Read Fire on Dark Water Online
Authors: Wendy Perriman
Fire on Dark Water (11 page)
So after my first encounter I disliked the young miss, especially when she took to following me about my chores, critiquing my performance, and making me flinch on the air of her hostile, sharp tongue. She’d do whatever new trick entered her mind to get me into mischief—for example, one time when I’d finished making her bed she slid back into the room and scattered the linens all through the air to create a mass of dust and feathers. Then she told her mother I’d deliberately thrown things about in a temper and I got a good rapping on both knuckles from a wooden spoon. Annie laughed herself sore that evening, chuckling every time she caught sight of my swollen hands. Later, I got to hating the little snake. She was rude and intimidating whenever she came near, and she made three times more mess than the rest of the household put together. I designed my work schedule to intentionally avoid her but within a few weeks I was lusting to bite out her pearly-peach throat. You see, I’d been given a patch of land to raise herbs and a large chest in which to store my collection. This was my only possession and therefore my greatest treasure. One day I went to my room and discovered that the contents had been emptied. I could hear Annie giggling below so I scurried downstairs and knocked on her door, entering before she could speak. And there I discovered my precious medicines slopped into one big pile at the edge of her rug. Everything was mixed up together. All were utterly useless. I gasped and held my words back by clamping my hand across my mouth. Then I rushed down to the parlor where Mistress Mary was sewing. The angst on my face said all. She immediately rose and said to me, “Whatever’s the matter, girl?”
I pointed up to Anne’s bedroom and then rushed ahead, but when her mother entered, she flashed her most innocent smile and said, “Look, Mama! I have conjured myself a baby!” She had dressed her terrified marmalade cat in doll clothes and bonnet, then bound it tightly in a blanket to prevent any escape. Mary was torn between relief that her tomboy daughter still had some maternal instinct (which she desperately wished to encourage) and anguish at the lost storehouse of medicine (made apparent by the familiar containers scattered about the floor).
“Oh, Annie!” she wailed. “What have you done?”
The manipulative daughter held out her magic child for her mother to examine and said, “I needed the herbs to transform Miss Kitty. . . .” She then abruptly dropped her bundle on the floor so the poor creature could find sanctuary under the bed, and sprang into her mother’s flailing arms to proffer a conciliatory hug. The mistress turned to me in the entrance and said sheepishly, “You’d better clean up this mess, Lola. Salvage anything you can.” I numbly obeyed.
It took me several months to gather and dry replacement herbs but I’m glad I ain’t never thrashed the little wench because—as it happens—all turned out for the best. First, I was given a larger strongbox that closed with a sturdy lock, and from that time on I always wore the key on a leather thong round my neck. And second, Anne was ordered by her father to spend each evening tutoring me so as I could write down all the medicines and their uses. It took most of that winter for my coarse brain to learn, but the whole episode gave me a grudging respect for the intellect hiding beneath that mischievous tumble of strawberry-blond locks. Annie made an effective teacher—being impatient she cut to the core of the lesson, and being vain she basked in full credit for all of my growing success. I think I became like another of her pets—a silenced companion to be toyed with and changed. And of course she had no real idea of the power she was seeding inside of me. I listened to all of the anecdotes for whatever ailments from every loose tongue, and as soon as I’d mastered the quill I wrote them down. An apothecary needed to record and remember. I was also allowed some time late afternoons to roam river and woodlands in search of new ingredients in the hope that my pharmacy might rival the best in Charles Towne. I discovered how white lips favored the use of rosin pills, spirit of turpentine, and castor oil (which could be mixed in numerous ways for various ills), while black tongues swore that life-everlasting could break fevers, artichokes cured stomachaches, and tar could soothe both tooth and ear. I listened, experimented, observed—and wrote everything down in my raw splotchy code. On Sundays we went round the other estates visiting, and that’s where I learned how to talk low and act proper in company. We’d always stop at the Mid Town Estate to drop off and collect the week’s laundry, carefully cleaned under direction of their Jamaican washerwoman, the formidable Miss Abbie. And there we’d catch up on the local news.
Then one fateful day my mistress caught the marsh fever. Of course, this was in the early days—before owners realized that plantation air was lethal from May to September—before they built summer homes in the mountains to escape like they do today. Poor Mary took to sweating and shaking, vomiting and moaning, and I tried everything in the chest to help her condition. But the only easement I could manage was to waft my arms stiff, fanning the flies from her waxy face. The master sent to Charles Towne for the surgeon, who duly arrived, flustered about, and prescribed a new remedy called cinchona bark. I brewed the herbal exactly as instructed but unfortunately it was too little too bitter too late, and the dear sweet lady dropped into a dark slumber and never returned. My own first patient had died, and I was beside myself with fear. What would become of me now?
The next dizzy weeks lay jumbled in my confused memory. There was a wake—and Mrs. Higgins ran me ragged plucking chickens and pounding bread. There was a houseful of mourners—offering condolences, needing attention, and poking round the property. There was a funeral—and we buried Mistress Mary under her favorite live oak by the river. And there was the master—so inconsolable in grief that (like the field hands) he fell disinterested and stopped working altogether. The overseer didn’t have no heart to whip the desolate slaves so the entire place hung morbid and silent until the last of the visitors left. Annie spent the mornings with her father dealing with the unwanted guests, and then wandered off around the plantation for most of the afternoons. I tended my garden, roamed the woods for hickory nuts, acorns, cane roots, and artichokes, and raided the orchard of its quinces and plums. I sometimes stopped and watched the Africans as they moved about in their own incomprehensible world. Everything seemed disheveled and awry.
In the midst of this confusion I found a reddish-pink rash speckling my body, strange because it spread across hands and feet. I worried I’d caught the marsh fever too—but although I felt sick and aching I’d not enough sweltering heat for undue concern. No, whatever I had was something entirely different, but as I couldn’t afford to be ill myself I snuck potions for the headaches, made toddies for the scratchy throat, and put the weight loss down to the extra panic and graft. Whatever it was passed away with time—and never did cause me no more bother.
Then the following week several more folks fell stricken. Four of the black men who shared the same room now tossed and lurched in a feverish sweat, and I spent many long days teaching the healthy slaves ways to alleviate the distress of their roommates. I could understand little of the strange Gullah language, but they were familiar enough with the white tongue and followed my directions without question. One of the men—Gibby—told me he’d had a similar disease himself as a child. He suggested coating the patients in river mud and spent long hours chanting over their prone shapes, wafting smoldering sticks through the air round their faces. And he placed a bag of queer things called jacks at the foot of each groaning pallet. I brewed the rest of the cinchona bark into a huge pot of tea and spoon-fed as much as each parched mouth could tolerate. Then I instructed the others to imitate my actions to keep the patients watered throughout the long night. In the morning there was little change, except I noticed the restless eyes rolled less in their sleep now, although I didn’t know if this was a good sign or not. Gibby brought pails and pails of water and doused the muddy bodies to keep them cool, and Mr. Bart appeared with a thin gruel that we managed to minister with struggle and care. This pattern continued for another day. And another. And then one early dawn I entered the humid hut to find it empty. I rushed to the adjoining structure but there was no one in sight. Then I heard an enigmatic chanting wafting across from the fire pit that usually lay dormant (except for Christmas and Sundays), and there I saw a sparking fire and some kind of ceremony taking place. All four patients were alive! And I ain’t never been so relieved. But I also felt like an intruder spying on them with their gods . . . so I quietly crept back the way I’d come and left them to it.
Now, I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but Anne had an odd reaction to her mother’s passing. She wouldn’t go nowhere near the sick mistress for fear she might catch the disease herself, but then right at the very end she stood rigid in the doorway and watched her die. I never heard a single word pass between them (which I thought was strange) but after her mother’s last breath I’m sure I saw Annie smile. She locked herself in her room for a night and a day where she grieved alone, away from her father. Then she opened the door, calm and composed as if nothing untoward had happened, and set about arranging the elaborate funeral.
From that moment on, thirteen-year-old Annie Cormac became sole mistress of the Black River Plantation. And that, unfortunately, was that.
5
CHARTINGS UNDOUBT WHERE A WOMAN HAD BEEN
1713–1714
S
o you want to know more of Anne Bonny, do you? Well, I ain’t going to pretend we ever became best mates or nothing, but I’m guessing I knew her well as anyone. Her father was desperate to make her a lady and match her with one of the elite Charles Towne families and believe me, she could sure play the Southern belle when it pleased. She’d dress herself up in the finest brocade, her strawberry hair tempered in shiny ringlets, all light manners, polite chitchat, and giggles. Now, Annie had inherited her mother’s sea-bright eyes, but she flashed them from under hooded lids in an intoxicating manner that men found wildly exciting. If you saw her binding the stubble into sheaves you wouldn’t stop to glance twice, but when she swirled her silks like a gold-jeweled copperhead she could make the breath hang in the back of your throat. Anne was too vigorous to be a beauty—too long and firm and sinewy—yet she emitted a rare sexuality—an oozing sensual musk. By the time she was fifteen she’d ripened into her velvet skin and creamy bosom. Aye, she was bright and adventurous and hardy but there was a darker side to Annie Cormac that many lost souls would discover to their peril. She’d a vicious temper when riled and was given to violent shakes of the tail if she ain’t never got her own way—but beyond that there was something foreboding that made her callous and selfish. So if you were to ask me what I liked best I’d have to say it was her lust for life. Annie sure knew how to mesmerize, and at one time or another all of us silly critters were lured to her dazzling fire.
o you want to know more of Anne Bonny, do you? Well, I ain’t going to pretend we ever became best mates or nothing, but I’m guessing I knew her well as anyone. Her father was desperate to make her a lady and match her with one of the elite Charles Towne families and believe me, she could sure play the Southern belle when it pleased. She’d dress herself up in the finest brocade, her strawberry hair tempered in shiny ringlets, all light manners, polite chitchat, and giggles. Now, Annie had inherited her mother’s sea-bright eyes, but she flashed them from under hooded lids in an intoxicating manner that men found wildly exciting. If you saw her binding the stubble into sheaves you wouldn’t stop to glance twice, but when she swirled her silks like a gold-jeweled copperhead she could make the breath hang in the back of your throat. Anne was too vigorous to be a beauty—too long and firm and sinewy—yet she emitted a rare sexuality—an oozing sensual musk. By the time she was fifteen she’d ripened into her velvet skin and creamy bosom. Aye, she was bright and adventurous and hardy but there was a darker side to Annie Cormac that many lost souls would discover to their peril. She’d a vicious temper when riled and was given to violent shakes of the tail if she ain’t never got her own way—but beyond that there was something foreboding that made her callous and selfish. So if you were to ask me what I liked best I’d have to say it was her lust for life. Annie sure knew how to mesmerize, and at one time or another all of us silly critters were lured to her dazzling fire.
See, Anne was of a mind to blow hot, then cold. One wondrous day she’d allow you close—to demonstrate a gypsy snare or trap—giving her undivided attention to the plucking or skinning or gutting or cleaning. Those times you’d feel a connection, like two minds sharing the same bold adventure. Her personality was magnetic and binding so you wanted to serve her, impress her, love her, win her favor. Then another time she’d have no use for folks and couldn’t be sparing the time of day. She’d run moody, irritated and crotchety, and nothing you’d do would suit. You’d try to come up with some grand new distraction but she’d rear her regal head and snap you firmly in place so all you could do was crawl away, wounded and hurt and despondent.
Now, although everyone mourned Mary Cormac’s passing, by the spring of 1713 the demands of the new rice crop had prompted a return to order and the plantation settled into a familiar routine. Except at the Big House. Mistress Anne made life as miserable as possible with a constant list of chores and demands that never satisfied even when properly completed. If she’d kept the same routine as her mother we’d have been able to muddle through but Anne didn’t help out like the old mistress—she acted on impulse without logic or consideration. Things reached a volatile crescendo one scorching hot day when Anne decided I needed to scrub the walls and floor of the parlor (which I did). Then I’d to wash the windows and beat the drapes and rugs (which I did). And then she ordered me to empty, clean out, and black the fireplace (even though we wouldn’t be needing to use it for months yet). I made the mistake of complaining that the soot would mess up the freshly polished floor and Annie took this as a challenge to her authority. Anyway, she struck a fit and smacked me full across the face, making me bite my lip bloody and causing my eye to bruise. So I scattered from the house and ran to the safety of Mrs. Higgins’s kitchen. Joy listened patiently to my burbled complaint, soothed my bruise with half an apple, wiped my lip clear of gore, and then told me to go apologize to my mistress. At first I refused. But then, as I listened to the lilting Welsh accent explaining my limited options, I knew I’d to chew down my pride and accept the necessary reprimand. She accompanied me back to the parlor and listened as I made my peace. Annie gave me a broody look, then said, “You think you know better than I? Then do as you please.” She came close into my face and hissed, “But if I ever find anything dirty or out of place, I shall have you whipped like one of the
other
slaves.” And then she glided out of the house and made toward the stables.
other
slaves.” And then she glided out of the house and made toward the stables.
I felt as if the floor had dropped beneath me because there wasn’t no way I could keep the whole place running all by myself. I looked into Joy’s gray eyes and cried, “What am I to do now?” Hot tears sparkled down my face.
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