Hours became days, and nights became endless. Only a week passed, and it could have been months.
I sent Togo to town to procure much-needed necessities from the market and deliver a letter to Charles regarding the indigo affair. The account books took much of my time, and I tallied and retallied hoping to see a way we could avoid encumbering Garden Hill. We could make it. Just. But there would be no extra money for further consultants or infrastructure. And I asked myself if I’d have to set my indigo project aside.
The rain came and went, the storm subsided, only to be followed quickly by another. The palm roof peeled clear off our new schoolhouse, and Sawney and Pompey got to work immediately to repair it before I could even ask them.
Cromwell appeared at my door three days after Quash left to find Ben. “No news, I suppose?”
“No.” I sighed.
“I want to thank you for sending a man after Ben.”
I swallowed. “Of course. Though I did it for his safety, not as a favor to you.”
“Of course. Thank you all the same.” He sat, without being invited, and irritation surged through me.
“What else can I help with? Have you finished packing your belongings?”
“That’s just it. I, uh, well the thing is … well, this is rather awkward. I cannot afford passage home.”
My eyebrows pulled high.
“And, well, I do not have much to return to. My brother and I—”
“So you were all bluff and bluster?” His brother was probably as tired of him as I was. A thought occurred to me. “Why would you want to add a wife to take care of?”
“Well, I thought—your mother, she—”
“You thought I came with a dowry or some such? Perhaps my father’s sugar plantations in Antigua? Well, I’m afraid those are mortgaged as well. You have done a fine job making our already precarious position that much more dangerous. Well done.”
He hung his head. “I’m sorry.”
“Pardon me?”
“I said, ‘I’m sorry.’” He gritted the words out with effort.
“Sorrys don’t pay our accounts unfortunately. I can’t afford to pay your way home either. You’ll have to win the money at cards, I imagine. I am sending a letter to your brother updating him on your actions and asking him to remunerate us on the loss of our investment in you.”
Cromwell’s ruddy color leached from his face. “You wouldn’t.”
“I will, and have. The letter left with Togo a few days ago.”
“Oh, my God …”
“Yes, pray if you want to. Who knows what truth there is in this Christian scheme? My praying has not done much for me recently. But what beautiful joy there is in allowing Him responsibility for our misfortunes. It certainly makes one’s culpability easier to bear.”
He swung his head side to side as if impressed by my little speech. “You are far too intelligent for a woman.”
“I’ll take that as the compliment you no doubt meant. Now if you’ll excuse me? I’m sure you must have packing to finish.”
“Where will I go?”
I smiled grimly. “For my part, I simply want you out of my sight.”
I looked down, back at the books, not seeing anything except the hopelessness of my position.
Cromwell stood, and I sensed the mean streak in him coalescing into solidity as he formed his words.
“You are a pitiful excuse for a woman,” he spat. “It would seem I had a lucky escape.”
“Mr. Cromwell.” I glanced up at him briefly. “You, sir, are a pitiful excuse for a …” I paused. “I was going to say gentleman. But …” I picked up my quill giving my head a dismissive shake. “You’re just pitiful. Now, if you don’t mind …”
His chair screeched along the floor, and, mouth set in a line I imagined was tight with rage, Cromwell walked out.
The pacing I did in the next few days was enough to wear a hole in the wool rug on the study floor. I tried to keep myself busy. I began teaching Polly her French again, and then enlisted her to help me teach the Negro children their letters. Due to the off-and-on nature of the rain and our out-of-commission schoolroom roof, I’d started tutoring them in the study. Mother didn’t utter a word. I’m sure she could feel the disdain for her foolishness emanating off me in waves and dared not cross my path.
Some days when the weather was nice and we learned outside, we managed to get Lil’ Gulla to join us. We made letters from sticks laid in the dirt. Baby Ebba would watch and squeal as the children and I jumped from letter to letter, calling out the sound as we went or counting rocks and stones and arranging them in shapes. My smiles for others most days were forced. But the mornings with the children were the exception, the only time I could keep Ben and Quash—and of course my financial predicament—from my mind.
Sarah, having recovered from her miscarriage, had reverted to helping out in the house and with the children. No longer able to hold my gaze with the defiance she once had, she averted her eyes whenever she saw me. Perhaps her defiance had bled out of her along with her baby. Or my lack of retaliation or punishment for her deeds had broken her in a way Starrat had never managed to accomplish. She’d also taken it upon herself to collect and dry herbs and make salves to stock in the small infirmary cabin Quash had built. I did not interfere with her quiet assimilation into plantation life. She had suffered enough. We all had. Her pride could have what it could salvage.
I cursed myself for pouring so much energy into indigo at the expense of everything else. Was I any better than Cromwell? I’d gambled, and I’d lost.
Togo returned from town. As he unpacked the goods onto the kitchen table, I could see he bore no return letter from Charles Pinckney. Disappointment skewered my already fragile heart. As if he could sense my deflation, Togo looked up, his giant face troubled.
“What is it, Togo?”
He sighed and scratched his head. “Mrs. Pinckney, she sick.”
Oh no. Perhaps she’d had another miscarriage. The image of Sarah flashed before my eyes. I squeezed them closed, pushing away the memory.
“Their lady, Bettina, she tell me, Mistress very weak and tired. Bad head and she getting the fever many times.”
I sighed, relieved it wasn’t what I’d been thinking. Still it was worrisome. Mrs. Pinckney was so stalwart. So robust. I’d never known her to complain of so much as a sniffle or a flea bite. Not like Mama, who was always poorly and under the weather, snapping at Polly and me and blaming it on her head. If Mrs. Pinckney felt ill, she must truly be feeling bad. I was also relieved to know that there was a good reason for the lack of a letter from Mr. Pinckney about my failed indigo experiment.
“Miz Bartlett, she say she behind on her letters to England and will send you one soon.”
I nodded. “Thank you, Togo.”
He lowered his eyes. “Quash, he come back? Or Ben?”
My throat closed. I could barely answer. “No. Not yet.”
Going over all our account books, I plotted a way to stretch the last money from the rice out into the next year.
There were tools and upgrades we might put off buying. Luckily, the slave cabins didn’t need any improvements this year since Quash had done such a good job on their upkeep. We would sell some of the benne seeds and our other produce at the market.
I penned a quick message to Mr. Deveaux asking him if he might be interested in purchasing some of our cows. Selling them to him, over anyone else, would mean we might have hopes of buying them back at some point. The islands were still paying a good price for our timber from Garden Hill so that would help. Next year we could plant more indigo to add to the plants I hoped would come back.
We would try again. We had to. As long as we were able to hold on until then. The alternative, that Father would mortgage Garden Hill, our most profitable land, or lose the properties entirely, just simply didn’t bear thinking about.
I wrote again to Miss Bartlett and thought of her uncle reading my words.
Togo brought the Charles Town Gazette anytime he was in town, and I noted all the marriages among my so-called peers that had recently occurred. Mr. John Drayton to Miss Charlotte Bull. And I did feel a modicum of envy, though I’d rather die than ever admit such a thing to Mama.
Essie fussed over me, assuring me Quash would be fine and would return soon. She seemed careful not to mention Ben. “What do you know?” I asked her once when the omission seemed so glaring I felt it was lumbering around the room like a great black mass. She shook her head, but I could tell she was worried. And she kept checking that her charms beneath my bed were still there. “I won’t touch them, Essie, I promise,” I said, mildly amused though a little chilled.
And then several weeks later, a stranger rode into Wappoo bearing a letter addressed to Lucas of Wappoo.
It was Polly who came running into the house.
“There’s a man on a horse,” she’d yelled.
“Shush,” Mama snapped. Mama was stiff-backed but frail, sitting on the end of the settee closest to the fireplace, having made it downstairs after weeks in her room. “Don’t shout. It’s unladylike.”
Polly glanced at Mama, mumbling a vague apology, then turned to me. “’Liza,” she burst. “He asked me if we own a slave named Quash.”
My stomach lurched violently as though a rock dropped into it. My ears and fingers tingled and went cold.
“Come, ’Liza,” Polly beseeched.
I was frozen like I’d stepped out of life for just a moment. Then the world came rushing back, and I blinked, bringing Polly into focus.
Quash.
I stood and followed her outside.