A Certain Latitude (26 page)

Allen poured them all wine. “What the devil do you mean, March?”

March continued, “The problem, apparently, is my heart—a flaw in its construction, something that hitherto has not inconvenienced me at all, until now. My physician orders me a lowering diet and forbids me any sort of exertion if I wish to live.”

A drop of red wine fell from Clarissa’s glass to the sheet. Stupidly she watched the red bloom and spread among the interlaced fibers. Someone—she thought it must have been Allen—took the glass from her hand. She heard the small click as the glass was placed on a solid surface.

March continued, “I wish I could say I was sufficiently heroic to laugh in the face of death and continue as I live now. Unfortunately, that is not my choice. I have a child for whom I am responsible and, for her sake, I must keep alive. I must try, although my physician tells me that even with the most valiant of efforts, death could take me at any time. Today that almost happened.”

His voice became gentle. “Clarissa? You say nothing. I am most sorry to have brought this upon you.”

“You have nothing to apologize for. How absurd … does Celia know …” His face blurred in her vision.

“That I am under sentence of death? No, only that I am ill and that we shall return sooner than we expected to England.”

Someone, Allen, pushed a piece of fabric in her hand. Linen, strong, soft with wear. A handkerchief, to blot the tears streaming down her face.

March continued, “So I must live as a monk. No riding, fencing, swimming. I must keep mostly to my bed, but there is to be no carnal excitement, to use the physician’s quaint expression.” He handed his wineglass to Allen and took their hands in his. “It is a great regret to me. And a great puzzle to me, too. I suppose the physician believes my body will oblige; I assure you it does not. My illness makes an impotence of my potency.”

Allen looked angry, quite ludicrously so for a man completely naked and with a half-erect cock. “You use Clarissa and me as your playthings and then toy with us further by announcing your impending demise? How do we even know you speak the truth?” He laughed. “Oh, I suppose it’s true. After all you confessed your sins to the priest today. You’d better send for him again after tonight.”

“You sent for your priest?” If she had any doubts, now she knew it to be true—March believed he would die soon. Tears flooded her eyes again. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t cry, my dear.” He reached gently for her breasts and unclipped the jewels. “Allen, try not to be so angry with me, I beg you.”

Allen shook his head, muttering. He reached for his drawers and pulled them on. “Are you—the physician, that is—absolutely sure?”

“There is no doubt. Death could come at any time, although I pray it will not be too inconvenient.”

“Are your affairs in order?” Allen asked. “If I may offer my professional assistance…”

“Thank you. I believe they are, although I should be grateful if you could look over a few items for me.” March smiled and held out a hand to Allen. “May I further beg your indulgence by asking for some time alone with Clarissa?”

“Of course. I’ll bid you goodnight.”

When Allen had left, Clarissa reached for her gown. March’s hand on her wrist stilled her. “You misunderstand. The physician did not forbid me the use of my eyes. I would not see you shamed.”

She waited to see what he required of her. He said nothing. “Sir, do you feel ill?”

He shook his head and took a deep breath.

She saw, to her horror, that this proud, reserved man was about to weep. With no words she took his head onto her breast and held him while he cried.

Allen returned to his father’s house the next day. To his surprise, he hadn’t wanted to leave March; he certainly didn’t want to leave Clarissa. She, however, was teaching Celia, and he had no opportunity to speak alone with her. Besides, his father was now home, and Allen had to play the role of the dutiful son.

“You’re looking much better, sir,” he said, with a noble effort to keep any sense of irony or disgust from his voice, as they rode through his father’s fields. They rode along side by side beneath the blazing blue of the sky, the horses’ shadows sharp and black against the sparse golden grass. A flock of birds flew from a thorn tree as they approached.

“Ah, well, a change of air, you know…” the Earl nodded to his overseers, who doffed their hats. “I’m thinking of clearing the trees there for another field. What do you think?”

Allen chatted of agricultural matters with his father and waited for a pause in the conversation. “Sir,” he said finally, interrupting his father’s speculation on future sugar and ginger prices, “there is a matter much on my mind. Who is my father?”

“Why … I am, for God’s sake.” Frensham jerked at the reins, face reddening, and kicked his mare around. “We should return to the house for dinner.”

Allen urged his own horse forward to draw level with his father and grasped the mare’s bridle. The two horses danced and sidled together. “I mean no disrespect to you or my mother, but I must know, purely for my own peace of mind. It takes little to discern that you and my brothers and sisters are of a different breed.”

“A different breed!” His father gave a harsh laugh. “I suggest you drop the subject.”

“I cannot.” He released his grip on the mare’s bridle, but anger and apprehension made him tighten his grip on the reins of his own horse. “I know there is more to the matter than you wish to tell me. I found some troubling evidence—what it means I am not sure, but I must hear your side of it.”

“What evidence?”

“A letter from my mother’s sister, written when I was two years of age.”

His father clicked his tongue and the mare moved forward. He clicked his tongue and the mare moved forward. “We should walk the horses to cool them off. There is one thing only, Allen. If I speak of this, I must have your word that you will return to England as soon as possible.”

“I thought you had already arranged that, sir.”

“So I did.” His father flushed. “I assure you it was for your well-being. But you must agree to leave as I ask.”

They rode back to the house in silence and retired to Frensham’s office. Allen had never seen his father so ill at ease.

“Sit,” his father commanded.

“Only if you will, sir.” Allen used the calm voice that was so effective in putting a client at ease.

The earl glared at him and paced up and down.

“Very well, sir.” Allen handed him the letter he had found among his mother’s effects and watched carefully as his father read. He knew the section by heart, damning words slipped in between accounts of domestic activities and news of acquaintances long forgotten.

I am glad to hear the child settles in well, but am surprised, indeed, that Frensham acknowledges him as of his blood and, further, that you choose to name him after our dear papa. If, as you say, he is not too dark, then all will be well and we shall certainly never speak of his origins.

His father folded the letter and shook his head. “I wish to God …”

“In addition,” Allen said, “my sister told me that she did not remember my birth, but only that I appeared suddenly at the age of two or thereabouts, and created much trouble, breaking her dolls and babbling in a language none understood.”

“Some things are best left undisturbed,” his father said. He slumped into the chair behind the desk looking older and somehow defeated.

“It is too late,” Allen said as gently as he could. “You must tell me, sir.”

“Some twenty-five years ago,” his father said, “your mother—Lady Frensham, that is—lost a child. She was much cast down, as I was when I received the news in a letter from England. Her physician had told her she must bear no more children and although she loved her surviving children, she suffered greatly. I made plans to return to England when I received the news, and took with me one of my natural children. I thought—”

“A moment, sir. What does this have to do with me?” What was his father saying?

“You were that child, Allen.”

His mind struggled to make sense of his father’s words. “You brought me from here—from the island?”

“Yes. This is why you must return—”

“Wait.” Allen sat facing his father. “You are saying that I am—I am the child of—”

His father met his gaze. “Yes. Your mother was a slave.” He added, in a shamed rush, “She was the daughter of one of my overseers, and her own mother had a fair amount of English blood. I assure you there was very little of Africa in her, or in you, for that matter, but you do see now why I—”

“Why you lied to me?” Despite the stuffy warmth of the office, Allen was chilled with disgust and rage. He remembered black slaves owned by wealthy women in England—tiny black boys decked out in jeweled, feathered turbans and silk livery. “So you took me to your wife as some sort of plaything—you thought she should have a Negro lapdog to console her?”

“I assure you, she came to love you as her own child—”

“And my own mother? What of her? Does she live still?” He doubted it. Slaves did not live long here. She—the woman who had given birth to him—must be long dead.

“Her name was Jenny. She gave birth to you when she was fifteen.” His father stared straight ahead. “I trust you will do nothing foolish. I believe my overseer sold her shortly after our departure.”

“You realize, sir, my position here is somewhat precarious. Presumably I am now someone else’s property—yours, at any rate. No wonder you are so eager to get me off the island, to spare yourself embarrassment. And to whom did you sell my mother?”

“I’m not sure.” His father cleared his throat and stared at his folded hands. “A number of transactions took place then. I—”

“No matter,” Allen said. “I’m familiar enough with your accounts that I can find the truth out for myself. And I shall do so.” He stood, shaking with rage. “Do you not realize what you did? That there is a part of me that is a terrified two-year-old child who seeks his mother still? I have dreamed of that voyage to England all my life, not understanding why until now.”

Allen pulled down ancient ledgers from the shelves. They landed on the desk in a shower of dust, knocking papers onto the floor.

“Allen, I beg you—”

“Leave me.”

It took less than an hour to find the record of Allen’s mother’s sale, leafing through the pages of the account book from twenty-six years ago. An insect of some sort had attacked the book, drilling a neat hole through the pages and leather cover, so that when Allen opened it a cloud of fine dust arose.

Allen stared at the entry in shock.

Amos, Jenny, Hiram, Peter, Grace, and their children
.

You didn’t have to be a lawyer to acknowledge the vagueness of that description. No other details, nothing of the children’s age or gender, not even a specification of who the mothers might be. It didn’t matter. Children were not expected to live, but if they did … Was this some act of clemency on his father’s part, to keep the children with their parents, except when it pleased him to take a child from his mother? And now his father’s selfishness was about to rebound on his youngest child.

And their children.
Among whom was a man who had grown up to be Allen Pendale, Esquire, lawyer and would-be country gentleman.

The second shock was the name of their new owner.

Lemarchand.

Allen was black, a slave—now he could see it in the tint of his skin, his dark eyes. No longer an English gentleman. Not here. On the island he was a slave, a chattel, a possession. No wonder his father was nervous on his son’s account; it was no surprise that Allen, alone among his brothers, had never been invited to the island estate.

The full enormity, the shame of his discovery washed over him in a great tide of pain and loneliness. Everything he had ever believed in, everything he had thought to be the truth, everything he knew of himself, all was false or altered beyond repair.

He dropped his face into his hands and wept.

When he stopped weeping, the light had changed—the study was in darkness, which meant it was now evening. He wiped his face with his shirtsleeves, stood, and unbolted the study door. He pushed it open to find Reuben, his father’s major-domo, standing there.

This man is my equal
.

“His lordship, ’im want to know if you need anything, sah.”

Reuben thought I was a Negro when I arrived unexpectedly at dusk that day
.

“Some beer, if you please.” His voice still sounded the same, if a trifle hoarse. The voice of an educated English gentleman.

“Yes, sah.”

“Wait. Reuben, did you know Jenny—a slave who was sold some twenty-six years ago?”

Reuben looked away. “Dat a long time, sah. Lots of girls sold.”

He knew. Surely he knew. Allen reached into his pocket. He pulled out a shilling and showed it to Reuben. “Does this refresh your memory?”

“No, sah. I fetch de beer, sah.” Reuben backed away, and Allen wondered if his father had told him not to answer any questions.

Allen rode out again the next day and watched the slaves toiling in the fields. A veil had been lifted from his eyes; he noted the variations of skin color, from deep ebony to the color of creamy coffee. So much was clear now; the anomaly of a dark child amongst slender, fair-haired siblings; his surprise, when he’d traveled in Italy, at how he was taken for a native of that country where dark hair and bronzed skin were the norm. He considered that his father might have other bastards, and his natural mother, too. How many of these men and women he looked down on from the horse’s back, and who would not meet his white man’s gaze, was he related to?

The anger and shame of his origins burned, a wound as permanent as any slave’s brand.

For three days he rode up and down Lemarchand’s lands, asking, always asking.
Did you know a woman named Jenny? Do you know if she lives still?
His questions were met with sullen silence or cowed shakes of the head. He saw Blight occasionally from a distance; the fellow touched his hat as was proper, but now Allen saw a sinister mockery in the gesture.