The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (26 page)

The cognac hadn’t worked. Sophie was wide awake and frighteningly pale. She had seen the duppy tree move.

Madeleine went across the lawn to check, and came back and assured her that it hadn’t moved an inch. As additional proof she cited the fact that neither Remus nor Cleo had barked. And they would have, wouldn’t they? Being guard dogs, they would have spotted a thing like that.

Sophie agreed that the dogs hadn’t barked, and pretended to be reassured.

That wretched, wretched tree, thought Madeleine. When she’d first arrived at Fever Hill and been told that the strange, buttressed hulk was a silk-cotton tree, she had been astonished and dismayed. It was nothing like the miraculous Tree of Life of her mother’s stories. It was stark and ugly, and so old that some of the branches had cracked under their weight and rotted away.

But for some reason it was profoundly disturbing Sophie. Even Dr Pritchard had remarked on it. That had prompted Madeleine to go to Jocelyn and ask him to have the wretched thing cut down. To her astonishment he had declined. ‘Worse than breaking a mirror,’ he said somewhat sheepishly. ‘Bad luck in perpetuity, don’t you know? Of course it’s all a lot of tommyrot. But the thing is, the helpers wouldn’t stand for it. They’d leave. All of ’em. That’s the thing.’

She drew back Sophie’s mosquito curtain, and made room on the bed beside Pablo Grey. ‘What would make you feel safer?’ she said. ‘Would you like to move to another part of the gallery, where you can’t see it?’

Sophie shook her head. Clearly that would only make it worse – presumably because then the tree might creep up on her unawares.

‘Then what?’ said Madeleine gently.

Sophie’s bony fingers tightened on the bedclothes. She looked as if she was wondering how much to reveal. ‘A charm-bag might help,’ she said. ‘Like the one Evie wears round her neck?’ She paused. ‘Grace made it for her. It’s got spirit weed and rosemary and Madam Fate.’

‘I’ll get one tomorrow. I’ll go and see Grace.’

Sophie looked doubtful. ‘I don’t think she’ll make one for a white person.’

‘Yes she will,’ said Madeleine.

Evening-time, and Grace is taking her ease out on her step, and everything going silk.

She’s been cooking up fufu for supper, and waiting for the children to come home after their chores. Smoking little pipe, drinking little bush tea, with a drop of that rum in it of Missy Sophie, to warm up the blood.

Yes, Grace, she tells herself. Everything going silk.

Mosquitoes humming a hive, but Grace don’t mind, for they dislike how she taste. And Patoo going hoo hoo up in that old calabash tree, but she just tells him to get out a her damn yard, and he go. He no fool, that Patoo.

She looks around at her place, and it all tidy, tidy-sweet. Hogs and chickens fed; good bamboo fence roundabout; lot, lot a fine trees in her yard: cashew, guava, alligator pear and mango; paw-paw, breadfruit and garden cherry over by Mother Semanthe and Grandmother Leah tombs.

And she got a good stone house behind her, too besides. Two rooms strong-built from slave time, which Grandmother Leah mortared with powdered bones and molasses, and ash from the old great house that got burnt in the Rebellion, together with a spell or two. And it got a good steep roof on it of thatchpole that Mother Semanthe weave. No weakly cane-trash that last couple a years, then rot away to black and blazes.

Hn. Why she thinking of the family, long dead? Why they creeping into her head at this time? Grace never did even
like
Mother Semanthe, even though she was her own self mother. Always talking, talking about how she born a slave. How she worked in pickney gang since six year old, carrying trays of dung out to the cane; and how that stinking sour brown dung-juice always running, running into her eyes – year in, year out, until by Free Come day, she total blind.

All those stories about slave time. When Grace a girl, she use to yell at her mother, why I should
care
about slave time? It done! It gone! We free now!

And Mother Semanthe used to say, it never done, girl. Don’t you know that yet?

Jesum Peace!

But the funny thing about it, as Grace grows up and becomes a woman, she starts to think about slave time too. And now she thirty-seven years old, and she thinks of it more and more. All these black confusion feelings churning away in her head, about slave time and Mother Semanthe and everything.

Ember cracks, and Grace reaches out and settles it down under the coalpot, and checks on the bake bananas.

Reverend Mayeau over at the Baptist Church at Salt Wash, he says, Grace, you got to find a way to get
along
with those feelings of yours, or you never be free.

And she try. She try everything. Try Bible-talk and myalism and Revivalism and obeah. Try black lover, white lover, yellow, brown. Nothing help. Still those black confusion feelings churning away in her head.

Maybe she got to work out
who
she is, before she can work out how to live. But who she is? She Negro, mocho, Jamaican, nigger, black, Congo and Koromantyn. She all those things. But she still don’t know who the hell she is.

Only time these mix-up confusion feelings go away is when she looks at Evie and Victory.

She’s growing them up straight and strict, and they shooting up fast, like love bush scrambling over house. Skin smooth and brown; eyes bright and black like ackee seeds.

Grace leans back and blows smoke-ring at the sky. Raise up you spirits, Gracie girl, she tells herself. Things could be worser. You got two fine children. You got the best place in the village. Hell, you got the
only
damn place in the village!

That always make her crack a laugh.

She still laughing when the chickens start up a squabble, and she sees a figure coming down the path from the aqueduct. But what is this? Jesum Peace. Is Miss Maddy walking quick, quick, with her skirts trailing out behind her like a fishtail. What in hell she doing down here?

Grace dislikes Miss Maddy. Oh, she speaks nice and sweet, and she seems soft and weakly, like all buckra woman. But she different. She hiding something. Grace can’t make out what.

And right now she’s got some worry-head in her, Grace can see that straight. She’s like a piece of tight-stretch elastic, like she’s got trouble in head and heart.

‘You walking late, Miss Maddy,’ says Grace, getting to her feet. She behaves respectful, but not too respectful. She may be only a helper, and Miss Maddy up-class Society lady – but hell, Miss Maddy’s in Grace own self yard.

‘I don’t have much time,’ Miss Maddy says. ‘I need to get back, to dress for dinner.’

Now why in hell, thinks Grace, Miss Maddy come all this way down the hill this night, when she could a sent for Grace up at Master Jocelyn house at any time? Grace only been up there at the wash-house the whole damn day.

Then Grace says to herself, hn. Maybe Miss Maddy don’t want that husband of hers to know. That Master Sinclair with the lock-purse mouth and the trickified ways. Cho! To see him walking round Master Jocelyn place as if he the original proud thing, it makes Grace spit.

‘I need something from you,’ says Miss Maddy, simple straight.

‘I know it, ma’am,’ says Grace.

‘I need you to make one of those little charm-bags. Like the ones your children wear?’

Grace give Miss Maddy the blank eye. ‘I don’t know, ma’am,’ she says.

‘Yes you do. It’s a little bag with rosemary and spirit weed and Madam Fate. And probably other things besides.’

Now Grace getting on suspicious. How Miss Maddy know a thing like that? ‘You fooling me up, Miss Maddy,’ she says. ‘Black people medicine for buckra lady? Cho!’

‘I’ll pay you a shilling,’ Miss Maddy says.

‘Oh, I don’t know, ma’am,’ says Grace again. But in her head she thinking, hn. White people always calling black people magic ‘witchcraft’, and saying it
bad
. But then they go right along and make their
own
self magic! They turn wine into blood, and eat up God himself every Sunday sabbath! And now this buckra lady she wants a piece of
black
people magic, too besides. Grace considers that powerful strange. Out loud she just says again, ‘I don’t know, ma’am.’

‘It isn’t for me,’ says Miss Maddy. ‘It’s for Missy Sophie.’

‘Missy Sophie, ma’am?’

She nods.

Grace spits. ‘That child sick bad, ma’am. She flaking away. Needs strong tea, and maybe a bush-bath. Then she go pick up again.’

‘Perhaps. But right now what she thinks she needs is that charm. Will you make her one?’

Grace swallows her spit and considers a while. Not all buckra bad. Master Cameron and old Master Jocelyn now; and poor Miss Clemmy. And that little Missy Sophie, she all right, too. Course, she always got to be making some kind of noise, that one, like it hurt her to stay silent for a moment. She got to be talking a stream, or singing, or argifying with that jack-mule of hers. But she all right. Grace says, ‘I think pon it a while, ma’am.’

‘Think on it quickly,’ Miss Maddy says sharp.

Grace scratches her headkerchief. Decides have a little fun. ‘You come from foreign, ma’am, but you understand potwah good. I know some buckra ladies, live here roundabout long time, never understand as good as you.’

Miss Maddy colours right up, like she just been found out. She hiding something. Sure as sin.

Grace takes a pull on her pipe. ‘You bring trouble to the house, Miss Maddy. You not who you say.’

Miss Maddy tight up her hand, but not turn way her eye. She not to frighten easy, that true to the fact. She says, ‘You’re impertinent, Grace. You should watch your tongue.’

Grace takes a next pull on her pipe and decides have little more fun. ‘You understand potwah,’ she says. ‘Well, I speak buckra talk, you know.’ She straightens up and says in buckra talk, ‘That is, when I have a mind to do so.’ She cracks a laugh. ‘Oh yes. Master Cameron teach it to I.’

But look me trouble, what all this? Soon as Grace says soldierman name, Miss Maddy she opens her mouth like she got a sudden thought, and dislikes how it taste. What the hell this all about?

Then it comes to Grace. Miss Maddy finding out that marriage have teeth, and bite hot. And maybe that old charm of Grace did its work on Master Sinclair and struck out him manhood, and he getting vex and blaming it on her, like men always do if they get the chance. And Miss Maddy young, and her blood calling out loud and natural, even if she not know it yet – and she
dislikes
the notion of Gracie McFarlane and soldierman together. And maybe, maybe she got an eye for him herself.

Certain sure, Miss Maddy she looking at Grace like she burning to ask something more about it, but can’t, for she too damn proud. ‘One shilling,’ she says, strict and sharp. ‘Bring the charm tomorrow. Bring it to me and no-one else. Do it for Missy Sophie.’

‘We see about it, ma’am,’ says Grace.

She watches Miss Maddy go, and she thinks, well all right. I bring the charm tomorrow for the little girl child, so maybe her blood thicken, and she pick up some.

But you, Miss Maddy. You better watch out, now. Gracie McFarlane and Master Cameron they gone their separate ways from long, long time – but Gracie still watches out for him.

Don’t you go make trouble for him, Miss Maddy. Or I make trouble for you.

Chapter Eighteen

Excerpt from the Pall Mall Gazette, 22nd March 1884 (in the personal files of Mrs Olivia Herapath)

. . . No incident at the Battle of Tamai was more distressing than that which followed the death of Major Alasdair Falkirk, a gallant and much-decorated officer who was cut down by Dervishes in the immediate aftermath of the conflict. Shortly after the unfortunate hero’s fall, one Captain Cameron Lawe, a junior officer, was seen rifling through the dead man’s pockets and extracting a piece of paper therefrom, which he straightway destroyed.

Captain Lawe has since declined to explain his extraordinary conduct, or indeed, the nature of the altercation which was seen to take place between the two men on the eve of the battle.

What was the paper he destroyed? A promissory note? A letter from a lady? We may never know, for the Captain persists in his silence – which is said to have weighed heavily against him at his recent Court-Martial . . .

Proceedings before a General Court-Martial held at Fort Euryalus, Suakin, on the 18th day of March 1884, on Captain Cameron Anthony Lawe, 61377, 25th King’s Own Scottish Borderers.

. . . Throughout these proceedings you have persistently, I might say wilfully, declined any assistance in your defence, and pleaded guilty to the charges arraigned against you. For the last time, do you wish to alter your plea?

Prisoner:
No.

Prosecuting officer:
Do you wish to bring evidence as to the nature of the altercation between yourself and the deceased?

Prisoner:
No.

Prosecuting officer:
Do you wish to bring any evidence whatsoever in your defence?

Prisoner:
No.

Prosecuting officer:
Do you wish to exercise your right to cross-examine the witnesses for the prosecution?

Prisoner:
No.

Prosecuting officer:
Do you wish to bring evidence as to your character?

Prisoner:
No.

Prosecuting officer:
Do you wish to exercise your right to address the Court?

Prisoner:
No.

Prosecuting officer:
Do you wish to bring evidence in mitigation of punishment?

Prisoner:
No.

Madeleine closed Mrs Herapath’s blue morocco folder and tied it up again with the pink satin ribbon.

She tried to picture the court-martial in the stuffy little fort at Suakin. She could almost hear Cameron Lawe infuriating the prosecutor with his blunt, unhelpful replies. Wilfully, almost perversely calling down on himself the full wrath of the army. As if he no longer cared what became of him.