A Certain Latitude (27 page)

He returned each evening to his father’s house where they dined together, stiffly formal. Allen tried to ignore the pleading expression he occasionally saw on his father’s face.

The ugly words ran through his mind again and again:
mulatto, quadroon, octaroon.

Finally it occurred to Allen that his mother might well be named something else now, and his questioning was in vain. He knew word must have reached March that Allen Pendale rode his fields, questioning his slaves. Sooner or later he should call at the house and explain.

The most extraordinary thing, March. I need to buy one of your slaves. Seems she’s my mother. And, oh, by the way, I’m your property
.

Allen was weary, the sun beginning its precipitous drop to the horizon while color flamed in the sky, and he decided to call on March there and then. Under normal circumstances, of course, he would have called sooner, to visit a dying friend. He thought March was his friend, at any rate. Whether March would be his friend in the future was another matter. But there could be no doubt—hadn’t March expressed his love for Allen?

He approached the house from the fields, winding through the scattered outbuildings and houses that made up March’s enterprise. Ahead was the kitchen, attached to the house by a covered wooden walkway, the air thick with the scents of cooking and wood-smoke. He was weary, thirsty, and sweaty after being in the saddle all day. Surely the kitchen could provide him with some beer and a basin of water to wash his face and hands. He pulled his horse to a halt, dismounted, and tethered the animal to a small tree.

From the inside of the kitchen came voices, mainly female, and laughter. He knew as soon as they saw him the laughter and intimacy would cease, and he would be regarded as an intruder come to spoil what little amusement they had in their lives.

He stepped onto the wooden walkway and pushed open the kitchen door.

As he expected, silence fell, followed by some scuffles as people who probably shouldn’t be there headed for the far door.

Others became busy with chopping, mincing, sieving, doing various tasks, apparently absorbed in their work. All except for one woman, who stood staring at him, a pottery bowl in the crook of one elbow, a whisk in her other hand. The whisk fell to the floor with a clatter, rolled, and was still. The pottery bowl slid against the woman’s apron; she made a half-hearted attempt to grasp it, but that too slid down, spilling a froth of something pale and fluffy—eggs, it must be eggs—onto the floor.

The bowl rolled to his feet, miraculously unbroken.

“I t’ought my pappy walk again.” Her voice was deep and rich—his voice, in female form—or it would have been, if she’d spoken in anything greater than a whisper.

“I—” He stepped forward.

She shrank away. “Who you, sah?”

“Who are
you
?” He countered, but he knew.

Behind her the other slaves had gathered into a knot, whispering and rustling together, their work abandoned.

“Leave us,” Allen said to them. They didn’t move. “Go!” He shouted at them—something he regretted, he sounded like an overseer—and they rushed for the far door.

The woman still stared at Allen—a handsome woman, with high cheekbones like his own beneath a turban of white linen, skin the color his would be if he stayed out in the sun all day—he’d been that dark in Italy—but now with a grayish cast from shock.

He took a step forward.

Eyes wide, she held up her hands, in supplication or to stop him, he wasn’t sure which.

He spread his own hands, broad, long-fingered like hers.
Look, we are alike.

She gripped her linen apron with both hands.

“I’m Allen.” He stepped further into the kitchen, not wanting to alarm her more, and pushed a three-legged stool toward her. “You’d best sit down.”

She looked at him now as if he were mad. A white man offering a slave a seat?

“Sit,” he said. It came out like an order. He winced. “If you please,” he added.

She sat.

Something hissed at the fire, a pot boiling over, and she jumped to her feet, moved pothooks to adjust heat, stirred a couple of things with a large spoon, and, wiping her hands on her apron, faced him. She looked him over without shyness or fear, as though attending to familiar tasks had restored her, and gave a quick, approving nod.

Fifteen when she gave birth to him—so that made her three and forty or thereabouts, a handsome woman, quick on her feet. Not young, but tough and strong. His mother.

“I don’t remember you,” he said. He’d hoped that seeing her might force some memory to the surface.

She shrugged. “You too little when ’im take you ’way. It don’ matter. I ’member.” She stepped forward and touched his coat. “’Im made you a gentleman.”

“Yes. Yes, I’m a lawyer.”

She nodded, pleased, although he wasn’t sure she knew what a lawyer was. “You a clever baby,” she said. “That’s why ’im favor you so.”

She meant his father, he supposed. “I’ll buy your freedom.”

She raised her chin with a flash of defiance. “I save for dat.”

“Then I’ll add to what you have.”

“And den what?”

“Whatever you like. You could come to England. I have a farm—much smaller than this, quite different. There are no slaves. I need a housekeeper, someone to look after the place.”

“Why you no got a wife?” She touched his wrist very lightly. “You handsome enough.”

“The last woman I asked refused me.”

“Ah. Dat Miss Onslowe.”

“How did you know?”

She smiled. “We know everyt’in’.”

He hoped not. “I’ll talk to Lemarchand about your freedom. I’m sure he’ll understand.”

She looked uneasy for a moment, then touched his hand again. “I glad ’im took you ’way, even though I cry and cry. Better’n stayin’ here.” She darted back to the hearth again and raked fresh coals under a pot on a trivet. She padded over to a cask and drew him a mug of beer, as though sensing his thirst, but whether it was from maternal instinct or merely the act of a well-trained servant he couldn’t tell. “You seen me. Now you go.”

“But—”

“Go. I got work to do and I need dem other slaves back or dinner be late and de master get angry.”

“When may I see you again?”

She looked at him, dark eyes somber. “Tomorrow. I got to t’ink what to do. I don’ know… You gone too long, you a man now.” She repeated, “You go and come back tomorrow.”

His throat tightened. “What should I call you?”

She took the empty mug from his hand and smiled. “Dey call me Ceres.”

“My dear fellow!” March gestured in typical lordly fashion, from a chaise-longue set in his study. Papers cascaded from his lap to the floor. “Come in, do. You are a welcome distraction from tedious business affairs. Forgive me if I do not rise.”

He looked, Allen thought, more like a pasha or some sort of oriental king than usual, draped in a silk banyan, black silk embroidered with red and gold dragons, and a loose shirt and trousers.

“How are you, sir?” As usual, Allen found himself responding to March’s warm affection. He clasped the other man’s hand in his.

March grimaced. “I find the nights somewhat difficult—no, not for the reason you imagine, sir—merely that sometimes I have trouble breathing. I fear I wear Clarissa out. I wish that I wore her out in the way we like best. But how are you? Is there something that troubles you?”

“Yes, sir, there is.” Allen delayed the unpleasant task by pouring them both wine—watered wine, rather, for March could only drink it that way—and sat on one of the chairs. March didn’t look well, his slenderness turning to gauntness, eyes shadowed.

Allen took a sip of his wine. “I’m come on business, sir.”

“Ah, it’s good of you to help Frensham. Of course—what may I do for you?”

“I wish to buy the freedom of one of your slaves.”

March’s eyebrows rose. “Not Nerissa? My dear sir, you can have her any time you want, with my blessing. I assure you there is no need to go to the trouble of buying her.”

“No. Not Nerissa.” Had March offered Allen’s mother to his guests in such a casual fashion?

“Which one, then?”

“Ceres.”

“My cook?” March grinned. “Oh, good heavens, man, I couldn’t stand to lose my cook. But why? Is she not a little long in the tooth for you? I would have thought—” his voice died away.

God only knew what sort of expression Allen had on his face. March stared at him until Allen, realizing he loomed over the sick man, fists clenched, stepped away.

“I beg your pardon, Allen. I seem to have offended you. Please tell me what it is that upsets me so.”

“I discovered yesterday she’s my mother.”

“What?” He stared at Allen. “You’d best tell me.”

As Allen told the story he found himself standing, pacing. He poured more wine, tapped spilled papers on the desk into shape, gazed out of the window. Looked anywhere except at March, while he tried to subdue the shock and sadness of his story. He ended with an attempt at humor. “… And so, you see, I am by law your property, as far as I can tell from the wording of the sale, now I am returned to the island. You know me as the Earl of Frensham’s son and an English gentleman, but you must understand, I have concerns for my mother, to whom my family must make amends.”

When he ended, the room was almost in darkness, shadows lengthening.

“Yes,” March said. “I see.” And then in a softer voice, “So you are mine.”

“By law only. Shall I call for some light, sir?” Allen said, unnerved by March’s statement. The dim room, March’s stillness and hidden face, added to his discomfort.

“Yes, yes. And have them send for Blight.”

“For Blight?”

“Yes, indeed. We must find our copies of the bills of sale and make sure the wording is as we expect.”

“I’d rather Blight didn’t know of this,” Allen said.

“I’m afraid I must insist,” March said. “It is a matter of a business transaction, after all. And that is what Blight is hired to do.”

After what seemed to Allen an interminable amount of time, with slaves padding in and out, lamps lit, Blight was sent for—and a message, at Allen’s suggestion, sent after him, so that he could bring the ledgers for the appropriate year.

Blight, carrying a stink of sweat, horse, and tobacco with him, held a ledger as dusty and thick as Frensham’s. He laid it on the desk and stepped back, eyes bright with curiosity, glancing from Allen to March.

Allen leafed through the ledger and waited for March to dismiss Blight.

“Here you are, sir.” Allen pointed to the same line he’d read in his father’s records.
Amos, Jenny, Hiram, Peter, Grace, and their children.

March said, “Jenny—that was she. I remember now. We changed her name.”

“You’re after buying Ceres, Mr. Pendale?”

“No, Blight, I wish to buy her freedom.” Icily polite. “I will return tomorrow with a manumission for Ceres and a more than generous sum for the transaction, if that is convenient for you, March.”

Blight laughed. “Haven’t you forgotten something, Pendale?”

“I don’t believe so.”

Blight stabbed a finger onto the ledger.“…
and their children
. I’m thinking you’ll need some more money, Pendale, and another manumission.”

“How did you know of this?” Allen demanded. Blight knew. Blight, whose eyes were now bright with malice, whose demeanor had changed from bare civility to downright disrespect.

“’Course I know. It’s all round the kitchen—how Ceres’s gentleman son, as white as a lily, has come back for her. You weren’t fool enough to think they weren’t listening? She don’t say anything, but the rest are talking. And I’ve been in this business all my life, Pendale; I sailed aboard my first slaver when I was ten. Soon as I see you, I knew. There’s black blood there, I said to myself. For all your fancy manners and education and you being the son of an earl—or so you claimed—I knew you for what you are.”

“How dare you!” Allen shouted, fists clenched.

“That’s enough! Allen, for the love of God—” March’s hand closed on his arm, his breathing fast and agitated. “Blight, Mr. Pendale is an English gentleman and you will treat him as such. I will tolerate no less. You will see to Ceres leaving—I hope I may keep her as a servant, if she wishes, Pendale? A good cook is hard to come by.”

“Certainly, so long as you pay her fair wages.”

March nodded at Blight. “Very well. You may leave.”

“Why do you employ him?” Allen said after Blight swaggered out, the door closing behind him.

“He’s good at his job. Reliable overseers are hard to come by.”

“Good at his job? Good at working your slaves to death, you mean.”

“It is the way things are done,” March said. “Allen, I am feeling somewhat fatigued; let us not quarrel. Will you pour me a glass of wine?”

“Certainly, sir.” Allen poured the glass of wine and handed it to him, not sure whether March’s request was that of a friend or—but no, that was unthinkable.

“Come sit by me and do try not to look so ferocious.” March gestured to a footstool beside the sofa and Allen sank onto it, lowering his face into his hands.

“I suppose I must bid you farewell,” Allen said. “I should return to my father’s house and in a few days my mother and I will sail for England. You must understand that my position on the island is precarious. I would like to see Clarissa before I leave.”

“Of course.” March’s hand rested lightly on his head. “You love her, do you not?”

“I do. But she’s in love with you.”

March laughed. “For the moment, a little. But it is not the same as the love she feels for you.”

“It’s a damned strange way of showing it. Becoming someone else’s mistress.”

“Ah, we all three have a damned strange way of showing what we feel for each other for that matter. It has been an adventure, Allen. I wish it did not have to end quite so soon. And all this time, you’ve been mine, as much as you have fought it.”

He nodded, soothed by the tender touch of March’s hand on his head and neck, but disturbed by the reminder that now he was the older man’s property. “I’m sorry I could not give you what you want. It is not in my nature, I suppose.”