Wednesday meant a trip to Kensington Plantation to check on Josephy. I leaned on the fence watching my hardworking young man. I needed a distraction. Crissy and I had just left Eliza. She lost her baby girl three weeks ago. The child had been doing well, then she wouldn’t wake up. My Eliza was broken, and I had nothing to say to make it better.
Nothing.
It was hard seeing my bubbly child filled with sorrow, but I’d keep coming even if it was to sit beside her. She needed to know that the sun would rise, stars would shine, and her mother was there for her in the midst of the birthing sadness.
Josephy waved. “Mama, come look at this.”
Walking through the plantings, I pulled at the leaves sheathing the stalks. The musty fragrance, the scent of virgin cane wafted. Green and healthy, with no white grubs or brown furry borers. This was good. “Josephy, you’ve succeeded.”
“It’s the rich ground, Mama. I wish I had more fields turned.”
Wiping dirt from my palms, I went to the dray and climbed up next to Crissy. “This is something to be proud of. Maybe I should start calling you Thomas Jr.”
He leaned on the fence. “Josephy is fine. Papa called me that.” He put a long blade of grass in his teeth. His curly, curly hair had matted. The boy wasn’t fussy like Harry, who hated to be untidy.
“Mama, next year I’m starting on the house out here.”
“Dreams,” Crissy said. “That’s his.”
My son laughed. “Tell Charlotte she was right. The irrigation for this section ran easier just like she said.”
It was good to hear that from my boy, that he valued his sister. That’s what siblings should do. “You’re lucky Charlotte has time now that she’s running my store.”
In addition to helping with my other businesses, Charlotte split her time helping Catharina with her new baby and the Kensington. My children supporting each other warmed my insides.
“Tell my sister I need her advice planning the next field. This one will be coffee as soon as we hire more workers.” His face fell, joy flowing out of his frown. “Mama, I’m not asking you for more. You’ve done enough, but I wish we had more to hire out. Have you thought of buying—”
No slaves. “No, Josephy, I hadn’t.”
“The planters are withholding laborers on purpose. I heard that if they think we accepted their ways, things would be easier. That’s what Mr. Cells said. I don’t think he’s wrong.”
That tarn man had started warming up to Josephy and Harry. Now my eldest boy was preaching Cells’s ways. Cells, the Hermitage’s owner, a Demerara slave owner, a busybody who always tried to curry favor with men in power. “I know of coloreds who did the same and the white planter still made their way hard. In Grenada, that led to rebellion.”
Josephy looked down. I shouldn’t have scolded him for Cells’s meddling. “Son, I’m sorry. I’m proud of all you’ve done.”
He lifted his chin. A small smirk shone beneath his flat nose. “I guess I’m just going to marry and start having children or wait for all my nephews and nieces to come help.”
Head shaking, I laughed. “No, you take your time and choose a wife wisely. I’ll get us more workers, Josephy. You’ll see.”
“Thank you, Mama.” He picked up his scythe and started cutting the brush.
I blew him a kiss and started the dray moving.
“Looks like bamboo in that field,” Crissy said.
“It’s filled with gold, my dear. Better than anything.”
Her young face wrinkled with serious lines forming on her brow. “Better than gold? Then maybe you need to do something to get Josephy help.”
Her brown, almost black eyes were wide, innocent.
But mine weren’t.
I knew the evil answer. I didn’t tell my children about much of my life in Montserrat when I was part of the evil. Maybe I needed a reminder.
“Let’s head back.” I whipped the reins and started to town.
Crissy slipped her arm about mine, snuggling closer on the seat. “Mama, you hire out people to huckster for the store and for housekeeping. Can’t you get some workers in exchange? Someone good on a plow? A bricklayer? A mason?”
I hired out women to be top-notch housekeepers, but I knew many were paid for sexual favors. I ignored the wrong. My distinction of respectability seemed hollow, hollow like bamboo.
“There’s lots to consider, Crissy.”
She shrugged and drifted back into her safe ten-year-old world.
“Mama, what about Mr. Cells? He comes to the house a lot. Charlotte says he has a big plantation, lots of workers.”
No. No. No. He came around only to convince me I needed him. He made it seem as if he only visited to offer his opinion on Catharina and Simon. The man refused to do more for our daughter and wanted me to abide by the same. He hated that I’d paid to enroll Henny at Kensington School in London without consulting him.
Thomas King found a perfect place that would take free colored girls. The tuition and passage were costly, but Henny had to be better than me, better than Catharina. I was glad that my daughter didn’t stop me from knowing that sweet girl.
“You’re not going away again? You were gone almost three months.”
“Harry started at Inverness Royal Academy. He’ll do fine just like Josephy. And I had to check on Kensington House, to make sure it remains a good place. You’ll be going to school there, too, when you are older.”
Crissy’s eyes grew big and sparkled like stars. “I get to be on a boat again! Wait till I tell Dorothea.” Crissy was close to Lizzy’s girls like my Ann and Frances in Grenada.
Frances’s latest note told us that Sally had passed and that my darling Ann was expecting. Those dang Garraways were itching for a connection to my family, especially with Thomas gone. Her courtship was fast and unexpected. At least John Gloster Garraway was the best of the lot.
Ann was happy. I sent her the shiniest silver tea service I owned, Mr. Foden’s set. It always meant so much to me.
“Mamaí, your grama, may come to visit next year. May even bring Aunt Ella and little Elizabeth.”
“They all could come sooner if you weren’t distracted by figuring out where to get workers.”
This was true. I oversaw every step of my hotel’s construction. With building stretching on for years not weeks, all my time was consumed. Whipping the leather strap against my palm, I made up my mind to reach for a solution. Cells. “Maybe I should talk to the owner of the Hermitage about hiring out his workers.”
“It shouldn’t be hard, Mama. He likes you.”
“What are you talking about, child?”
“He stares too much, like you’re a roasted goose. I don’t like it. Doesn’t he know you’re with my pa forever?”
Her tone was bold like an overseer’s.
“Crissy, you want me to grow old alone?”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“You will for school.”
“I won’t leave you here with a hungry man. Not for my mama.”
Cells? He wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t good, either.
“Mama, you’re thinking about him? What about my papa? Don’t you still love him?”
My baby was just three when Thomas died. He was the best pa.
“You didn’t answer, Mama. Charlotte was right. You like him too.”
“I’ll never forget your father. He was the best of me. I have a business to run. I may have to make some choices and ask favors to keep working on my dreams.”
Crissy pulled away a little and stuck out her lip. “I don’t like him.”
If she knew Cells and my history . . . well, she’d still not like him.
Seeing him in town, at meetings, even by the shore, had become easier. When the fancy invitation to a ball he’d host on Friday at his Hermitage arrived, I was a little surprised.
Yet, the ask should’ve been expected.
When Demerara’s governor used my business for his housekeeping, I knew it would be a sign of legitimacy to Cells.
He liked to be among the influencers. I was on my way to being one.
Charlotte had sent my refusal. Maybe I’d been too rash. If I could hire out Cells’s workers . . . his artisans could finish my hotel this year. Then any free laborers could be hired for Kensington Plantation.
Then I’d owe Cells. What was in it for him? His price would be costly. Too costly.
“Maybe we should do something that’s not business. Where shall we go this afternoon?”
Her face brightened with dimples showing. “Let’s drive on Robb Street and look at the fashionable houses. I like when we do that.”
Crissy was my dreaming child. She needed a bedchamber with a window pointing east to see the best stars. “It’s Wednesday. We’ll drive by our lot out at Werk-en-Rust and then on to the marketplace. Then to the fancy houses.”
All Crissy’s dimples bloomed. She was a garden of lotus flowers with her pink jacket.
Yet my sweetheart wouldn’t be happy for long, not when she saw the bodies of women and men that looked like us, glistening and naked in the sun, awaiting purchase.