Desire in the Sun (47 page)

“How would you get it out of the house, Betsy? I’d hate for you to be caught.”

“Lord, I’d hate to be caught.” Betsy’s voice was prayerful as both girls thought of Leonard Remy’s wrath. “But I can just slip it in my bosom until I see my Ben—he comes to the kitchen sometimes in the afternoon now—and give it to him. He’d do most anything for me.”

“Thank heavens for Ben!”

“I says that a lot.”

Both girls giggled, the first time Lilah had laughed since her aborted elopement with Joss. It felt good to smile again, and the brief spurt of lightheartedness didn’t quite fade as Betsy eased her stays off, then untied the tapes of her petticoats and helped her step from them. Lastly she rolled down Lilah’s stockings and pulled her chemise over her head, quickly replacing the garment with an immaculate white night rail.

“What would I do without you, Betsy? You’re the only friend I have left.” Lilah smiled with real affection at her maid as Betsy buttoned up the night rail.

“I’m not the only one that grieves for you, Miss Lilah,” Betsy said seriously, following her mistress over to the big four-poster and pulling the covers down for her. Lilah climbed up on the high mattress. “Mama and Maisie think it’s a real shame, how your pa’s treatin’ you. And Miss Allen is real upset, too. She wanted to come down to comfort you, but the master said no. I think she would have come anyway, you know she never
pays him much mind, but there’s no one who dares to help her downstairs, and she can’t manage by herself.”

“Dear Katy,” Lilah said, her eyes misting. A lump rose in her throat as she thought of all those whom she loved: Joss, Katy, Jane, even her father despite everything, all as estranged from her as if she had died. What a dreadful coil she had gotten herself into by loving Joss! And yet, if she could do it all again, what exactly would she not do?

The key sounded in the lock, signaling the end of their time together. Betsy stepped nervously away from the bed. As expected, it was Jane, come to let Betsy out and lock Lilah in. For the first time since Lilah’s announcement of her pregnancy, Jane stepped inside the room. She was carrying a silver tea tray.

“Betsy, you go on up to your room now, and wait there for me. I’ll be up presently to lock your door.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Betsy bobbed a little curtsy to Jane, and with an uncertain glance at Lilah left the two alone. Jane set the tea tray on the table beside the bed, then, just as Lilah’s eyes wandered to the unlocked door with a seed of hope, returned to turn the key in the lock.

“I finally persuaded your father to let me talk to you,” Jane said as she stored the key securely in the pocket of her voluminous skirt. “Oh, Lilah, this has been so hard for all of us! How could you have … but never mind, I didn’t come here to scold you. I just can’t understand how you could … could ruin yourself with a man like that! I suggested to your father that perhaps your mind was injured in the shipwreck. It’s the only explanation I can come up with that makes sense. You were always such a perfect lady before. …”

The hesitancy of Jane’s words robbed them of some of their sting. She was more sorrowful than accusing as she came toward the bed, her unfashionably full skirts rustling. Lilah sat up, moving a pillow behind her back, and
leaned against the intricately carved headboard as her stepmother pulled a chair up beside the bed and sat down.

“My mind’s not injured, Jane! I love him, and that’s the simple truth. I wish you could just meet him as an equal, talk to him, just once, you and Papa. He’s … he’s wonderful. He’s educated, and a gentleman, and handsome and charming and—”

“Let’s not talk about him,” Jane said, not quite managing to repress a shudder as she reached for the silver teapot. Pouring the tea, her hand trembled slightly, and Lilah realized with compassion that Jane had been badly shaken by the destruction of her family. Her love for Joss had had ramifications she had never even considered. …

“Here, dear, drink this and we’ll talk,” Jane said, passing the cup to Lilah. The brew was strong, and very bitter. Lilah made a slight grimace at its taste. Jane must be more upset than she seemed if she could not brew palatable tea. But Lilah was so glad of the slight softening her stepmother’s visit indicated that she managed to drink the foul-tasting liquid without a word of complaint.

“Dear, I must first preface what I have to say by telling you that, despite everything, I still consider you as a daughter. I want what’s best for you, best for all of us, as does your father. He is so angry because he loved you so much, was so proud of you, and then you … do this. You know how proud he is! This is nearly killing him!”

“I’m truly sorry that I’ve hurt either of you,” Lilah said, lowering her cup as a lump rose in her throat. “I never meant to! I never meant any of this to happen, but … I … I can’t honestly say I’m sorry it did. I love Joss—”

“Please don’t mention that man’s name! To hear it on your lips makes me feel quite ill!” Jane said with a visible shudder.

Lilah sat up a little straighter, her chin coming up. “You and Papa are just going to have to accept it: I’m with child by Joss, a slave. I’m also in love with him.

I’d marry him if I could. Please, Jane, if you love me, help me! Help me persuade Papa to free him, to let us both leave Barbados and go somewhere where his blood won’t matter so!”

Jane swallowed, looked away, then back. “You know your father will never agree to that. Drink your tea, dear, don’t let it get cold.”

Absently Lilah took another sip. “I know Papa is planning to try to take my baby away from me. I won’t let him.”

Jane looked away again. “You haven’t considered, Lilah. The … the child you carry will be of mixed race. It will be an outcast. You will be an outcast. No loving parent could wish such a hideous fate on a beloved daughter.”

Lilah drained the last of the tea from the cup and handed it back to Jane, who set it on the tray beside her own untouched cup.

“My child won’t be an outcast if only you’ll persuade Papa to let Joss and me go! We can go back to England together, marry—”

“That won’t alter the man’s blood, Lilah. You have to look at this realistically. However attractive you may find him, he is not for you. It’s better if you let go of the idea that you can ever make a life with him.”

“But Jane—” Lilah’s argument was interrupted by a sudden, terrible cramping deep inside her. She broke off in mid-speech, her eyes widening, her hands clasping her belly. The pain was sharp, twisting—awful! She had never felt anything like it. …

Her face must have mirrored her distress, because Jane got to her feet, her own face whitening. “What is it, dear?”

“My stomach, …” Lilah could say no more, because another pain caught her, making her writhe in agony.

“Oh, dear, oh, dear, I didn’t know it would hurt you so,” Jane murmured, ashen. As the pain subsided slightly to be replaced by another even more vicious, these words percolated through Lilah’s pain-clouded
consciousness. Her eyes opened, and she stared with horror at her stepmother, who was hovering over her anxiously as she twisted in the bed.

“Jane, Jane—what have you done?” It was a hoarse cry.

“Darling, we talked … we thought it was best … you can’t have this child, Lilah! It would be a bastard, a … a mulatto!” Another pain knifed through Lilah’s belly. She lay on her side, panting, her knees drawn up as she stared at her stepmother.

“It was in the tea!” Lilah gasped, understanding suddenly, Jane had gone to an Obeah and gotten the root that the natives used when they wanted to end a pregnancy. It had been ground and mixed into the tea. …

“When this is over, when you’re better, you can marry Kevin and we can forget this whole dreadful ordeal ever happened,” Jane was saying rapidly as sweat broke out on her upper lip. Her eyes were large and dark with an echo of Lilah’s pain, her hands gentle as they fluttered over her stepdaughter’s brow.

“Get away from me,” Lilah said through teeth gritted against the pain, utterly rejecting Jane’s touch. “You’re killing my baby!”

“I’m sorry, darling, so sorry it has to hurt like this, but it’s for the best, one day you’ll understand and be grateful. …” Jane was babbling, her face white as she watched her stepdaughter thrash with agony. Lilah closed her eyes, shutting out her stepmother’s face, her whole being concentrating on not expelling the tiny life inside her.

As she sank into a vortex of pain, her mind repeated the same words over and over: “Please God, please don’t take my baby!”

LX

I
t was near midnight of the following day. Lilah lay in bed, wan and exhausted, unable to sleep although the rest of the household was long since in their beds. Occasional cramps still twisted her insides, but with nothing like the agony that had wrung her on the previous night. The worst was past, and she had not lost her baby.

Jane and her father were no doubt bitterly disappointed; Lilah knew she would never forgive them for what they had attempted to do. Her last tie to parents and home was broken by their act.

She realized now just what her father and Jane and Kevin were capable of, and she was frightened. Not for a moment did she believe that they would stop trying. To them, this child was an atrocity, something not fit to be born. They meant to end her pregnancy if they could. She could not eat or drink anything brought to her without fearing that they would make another attempt on her baby’s life before it even once saw the light of day.

The horror of it was, they had her as securely as a rat in a trap. Weakened now, and locked in her room, there was no escape from the evil her family had planned for her in the name of love. What was she to do?

As Lilah lay there, frantically trying to come up with some means of saving her child, she heard the gentle clink of a key being inserted into the metal of her door’s
lock. Sitting up in bed, eyes wide as she strove to see through the darkness, she heard the sound of the key turning, the click of the lock disengaging.

Terror rose in her throat, set her heart to thudding. Was this another attempt on her baby’s life? Or having failed to end her pregnancy, would they perhaps even go so far as to try to kill her, to save themselves from shame?

Someone, she could not determine who in the darkness, slipped through the door, shut it again. Lilah sat tense, immobile, straining to see. It was like a horrible nightmare, only she was all too certain that she was awake.

“Who is it?” Her voice was squeaky with fright. It took all her courage just to ask the question. Her hand crept toward the candlestick on the bedside table. If they intended her harm, she would fight. …

“Shhh, Miss Lilah!”

“Betsy!”

“Shhh!” Betsy crossed to the bed, moving swiftly, silently, and bent down to hug her mistress. Lilah clung to her fiercely.

“What are you doing here? How on earth did you get out of your room? Did Jane let you go?”

“No. Miss Allen came and let me out. She sent me down to let you out. She heard you screaming and crying last night, and she made Miss Jane tell her what they’d done. She said that what you done was wrong, but what they was tryin’ to do to a poor helpless little baby was even worse. So this evenin’ she got hold of Miss Jane’s keys, stole ‘em right out of her pocket when Miss Jane went up to say good night, and then when Miss Jane was gone, she felt her way along the hall to my room and let me out. Then she tole me to come down here and let you out.”

“But Katy—Katy can barely walk! And she’s blind!”

“I know, but she managed it for your sake, honey.

She loves you. She couldn’t get down the stairs to your room, so she sent me. Now get out of that bed and I’ll help you dress and you get! Then I’ll lock your door, and scoot back to my own room. Miss Allen’s gonna lock me back in, and drop Miss Jane’s keys somewhere like they just fell out of her pocket. In the morning, when you’re gone out of a locked room, they won’t know how you done it.”

“Oh, Betsy, thank you!”

Lilah scrambled out of bed, the small needling cramps that were the residue of the doctored tea forgotten in her sudden excitement. She was free! Quickly, her mind performing mental acrobatics, she made plans. She would ride to Bridgetown, go to that Scanlon man who had inquired for Joss, and tell him of Joss’s plight and her own. He was her only hope.

“Help me dress! I need my riding habit. …”

In minutes Lilah was completely clad except for her boots.

“Where will you go, Miss Lilah?” Now that the moment of parting had come, Betsy sounded suddenly fearful. Lilah shook her head.

“It’s better if you don’t know. Oh, Betsy, I’ll miss you!”

The two girls hugged, stepped back. Lilah looked at her maid uncertainly through the darkness.

“Betsy, if you want to come with me, I’ll—I’ll set you free. …”

Betsy shook her head. “No, Miss Lilah, but I thanks you. There’s Ben. …”

Lilah smiled. “I wish you much happiness, Betsy, always.”

“And I you, Miss Lilah.”

Lilah felt tears mist her eyes. But there was no time for that now. If she was to make good her escape, she had to get away as quickly as possible.

“Tell Katy thank you. Tell her I love her,” Lilah said,
and then she slipped out the door, along the corridor, down the stairs, leaving Betsy behind.