Strange Music

Table of Contents

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Copyright © Laura Fish 2008

Laura Fish has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

Quotations from the correspondence of Elizabeth Barrett Browning reproduced by kind permission of the Provost and Fellows of Eton College, The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published in Great Britain in 2008 by

Jonathan Cape

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London SW1V 2SA

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ISBN 9780224080859

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No one is born fully-formed: it is through self-experience in the world that we become what we are.

Paulo Freire, 1921–1997

While this novel is inspired by historical events and personages, it is a work of fiction. Elizabeth Barrett's narrative includes extracts from diaries and correspondence with her family and friends. Some of these passages have been edited considerably and alterations have also been made to grammar and punctuation.

10 January 1845

New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey

I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett, – and this is no off-hand complimentary letter that I shall write . . . I can give reason for my faith in one and another excellence, the fresh strange music, the affluent language, the exquisite pathos and true new brave thought – but in addressing myself to you, your own self, and for the first time, my feeling rises altogether. I do, as I say, love these Books with all my heart – and I love you too . . .

Yours ever faithfully,

Robert Browning

I would like to thank Majorie Stone of Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, for her remarkable patience when reading my work, and for sharing her knowledge of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poetry and life. I would also like to thank my son, Joshua Betton, for his cheerfulness and encouragement; my editor, Ellah Allfrey, for her brilliant suggestions; and the Norwich Consolidated Charities, Norwich, and Phil Jones for financial support during my studies and research.

I owe gratitude to Philip Kelley and Ronald Hudson, editors of
The Brownings' Correspondence
, as these volumes provided an invaluable research source, especially for Elizabeth Barrett's letters. I have borrowed ideas from the following sources: Jeanette Marks,
The Family of the Barrett: A Colonial Romance
; Julia Markus,
Dared and Done: The Marriage of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning
; Robert A. Barrett,
The Barretts of Jamaica: The Family of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
; Elizabeth Berridge,
The Barretts at Hope End: The Early Diary of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
; Barbara Dennis,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: The Hope End Years;
Ronald Hudson and Philip Kelley,
Diary by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: The Unpublished Diary of Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
.

I have chosen to follow the practice in
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: A Selected, Annotated Critical Edition
, of using 1856 as the basis for the version of ‘The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point' which appears at the end of the book, as this was the last version of the poem overseen by Elizabeth and it incorporates her own revisions. I would like to thank Marjorie Stone and Beverley Taylor for providing this version of the poem.

I am grateful to the School of Literature and Creative Writing and the Library staff at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, for support in my writing. I would also like to acknowledge support and guidance from John Thieme; Michael Meredith at Eton College Library; Yvonne Pearson; Sarah Bower; Robin A. Barrett; Cynthia Burgess and all at the Armstrong Browning Library, Baylor University, Texas; Sandra Donaldson; Gis`ele and David Walker; Ian and Emmeline Kerr-Jarrett; and Michael Croucher; Bob and Ann Betton and Clare Alexander.

I must also thank John and Kathleen Betton-Small and not forgetting Tim, Pam, Tom and Helen Fish.

For his unfailing and generous support and advice I would like to give very special thanks to Jon Cook.

Prologue

In blue light Mister Sam lies, sickly face sweating yellow. Hips, shins, spine – him body curl up making spiral-shell shape.

Lifting him into bed don't go easy. He retches, shudders, gasping for breath. But I can't feel pity. Did him lips touch my cheek? Did him hands stroke my body? How we did share four-poster, I'm thinking, when he fills my soul with grief? Grief and deep dread.

Mister Sam moans weakly. Spit strands link lightly parted lips. I dab him mouth dry on my grey skirt, wrench mattress straight against wall, tug shoulders forward, wedge lace pillow beneath him head. Neck floppy, him head lolls back sliding into softness – Mister Sam mustn't go. Not yet. He told me to wait at bedside. But I choose to run because I can't cure bad fever like this.

I go from blue bedchamber to tell Pa to fetch Doctor Demar. Sea's facing me. Silver-pink clouds. Cordia flowers bright and orange speckle coarse blades of grass, buckle beneath my bare feet.

Below great house I pass overseer's house by sugar works, barracks for bookkeeper, masons, carpenters. I pass trash-house, plantation path sweeping round and down to coast road. I reach wharf planks. Ship's sails flap as rigging grows taut.

Pa's heading for main wharf hut. Striding along wood strips cool-like he gives me a glance. Him face kinda snarl up like a dog's but inside him starts laughing. Pa slams hut door shut in my face, grey-green gecko shoot down wood shafts.

Pa's refusing to open up. I knock to tell him Mister Sam's worse again.

Pa don't know why Mister Sam mustn't go. Not before a will's made.

I run back up coast road to plantation path. Evening air comes cooled. I turn, looking for Pa. Orange sun ball perches, fuming, on blue ocean rim.

Pa squats beside sugar winch now. Running faster onto coast road, towards wharf hut. ‘Pa,' I shout, approaching him back. ‘Pa, fetch Doctor Demar fe Mister Sam.'

Pa stretches bony arms; legs slowly clamber down from plank wharf, wade into clear shallow sea; water laps round him knee. He leans against strong sour evening light, angry ocean blue. He don't speak. My head's burning. Pa, you can't see?

Wet up to him waist, wading onto shore, Pa's soaked overalls stick on him body. Waves wash my feet, shifting worry lines on yellow sand. Pa bends over, wrings frayed trouser bottoms. Salt water trickles into star shapes on sand.

Pa shakes him feet, saying, ‘Yu hot wid fiah. Wot yu waan?' Then he strides back onto coast road, salt water running from clothes.

Pa's spirit unleashes like green-bronze flash of gecko. ‘How come yu come on such a day as dis? Yu don't know wot day is it?'

I say, ‘No.'

‘It Friday's birthday.'

Inside I'm moving so I say, ‘Wot bout May's or Mary Ann's or mine? Yu don't know wen dat is?'

‘No.' Him voice leave no questions. But I look at him, questions whirling round my head.

Fast I run to plantation path to Pa's brother, Dick. Because he my uncle and knows about Pa. Dick's bamboo hut's raised off soft sandy earth, keeping cool. Each dusk Dick stumbles back from masonry, chipped, grey from grinding stone. Dick's humming, ‘Hi! De buckra, hi!' Having no more work till Mister Sam sends orders, he sits on top-step edge, waiting, watching like he knows why I come. Dick, him eye walking up and down, spying from under hat brim, says loud, ‘Why yu flee like devil chase behind yu?'

‘Yu cun tell why Pa's mad at me? E treat me like me not a dawta. Pa's same Pa to Sibyl an me.'

Dick's strong hand, bathed in white stone dust, wipes silvered streaks down sweat-polished cheeks. ‘Because yu are of one blood an still e treat yu bad, ave noting more to do wid im.'

‘But we living in same place.'

Dick sighs long. ‘Me cyaan say wot mek Pa wot e is.'

I think it's a nigger I see on horseback for him clumping so quick up silent slope swerve.

‘Yu betta go back to de great house,' Uncle Dick says. Standing up, wordless, he turns round. I feel him wanting to break talk off. Him feet siss then, edging away.

Conch-blow bellows
Fuuuuffuu-ffuu
like it struggles free from a monster's heart swooping through air, roaring towards quietly hunched tamarind trees edging plantation path. I'm staring past Dick at hut's outline, washed-out sky – there's space for sky between branches, leaves – and as conch-blow hurries into it, Dick's cold words close in on me.

Dusky air falls silent. Waiting for something. Someone. Darkness steadily sweeps across deepest blue fading to deeper black.

Duppy was on great-house track? No, its body too thick, too bold. Must be a nigger. Then I'm running down plantation path hill to coast road, running round wharf-hut back. Pa's shape's a smear behind grimy glass. Wharf room holds a stale wood, stale fish smell. Where boards don't overlap Pa's smear shape shifts, fusing with rough-edged planks. I run to hut front, thump hut door. My shadow don't follow me round any more.

Door opens. Earthy floor looks sameway but a gap between we widens. My armpits tickle, tingling.