The Summer Country Read online

  Inside was a box, made of local mahogany. Jenny recognized the work of the head carpenter, the delicate carving around the sides. The box opened smoothly on well-oiled hinges, the interior lined with a scrap of satin she recognized as part of a discarded dress.

  Inside lay a gold locket. Jenny’s gold locket, the one her father had strung about her neck and promised her if she’d be a good girl.

  Mary Anne’s gold locket, the one the colonel had given her, that she had worn nestled in the hollow of her throat until the day of the poisoned chocolate, when she had pulled it off so hard that the ribbon snapped.

  There was a knock at the door. The master was the only one who knocked at the mistress’s door. But he had left for the church, some time ago, if the clock was any indication. How long had she been standing here, thinking of times gone by?

  Jenny hastily shoved the locket into her pocket.

  “Yes?” she said, opening the door a crack.

  A strange woman stood on the other side. She wore a well-starched white apron over a neatly pressed dress, but there was something about the curve of her cheeks, the bright fabric of her kerchief, that made her seem like she wouldn’t mind the odd rumple in her dress or stain on her apron.

  “I’m maid to Mrs. Boland,” the other woman said with a warm smile. “I was told I could find thread and needle here. My mistress trod on her dress just before going into church, and I found I had come away with none.”

  “What color do you need?” asked Jenny, going to get her sewing box.

  “Anything will do, if I make the stitches small enough,” said the woman cheerfully, “but a dark blue by choice. I’m Nanny Grigg.”

  “Jenny,” said Jenny, rooting about. “Will this do?”

  “You’re very kind.” Nanny Grigg took the spool but made no move to go. She looked at Jenny quizzically. “Are you all right? I don’t want to presume. It’s just—well, you look as though you saw a duppy.”

  That was one way of putting it. The box with the gold locket weighed heavy in Jenny’s pocket. “It’s always a flurry, having guests in the house,” Jenny said instead. “And with Christmas and all . . .”

  “They get the celebration, we have the work,” said Nanny Grigg companionably.

  There was a shout outside, and the sounds of hooves and wheels. Jenny couldn’t help her neck turning, craning to see out the window. But it wasn’t Charles. It was the heavy carriage Mary Anne used for formal occasions, bearing the Bolands and her master and mistress back from church.

  “They’re back,” she said, trying not to sound as low as she felt. It was foolish. It wasn’t as though she would be able to speak to Charles anyway, only look at him across the room, which was almost worse than nothing. “Do you need a needle?”

  “You gave me one,” said Nanny Grigg.

  “Oh, of course.” Jenny shook her head, feeling like an idiot. Seizing on the first excuse she could think of, she crossed to Mary Anne’s writing desk. “I was just remembering that we were nearly out of the puce silk floss. I’ll have to add it to the list to buy in Speightstown.”

  “You can write?” said Nanny Grigg, her eyes lighting up. “I was maid to the mistress of Harrow until she died, and then . . . I used to read her correspondence to her, when her eyes began to fail her. Write for her too.”

  “My mistress has me write for her sometimes as well,” admitted Jenny. “She’s with child, and it’s been hard with her. Her fingers swell so that it’s difficult for her to hold a pen.”

  “Does she like you to read to her?” asked Nanny Grigg. “I used to read my mistress sermons, mostly. Improving texts, that was what she liked. But she liked Mr. Richardson’s works, because she thought they had a good moral sentiment. Have you read Pamela?”

  “No,” said Jenny, trying not to show her distraction too obviously as more hoofbeats sounded from the drive.

  “There’s a maid in it marries her master,” said Nanny Grigg confidingly. “I’ll hunt it up for you, if you like. Mrs. Boland doesn’t read novels, so she won’t ever notice it’s missing. If your mistress doesn’t mind, that is.”

  “I don’t think she would,” said Jenny, although it hit a little too close to home, a maid marrying her master. Not that she thought Mary Anne would notice or make the connection. Mary Anne didn’t read novels.

  “My thanks for the thread,” said Nanny Grigg, turning to go. She paused in the doorway, looking back at Jenny. “If your mistress can ever spare you, we have Sunday gatherings at Harrow, a few of us. We read the papers from England and share what news we can.”

  Sunday gatherings were one thing; most masters expected their slaves to go visiting on a Sunday. But reading the papers was another, and dangerous.

  “It’s all right. Mrs. Boland knows. She thinks it’s good that we improve ourselves.” Nanny Grigg made a face. “I’m not sure how improving it is, but it’s good to have the company, and you’re always welcome.”

  “Thank you,” said Jenny, and meant it. She had never joined in the Sunday gatherings before, never gone with the other slaves in groups to dances at other plantations. She had always been held apart, by her father, by her relationship with her mistress. She loved Charles, but there was so much there that was fraught. And as for Mary Anne . . . that was another matter entirely. It would be nice to have a friend, or friends, simple and uncomplicated. Someone to sit and read the papers with on a Sunday evening. If her mistress let her go. “Maybe I will.”

  “Do. We’d be glad to see you.” Nanny Grigg reached out and gave her arm a squeeze. “There’ll always be a spot ready for you, whenever you can get away.”

  She gave Jenny a friendly smile and a nod and let herself out, closing the door behind her.

  Jenny’s eyes stung. She rubbed them, hard, blinking away tears. It seemed she was always on the verge of crying these days. The long separation from Charles, she supposed. And possibly something else.

  The box with her father’s locket bumped against her thigh. Jenny drew the box out of her pocket, extracting the locket. Even now, it still made her feel vaguely ill, that scrap of gold, ill with guilt and grief. It weighed heavier in her hand than it ought, like lead instead of gold.

  She fit her finger in the clasp. On the interior, her mistress had engraved, “To Jenny, for her good service.”

  Proof that it was a gift and not stolen. It was a surprisingly thoughtful gesture, if only the locket had been anything but what it was.

  Jenny closed her hand over the pendant, feeling the filigree edges biting into her palm. She knew her father would have done what he had anyway. He’d always intended to take her with him; it would have been the same if she’d kicked and bitten and screamed. But she still, even now, felt shame at the sight of the locket, that she’d been tempted into following him, leaving her mother.

  Mary Anne didn’t know that, though. Jenny forced her fingers to relax. Mary Anne didn’t know that, because Jenny had never said. She’d thought she was giving Jenny a gift, an extravagant gift, with title to it written right there for all to see. It was a kindness—and maybe it was, in more ways than one. It was a link, fragile and tainted as it was, to her mother, to those days before. She should think of her mother when she saw it, not her father. It was the only thing she had that her mother had touched. Her mother had helped her string it on a ribbon, helped tie it at the back of her neck.

  How had she felt as she had done so? Jenny had never wondered it before, but she wondered it now. Her mother was very much on her mind just now. What had she felt when she bore her? Had she loved her? Feared for her?

  To Jenny, for her good service.

  Jenny ran a finger over the lightly incised words in their curling script. There was an air of elegy about them, an air of farewell. Recently, Mary Anne had seemed—well, not contented. She was too sick to be contented, too impatient. But as close to contented as Mary Anne could be.

  She shouldn’t hope too much, she knew. But it wasn’t impossible. The threats that had bound th
em together were gone. There were others who could dress her mistress’s hair better than she.

  Maybe, just maybe . . . Maybe Mary Anne might be thinking of setting her free.

  There was a flurry of activity beneath the window. Another carriage arriving. Something lighter, a gig. The sound of voices, a groom taking the horses, a man’s voice, with the flavor of little Scotland. And then another, an English voice, a beautiful tenor with exaggerated vowels that somehow made him sound always amused, even when he wasn’t.

  Charles.

  “Charles. Welcome.” Robert greeted Charles on the veranda with all the warmth and softness of a hailstorm.

  “Happy Christmas,” said Charles, although it didn’t feel like Christmas at all to him. Christmas was mistletoe and cold so intense it froze the tip of your nose. Christmas was wassail and mummers, velvet and fur. Last year, the Thames had frozen so hard that he had walked on the ice all the way from Battersea Bridge to Hungerford Stairs with two friends from Lincoln’s Inn, skidding and laughing and daring each other on.

  Here there was no yew and holly, no ice or frost. The coconut palms spread their broad leaves to the sky and the hibiscus bloomed purple and red.

  But there was Jenny, Charles reminded himself. And that, somehow, made all the rest indifferent.

  “You brought him?” Robert was looking past Charles at Jonathan, who was doing his best to look at nothing at all, his hair still clamped back in an old-fashioned queue, a lace stock the only sign he’d done his best to do honor to the occasion.

  “It is Christmas,” Charles reminded him. “Our Lord was welcomed into a stable rude.”

  “Yes, but no one said they had to have the donkey for dinner,” muttered Robert. Then, with false congeniality, “Come in, come in. You remember the Bolands, of course.”

  “Mr. Davenant,” said Mr. Boland, struggling to rise from his chair.

  “No, no, don’t get up,” said Charles hastily. The man seemed to have collapsed in on himself, his cheeks flaps of flesh, his coat too large for his frame. “It’s a pleasure to see you again. May we join you?”

  Robert shouted for more punch, rather more loudly than necessary, cursing the servant who brought it for a lazy jade.

  Twin portraits graced the sides of the archway in the great room, the paint barely dry. Jenny was in one, Charles noticed, with a twist in his chest, standing behind Mary Anne. It wasn’t a particularly good likeness, but there was something about it that discomfited him all the same, as though she were frozen in the paint, kept forever at Beckles.

  “Admiring my wife?” Robert said, an edge to his voice. “I commissioned the paintings to celebrate our marriage.”

  “And now an heir,” said Charles, hoping to soften his brother’s mood.

  It didn’t. Robert looked at him sharply. “What do you know of that? Did Mary Anne tell you?”

  The Bolands were politely looking the other way.

  “I haven’t seen Mrs. Davenant in some time,” said Charles carefully, wondering what had sparked this sudden anger. “My man Cuffy had it from one of your maids. You know how news travels. I thought it was common knowledge. If I overstepped, I beg your pardon. I’ve been wanting to tender my congratulations.”

  “Consider them tendered,” said Robert. He filled a cup of punch from the bowl for Charles, and, as an afterthought, another for Jonathan. His movements, Charles noticed, were not entirely steady, never a good sign. Robert didn’t drink for joy; he drank to feed his temper. “Punch? I don’t imagine you remember Father’s recipe.”

  “I do, in fact,” said Charles, aiming for a conciliating tone. Of Mary Anne and Jenny, he noticed, there was still no sign. “I was wont to mix it for my friends in London. It was much admired there.”

  “London.” Robert raised his brows, inviting Mr. Boland to join in his derision. “What would they know of rum?”

  “Enough to appreciate a fine bowl of punch.” Charles took a hasty gulp of the concoction Robert had handed him. There was too much lemon and too little sugar; it stung going down. “Just like Father’s. It tastes like Christmas. Do you remember sitting on the floor beneath the table while Father mixed the punch? He always gave us a sip or two.”

  Charles smiled at his brother, willing him to remember the boys they’d been, in short pants and white linen smocks, sitting cross-legged beneath the table, waiting for treats.

  “And Mother sliced the great cake,” Robert said grudgingly. Charles could smell the rum on his breath. “Before she became too ill.”

  “There was enough rum in that to fuddle a regiment,” said Charles quickly, before Robert could start brooding on their mother. He nodded at Mr. Boland, including the others in the conversation. “The fumes alone could knock a man down.”

  “In Cork, we’d pudding made with brandy,” contributed Mr. Boland. He looked fondly at his wife. “My wife’s Christmas was somewhat less bibulous.”

  “Just because we weren’t sotted by noon . . .” countered Mrs. Boland. Her cheeks were warm with punch, and she looked less severe than Charles remembered, not beautiful, but darkly handsome.

  “Are you in Barbados long?” asked Charles.

  “We’ve leased Harrow Plantation,” said Mr. Boland, as Robert refilled their glasses, clanking the ladle against the sides of the glasses and slopping punch on the floor. “It’s a temporary situation. The heir is in England and didn’t mind the extra income for a season. My health isn’t what it was. I’d like to see my wife well settled among friends.”

  “Your health will recover,” said Mrs. Boland sternly.

  “As my wife wills it,” said Mr. Boland with a grin. “I’d been meaning to speak to you, Mr. Davenant, about your sugar crop.”

  Robert straightened, nearly overbalancing. “What about Beckles sugar?” he demanded.

  “I’ve room enough on my ships for both,” said Mr. Boland genially.

  Robert dropped the ladle beside the punch bowl. “Yes, but how much?”

  Mr. Boland pretended not to hear, saying to Charles, “If you’ve time to go through your books when the holidays are over . . .”

  “I’d be delighted to make time,” said Charles, looking uneasily at his brother. Mary Anne, he noticed, had still made no appearance. He was beginning to worry. “But if it’s numbers you’re interested in, I’ll have to direct you to Mr. Fenty. He’s the one who makes the books balance.”

  “Splendid,” said Mr. Boland. “My wife and I will wait on you in the New Year.”

  “It would be my pleasure,” said Jonathan gruffly, and sounded, astonishingly, as though he meant it.

  To Charles, Mr. Boland said confidingly, “My wife will have the business when I’m gone. And she’ll run it better than I, I wager. Like your Mr. Fenty, she’s the one who understands the numbers.”

  “Women and Redlegs,” muttered Robert. He pushed up from his chair. “Will you pardon me? My lady wife appears to have gone missing.”

  There was an emphasis on the word lady that Charles didn’t like.

  “In her condition . . .” suggested Charles.

  “Don’t speak to me of her condition!” Robert exploded, and stormed off toward the stairs, leaving Charles staring after him.

  “There’s no one so anxious as an expectant father,” put in Mr. Boland, trying to ease the situation, but the words were punctuated by a fit of coughing that shook his diminished frame. He touched his handkerchief to his lips and tried to smile over it. “If there’s a quiet corner, I might just rest a moment, if I may.”

  “Let me help you,” said Charles, jumping to his feet.

  “Thank you,” said Mr. Boland, taking his arm without shame. “I’m not as steady on these old legs as I was. We’ll leave my Winifred and your Mr. Fenty to discuss pounds and pence.”

  Mr. Boland kept up an inconsequential stream of chatter as Charles consulted with a maid and helped Mr. Boland up the stairs after her to a spare room, where he saw Mr. Boland settled on a bed with a glass of brandy by him.

&n
bsp; “No, no, don’t worry about me,” Mr. Boland insisted. “Go back and join the party.”

  Charles intended to do so, and would probably have done so had he not heard Robert’s voice, raised in anger, coming from behind a half-open door. “A fine hostess you are.”

  A servant lurked nearby, ostensibly dusting. At the sight of Charles, she moved away, just as Mary Anne retorted, “Would you rather I cast up my accounts in front of our guests? It’s your child that’s done this to me.”

  “Is it?” Robert’s voice was so low, Charles could hardly hear him.

  “Is it what?” asked Mary Anne impatiently.

  There was a crash, the sound of glass shattering. “Is it my child?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Mary Anne sounded more annoyed than alarmed. “Of course it’s your child! Whose else would it be?”

  Charles came to an abrupt halt outside the door, unsure whether to stay or go.

  “You tell me.” There was the sound of heels on wood as Robert paced the room. “You were awfully close with that brother of mine before we married. Charles this . . . Charles that . . .”

  “That again?” said Mary Anne.

  “Yes, that. Don’t you laugh—I know you’ve been laughing at me, you and my brother both—”

  “Robert?” Charles couldn’t wait any longer. He pushed the door open, stepping into the room, arresting Robert mid-rant. Across the room, Jenny grimaced at him. Charles ignored the warning and concentrated on Robert. “Mrs. Boland was wondering if you might mix more of your famous punch.”

  Mary Anne moved toward Charles with thinly veiled relief, her diamond earrings swinging against her dark curls. “I’ll do it. Your brother”—she made the words sound like a slur—“always puts too much lemon in.”

  “Not so fast.” Robert grabbed Mary Anne’s arm, pulling her into a punitive embrace. “Someone told me they saw my wife’s maid at the overseer’s house at Peverills last week. What was my wife’s maid doing at the overseer’s house at Peverills?”