The Price of Freedom (15 page)

She should have thanked him for
saving her from the beating but she was too overcome at the time and besides he
had seemed angry when he rode off, as if she had done something to upset him.
It was probably because of the friction she had caused between him and his
aunt.

She heard her mother in the front
room and was glad that she would be able to help her get up.

“Deborah, you awake yet?” she
called.

“Yes, but I don’t know how to get
up.”  Sarah came into the back room.

“The master just told me that
you’re to have a day or two to recover so you don’t have to help with dinner.”

Tears of gratitude sprang into
Deborah’s eyes. “I don’t know why I’m crying all the time but you don’t know how
glad I am to hear that.  I was just trying to figure out how I would put
on a dress to go and help.”

“When the master calls me again I
am going to ask him about freeing us, especially after what happened today.”

“I should thank Master Richard for
stopping Jethro.”

“Yes. He came to see how you were
earlier when you were sleeping.”

“You let him in?” Deborah
exclaimed.
“With me half naked?”

“It wasn’t anything he didn’t see
today already,” Sarah reminded her. “And anyhow, the master said yes, so what
was I to do?  Anyway he looked worried about you.  Cassie like she
was right when she said that he interested in you.”

“He’s not interested in me; he’s
only interested in my body. He stopped me in the hallway at the party and told
me to come to his room afterwards,” she admitted in disgust. She didn’t tell
her mother that he had kissed her neck or that his kiss had made her shiver.

“Oh loss!
What you told him?”

“That I was indisposed.  He
wasn’t too happy about that.”  She laughed as she remembered his reaction.

“This is nothing to laugh at,
girl. You can’t use that excuse forever. I
goin
’ have
to try and talk to the master about him.”

Deborah didn’t reply.  For
some reason, she didn’t feel afraid of Richard’s interest in her anymore.

Dinner was a somewhat strained
affair.  Although his aunt greeted him civilly and even apologized for the
misunderstanding of the day, she was still rather cool towards him.

The slaves were also particularly
careful, as if they were afraid of drawing his aunt’s attention and finding
themselves at the end of a whip.  Nevertheless, he felt sure that the meal
was more salty than usual and the
Beveridge
that he
normally enjoyed was more watery than he was accustomed to. His aunt said
nothing but he noticed that her face tightened when she tasted the food and
drink. It was the slaves’ silent protest of the events of the day.

“We’re going to have a few changes
in the household,” announced Thomas. “I’ve decided to move the house slaves,
with the exception of Jethro, into the house.  That will make them more
accessible if they are needed during the night and if we have bad weather. Room
will have to be found for them downstairs.”

“That’s a good idea father,” said
Rachel. “When Richard was ill I had to run all the way to Deborah’s hut to find
her and Jethro.”

“Yes, well Jethro will have to
remain in his quarters.”

“I think this is a good move as
well, uncle.  Living indoors will probably also ensure better health for
them since they won’t be living in damp conditions which I’m sure they must be
in the rainy season.”  His uncle nodded.

Richard was pleased with his
uncle’s willingness to listen to his suggestion and act on it.  He only
wished that his father was as open,
then
they wouldn’t
be butting heads in the business all the time.

“Richard, are you up to joining in
the harvesting tomorrow?”  His uncle asked.

“Certainly,” he answered.

“You obviously don’t know what
you’re getting yourself into,” warned his aunt and he was glad that she seemed
warmer towards
him,
otherwise his visit would be very
strained. “Make sure you wear long sleeves and a pair of long pants. I’ll order
a bath for you afterwards.  You’re going to need it.”

“Thank you Aunt Elizabeth, I
certainly appreciate that.” 

Richard slept badly that night.
His dreams were filled with scenes of Deborah, tied to the whipping post with
Jethro wielding the whip again and again and he couldn't get to her. Images of
her back streaming with blood and her voice calling his name tormented him and
caused him to jump up with a start.

When he had ridden into the yard
that evening, she had been waiting for him near the stables, wearing a loose
shirt over a dull brown skirt which revealed her bare feet. Her long hair was
plaited and hung over one shoulder giving her a youthful look in spite of her
ordeal and making Richard feel ancient in comparison.

As he dismounted and handed the
reins to the stable boy, he noted that Deborah was avoiding eye contact with
him.

“I just wanted to thank you for
rescuing me today,” she had said humbly keeping her eyes lowered. With sudden
insight he realized that she was ashamed that he had seen her in her weakness
and humiliation. It was so unlike Deborah that for a moment he could not think
how to respond.

Then it came to him and he had
told her with all the seriousness that he could muster, that she was now
indebted to him and he would be calling on her to collect his payment soon.
When she drew in an angry breath and stalked off, muttering that she should
have known better, he smiled at her retreating back.

Just to make sure that she was
truly herself again, he shouted to let him know when she was no longer
indisposed and would be available to come to his room. She had turned around to
glare at him and say: “You may have rescued me, but you do not own me,” before
storming off in the direction of her hut.

He smiled as the image filled his
mind again. She would make the rest of his stay in Barbados very interesting.
He couldn’t believe that a month had gone already.  That only gave him two
months before he had to go back to Carolina. He wondered why he lacked
excitement at the thought.

Throwing off the sheet he got out
of the warm, comfortable bed which made him remember the thin pallet that
Deborah slept on. He was glad that his uncle was dealing with her
accommodations and then wondered why it mattered to him. Maybe he selfishly
wanted to have her close at hand; not that she would willingly come to his
room.
Yet.

He washed quickly with the warm
water then had been left while he was still asleep and dressed in a
long-sleeved cotton shirt and loose pants that would keep him cool while
protecting him from the cane leaves. Pulling on boots and picking up his hat he
headed out the door to join his uncle for breakfast before they went out to the
fields that were being harvested. He had planned to try his hand at cutting
canes today and his uncle had said that he would show him how the cane was
processed afterwards.

He had read about the processing
in Richard
Ligon’s
book and it seemed very
complicated to him.  He was looking forward to seeing how it all worked
and how the slaves were used to carry out different functions, especially the
boilers who were so valuable because of the work they did.  If they could
be trained to carry out functions that were highly critical to the successful
processing of the sugar, then surely the ones he bought would be highly
efficient in the farming of rice.

The thought of Ann flitted in and
out of his mind and he found that as he strained to recall her features, all he
could think of was olive skin, green eyes and long wavy brown hair.  The
woman had indeed bewitched him and there was only one way he knew to get a
woman out of your system. He would work on that soon.

Richard was no stranger to hard
work but he soon realized that cutting canes was in a category by itself. One
of the overseers gave him a broad curved machete and told him to cut the cane
stalk as close as possible to the root since most of the sugar was concentrated
in that part of the cane and they also needed a good length to feed through the
mill.

Although cane was part of the
grass family, Richard could find nothing soft about it as he wielded his
machete. The pith which contained the juice was encased in a thick woody rind
that was resistant to the machete and required a good deal of strength to cut
through it. He soon learned that it was easier to cut the stem at a joint than
directly through the rind.  Since the leaves were not allowed to go through
the rollers he then had to strip them off the stem with strokes of his machete
while holding the cane in one hand.

By the time he had a fairly
substantial pile of canes to show for his efforts, his hands were raw, and his
arms and back
were
stiff. He was pitifully glad when
the overseer instructed one of the slaves to load his pile onto the cart,
leaving him free to join his uncle, because he didn’t think he had the strength
to load them himself.

"How was it Richard?"
His uncle asked knowingly.

"This is the most back
breaking work I've ever done and I often work alongside the crew on our ships.”

"Harvesting canes is not easy
and processing is even harder. We'll go and see the grinding and boiling after
lunch. You better ask Deborah for something to put on your hands when you go in
for lunch."

"I'm sure she would offer
pepper instead of a balm," laughed Richard tiredly.

"What have you done to upset
her?" His uncle asked expectantly.

"I told her that she owed me
for rescuing her and that I would collect soon. I couldn’t resist teasing
her," he admitted, drawing a laugh from Thomas.

"I'm sure that riled her
up."

"It did what it was supposed
to do, give her back some spirit. I was afraid that the whipping had broken
her."

"Slaves are supposed to be
broken,
Richard, but I know what you mean.  Deborah has
spirit.” He sighed. “Your aunt wants me to sell her and Sarah."

"And will you?"

"I will not let Elizabeth
dictate to me what to do although I’m sure there would be more peace in my
house if I sold them. But I'm not ready to give up Sarah yet. "

"If you decide to sell
Deborah you know that I want to buy her."

"You would take her back to
Carolina with you? I don't think your fiancée would be too happy with
that."

"You're right. I must confess
that I have almost forgotten that I am betrothed."

"Beautiful
slave girls will do that to your memory," his uncle laughed as they went
to clean up for lunch.

Richard watched as the canes were
removed from carts and loaded into troughs where the dirt was washed off them.

From there his uncle led him to
the mill house where the canes were fed through vertical rollers, made of wood
but covered with metal, to extract the juice. He had seen the windmill that was
used to generate the power to turn the rollers on his first tour of the
plantation and had heard that this was the best season for harvesting because
of the high winds and low rainfall which were characteristic of this time of
year.

“Why is that slave standing around
with a machete doing nothing?” Richard inquired.

“His job is to cut off the limb of
anyone who gets caught in the machine.”  Richard searched his uncle’s face
for signs of joking but found none and realized that he was deadly serious.

He observed the greenish liquid
that was extracted from the canes as they were ground in the mill which was
then run in cisterns under the ground to the nearby boiling house for the next
part of the process.

The heat that met them at the door
of the boiling house almost made him stagger back. The place must be as close
to hell as you could get on earth, Richard decided after a minute. About five
huge copper kettles of decreasing size were being heated over a common furnace
which accounted for the stifling heat. Richard did not know how the slaves
could stay in here for hours keeping the furnace burning since it could not be
allowed to go out or the sugar would be ruined.

The juice discharged into the
largest kettle where a boiler stood by with a long ladle to skim impurities off
the top before transferring the liquid to the next kettle. As each kettle got
smaller, the heat in it intensified making the liquid thicken and turn dark
brown. It was the job of the boilers to know when it was time to transfer the
liquid into the next kettle. Richard could now understand why they were so
valuable.

"What is that they're putting
into the mixture?" Richard asked, wiping the sweat from his forehead with
a handkerchief.

"It's quicklime. It helps the
liquid to form grains. After that the mixture, which is sugar and molasses, is
put into a cooling cistern. We then have to drain off the molasses to get the
sugar so it's put into clay pots in the cooling room and drained for about
three weeks. The sugar has to be spread out in the sun to dry before it is
packed into bags and sent to Town. I use the molasses to make rum in the
distillery.”