Journey's End (Marlbrook) (33 page)

CHAPTER
THIRTY-
NINE
– Sarah’s Story

Sarah scanned the wharf from the deck of the ship, the distance of sea acting as her safety net.  Sarah had no concept of what she searched for and put her inquisitiveness down to old habits.  Other than the weather being miserable, the date could just have easily been fifteen years previous.

Sarah held her bright pink parasol, with its expensive white trimming, daintily in one hand
,
while men swarmed around her.  A pretty face is always deceptive when viewed from afar.

Her husband, Eric, was a good man.  His money had more than compensated for his American ways and he had never pressured her for children.  Lady Emily had let the child’s name be known.  Hope.  Not bad, she thought.

The ship had docked fifteen years ago in
America
, a far cry from the stifled, class-ridden system of
England
- a country where money alone counted.  Thankfully
,
Lady
Emily had endowed her with sufficient amounts of the lovely substance to give her a decent start.  There had been more than one occasion
where
she had give
n
thanks to the lady’s generosity.

At first,
New Orleans
had proved daunting.  The city was lively and colourful.  The heat had been the main culprit for making people act a bit crazy.  Their lives were dictated by the humid assault.  Sl
a
ves were another issue that she had been obliged to confront.  However
,
the practice was sanctioned in law and what people did with their money was no concern of hers.

She had sampled lovers from a range of cultures and remained undecided as to which origin she preferred.  Although there had been one gentleman she remembered vividly, an aristocrat of Spanish origin with a darkness of skin that had fascinated her
,
h
is stamina had never been rivalled.  Everything had been exotic from the food to the men.  Gradually
,
she had become intoxicated by the uniqueness of the place
-
almost addicted to the life.

A woman slave named Martha, a large woman with a colourful character, had been gifted to her by one of her lovers.  She missed her.  Martha’s duties had not included the silent reprimands that she had often dished out or the rolling of her eyes toward the heavens whenever she had taken a dislike to one of Sarah’s escapades.  But the woman had never failed Sarah.  Whenever trouble had occurred, Martha had always been there to clean up the aftermath.  The mess had not always been restricted to the house.

Sarah recalled Martha’s fussing.  “Yu
’
s want your house clean or not? If’n you do, then yu
’
s better get them scrawny legs outta here ‘for
e
I clean sweep you up
,
too.”  Sarah smiled in remembrance.  Martha had never allowed her to wallow in self-pity.

Their home, a plain but imposing two-storey structure, had been built on a slight rise.  The building had been designed to provide an outlook from the lower porches, while catching any breeze that might pass by.  The walls had been decorated with trellises, the temporary structures acting as a guidance system for exotic plants.

The city had suited Sarah.  Diversions had lurked on every street corner, if one had wanted to seek them out, and they more than made up for the general foreignness of the town.

The merry-go-round had revolved only a few short spins before her money had slipped through her fingers.  Sarah had no one else to blame but the foolish man that had been her misfortune to inherit as a father.  He had failed her in every way possible, and it was she who had to bear the repercussions of his gross inadequacies.  There were
,
however
,
two saving graces.  She was not the man’s son nor was she stupid.

The final setback had come in the form of bailiffs.  The men had rejected her efforts to charm, and it had been Martha that held the intruders at bay while she had escaped out of a back window.  The thought of what might have happened had she been caught still made her cringe
.
  Debtor’s prison did not conjure the most pleasant of experiences.

Survival had demanded that she adjust to her new circumstances
,
and quickly.  At night, the streets could be a dangerous place.  Sarah wholeheartedly believed that destitution came through choice and she had chosen not to embrace it. 
However,
by doing so
,
she had branded herself a whore.

Men had paid a high price for her services.  Her last lover had made her suffer numerous indignities that ranged from unnatural sex to sharing him with others
,
both male and female.  However, regardless of his somewhat negative attributes
,
his wealth and generosity had more than made up for his shortcomings.

Her lover had been a brutal, uncompromising man.  He had governed his own society; the degradation of other human beings had been second nature to him.  His plantation had boasted over three hundred slaves.  Few people had ever crossed him and everyone had played by his rules.  The penalties for failure were not worth
considering
.

Sarah’s lesson had come just as he had begun to tire of her.  Lovers left her - there was nothing strange about that.  In his case, she could only put her blunder down to pure bad luck.

When his visits had lessened, self-preservation had been high on her agenda.  Accordingly, she had shopped for a new admirer.  She shuddered.  She was cursed to live with her memories and recollection always came at a price.  Try as she may, she had never erased the damage that he had inflicted upon her.  The punishment had been too severe.

Once
her lover’s
darkness of personality had been unleashed, she had known that she would suffer badly for her indiscretion.  Martha had tried to help and died for her trouble, which
,
looking back
,
had counted as a kindness.  A fate much worse than dying could befall a slave who had attacked a white man.

For violating an unwritten law, Sarah had soon discovered that she had been his to do with as he pleased.  He had dragged her, without compunction, from her house to a waiting buggy and used the drive to his estate as a form of abuse.  Pleading had not swayed him from his callous intentions, and no amount of conjecture on her behalf could have prepared her for her coming ordeal.

She was slight of body
,
but had fought him as one does when prompted by thoughts of death.  He had quelled her ineffective attempt with his fists, but the bruising had been minor in comparison to what he had planned.

He had left her isolated for hours in a barn on his property, and when the door had shut behind him
,
the shadows had closed in.  Cowering before her increasing terror
,
she had lost control of her bladder, an indignity on its own.  Time allowed the hurt from her beating to surface and she had become acquainted with agony.

Moments of heart
-
stopping terror are often remembered with vivid clarity
;
nature’s way, she supposed, of ensuring that erring humans learn from their mistakes.  Her moment had been ingrained in her mind and was immovable.

Two large black male slaves had preceded him
,
handpicked for their role
,
she assumed, by the size of their genitals.  Stripped naked and robbed of any shred of decency, they had been prepared for their work.

Sarah had memorised every detail about her torturer while he had sat watching - urging them on.  His imprint had been stamped on her being.

A large cane chair had served as his throne.  The seat had been positioned to enhance his view of her degradation.  The stale odour of cigars, years on, still caused her to vomit.  Teeth, yellowed under the influence of the wretched sticks, had revealed themselves every time some vile behaviour had amused his perverted sexual tastes.  The scene was sordid and soiled to the extreme by the use of his own hand, as he gratified himself.

She had thought she would die and could recall appealing for her own expiration.  The sound of his laughter
was
an additional abuse that had rung in her ears.

Her final beating had come much later, a parting gift, but Sarah had not been
deceived
.  This had been his sexual climax.

#

Lady Emily had arrived in
New Orleans
without any prior warning.  She and Sarah were not as close as kin, but an imperfect relationship had somehow formed during Sarah’s time in her employ.  Despite the circumstances of their last encounter, their self-centred views were
for the most part
shared.

Lady Emily had been groomed
,
not nurtured
,
for marriage.  Wedlock had been designed to assist her family’s progression in status.  However, the emotional obstruction they had inflicted on Lady Emily dimmed when compared to the immeasurable harm
to which
her husband had subjected her.  Living out a farce had not been as easy as Lady Emily had been led to believe.

Looking back, it had been Lady Emily’s resourcefulness that Sarah had most admired. 
New Orleans
surrendered freedom to any one with money, especially a woman wrapped in a cocoon of marriage with a husband an ocean voyage away.  Pleasure seekers could name their perversion.  Lady Emily was a tramp and that is why she had recognised the trait in Sarah.

Sarah recalled one particular conversation with Lady Emily.
“Your sister spread her saintly legs for my husband
, and
all the time I had thought that you were the harlot.”

“I had not credited Laura with the ability to save herself. I had always imagined her starving on some dirty back street, rather than downing her virtuous knickers.”

“Your sister is a virginal bitch that continues to cause me suffering. I would far rather deal with the strumpets living in the brothels of
London
, than have to put up with he
r and her pious ways.
She is unnatural and uncaring - not like you and I
are
.”

Sarah had always been practical about such things, and she was glad that Laura had come to see sense and derived an income from the child’s father. 
After all, t
hat was the natural order in the scheme of things.

Lady Emily’s reaction to the bedding had festered and grown over time, sullying her outlook.  The woman’s incessant cries of mistreatment by her husband had dominated many a dinner conversation and halted more than one man from entering her bed.  Her hatred had been so destructive that even in the event of death, Lady Emily would not be cheated of retribution.  Sarah could only surmise what drove the woman.  Perhaps Lord Henry had loved Laura and maybe that made all the difference.  A rare insight done with, Sarah moved on in thought.

Lady Emily had donated time and money to the destruction of Lord Henry.  Reaching into the past she had evoked dark
secrets
and the unveiling drew near.

The theory
to which
Lady Emily adhered had solid foundations.  Once the details of his family’s corrupt past had been revealed, Marlbrook’s reputation would be destroyed.  English society, stuffy and restricted, clung to certain rules.  If anyone breached one of their sacred codes, then the throngs would gather to condemn them.  Gossip caused mayhem and crossed all social boundaries.  Innocent or guilty
,
the parties would be treated as
social
lepers.

English society had spawned Lady Emily and taught her well, the ability to suppress emotion mastered at her mother’s knee.  Her loathing had run so deep that she had chosen to ignore the possibility of her own ruin.  She cared only that the house of Marlbrook would fall.

Sarah had no intimate knowledge of Lady Emily’s plan.  The subject had nothing to do with her and was therefore unimportant.  It was enough that she had agreed to play her part.  Sarah’s task was to deliver the lawyer’s final instructions.

Mr Eric Pritchard, a man of large bodily proportions, had achieved his prosperity by investing in trading ventures, much like her father
,
Sarah had supposed, but she dared not dwell on the idea.  Unrefined and deficient in common manners, Eric often scoffed at etiquette.  Matched with an English gentleman
,
he could not have competed
;
however
,
when money entered the equation
,
the gap lessened and
,
likewise
,
the indulgence of Sarah’s whims.  He was also uncommonly easy to manipulate.