.”

Giles’s mouth fell open in horror. “Sell them?”

“Aye, tomorrow if you can.”

He ran the fingers of both hands through his untidy hair as though he might tear it out by the roots. “I’m not selling anybody. Listen—what is your bloody name?”

The man huffed, clearly insulted. “Cornell. Roger Cornell. Edmund introduced us before the wedding.”

“Forgive me. I was—distracted. I’m thinking that I will free them. The sooner the better.”

Now it was the overseer’s turn to look horrified. “You cannot free them!”

“Watch me.”

“Courtney, let me ask you something. It matters naught to me what you think of slavery. Where will these workers go? Nearly a hundred and fifty newly freed slaves? They’ll slaughter every planter’s family within their reach. And then what? They’ll be Maroons and have to scrape out a living in the mountains. You’d not be doing them any great kindness.”

Giles cast another desperate glance at the ship. Geoff was waiting for him. They were sailors, not farmers, and neither of them had ever owned so much as a single slave. If Grace were there, he would seek her advice, but she wasn’t, and the whole situation felt like salt in a wound. Then he realized that he might not have Grace there to help him, but he did have the person to whom
she
would have turned for counsel.

“Where is Matu?” he demanded.

Just the name made Roger jumpy. “She’s in the kitchen with Keyah. The two of them stirring up trouble, no doubt.”

“Send her to the house, if you please. I’ll see what I can do to get to the bottom of all this.”

“Have a care.”

Giles gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “I will.”

The overseer, clearly relieved to have gotten through to him, nodded and headed off to the little building behind the big house.

When Giles’s reached the house and stepped into the keeping room, he took a long moment to look around him. Nothing was out of place. There was no sign of violence. It did not seem the scene of two deaths only a few days before. He walked through the space, opened the back door, and leaned against the frame, waiting for Matu. Roger exited the kitchen and nodded to him in acknowledgement before he returned to the sugar house. A few seconds later, Matu and Keyah followed him as far as the courtyard, then veered off to where Giles stood.

Matu gave him a somber look and tapped her fingertips upon her cheek, a sign that he had seen her use in reference to Grace. His throat tightened. He had anticipated that it would be hard to tell Edmund what had happened. He had not considered the fact that he would have to tell Matu, and he found it was harder still. Tears threatened.

“I’m sorry Matu. She—she wasn’t in Havana anymore. Someone took her somewhere. But there is a woman with me who saw the man who took her, and she said he was trying to help her. I think—I hope—that she’s safe for a while. I’m going to try to find her again.”

Matu nodded, touching her chest and then her head.

“Matu sey she know you try,” Keyah supplied. “Me Keyah. Me know her sign pretty good. Not like Miss Grace, but pretty good.”

Giles nodded gratefully. “Thank you.” Then he addressed Matu. “What happened, Matu?”

Matu walked past him through the door, over to the two upholstered chairs with the tea table between them. She pointed to a cracked crystal dish on the table and then to the floor. As Matu moved around and gestured fluidly, Keyah translated.

“Her come in an’ find de dish on de floor by de mistress. Dem almonds was scattered all ova, an’ de mistress hands still wrap ‘round her troat.” She cast an edgy glance at Matu. Her voice faltered periodically, but Matu moved briskly and too calmly, Giles thought, considering the grisly nature of her tale. Keyah took a shaky breath and continued to translate Matu’s gestures. “De maas be deh, by de chair, an’ deh an empty bottla rum on de table.”

Matu opened a drawer in the sideboard and withdrew two little glass vials.

“Dey be in his hands,” Keyah explained, looking away from Matu. It seemed she knew this part of the story without Matu’s help. “De bakra—ovaseea—him sey it poison. Him de one dat figure out de mistress choke.”

“So,” Giles summed up dryly, “Iolanthe choked to death and Edmund, consumed by grief for his beloved wife, swallowed poison.”

Matu turned and looked at him, her face inscrutable.

Keyah shrugged uneasily. “Dat whey it look like.”

Giles’s voice was laced with skepticism. “Indeed, that is what it
looks
like.” He turned his gaze toward the windows that faced out back, toward the slaves’ quarters. “The overseer insists this is the least of my worries. Tell me, how stand things with your fellow workers? Cornell seems to think them on the verge of insurrection.”

This time, both women appeared worried, and Matu nodded emphatically. Giles sank into one of the chairs and drummed his fingers on the arm. “Think you I should set them free? Cornell says not. He says ‘tis a danger to the neighbors and they would have nowhere to go.”

Keyah looked grim. “Me hate a sey it, but de bakra right. Big trouble be brewing in de huts. Matu keepin’ dem in line, but none of us don’ wanna go bak on de block.”

“Can you manage to keep things under control until I can find Grace and return with her?”

Matu shook her head, and Keyah said, “Dey not a-go wait. De slaves touchy, de bakra an’ de guards touchy. Sinting a-go happen, an’ even Matu not have de way a stop it.”

Leaning back in the chair with a sigh, Giles asked, “Have you any ideas?”

Matu nodded enthusiastically. She pointed toward the front of the house, gesturing for a boat on the sea. She rubbed her hand over the skin on her arm and pantomimed mopping and then pulling on a rope. Back to her arm and the boat, finally pointing excitedly to Giles.

Keyah brows pulled together in a confused frown. “De maas ship? Whey, we all a-go be sailors now?”

“Please, don’t call me ‘the master’,” Giles interjected.

“Whey we a-go call you?” Keyah asked, her voice doubtful.

He puzzled for a moment. “Captain,” he said, at last.

Keyah laughed harshly. “Matu right? We all a-go to sea?”

Matu shook her head in frustration. She rubbed her arm, mopped, pulled the rope, pointed to Giles. The she began another series of gestures. They were meaningless to Giles, but Keyah followed them easily. “Cuttin’ cane? De mill? Shugga vats? We a-go be sailors or slaves?”

Matu gestured for a manacle and shook her head. After releasing her wrist from the manacle, she pantomimed the stirring of a sugar vat, following with the boat gesture, the release of a manacle, and pointed again to Giles.

He didn’t know why, but suddenly her confusing gesticulations made perfect sense. He jumped from the chair. “It just might work. Can you communicate with them, Matu? Tell them what it is that we want them to do?”

Matu’s face split into a wide, happy grin, and she nodded.

Keyah threw up her hands. “Whey dem a-go do?”

But Giles continued speaking to Matu. “We cannot afford to just free them if we’re to continue operating this place. They’d be indentured servants. Even though they’ve already served some time here, they would have to work for their freedom. Seven years is typical. After that, they may stay for wages or leave as they see fit.”

“Africans don’ live seven year,” Keyah interjected.

“
Slaves
don’t, but indentured servants do. ‘Tis the status that matters, not the color. I can’t pay much. By the time we repair the huts and bring the food and clothing up to some reasonable standard, there will be little left of Edmund Welbourne’s wealth. But if the Africans are willing to work, this place could be self-sufficient without slaves.”

“Deh not be much left for you,” Keyah observed.

Giles’s smile broadened. “I’ve made do on less. Matu, will you explain to the workers that we will arrange shorter shifts with plenty of food and water? Can you make them understand that ‘tis safe to stay and that no one will ever again drop dead from heat in the sugar house?”

Matu nodded.

“You a-go need a new bakra,” Keyah advised. “Dis one too hated. Me not tink dey a-go trust anotta White.”

Another obstacle, but not one he couldn’t overcome. It occurred to Giles that he might have just the man for the job. Granted, Jawara knew nothing about sugar production, but he was a fast learner and an exceptional leader.

His voice brimming with hope, Giles proclaimed, “This plantation will succeed, by God, and without a single slave.”

Then he sobered. At what cost? Every day that he was forced to spend here, getting Welbourne on track for the safety of its workers and its neighbors, meant Grace was another day farther away. She had to be here, had to see her home transformed into a place she would be proud of. God, he hoped that Encantadora was right, and that their mystery man was protecting Grace.

Matu seemed to follow the path of his thoughts. She went back to the rear door, gesturing for Giles to follow her. Out past the kitchen, Africans labored at the mill and in the sugar house. Beyond that, they moved throughout the cane fields. She pointed to them, gestured for Grace, and patted her hand over her heart.

Giles understood perfectly. “You are absolutely right, Matu. She loves them. She would want me to see to them first, and I will. But I cannot stay for long. We have to make this work, and we have to do it quickly.”

Matu nodded and gestured toward herself and the slaves’ quarters, but Giles put out his hand to stop her. Looking over his shoulder into the house, he said to Keyah, “Again, thank you for your help. I won’t keep you from your work.”

Keyah gave Matu a dubious look, but Matu waved her off to the kitchen, and the cook reluctantly took her leave.

Once she was back in the little outbuilding, Giles addressed Matu. “I’m glad I have you on my side.”

With a soft smile and a chuckle, she pointed to him and then herself, patted her heart, and touched her cheek.

“Aye, we both love Grace, that’s sure. She is my life. I’m surprised you’re still speaking to me, after how I reacted when—”

Matu waved her hand in the air, a gesture of dismissal. It was water under the bridge.

He hesitated, then said, “‘Twasn’t easy, was it, Matu? As much as Iolanthe and her brother needed to die, ‘twasn’t easy for either of us to be the one left with the task.”

The woman studied him hard in the bright afternoon light before she finally shook her head.

He took both of her tough, little hands in his and squeezed. “One of the first things we are going to do is build you your own little cottage, just over there.” He pointed to a space across the yard from the kitchen. “Grace and I are going to need all the help we can get with all the children we’re going to fill this place with.”

Matu smiled and squeezed back.

Dear God in Heaven
, he prayed,
let that be the truth.

Standing in the midst of the slaves’ huts and sweating in the hot sun, Giles would have been lying if he had said he wasn’t intensely nervous. After all, he was surrounded by a sea of dark faces with expressions ranging from wariness to open hostility. This was a tremendous leap of faith. Upon being informed of the upcoming changes in the nature of Welbourne’s work force, the regular overseer and guards had quit and were stubbornly holed up in their cottages. Seven of the guards lent by neighbors had stayed, armed to the teeth and preparing to face the insurrection they believed to be just around the corner. They knew they were outnumbered, and the slaves would see any weakness in the unity of the Whites as an opportunity for revolt.