Strange Music (27 page)

‘Wait outside,' minister says to me. ‘Oh, and Kaydia, I appreciate that due to your duties you will be absent from the service tonight but I trust your daughter will be present.'

I close jalousie blinds. Groaning, Mister Sam writhes. Bed moans under him shifting weight. I wipe wet forehead skin; lower lip; cheek; chin. Curtains fall in heavy loops as slowly I drag blue velvet across windows. I dip in tallow rush pitch. Then I'm gone from Mister Sam's bedside.

Leaning my ear against chamber door I stand outside. Voices sound muffled through solid wood like shadows look blurred under water.

‘. . . for God so loved the world,' minister says, ‘that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life . . .'

I walk across gloomy lawn towards kitchen block. Sky holds a faint red glimmer above dark blue sea.

‘Sam fever worse?' Rushing down my spine, Pa's laughing catches me. ‘E not noticin wot yu do fe im,' Pa pitches testily. ‘Yu cyaan see dat girl?'

‘Where yu bin?' calmly I ast. ‘Pa?' Pa sucks him teeth, him eye matches hell's fire. ‘Yu me pa?' I cry, wiping tears from cheeks.

Moon makes shining leaves blue. Breezes chase leaves, brushing in and out of gaps moonrays passed through. Pa turns. Sweat brewing. But he cause me no more trouble now. Him gone.

Minister walks to him horse in stable-block. Pa scents victory, rays of him laugh flit between trees back through Cinnamon Hill gardens, reaching across black chamber into sea's glittering blue deep as love depths.

I fetch cassava from storage jar and from sack, yam for boiling in water. Moonlight beams over kitchen flagstones.

‘Mama! Mama!' Mary Ann calls. ‘Mister Sam bawling!'

Mister Sam's face, a white mask, bends over chamber pot, vomits onto floorboards. And Mister Sam's gagging, vomit gushes from him mouth. He retches again, it racks him body.

Getting onto my knees what strikes me's how Mister Sam also weeps, forlorn face yellow-white, too weak to speak.

Softly him hand slips from him chest. ‘Papa,' he moans.

Rocking forward, back on my feet, ‘Forget yu fadda,' I mumble. I pinch Mister Sam's shoulder. ‘E won't know yu cyaan work. E cyaan know all wot yu dun.'

My wish for any place away from here's bigger than anyone's. But Mister Sam's no longer with me. Already him thick with sleep.

‘Jesus, lover of my soul,' I'm singing, sinking onto hard yacca floor. ‘Let yu to thy bosom fly. Mister Jancra fly up high. Sugar cane, water roll. Hide me. Save me. Save me.'

Chapter Ten

Agreeing with Papa is not possible in this instance: he has confessed to dismissing a Wimpole Street servant for forgetting to lock the door after dusting ‘Mama's room'. Since Mama's death Papa treats her possessions as objects of reverence, and disallows anything to be re-arranged in ‘Mama's room' or for the door to be left unlocked. There is no movement from Papa on this, even though we have left one house for another. Even though Mama's feet never walked Wimpole Street floors. His devotion remains immemorial, even though she has been dead for nine Octobers.

Disagreements with Papa are bad spirits sniping at me in this room. They clomped up the stairs, stomped up to my bedside as though stamping on the souls of us more earthly folk. Beards of smoke rise from the fire and hang about my chamber. I wish the curtains of stale air would clear. If only Crow would unlatch a window. But one breath of wind will increase my sickness so that, if it so pleaseth God, I may live only another day. Pains which were ghosts of sensations are now revealed fully in flesh. And I am haunted all week by leeches and blisters though I sometimes know not which doctor comes.

I sense Papa's worries and feel that the decline in his good spirits is due to more unrest on his estates, poor sugar yields and, worst of all, Dr. Barry's death and the decline in my health all coinciding with the anniversary of the loss of dear Mama.

The woman has returned. I believe she knows that in the dark world in which I live I can no longer spread or even open my wings, as I once did, galloping from hilltop to hilltop, cantering through valleys, the wind satin-smooth, a blue-white mist hanging over distant chimneys. At first I'd wanted to be rid of her, then could not bear us to be parted. Her face, streaked sometimes with distress, often seeps into my thoughts; cotton-soft as summer breezes the black folds of her garments slip past my sleeping eyes. Although I occasionally feel her touch whisper across my skin, two months have passed since she sat by the fireside, and now with horror I see a vision most grotesque.

She nurses a newly born baby the size of the wax doll with flaxen hair that is propped against Henrietta's window-sill in Wimpole Street. But this baby's complexion isn't peachy-pale, her dress doesn't mirror silk the lemon shade of buttermilk fringed with foamy lace. This baby's round eyes aren't blue but a bright clear brown, the dark bare skin copper-coloured, shiny. The baby's face crumples up; its cry turns into a wail. Worst of all the little neck swells becoming scarred and red, the face blood-spattered. My heart begins to race. Could this be an aberration of light? A Negro baby, here, in my room? Surely it isn't kin of mine.

I do not fear the future. It is the past that scares me. It is impossible to reconcile the past. Impossible. All my life I have been haunted by ghosts. The past constantly visits me. I believe souls live on because I can feel the spirit world.

When I find it within me to look back the baby has disappeared. A young boy stands at the woman's side now. His attire, like that of little Ibbit's, is tailored to suit the latest fashion. Long dark wavy ringlets tumble to a shirt collar edged with the best London lace and the shoulders of a light blue felt waistcoat trimmed with navy cord and matching velvet buttons. The yellow trousers stop just below the knee; bright white ankle socks and closed sandals. Somewhere, in the maze my mind has become, I have seen the gentle curves of this child's face, the swell of the forehead, the coral bloom to his cheeks. He is not aware of me, only the woman. He hands her a square-shaped board. But no, no it isn't a board, it's a piece of needlework exquisitely stitched. A tapestry stretched across a wooden frame depicting the picture of an old house. The picture stops the woman crying. She begins to unpick the design. The stables are still there but the buildings I recognize as the home farm cottages begin to disappear, as does the clock tower, the lake and Alpine bridge: the lily ponds fringed with bullrushes are quickly unravelled. Threads pulled out she winds around her delicate hand, and then throws all that I once held dear in a loose ball into the blazing fire. Lastly she attacks the house, unpicking domes, spires, leaving not even the shape of a memory, simply smooth cream-coloured cloth.

A frightful pain slices the left side of my body. Were it not for the coldness of the draught from the windows I would be content to lie back against these pillows, out of harm's way, out of air's way, and continue with the two things of which I seem a little capable: being ill and writing poetry.

This morning the waves are quite calm. Oysters, fresh from their watery bed, have been harvested in gigantic nets, and now dear Papa is next door in the drawing-room contentment is not far from my reach. But every joy turns to sadness. Even the hushed crash of bursting waves grows tiresome. The bay. Screaming gulls. Sea and sky as one.

I feel as though I live in the sea. I have before me another full five months at sea. The mixture I take of opium and brandy does little to calm my nervous state. I wish to see no one. I have no compassion for it, but now Dr. Barry is gone, I
must
write.

I
must
write.

What grand thoughts these are – I
cannot
. Papa's heavy knock is at my door. He walks in in a blast of sunshine and with a biting wind from the drawing-room windows.

There is a strangeness in the way his eyes search my face. Fearful, he takes my hand in his – almost as reluctantly as the sea's heart he swells with sadness. And when I smile . . . When I smile, Papa says he lives for when I smile . . .

The savage fingers of this immortal wind glance between cracks in the sash-window-frames. Whilst Papa says he is struck by how many people still stroll on the beach, and amazed by the scores of swooping swallows, I am thinking Italy's climate and romantic scenery will suit me better than any London or Torquay. Gulls, like torn scraps of paper, soar on each veil of wind. Sand studded with pebbles recedes, returns, unsettled in the restless, relentless swash of crashing waves.

When at noon Papa sat at my bedside holding my hand, I said, ‘Fetch me a shell, Papa, a clam shell, that I might feel the clusters of miniature barnacles.' I was longing to be with him striding across the beach. Tonight the prevailing winds are weak, and within these walls sour memories prevail.

Water reflects on the ceiling turning this into a blue chamber. I wish that just for one minute the crashing waves would cease. And the sea be completely calm, quiet, smooth as the paper on which I ought to be writing.

Dr. Scully told Papa whilst standing over my bed this evening he thinks there is hope. But I wonder whether I shall last the winter – whatever His will is.

Before he left to catch the stagecoach dearest Papa said he could see how tiresomely lonely I have become, but that my suffering is a brilliant example of pious resignation and humble submission.

‘I will write to Sette,' Papa suggested, ‘requesting that he tell all in London to have more conversations with you on paper.'

‘Sette is a wonderful correspondent,' I replied. ‘And the depth of his kindness shows in his letters.'

Miss Mitford has sent me a copy of
Finden's Tableaux
via Arabel. But apart from that, now Papa has left, as is the way, I haven't heard from Sette since.

Despite the grief Papa has suffered, with fine carriage and sparkling eyes he last entered my chamber, his arms over-flowing with presents, baubles, trinkets, such great armfuls of gifts I blushed deeply. All spring long he will surely have the worry of whether Bro or Sam should have returned to Jamaica with my beloved brother Stormie. But Papa's strength never falters. See how he has protected us until the end. Papa follows the Lord's word. His trust and true love are my salvation. That he stayed constantly attentive at my bedside for one full month is proof of this. And when, being so overcome with emotion I could not speak, he took my hand, we prayed together. ‘Papa,' I said, ‘I understand you have many to care for in London and that you must soon leave.' ‘Ba,' he replied, ‘to make you happy, that is my reason for being on earth.' He speaks with such clarity and determination.
He
challenged
me
. Imagine
that
! It is no small wonder he is one of the most popular men in London – if not
the
most popular. In my heart I felt that dear Papa cannot, will not,
must not leave
. He vowed he would not. Then he did. My dive into the greatest depths of sorrow, loneliness and despair must upset dear Bro, who occupies the chair in which Papa sat at my bedside.

Bro looks more than discontented gazing from the window into the mist cloaking the sea. ‘Last night, shortly after leaving your bedside,' he says, ‘I announced in a letter to Papa my intention to marry.'

I refrain from giving voice to the words stirring in my breast –
I wish to provide for you financially
– I so dread upsetting Papa, my lips are tightly fastened, my hands seized and tied.

Bro is in love, deeply, he tells me. This comes as no surprise. Would Papa deny Bro marriage? At thirty-three years of age Papa had eight children and had been wed to Mama a good thirteen years. The wounds of my heart would never heal; therefore I hardly dare to dream of love.

‘Papa asserts firmly that we must fix our minds on the Lord,' I say, with a fake gaiety. ‘It would be folly to raise this matter with him once more, and should he fear
I
intend marrying his wrath would grow greater, his condemnation more intense.'

Bro begs me not to speak a word of this attachment to anyone, which is quite contrary to my feminine nature. But will he listen to me?

My sight drifts from Papa's portrait back to Bro. Bro is the easier to love, to be sure. Inwardly I shiver. Biting my lip, looking hard at Bro, I say, ‘I am being cowardly, I do not deserve you as a brother. What do I want with my inheritance? Since October I have neither dressed nor moved for stale bed sheets to be changed for fresh. Nevertheless, I was fearfully shocked by your outburst at dinner not a month ago, which I heard through closed drawing-room doors, and equally startled by Papa's reply.'

‘“A grandchild is a dead child,”' Bro reiterates. ‘“God's will is that each of you –
all
of you – remain celibate”.'