Master of Paradise (9 page)

With a dismissive wave of his hand, Hastings
called back, “I don’t care what you do with her.”

The assistant looked sheepishly at the
seething woman standing bareheaded in the rain. “I suppose it’s to
State House with us. You are the governor’s sis—uh, guest, after
all.”

“Not by choice,” she muttered.

“I beg your pardon, mum?”

“Nothing. Mr.—”

“Adamson.”

“Mr. Adamson, are you familiar with my
plantation, Beau Vallon?”

“Of course, mum. I’ve accompanied the
governor there on occasion.”

“Then you know where it is?”

“On the other side of the island, mum. I
do.”

“I should like to go there at once. Will you
take me?”

“Now, mum?”

“Yes, Mr. Adamson.”

“Wouldn’t you like to refresh yourself first,
mum? It’s some ways.”

“I’ve come a much longer way to see Beau
Vallon.”

He ushered her to his carriage and together
they drove out of town through the lavish terrain. Along the way,
she saw a profusion of plants and trees in shapes she’d never
dreamed existed. Huge palms and fronds framing sudden large granite
boulders. They passed clear lagoons of light blue dotting the
countryside, beautiful French homes as they rose high above the
sea. She looked back and saw the town of L’Establishment, still
bearing the French name. She smelled French cooking wafting out of
French doorways. As they descended the hill on the other side of
the island, they left the houses behind, winding their way through
luxuriant foliage and huge bougainvillea and hibiscus shrubs
splashing rainbows of scarlet, orange, coral, purple, and pink
across the lush emerald landscape toward the sea on the other side.
It was an astonishingly beautiful drive through the rain, with
droplets beating rhythmically on the roof of the carriage. But it
was beastly hot on land, so hot she felt smothered.

Adamson tried to make small talk, but he was
clearly uncomfortable and she spared him conversation, only
occasionally asking a question about the plantation, which he
dodged with a diplomat’s ease. She was soon to discover why. After
an hour or more, the coach drew up to a patch of land high on a
hill, sloping down toward the sea. The rain had stopped. The air
was fresh afterward, but not cool as in England. In fact, it felt
heavy, stifling, as if it could easily rain again.

“I didn’t expect it to be raining.”

“This is the rainy season. It lasts for about
a month. Mahé collects more rain than the other islands because of
the mountains. Here you are, mum.”

“Beau Vallon?” she whispered.

He nodded but dropped his gaze.

She got out of the carriage and walked about
in the rain-drenched grass. It didn’t take her long to discover the
source of his embarrassment. The land stretching out before her was
a tumble of overgrown weeds with grasses as high as her waist. The
fields of cotton were long gone, reclaimed by a nature that was
wild and free. Caprice had spoken often of the unusual fertility of
this land. You could almost toss a handful of seeds to the ground,
she’d said, and watch the sprouts grow. Apparently, it was true of
weeds as well.

Gabrielle made her way cautiously through the
bramble toward the main structure.
This was Mother’s home,
she thought wondrously.
Where she was born. Where she was happy.
Where she tasted her first love.
But as she progressed, she
found not the home of her mother’s romantic memories, but a
run-down house, badly damaged by the ravages of nature, neglected
for over twenty years. The porch was leaking and the steps sagged.
It was difficult to determine what color the paint had been. It
looked grey now, and most of it was peeled off in streaks.

“Where are the gardenias?”

Adamson stared at her as if he didn’t know
what she was talking about.

“The
bois citron?
My mother said they
were everywhere.”

“Oh. There haven’t been any here for years.
They grow on some of the other islands, I think.”

She looked out over the horizon, hearing her
mother’s words in her ears.
We had a hammock stretched between
two palms, with gardenias all around. I used to lie about in it for
hours, smelling the perfume of the flowers, reading Molière, and
dreaming my dreams.
What would she think of her dreams now, if
she could see this ruin? Gabrielle looked in vain, trying to find
something that lived up to the magic her mother had woven in
stories that had made her daughter dream as well.

The more she looked, the more depressed she
became. It was obvious there was a great deal more work needed than
she’d ever imagined. And money! Where would she find the money? Not
from Hastings. How he must have laughed when he’d signed over the
deed.

She had to find something. Just one thing
that would make her feel her mother’s presence. Trancelike, she
climbed down the hill through the thick growth toward the sea.
There, she found a beach such as her mother had spoken of. An
unbelievable, deserted beach with pure white sand. She bent and
touched it. It was too wet to get much of a sense of what it was
like. It was sprinkling again, the rain dropping into the
accumulated puddles on the beach, making quick circles of ripples
to be replaced by others, hardly making a sound. She could see it,
but the rain was so gentle, she could barely hear it, except for an
occasional splash.

Dropping to her knees, she dug in the sand,
trying desperately to find some dry enough that she could feel its
true texture. But the sand was moist even deep down. She dug more
frantically until at last she began to realize what she was doing.
Coming to her senses, she glanced up the hill to see Adamson
watching her with a worried frown.

Reluctantly, she got to her feet and slowly
climbed the hill. She felt so discouraged, she wanted to cry. But
it wasn’t in her nature. Action was her forte. She would have to do
something about this, and soon.

Halfway up the hill, she stopped, arrested by
the sight of activity in the distance. A group of bedraggled
Africans were chopping through the thick brush to clear a patch of
land. She watched for a moment, then rejoined her companion. “Mr.
Adamson, who are those men?”

“Slaves, mum.”

She stared at him, horrified. “Slaves?”

“Certainly. All the plantations in this area
depend on slave labor. Didn’t you know?”

In England, slavery had been just a word
bandied about in newspapers as Parliament struggled with the issue
that affected Englishmen only in far-off lands. Gabrielle had never
come in contact with it personally before. She’d never really given
it much thought. But here, it would soon prove impossible to look
the other way.

“Everyone’s changing their crop from cotton
to copra,” she heard Adamson say.

“What’s copra?”

“Dried coconut meat. From copra one derives
coconut oil, among other products. We shall have to get you slaves
to clear the land and plant coconut trees, and other slaves to
rebuild the house. When the time comes, more slaves will be needed
to get the place livable.”

“I’d prefer servants,” she interjected.

“No need, mum. Slave labor is cheap and
plentiful. And with your connection to the governor, you’ll have no
problem arranging all the credit you need. I shouldn’t worry, mum.
You’ll have this place fixed up in no time.”

“But slaves, Mr. Adamson—”

“Oh, now I understand. Fear not. I too felt a
little squeamish about it all when I first arrived. Flies in the
face of our English sensibilities of fair play, I daresay. But I
was brought around. Take my word for it. You’ll adjust in no time.
It really is the only way.”

But to own other human beings...When she’d
become mistress of Beau Vallon, she never once thought that she
would have to become a slave owner as well.

* * *

Adamson took Gabrielle back to State House,
the government mansion on a hill overlooking the small settlement
of L’Establishment. In contrast to Beau Vallon’s shabby neglect,
State House was surrounded by clusters of small frangipani trees
with spongy branches and pink and yellow flowers, and brilliant
with orange, pink, and purple bougainvillea bushes all around. It
was a two-story white building in the French colonial style, quite
spacious and luxurious for these parts, where life was, by
necessity, more informal than it was in Europe. Inside, what looked
like more than sixty Africans were gathered, all wearing the
clothes of English servitude, much as she’d been forced to wear at
Westbury Grange. Every one was exceptional. Men and women alike had
obviously been chosen for their beauty. The men were tall and
undeniably well-formed with prominent bone structure and muscular
torsos. The women were comely, their clothing designed to show off
bodies that were taut and rounded as the majority of English women
weren’t. She’d never seen such an array of exotically impressive
humanity in her life.

She looked at Adamson. “Slaves?” she asked
softly.

“Of course, mum.”

It was chilling to realize that, while the
servants in her father’s household had been paid wages for their
work, these men and women were bought and paid for.

“I’m sure you’ll want to bathe and rest,” the
assistant suggested. “Ordinarily, we wouldn’t be out in the heat of
the day.”

“Then why was everyone at the harbor?”

“Because the governor requested it.”

Something in his tone made her shiver in
spite of the heat. As if the people gathered today were Hastings’s
subjects. “Do they always do the governor’s bidding?” she asked,
more bitterly than she’d intended.

His eyes flashed to her face, but he only
smiled noncommittally. He gestured to a tall black man dressed in a
snow-white jacket and pristine gloves. “This is Robert. He runs the
house. He’ll take care of you.”

“Follow me, please,
msabu.
”

She was led through a house of unquestioned
beauty, yet she felt a distinct unease. As she passed by rooms, she
caught glimpses of velvet curtains and heavy brocade chairs, woolen
carpets and brick fireplaces, and paintings done in Flemish oils.
The curtains were drawn against the now-glaring sun, so it was cool
and dark inside. The slaves, dismissed, moved about their duties on
soundless feet.

Then a door was opened at the end of a long
hall and she was ushered inside. The room was furnished in deep
claret tones, with heavy mahogany furniture and drapes and carpets
similar to the rest of the house. It was clear Hastings was a
lover—indeed, collector—of beauty. Yet it seemed utterly bizarre.
Outside was another world, strange and foreign, full of noises,
smells, and cultures she’d never known. A realm of sweltering heat.
Yet within these walls, King William reigned undisturbed. If she
didn’t look out the window, if she couldn’t feel the humid warmth,
she’d have sworn she was back in London.

“This is Maya,” Robert said, interrupting her
thoughts. She looked up to see a striking black woman with a wealth
of black hair, a perfect aquiline nose, and large ebony eyes, which
she lowered when Gabrielle looked her way. Like the others, her
body was lush and taut all at once. When she moved, her unbound
breasts swayed freely beneath the restraints of her structured
blouse. “She’s a Somali. She’ll be seeing to your needs.” Before
leaving, Robert ordered that water be brought for her bath.

Maya struggled with a heavy container of
water, pouring it into the tub. Gabrielle went forth and helped
her. “You don’t have to wait on me, Maya. I’m accustomed to fending
for myself.”

But Maya turned frightened eyes on her new
mistress. “Master is whipping Maya,
msabu.
Maya is for
taking care of mistress.”

In that moment, the full horror of this
homecoming hit her. No wonder Hastings had come to love the
Seychelles—he was molding it into a larger version of the world
he’d created at Westbury Grange.

She recalled Adamson’s words.
All the
plantations in this area depend on slave labor. Didn’t you
know?

And Rodrigo’s face.
Beau Vallon is an
empty dream, Gabé. It always was.

* * *

That night, she tossed in her bed for hours,
tangled in the mosquito netting, trying to sleep. Her mind was too
full of her worry over Cullen, her hatred of Hastings, her rage
against Rodrigo. Her emotions churned inside until she felt ill. In
an effort to calm herself, she drifted into the past, to a time
when she was a young girl cradled in her mother’s lap, listening as
Caprice recounted memories of her home. The words soothed her and
eventually she fell asleep.

But then she began to dream. It was so vivid
that, even asleep, part of her wondered if it was a vision and not
a dream at all. She saw Beau Vallon as it must have been. It was so
beautiful that she, the dreamer, felt choked to tears. It was
surrounded by water of different hues, sparkling in the sun like a
rainbow. Playing in the water were birds of all colors—blue,
yellow, red, green, purple—splashing in the sea and shaking
themselves so that prisms of color imbued the place with an
otherworldly magic and charm.

As she walked through the lovely, manicured
grounds, she saw her mother, lounging in a hammock in a cool white
dress, reading Molière aloud. Cullen was sprawled on the grass
below her, looking radiant and healthy as he never had in life,
playing laughingly with a frisky orange cat. An aura of happiness
and peace pervaded the sultry air. She was overwhelmed with an urge
to hug them to her, and cry gratefully into their arms.

But all at once, a shadow covered the land.
She looked up to see what cloud had cast this gloom when she saw a
formidable sight instead. Rodrigo, in all his golden pirate glory,
stood above her, legs planted in a stubborn stance, blocking the
sun.