The House of Hawthorne (3 page)

“Curtsy,” she said.

I could not help but turn. “Pardon me?”

“You will curtsy to me.”

Indignant, I said, “I will not.”

She made a move at me with fingers like claws and threatened me bodily, at which time I ran from her as fast as I could, all the way home, horrified that I had left safety for the dangers of the world of which the elder women in my family so often spoke. I saw the same girl out my window another day and again she threatened me, and though I have not seen her since, I often imagine her during times of distress. But why has the beggar girl returned when I am so happy? Is it because this freedom is like that which I experienced when I ran away? Was her image a warning? Should I stay always at my mother’s skirts?

A sound from some strange animal distracts me from my fretting. At first I think it is a cow that has wandered out of the grazing plain and gotten its leg stuck in the brambles along the lime hedges, but then the sound turns high, like a crying cat.

My chamber faces the back of the house, overlooking the coffee fields. The windows have no glass, since it is far too expensive, and impractical in the strong tempests, but I do have shutters that are closed to the damp night air. Madame Morrell believes that taking in the evening breezes and fragrances from nocturnal flowers is dangerous to a lady’s health, but I recognize that as superstition.

I slip out of my hammock and step across the layers of
moonlight gleaming through the shutters on the polished wood floor to peek out the window. Before my hand reaches the clasp, I hear the unmistakable slashing sound of a whip, followed by a groan that I know now comes from no animal, but from a human. I am immobilized, and do not want to see what is beyond the window, but dark curiosity causes me to lift my hand. When I hear another slash and cry, I bring my knuckles to my mouth and decide that I must not look, but I hear the door to Mary’s room open, and she is at my side.

“It is a nightmare,” she whispers. “I cannot sleep for the terrible whipping that poor Negro endures.”

She reaches for the shutters, but I stop her.

“This is going to be a very long stay here if we look on those things that are not our business,” I warn.

“How can you say such a thing?” Mary steps from me to open the shutters.

She draws in her breath and I cannot help but look, though I regret my action.

Moonlight and torch fire illuminate the hellish scene. A Negro is tied to a post while a slave woman and children watch in tears. The
mayoral
, or overseer, continues to apply the whip, though it is clear by the way the slave hangs at the post with blood pouring over the dirt that his lesson is learned. As if this horror is not enough, I notice Madame Morrell clutching the arm of a man who must be the doctor himself, standing on the gallery and watching. He flinches with every crack of the whip while she sobs at his side, but he does nothing to intervene. I cannot help but cry out, and before I can cover my mouth, Madame Morrell turns
and sees us in the window. Within moments, she rushes to our chambers and wraps her arms around us, staining our nightclothes with her tears.

“My children, I am so sorry you have to witness this, and so soon after your arrival,” she cries. “This is something I myself have not seen in years—my doting father and husband have always spared this cruel necessity from me—but our temporary
mayoral
does not understand our ways.”

“Why does the doctor not stop him?” asks Mary.

“He will stop him soon, once the punishment is complete. And I will insist he never watch again. I hate for Dr. Morrell to be so disturbed.”

How strange and terrible that Madame is more worried over troubling the doctor than the physical well-being of her slaves. I look at Mary, who has begun pacing.

“Punishment?” says Mary. “Cruel necessity? What could the poor man have done?”

“It could be because of the
volante
accident. He was driving.”

“How could an accident necessitate the murder going on outside?”

We turn our heads back to the horror, where the doctor has called out and the whip has ceased to pollute the air with its gruesome noise. Mary joins me back at the window with Madame Morrell, and we watch as the woman and children of the ravaged man lift him and carry him into a long, low hut. Madame Morrell crosses herself.

“The doctor will care for him well in the infirmary,” she says.
“La Recompensa has the finest slave hospital in Cuba. We have the best-treated slaves. I wish you could understand.”

I am sickened by what she has called the best care of slaves on the island, and it feels as if a fire that began on a fuse in my breast has climbed up to my skull and exploded. I clutch my head and nearly fall, but Mary is at my side and escorts me to my hammock.

“You should not have seen this,” she says. “I am sorry for opening the shutters.”

Madame Morrell calls to her slave, old Tekla, who comes in, exclaiming her sadness in rapid Spanish. Madame Morrell silences her and requests she bring dampened palm leaves to wrap around my head to ease the ache. I want to tell her that the origin of this pain is not in my head, but in my heart.

I
do not sleep well for the rest of the night, and entertain horrid visions of what I saw. I cry into my sheets for my mother, terrified of this foreign place, of being so far from home amid savages—both slave and noble. The ache in my head does not subside, and I feel the crushing dejection of certainty that I will never outrun my infirmity—that it is a plague upon my spirit I will have to endure for a lifetime. Just when my despair reaches its utmost, my dark room begins to glow the richest shade of lavender. I watch the walls in wonder as the lavender warms to dusty pink, and I hear the bong of a faraway bell. I unwrap the leaves from my head and place them on my bed as I cross the room to open the shutters to the sunrise.

From this vantage in the morning light, I can fully take in the magnificent view from La Recompensa:
the wide green lawns and livestock-covered plains, the foliage bursting with flowers of unimaginable color and size, and the columnlike palms. My view crosses an expanse of dark and enticing forest that crawls up the grand mountains that stand proud on the horizon, under a sky that has the appearance of the pearly interior of a great conch shell. It is as if God is reassuring me after the hell of last night
that all will be well and justice will prevail. When I see the poor slaves emerging from their huts, filing off to work in fields and forests, the ache in my chest returns, and I pray the sunrise fills them with the same renewal it does me. I know their eternal rest will far outlast their small season of hell on earth, and it is the only comfort I take in their existence.

My eyes find the post, stained from last night’s whipping. I force myself to look at the sullied ground, but I see the red dirt has absorbed the man’s blood. It occurs to me that the crimson dust of this land did not come from God, but from the punishments of the brutal plantation owners who have invaded His paradise.

I did not think my head would allow it, but after a breakfast of the most succulent oranges and fluffiest eggs imaginable, I have ridden on horseback around the plantation with my escort, Eduardo, one of the Morrells’ three children. Eduardo, just twelve years old, takes his duty very seriously. With care, he lifts low-hanging vines, points out the slightest elevations of land, and instructs me on the vegetation I ensure him is all new to my eyes. He delights in my rapturous discoveries, and seems intent on finding new treasures to elicit greater and wilder exclamations. Upon our return,
the slave in charge of the horses, Urbano, stables mine and bows to me. He speaks in the Spanish still so uncooperative to my ear, but I understand the name of the horse I have ridden, Rosillo, and he gestures from the large steed to me.

“He says Rosillo is for you, Mees Sofeea,” says Eduardo, in the most darling English. Madame Morrell’s children speak the Spanish of the doctor’s land, and the English and French of New Orleans, Madame Morrell’s place of origin. I am in awe of the way she can converse with me in English in one breath, instruct Tekla in Spanish in another, and give her attention to her daughter Louisa’s French studies in yet another.

Madame Morrell sits on the gallery watching over us like a benevolent angel. Her face is handsome and complicated. While a gentle smile rests on her lips, her forehead betrays her inner anguish. Mary has told me that Madame Morrell lost her devoted father and an infant daughter many years ago, and that she carries those losses with her always. The way Madame Morrell pats Tekla’s arm, I can see that she also shares in the misery of her slaves, though not enough to make a difference in their lives.

The slave woman from last night who witnessed the brutalizing of her man, and the little ones who must be her children, now kneel at Madame Morrell’s feet and bow their heads. She places her hands on each one of them, tears falling down her face, and as I draw nearer, I hear that she is blessing them. I place my hand over my heart, enchanted and troubled by this woman and the social order in this strange place. I lower my head to the
slaves as they file away down the stairs, and Madame Morrell stands to meet me.

“You are the picture of Santa Ana, a patron saint of horsewomen,” she says.

I laugh at the thought of being compared to a Catholic anything, even something as noble as a saint, but I dare not say such a thing out loud, and take the compliment as it is meant.

“
Gracias
, Madame Morrell,” I say.

“You delight us when you speak the language,” she says. “And you will have ample opportunities to please our society. We shall have our first visitors tonight.”

Mary joins us on the gallery, looking fresh and lovely in spite of the way her face now mirrors our hostess’s, divided between pleasure and pain.

“How delightful,” says Mary. “Would you like me to start the children’s lessons today?”

“No, thank you,” says Madame Morrell. “I want the two of you to experience La Recompensa anew, and to allow that terrible nightmare to dissipate before you begin your work.”

“It will hardly feel like work,” I say. “Your children are treasures, and I am feeling so well this morning, I could instruct an entire schoolroom of young artists.”

“Your words fill my ears with joy,” says Madame Morrell. “The two of you do your parents honor, and I will sit this very afternoon to write them about you. But for now, both of you should rest and complete your toilet. When we dine this evening, you will have your first introduction to the Layas sons, neighboring planters of impeccable manners and taste.”

I glance at Mary and see her stiffen. Does Madame Morrell mean to make matches for us with Spaniard slave owners in spite of the personal anguish it has brought her, or does she simply hope that we amuse ourselves while in exile here in Cuba? At any rate, I hardly think a Spaniard could capture my interest, no matter how impeccable his manners.

Josepha is a genius at hairstyling. She papers my locks, curls them with hot tongs, and arranges the ringlets so becomingly, I feel a flash of hope that I might take her home to New England when we return, where I could employ her as a servant. Of course, I soon realize my lack of money and her dear child would prevent such an arrangement, but it is a delightful indulgence of thought, nonetheless.

“
Usted tiene el cabello suave
,” she says in her soft, raspy voice. Josepha takes great care in instructing me in the language. Not all of the slaves speak it, especially those just arrived from Africa, but according to Madame Morrell, Josepha has been here for many years.

“Cabello.”
She lifts my hair and points to it. I repeat.

She rubs a coil of my hair to her face and closes her eyes.
“Suave.”

“
Suave
,” I say. “Soft.”

I instruct her back. She likes this.

“Soft,” she says, clipping the word in a strange way. I love how she pronounces our words, though she is rather stupid about remembering them.

I enjoy this language of senses we share, and record the words in my journal so I will have them when I return home and paint. I feel a sudden longing to do so here, and wonder whether I can have Elizabeth send my oils to me. I will surprise her by asking for them in my next letter. Painting always ignites my flares of infirmity and sensitivity like nothing else. Something about the concentration of all that color and power on the point of a brush, instilling life on a canvas with each motion, brings me such ecstasy and torture. I am left breathless at the thought.

I place my hand to my throat and look back in the mirror. This flush has given my complexion a glow, and I admire the way my hair has been set, the aloe Josepha has brushed over my lips to make them shine, and the grass green of my dressing-up gown, the only elegant clothing I own. Mary and I were embarrassed to admit our poverty, and pretended it was economy of packing that allowed us only one fancy dress each. If Madame Morrell understood our true meaning, she was too well mannered to admit it, and insisted that we will have new gowns for balls and dinners, three each at her expense. Her guilt over what we witnessed no doubt contributed to her generosity on the subject.

The air changes with the introduction of male voices, and I feel a curious lifting in my chest. Though I have no real interest in plantation owners and their sons, I will be polite. Perhaps they will provide amusement for me while I am in Cuba.

The late-afternoon light has made a golden dream of the salon, where Madame Morrell sits at the piano playing a song as sad
and elegant as herself. I am entranced by her figure in a billowing crimson gown, framed by the rays of the sun slipping through filmy curtains dancing in the breeze. The scent of jasmine has filled the room from where it climbs around the doorways of La Recompensa, and I might be walking the landscape of an opium haze, which I recall fondly from when I regularly took the drug while under a doctor’s care.

Dr. Morrell, now more recovered from the
volante
accident, sits in a chair by the doors leading to the gallery. He is a lanky man with the appearance of a grand portrait that has faded. I am surprised to see a man who has lived so long in the tropics look so pale, and recall that Madame Morrell said his stomach is a constant plague to his constitution. I hope his poor health is not an indication of what may be in store for us.

The children hurry to embrace me, as if they have known me since birth. I am so charmed by these little ones that for the first time, I wonder what it would be like to have a child of my own, though I quickly banish the thought. If childbearing did not kill me, caring for another while trying to tend to my own fragile health would be my undoing. Since my girlhood, Mother has counseled me that to become a wife and, as inevitably follows, a mother would destroy my delicate sensibilities and burden my artist’s soul. I met this proclamation with a sullen heart at first, until I realized it granted me freedom to act as I wished with anyone I wished, knowing I could never possibly consummate a union. It would shatter my delicate sphere like glass.

Madame Morrell’s song has ended, and when I rise from little five-year-old Carlito’s kisses, the two young men standing at
the fireplace clap their gloved hands, calling my attention to their eager gazes. Madame Morrell loops her arms through mine and Mary’s, and escorts us across the room. We answer their deep bows with our curtsies.