Our carriage slowly entered Bushy Park. It was dusk. The fading sunlight kissed the jade grass that lined the graveled trail. William loved walks. I could see why he chose a place outside of crowded London.
We passed Kensington Palace on the way here. The daffodils were in bloom by the fence. My cheeks surely flushed thinking of a midnight walk on the arms of a sailor who kissed me after he placed a single yellow flower in my loosed hair.
The house came into view but not before I saw paths lined with daffodils. My pulse raced and I pushed from the window.
“Mama.” Crissy’s voice was a whisper. “You’re fidgeting. You’ll tear that fan the way you are jostling it.”
My hand had the lace thing vibrating. I stuffed it into my reticule and tugged up my slipping satin gloves. I wished Charlotte had come. She had a calming way about her. She remained at my leased house with the rest of the grands and my son. As I dressed, she read me Cells’s letter.
It was filled with more sorries. This time those words penned by Coseveldt felt sincere. Then she read to me the note he sent after I left his party, when I had intended never to see him again.
He’d included a clipping of Prince William’s 1799 speech to Parliament. Ten years from our voyage on the Andromeda, our romance in London that changed my world, the prince accepted the happy Negro talk of the planters.
How could the prince forget our affair of equals? Why did his liberal mind close?
Maybe he did go mad as he’d feared.
I’d know tonight.
The carriage stopped on the south side of Bushy House.
It was breathtaking. All brick. Fourteen windows on this face. Prince William’s residence was large. Not since the Nidhe Temple in Barbados had I seen curved walls. Bushy House bore rounded sections that curled and fanned out on either side of the main building like swallows’ wings.
The similarities—this had to be a sign.
A footman handed me out of the carriage. My fingers were sweaty even with the chill in the air. The lack of heat did nothing to make my gloves stick less to my palms. My eyes trailed to the green-gray slate tiles of the roof. Stacked tightly together, they looked like Roseau’s reeded housetops. Another mirror? So much of my life’s journey was reflected here.
When I saw Mr. and Mrs. King coming, I whispered to the Holy Father to give me strength and those right words to change my prince’s mind on his politics.
“Shall we, ladies,” King said, and we followed him to the doors on the left, the left that had always meant trouble.
At the entrance, servants took my heavy shawl and the capes of my girls—Crissy, Elizabeth Penner, and my granddaughters, Henny and Dorothea. Dorothea was my namesake among Lizzy’s daughters.
Inside, my eyes went to the ceilings. Like the wings outside, they were curved above. The trim was the whitest I’d ever seen. Hanging, floating in the air were chandeliers of beeswax candles.
The scent of the dripping wax possessed the fragrance of vanilla. I thought of Simon’s chandeliers. They were sold off. He and Catharina and their family moved into my hotel at Werk-en-Rust. My heart was heavy for them. I hoped Cells comforted each one as they settled. Holy Father, let all be well and for Simon to have brought his sand.
Dorothea linked her gloved hand to my arm. “Grama, you stopped. Is this protocol, like the curtsy?”
“No, dear, just a rest.”
Her grasp remained strong, the hold was as if she needed to pick me up from a faint. I wiggled a little and freed myself.
“Mama, this is no town house. It’s a grand mansion.” Crissy’s tone sounded polished, but her eyes were as big as guineas. The child had seen nothing yet. My old friend knew how to give a party.
Quiet, brown-skinned Elizabeth smoothed the pale blue silk of her sleeves. More modestly dressed than the others, she wore her gloves pulled up so as not to show her elbows. I had silver ribbon woven under her bodice and the round neckline. The fullness of the dress had hints of embroidered pink and blue roses. She was a fresh garden right after the rainy season, the best time for flowers to grow.
The fabrics for Crissy and Henny I’d chosen to add warmth to their fair skin. My Crissy looked stunning in a gold-colored dress that floated to her ankles, exposing matching satin slippers. Henny wrapped herself in light orange silk with box pleats down her back forming a train. She’d gained some hips. If she danced, I hoped the shapeliness added to her poise.
Dorothea wore blush pink, which drew out the red tones of her olive skin. Her short sleeves were puffed and stiffened with muslin. The delicate embroidery that took a week to complete displayed like a coat of arms down her bodice. I hoped the vines and blooms meant strength.
It gave my heart joy watching them be fitted and measured and treated like princesses. The milliners and haberdashers and mantua-makers coming to and from my leased residence had only seen such a sight back in eighty-nine. My girls, my colored girls, were able to witness money trumping race in a flourish of ribbons and bows.
Mr. Thomas King took my hand and his wife’s, then led us down the polished wood floor to the drawing room. The old man was dapper in his black tailcoat and pantaloons. In a way, the old dress had returned with the length of men’s jacket fronts again cutting across the hips.
His wife in blue and Mechlin lace dressed her silver hair more naturally with pinned curls and tea roses, no powder. I was glad to see those flakes lose favor.
A man in a cranberry red mantle stepped forward. “Mr. and Mrs. King and Mrs. Thomas.”
All the important S’s said aloud.
We entered the ballroom.
Silence swept through the crowd.
The drumming of my heart, the fluttering of our slippers, and the swaying fans pricked my ear.
People pointed, but we moved about the floor with our shoulders level, our heads high.
I warned the girls to expect such stares, even leers. Though fashions changed—the cut of a coat, the drape of a dress, the style and length of curled hair—the heart of most was the same, stuck in the old ways.
Seeing colored girls led by me, a woman with beautiful jet skin invited to the prince’s ballroom, must be shocking, causing such stirs.
Music and conversation started again.
“Ladies, let me go see who else has arrived.” The Kings left us at the rear of the room.
I took my fan out and waved it, but I looked through the lace at my young women, free, intelligent, with their lives ahead of them. May they forever be enriched by this moment.
This visit across the sea, this dinner with royalty should let them know nothing could stop their rise.
The smell of sweet sage wafted. My breath caught at the sight of the large glittering chandelier. Cut glass, broken and shaped into long straight calabashes hung on the wrought-iron fixture below a ring of candles. The light shone on us, on colored girls readying to greet a prince.