Joan Wolf (7 page)

“The sun in Jamaica is very hot,” Stephen replied. His soup dish was set in front of him, and he picked up his spoon.

“I know a few fellows who were out in India,” Jasper remarked. “They all came home just as brown as Stephen.”

Aunt Fanny said, “When Stephen was a little boy his skin would burn when he was out in the sun for too long.”

“I stopped burning after a few months, Aunt Fanny,” Stephen said.

“I think Stephen looks very nice with his tan, Mama,” Nell said loyally. She had always been one of Stephen’s partisans.

Stephen gave Nell a friendly smile, then said to Miss Stedham, “A great friend of mine in Jamaica had the name of Stedham. Could he be any relation of yours, Miss Stedham? “

Miss Stedham replied in her quiet, well-bred voice, “He is my brother.”

I stared at her in amazement. “You never mentioned to me that you had a brother in Jamaica, Miss Stedham,” I said.

“He is employed as an agent for one of the English-owned plantations on the island, my lady,” she said matter-of-factly. “When my father died, Tom had to find employment, and Lord Northrup offered him the post.”

Miss Stedham came from a family that was impeccably blue-blooded and desperately impoverished. Her father had lost his entire fortune at gaming and then had killed himself, leaving his children to make their way in the world as best they could. Miss Stedham had become a governess. Her brother, it seemed, had become a plantation agent.

“Tom Stedham is one of the very few decent white men I encountered during all the years I spent in Jamaica,” Stephen said forcefully. “I was damn glad to have him for a friend.”

“Stephen!” Aunt Fanny protested.

He gave her a bewildered look.

“Don’t say ‘damn’ at the dinner table,” I interpreted.

“Oh.” He gave his aunt an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Aunt Fanny. I fear I have grown unaccustomed to the company of ladies.”

Nell’s exotic dark eyes were glued to his face. “Surely there were
some
ladies in Jamaica, Stephen.”

He shrugged. “As I couldn’t abide their husbands, Nell, I’m afraid I didn’t see much of them.”

I was annoyed by the twinge of pleasure that went through me at those words.

“Surely things weren’t as bad as that, Stephen,” Adam protested mildly.

“They were every bit as bad as that, Uncle Adam,” Stephen said bitterly. “I have never met a more despicable group of men in my life than the agents, attorneys, and overseers hired by absentee owners to run the sugar plantations in Jamaica.” He put down his spoon. “The first thing I did after I arrived was to fire our own overseer. The man was a perfect brute.”

Aunt Fanny smiled at him. “Dear Stephen, you haven’t changed at all.”

“Did he ill-treat the slaves, Stephen?” Nell asked.

Stephen’s mouth set in the way we all knew. “Yes.”

“That is unpardonable, of course,” Adam said.

Miss Stedham said quietly, “The really unpardonable thing is the enslaving of another human being in the first place.”

Stephen regarded her with warm approval. “You are very like your brother,” he said.

“The slave trade has been abolished in British territories since 1807, Miss Stedham,” Jasper reminded her.

“That act may have halted the importation of new slaves, Jasper, but the breeding of present slaves still goes on.” The bitter note was back in Stephen’s voice.

Aunt Fanny glanced at me, and when she saw I was not going to intervene, she once more took it upon herself. “This is hardly a topic fit for the dinner table, my dear Stephen. There is a young lady present.”

“Oh, Mama!” Nell protested.

Stephen said, “Sorry, Aunt Fanny. Sorry, Nell.”

“I don’t mind at all, Stephen,” Nell said.

He winked at her.

The footmen approached the table to remove the soup. A roast beef was brought in and set before Stephen.

His whole face froze and he looked at the meat as if he didn’t know what it was.

There was an awkward silence, and then Uncle Adam asked kindly, “Would you like me to carve it for you, Stephen?”

He shook his head once and didn’t reply.

I understood what emotion Stephen was struggling with. The last time he had eaten at this table, his father had carved the roast. In Stephen’s absence, the earl’s position as carver had been filled by Gerald.

His father and his brother. He would never see them again.

Stephen
lifted his eyes from the roast and looked at me. He was white under his tan.

I said softly, “I imagine Stephen can manage to carve a roast, Uncle Adam.”

“Yes,” Stephen said. He picked up the knife, grasped the fork, and correctly sliced the first piece.

The footmen took our plates and brought them to Stephen, who put the meat on them. When our plates had been returned, our wineglasses refilled, and the side dishes put out, I said, “Tell us, Jasper, what do you think of this scheme of making Napoleon the ruler of Elba? Do you think it will satisfy him?”

Jasper put down his fork and turned to me. “I don’t know, Annabelle.” His strong, square face was grave, his gray eyes thoughtful.

Ever since his boyhood all Jasper had wanted was to join the army. Uncle Adam had bought him a commission when he was nineteen, and he had not lived at Weston above a few weeks ever since. It was good to have him safely home again.

He said now, “A man like that, one who has almost ruled the world ... well, one wonders if he will be content with just one small island.”

The conversation turned to the end of the war and then to the local harvest.

Thank God, I thought, for Uncle Adam and his family. Thank God there was someone to stand between Stephen and me.

* * * *

We gathered in the drawing room after dinner, and Adam and Jasper and Fanny and I sat down to a game of whist. Nell and Stephen went to look at the rose garden. Miss Stedham went upstairs to Giles.

I had a headache and played badly, which annoyed Adam, who was my partner.

“Sorry, Uncle Adam,” I said as I neglected to lead back into the ace that he was holding. “I’m rather tired. I think I’ll go to bed.”

As I finished speaking Stephen and Nell came in through the French doors. Nell looked very animated; her dark eyes were sparkling. Stephen was smiling.

“The moon is out,” Nell said. “The sky is very beautiful.”

My headache began to pound.

“Poor Annabelle has the headache,” Aunt Fanny announced to the room.

I looked at her in surprise; I had said nothing about a headache.

“One can always tell when you have the headache, dear,” Aunt Fanny said sympathetically. “You get dark shadows under your eyes.”

“How attractive that must be,” I said lightly. I stood up. “Will you dispense the tea, Aunt Fanny? “

“Certainly, my dear Annabelle. Don’t worry about us— you need your bed.”

I smiled at her and said a general good night to everyone else. I went out into the passageway, along past the saloon and the Great Hall, and into the family part of the house. The master suite was in the southwest corner, and I let myself into my dressing room, closed the door behind me, and leaned my shoulders back against it, as if I were keeping someone out.

The back of my head felt as if it were being squeezed by a vise.

I cannot live like this, I thought. Even with the others present in the house, it was impossible.

Stephen was going to have to go.

I can’t just throw him out, though, I thought miserably. He is Giles’s guardian. He has a right to live in the house.

Stephen, I thought. Oh God, Stephen. How did we ever come to such a wilderness?

I rang the bell and Marianne came to help me undress. When I dismissed her, however, I did not get into bed but went instead to the open window. The night was warm and the sweet scent of the cut roses that Mrs. Nordlem had arranged in the crystal bowl on my nightstand filled the room.

I didn’t want to get into the big bed that I had shared with Gerald. Instead I turned one of the chintz-covered chairs around to face the window, curled up in it, and allowed the soft, moist, fragrant summer air to carry me back over the years.

And once again I am eight years old, and Mama has taken me to Weston Hall and told me that this is where I am going to live.

* * * *

My father had been dead a year when Mama married the Earl of Weston. Papa was a soldier. His family was a good one, but he was the younger son of a younger son and so had no money. Mama had married him when she was eighteen years old, and she was twenty when she had me. When he died she determined that next time she would marry better. She took a lodging in Bath, showed her beautiful face in the pump room and at the assemblies, and at the end of the Season she had managed to snare the widowed Earl of Weston.

A week before the wedding, the earl sent a coach to Bath to bring Mama and me to Weston. I will never forget the fear I felt as we drove up the immense circular drive and for the first time I saw the huge gray stone house rear up before me. Later I would discover that Weston was actually laid out in a friendlier, cozier fashion than many of the country homes of the aristocracy, but that first view of symmetrical stone walls, glittering windows, and multitudes of chimneys struck me mute with terror.

The butler met us in the great entry hall, which by itself was larger than most of the lodgings I had lived in. He then escorted us through a huge gilded room that he called the saloon and thence into the drawing room, where the earl and his sons awaited us.

The rooms all had immensely high ceilings that were decorated with either paintings, plasterwork, or both. The house seemed to me to be as grand as a palace, and the thought of living here made me feel quite ill.

The earl took my hand, kissed my forehead, and told me that I looked just like my mama. I dropped my eyes to the tips of my too small boots and mumbled some reply.

I remember that Mama exerted herself to be charming to the earl’s two sons. Gerald gazed at her as if enchanted, which of course endeared him to her immediately. She rhapsodized over his good looks, his intelligence, his charm; she asked him about his school.

Stephen stood silently and listened. His face was grave, but I thought I could detect the faintest trace of scorn in his eyes as he watched my mother. Then he looked at me.

Dark blue eyes in a thin, little boy’s face.

Looking at me. Seeing me.

“How old are you?” he asked me.

“Eight,” I said.

“I’m nine.”

I nodded.

The earl made an attempt to draw Mama’s attention to his other son. “Stephen is not yet at school, Regina,” he said. “But the rector tells me he is a very promising scholar.”

“How nice,” my mother said. “And why are you not at school, Stephen?”

Stephen didn’t answer, just gave her that grave, faintly scornful look.

“Stephen was ill last year and we thought it best to keep him home for another year or so,” the earl replied.

My mother regarded Stephen’s thin body. “I am sorry to hear that you were ill, Stephen,” she said.

Stephen said, “Thank you.”

“What was wrong? “

“I had a fever for a long time,” Stephen said. “But I am all better now.”

My mother raised her perfect brows and looked at the earl.

“We never did find out what it was, but he seems to have recuperated very well,” Stephen’s father confirmed. Then, in a low voice, “I think part of it was missing his mother.”

Stephen shot his father a distinctly annoyed look.

I thought that perhaps that was why Stephen seemed so unimpressed by Mama. He did not like her for the same reason that I did not like the earl.

Gerald said, “It will seem strange to call so young and beautiful a lady ‘Mama.’ “

Stephen looked as if he would die before he called her any such thing.

I was liking him more and more.

My mother said to Gerald, “You may call me Regina if that would make you more comfortable, Gerald.”

I knew I would never call the earl anything but ‘sir.’

A footman in blue-and-gold livery came into the room, bearing a tray.

“Ah,” the earl said genially, “here is our refreshment.” He looked at Stephen and me. “Sit down, children, and your mother will pour you some lemonade.”

There was a circle of extremely uncomfortable gilt chairs arranged in front of the French windows, and the butler was setting a table in front of one of them so the footman could put down his tray. The earl sat on one side of my mother, and Gerald sat on the other. Stephen and I automatically took the two chairs that were on the opposite side of the circle.

My mother poured lemonade from a silver pitcher for the three children, and then she poured tea for herself and the earl. The day was hot, and I felt horribly sick to my stomach from the ride, but she looked as cool and fresh as if she had just stepped out of her dressing room.

The earl couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

My feet did not reach the floor, and I sat straight, my spine not touching the back of the chair, my lemonade clutched in my sticky, sweaty hands. I looked around the room, at the ornate chimneypiece, the carved moldings, the expensive, uncomfortable furniture. The French door opened onto what seemed to be acres and acres of lush green lawns and flower gardens.

How can I live here? I thought in despair.

In a low voice Stephen said to me, “Do you go to school, Annabelle?”

I brought my eyes back to him. There was a beading of sweat on his forehead, and he had finished half his glass of lemonade. I shook my head. “Mama says that she will get a governess for me,” I said. I had had a governess briefly, before my father died, but Mama had not been able to afford one since.

Strange house.

Strange governess.

I stretched my eyes wide, forcing back the threatened tears. I would rather die than cry in front of the earl.

Stephen said, “You don’t need to be afraid of coming to live at Weston, you know.” His crisp voice was matter-of-fact. “I will be here to show you how to go on.”

He had stripes of sunburn on his nose and along his high cheekbones.

My mother said something, and both the earl and Gerald laughed.