How Dark the Night (11 page)

“For the joy of seeing you again,” Katherine said, stepping back for a long look at Julia. “And you're still ‘the voluptuous belle of Barbados,' as Robin used to call you.”

“Oh, posh,” Julia laughed, her Scottish brogue bursting through. “Enough of that! We must get you properly settled right away. You will
be staying in the West Room in John and Cynthia's house. I'm sure you remember it fondly,” she added with a meaningful laugh.

Katherine sighed with happiness at the thought of being once again in the room where she and Richard had stayed as newlyweds and where Richard had stayed during every visit to Barbados since.

“I do so wish you could stay with Robin and me,” Julia continued, “but John insists, and as the elder brother he always gets his way. We shall be seeing each other often throughout the day, of course, and every evening we shall all gather for supper. Katherine, you and I will take our first ride just as soon as you unpack and change. There is so much to show you! I've been planning our route for months! Charles will see to your baggage, so please leave everything just where it is and come inside.” Richard looked back at the luggage and saw that the compound's major domo was already directing servants to carry it inside. Julia's joyous laugh brought his attention back to her. “Oh, how wonderful this is! How very, very wonderful!” She beamed at Katherine and embraced her again.

“Is Robin here?” Richard asked as they walked toward John and Cynthia's house on the north arc.

“Not at the moment,” Julia told him. “He and John are at my parents' home,” referring to the ancestral home of the Fletcher family, among the oldest of the Mount Gay rum families on the island. “They took Joseph with them.”

“How is Joseph?” Richard put in.

“Doing so much better,” Julia assured him. She could not stop smiling. “Mary, Benjamin, and Peter are somewhere about,” she added, referring to her three youngest children. “I'll round them up. Seth is off at sea with the navy, alas, so you won't be seeing him this visit. Come now,” she urged. “Let's get you two tucked away so that we can start the festivities!”

T
HE ADULT
Cutlers dined alone the following evening at John and Cynthia's home, the younger children being in the care of Anna Odegaard, a Norwegian woman of thirty years who fulfilled a similar function for the Cutler family in Barbados as Edna Stowe did in Hingham. Joseph Cutler, however, was at the table, and not only because he was the oldest of the children.

After two servants dressed in white had removed the soup dishes and had replaced the silver tureen with platters of sautéed pompano and fresh vegetables, Cynthia turned to her son. “Joseph, your aunt and uncle have something they would like to discuss with you.”

A second bottle of red Bordeaux was making the rounds as Robin Cutler did the honors of serving the meal. He was casually dressed in tan trousers and a lemon-yellow shirt open at the neck that he had purchased from a local merchant. His brother John was, as always, dressed more formally in a blue-and-white-checkered waistcoat, white linen neck stock, and an elegant deep purple dinner jacket that had been tailored to his specifications in London. Their wives wore fashionable empire gowns: low-cut muslin dresses that fit closely under the bust and flowed in simple elegance to the ankles.

Joseph's russet-brown eyes shifted to Richard and Katherine, seated across from him, as his parents stole a glance at each other and at Robin and Julia. “Oh? What is it?” he asked tentatively, mindful of the silent messages being transmitted around the table. Although he was no longer the emotionally remote child he once had been, even when in the bosom of his family he became edgy when attention was focused strictly on him.

“Listen carefully now, son,” his father said unnecessarily, adding to Joseph's unease.

“Joseph,” Katherine launched in quickly, before the young man could become even more nervous, “your Uncle Richard and I have a proposition for you.”

“A proposition?”

“Yes, one we believe, and hope, will be of interest to you.”

Confused, Joseph looked first at his mother and then at his father. He could draw nothing from their blank expressions. He took a deep breath and looked back across the table. “What is your proposition, Aunt Katherine?”

Katherine's kind eyes held his. “When your Uncle Caleb was here a few years ago, he told you quite a bit about where we live in Massachusetts, didn't he?”

“He did,” Joseph said. He smiled, clearly recollecting those six months Caleb Cutler had stayed with his family back in '99. At his own father's urging, Caleb had sailed to Barbados to learn everything he could about the family sugar business, and Richard had joined him during his period of convalescence from his war injury. John and Cynthia had long credited both men, but especially Caleb, for doing more to help their son than the combined efforts of the Royal College of Physicians in England. Joseph had wept when Caleb left the island, and that by itself gave his parents ground for hope: it was one of the few times that their son had
ever revealed his emotions. “I feel as though I know Hingham quite well from what everyone has told me and the descriptions you have written to me. It seems a special place.”

“It
is
a special place, Joseph,” Katherine said, “and we would like you to know it better. In fact, we would like you to see it for yourself. We are inviting you to sail home with us next month and live with us in Hingham for a while.”

Joseph's jaw dropped. “Live in America? Would I live with you?”

“We would like that very much, and so would our children. But your Uncle Caleb and Aunt Joan want you to stay with them. Theirs is a much larger home than ours—as large as your home here—so there is plenty of room. And it's quite near where Uncle Richard and I live. You could stay there as long as you please, at least until you have settled into your new position and found a place for yourself.”

“New position?” Joseph was at sea. “Excuse me, Aunt Katherine, but I am terribly confused.
What
new position?”

“Why, your position as teacher of mathematics at Derby Academy. You've heard of Derby in my letters. All three of our children went there. It's a private school for
both
boys and girls, one of the first of its kind in America. And it's located just down the street from where Caleb and his family live. You can walk there in a couple of minutes.”

Joseph blinked, then ranged his gaze about the dining area, focusing on no object or person in particular. Julia Fletcher Cutler, seated beside him, patted his knee. “It seems a perfect opportunity for you, dear boy.”

Richard said, “Aunt Katherine is the mastermind behind all this, Joseph. It was her idea. She went to see the headmistress of the school, and lo and behold, she discovered that there is an opening for a mathematics teacher starting in September. The headmistress agreed to hold open that position for you, based on what Katherine told her about your love of mathematics and your skills in the subject. Apparently you are just the man Derby is seeking. The headmistress and trustees of the school are most anxious to welcome you, as are the students and other teachers.”

A significant pause, then: “I don't know what to say . . .”

“You needn't say anything yet,” Katherine assured him. “We have put a lot on your shoulders this evening, and you need time to consider it and to discuss it with your parents. Just let us know your decision. And know this, too: whatever you decide, your Uncle Richard and I will support you. So will your Uncle Caleb. So will
all
your family. We love you and we want only the best for you.”

“Thank you so very much, Aunt Katherine,” Joseph said, his emotions choking his words.

A
S
J
OSEPH
C
UTLER
mulled over his future, the other members of the Cutler family on Barbados mulled over theirs. Most planters on the island agreed that their livelihood was fraught with uncertainty. Several key issues added to that uncertainty, the future of slavery first among them. Highly placed sources in Parliament had indicated to John Cutler that the movement to abolish the slave trade was gaining momentum. So much so, these sources speculated, that the ban on buying and selling slaves was likely to be enacted into law within the year. If that were to happen, John Cutler said during an afternoon discussion with Richard and Robin, they could expect the law to be vigorously enforced by the Royal Navy, especially on British-held islands such as Barbados where the Navy maintained a base. The abolition of the slave trade, John said, affirming the obvious, would eventually mean the abolition of slavery itself. What effect, he wondered, would
that
have on the family business?

Robin Cutler took his time before answering, looking up as if seeking inspiration in the eighty-foot breadfruit tree that shaded the men sitting on cool stone benches beneath it. Whereas many people, Robin reminded his brother and cousin, believed that the institution of slavery provided free labor to plantation owners, slavery was in fact a very expensive mode of production. The initial investment involved a large cash outlay—a healthy African man or woman typically cost the plantation owner between fifty and seventy pounds—to which must then be added the costs of feeding, housing, and maintaining such a large labor force, not to mention the maintenance of those responsible for overseeing the slaves. The cultivation of tobacco, the staple of most West Indian islands in the 1600s, had not been able to absorb these expenses sufficiently to yield the plantation owners a satisfactory return on their investments. Sugarcane was a different proposition. Given the worldwide demand for sugar, molasses, and rum, cane production could easily absorb both operational and capital costs—while building a handsome contingency fund to protect against hurricanes and other unforeseen calamities—as long as the African slave trade provided the necessary labor to slash and haul the cane. Robin, however, had long seen a serious flaw in the perspectives of most planters that connected the handsome financial returns they were realizing to the institution of slavery. Consider the facts, he urged. Should Parliament abolish slavery, the capital costs associated with slavery would disappear, as would the
operational costs, which would be replaced by an hourly wage paid to workers responsible for their own living expenses. And because these individuals would be working voluntarily with the added incentive of possibly earning a higher hourly wage, logic dictated that they would produce more per man-hour in the fields than slaves working with no incentive beyond surviving another day. No doubt the transition from a slave economy would involve outlays of capital. But those outlays, whatever their amount, would ultimately be covered by the higher annual profits that a “free” economy could be expected to generate.

“So what you're telling us,” Richard said after his cousin finished speaking, “is that the abolition of slavery would actually
increase
Cutler & Sons profits?”

“Perhaps not right away,” Robin warned. “But in the long term, yes, I believe it would. In no circumstance do I foresee a scenario in which the loss in revenues and profits in a free economy is as catastrophic as most planters would have us believe. Such speculations defy the laws of economics and are just plain nonsense.”

John Cutler visibly bristled at that remark but said nothing.

“And remember,” Robin went on, “our family is somewhat protected by the rum we produce and sell. As John can confirm, the demand for our rum continues to grow: here, in America, and in Europe. If conditions here should happen to deteriorate in the future, we can always move rum production off the island and charge a higher price per bottle to cover our expenses. John and I believe that raising our prices would not result in a significant drop in sales. In fact, the
opposite
has occurred where we have tested a higher price. In those instances demand has actually
increased
, we believe because of the increase in perceived value in the mind of the customer. It's a lesson your father taught us, Richard. As long as we don't compromise the quality of the rum we produce, we will always find customers willing to pay an extra shilling or two for the best.”

Richard nodded his head thoughtfully. “That was well spoken, Robin,” he said. “I'm curious, however: do your in-laws agree with your theories on slavery?” Most of the other planters on the island held the Fletcher family in the highest esteem, not least because they were sharp businessmen. If the Fletchers were on board, the rest would follow.

“Not only do they agree,” Robin replied, “they have tested the hypothesis. They have allowed free Negroes paid an hourly wage to work side by side in the fields with Negro slaves. In virtually every instance, the daily output of the free Negroes outpaced that of Negroes held in bondage. So yes, they most definitely agree with my theories.”

Richard's gaze swung to his other cousin. “But you do not, John, I take it?”

John shrugged. “Let's just say I am yet to be convinced.”

T
HE OTHER
matter weighing heavily on the Cutlers involved a new order in council from London, the very one to which Richard had been introduced on his arrival in Barbados. The order instituted an eight-hundred-mile blockade of the northern European coastline by the Royal Navy, covering the coast from the Elbe River in Germany to the city of Brest in Brittany. And as Lieutenant Dunbar had amply demonstrated on
Dove
's weather deck, the order authorized the British to search neutral vessels for deserters from the British navy as well as possible contraband being shipped illegally, as defined by British law, to France or to a French colonial port such as Basse-Terre on the island of Guadeloupe.