The Voyage of Promise (22 page)

I
say, Lord Reginald, it would appear to me that this committee, as you insist on calling it, has outlived its usefulness,” Quentin Gainesville said. “You are a man of action, and for that I give you credit. But perhaps the time has come to leave this matter of the slave trade to the politicians whose methods seem to be, shall we say, more refined than our own, and therefore have more hope of proving effective.”

“The politicians think only of their careers,” Lord Reginald retorted. “If it were left to them, our own well-being would matter not at all.”

“I cannot agree with you on that account,” said Augustus Jamison. “Why, the politicians
are
us! Landed gentry, businessmen, men of class—they stand to lose every bit as much as do we.”

“Where is Simon Johnson today?” Mister Gainesville suddenly asked. “He should be here with us. It is he who is the best equipped to speak to Parliament on our behalf.”

“He should be here, but he will not be,” said Lord Reginald with an edge of bitterness. “As a matter of fact, he shall not be meeting with us again at all.”

“Oh? Our position is too controversial for one who is himself vying for a position in Parliament, is that it?” Mister Gainesville offered with a short laugh. “One must stand by one’s principles until one runs for the office of MP, eh?”

“So it is just the four of us, then,” Augustus Jamison stated.

“No, no… Not at all!” said Lord Reginald. “In essence, we are a tremendous crowd, for we four represent the sensibilities of multitudes.”

“Balderdash!” Mister Gainesville sputtered.

“In addition, I happen to have a special guest to introduce to you this very evening,” Lord Reginald continued. He nodded to the butler beside the door and called out, “Now, Rustin.”

The surprise guest was none other than a cleaned-up and filled-out Jasper Hathaway. It was not at all the spectacular beautiful-slave-on-the-arm presentation Mister Hathaway had hoped to make before his new employer, yet he determined to make the most of what might turn out to be his only opportunity.

“Your holdings in Africa are not only secure but are most profitable,” Mister Hathaway assured Lord Reginald— although in a less-than-stately manner, what with the loss of all his teeth from scurvy and his discomfort with the artificial dentures he had just that day acquired.

Too humiliated to let the aggrieved matter of his bare mouth be any more widely known than absolutely necessary, Mister Hathaway had quietly consulted one Madame DeVrie, who advertised as the maker of gold snuffboxes but who had a thriving backdoor business making artificial teeth.

“A spectacular smile, Monsieur, that eez my promise to you,” Madame had said. “And eet eez all made from healthy
human teeth. They will fit your mouth as though they had grown een that very place.”

And so, at a cost of three pounds, four shillings, Mister Hathaway now possessed a lower plate that stayed put solely by the force of gravity and an upper denture made from a curved strip of discarded teeth, which had the unnerving propensity to slip sideways and wobble up and down when he talked.

“And the slave fortress meets the humane standards required by a civilized people?” Lord Reginald inquired, looking Hathaway straight in the mouth.

“Most certainly,” Mister Hathaway said with a bit of a mumble. “Zulina is a model slave-trading factory. It sets a high standard to which all others in the area strive to attain. A lovely castle-like fortress it is, hewn from massive rock, and fortified on all sides by cannons.”

“Excellent,” said Lord Reginald.

As Jasper Hathaway continued to extol the virtues of Zulina, his report heavily peppered with accounts of his own great management achievements— “I buy only the best goods, your lordship, and pay naught but beads and linen, iron bars, and, because I demand the prime, guns and gunpowder” —and his canny alliances— “The most respected and powerful of their own kings beg to engage in business alliances with me.”

Lord Reginald, and occasionally one of the other men, murmured an approving “Well done!”

At the end of his recital, Mister Hathaway, most pleased with himself, ventured a smile. If only he could have made his entrance with the lovely Grace Winslow on his arm and all his teeth in his mouth!

“When will you be returning to Africa?” Quentin Gainesville inquired.

“As you can imagine, this has been a most arduous and distressing trip for me,” Mister Hathaway said. “I must allow myself time to fully recover.”

“Certainly,” agreed Lord Reginald. “That is completely understandable.”

“And how long do you anticipate you shall require, sir?” Mister Gainesville pressed.

Jasper Hathaway shifted uncomfortably. The fact was, he had given absolutely no thought at all to ever crossing that dreadful ocean again. Since he had recovered his health, his only thought was to regain possession of his property— meaning Grace. As a matter of fact, on his way to Witherham’s Larkspur Estate it had entered his mind to request from his employer a position in London.

“Sir?” Lord Reginald was looking hard at Hathaway. He too, it seemed, was awaiting an answer.

“Why, I cannot rightly say at this precise moment,” Mister Hathaway hedged. “No sooner than a year, certainly. Two perhaps. Or…”

Lord Reginald’s eyebrows rose as he clenched his jaw.

“Yes, two,” Jasper Hathaway said quickly.

“I pose the question,” said Quentin Gainesville, “because from the reports coming to me it would seem that one Benjamin Stevens, who I hear runs a much smaller slaving business than yours, is renegotiating some of those same agreements to which you refer with the self-same tribal kings of which you spoke, Mister Hathaway. Therefore, I must wonder, sir, if your grip on the trade business in the area is as secure as you would have us believe.”

“Stevens?” Mister Hathaway gasped incredulously.

“Mister Benjamin Stevens?” Lord Reginald Witherham echoed. He almost choked on the name of his wife’s father.

In the crushing silence of the moments that followed, Jasper Hathaway sought desperately for a way to shift the talk into a different, more positive direction. He blurted— almost viciously, “Barely five years ago, Joseph Winslow all but destroyed Zulina fortress, and the entire trading business there as well. An infinite amount of work has been required on my part, as well as endless forbearance and the skills of an ambassador, to get the slave fortress to where it is once again productive. Were it not for me, Joseph Winslow—”

“Joseph Winslow…” Mister Gainesville interrupted thoughtfully. “Is that not the fellow who helped us with the fire matter?”

“Helped us, yes! Unless the rumors are true and he is more helpful to those who oppose us,” Augustus Jamison said. But he laughed when he said it, and Mister Gainesville joined him.

Thinking perhaps that he had misjudged the situation as well as the man, Mister Hathaway ventured, “Mister Winslow is a friend of yours, then? And yet he is not here tonight, I see.”

After a good deal of harrumphing and throat clearing all around, Lord Reginald said in cool, measured tones, “My good sir, Joseph Winslow is
not
one of us. We merely employ his services on the rare occasion that we require his… shall we say… unique skills.”

Augustus Jamison looked over at Sir Geoffrey, who had taken a sudden and intense interest in an oil painting which hung on the far wall. It was a portrait of Lord Reginald as a young child posing with his elder sister Penelope, and although it had always hung in the same place in that room, Mister Jamison had never before had occasion to notice it.

“Joseph Winslow, yes,” Mister Gainesville said to Jasper Hathaway. “So you know the man. That does explain much.”

Lord Reginald slowly shook his head. “I had far greater hopes for you, Mister Hathaway,” he said. “I most certainly did. For although you clearly are not one of us, I did believe you to be a gentleman. Indeed, I believed you to be a gentleman who, by virtue of the fact that he had risen above the horrors of that heathen land, would wholeheartedly dedicate himself to his unique position and strive to quiet the voices that seek to destroy our noble worldwide enterprises—by which I mean a gentleman who would promote a vigorous trade in slaves.”

D
on’t go out now! They will see you!” Lady Charlotte whispered to Grace. “Stay here in the service room until the men leave.”

But Grace could not. It wasn’t only what Sir Philips had said to Lord Reginald when the two men passed by Grace and Lady Charlotte’s hiding place. Other men had followed the two into the sitting room, and Grace had heard far too much to quietly sneak away and pretend nothing had happened. Shaking with fury, she struggled to free herself from Lady Charlotte’s clawing grip.

“Please!” Lady Charlotte pleaded. “You don’t know them! You don’t know Reginald!”

Grace answered, “You don’t know me.”

Lady Charlotte was weeping, pleading. “Stay with me tonight! Please. I can sneak you into my chambers, where you will be safe. Please, Grace. We can talk. If we work together, we can make up a good plan. I can call a coach for you tomorrow when Reginald is away. Please!”

Grace stared at the woman groveling before her. So fragile-looking was the pale white of her skin and her breezy-fine fair
hair, she looked more like an angel than a ghost. Certainly she was otherworldly. Those soft hands that clutched at Grace knew nothing of washing small linens. Nothing of any type of work. When Charlotte used to visit Africa with her mother, she always took care to keep her distance from “the African,” as she called Grace Winslow. Yet after the slave rebellion, when everyone else had turned away, it was Charlotte who had defied her own parents and provided food for Grace and the other starving survivors. What a strange person was this Lady Charlotte Stevens Witherham.

But then, Grace thought,
Who am I to make such a judgment? What a strange person am I!

Grace got down on her knees beside Charlotte and put her arms around the thin, quivering body. “I never really said ‘thank you,’ ” Grace whispered. “You already did so much for me. I have no right to ask more of you.”

“You will stay with me, then?” Lady Charlotte asked.

“No. I cannot.”

“But the men out there—”

Grace closed her eyes, and in her mind she saw the wise face of Mama Muco and once again heard her words.

“We cannot control what happens around us any more than we can change what happened to us,” Grace said softly. “All we can do is decide how we will live our own lives. This is my life, Charlotte, and I cannot escape it by hiding or running. I did not hide from my father, and I will not run from Mister Hathaway. I will not be a slave. And I
will
find Cabeto.”

Grace stood up and opened the service room door. She marched into the sitting room, leaving Lady Charlotte crumpled and whimpering alone on the floor.

The men, shocked into silence, stared at Grace in utter astonishment.

Quentin Gainesville demanded, “I say, Lord Reginald, is this another of your parlor games? Because if it is, I have no intention of playing—”

“It most assuredly is not,” Lord Reginald answered. But for once, he found himself struggling for words.

“You talk and you talk and you talk, but you hear only yourselves,” Grace said with a strength and clarity that would have made Lingongo proud. “I am well acquainted with English gentlemen, for I had two of them closely involved in my own life. One was my father, and the other almost my husband.”

“Now, see here… you only… your father was no…” Mister Hathaway sputtered, but his own words seemed to choke him into silence.

“Do you know this woman?” Mister Gainesville asked Jasper Hathaway.

But Mister Hathaway, whose face had blanched white, was finally silenced.

“You sit in riches in your castle house and you talk of business and enterprise,” Grace said. “But that enterprising business rips people’s lives away from them. It tortures and murders and destroys. You call yourselves Christians, and the people of Africa you call heathens. But my Mama Muco taught me to pray to the God of all people. She taught me these words from His holy book, in the part called Micah: ‘He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?’ ”

“Now, see here—” Augustus Jamison protested. But Grace would not stop.

“If you are Christian men, where is your justice? Where is your mercy? And I ask you, with your pride as thick as the London air, how can you even see the pathway your God walks, let alone walk humbly along with him?”

Lord Reginald Witherham, at last regaining his wits, rose to his feet and pronounced indignantly, “How dare you break into my house and assume to lecture me on the subject of Christianity? There is not one thing a person such as you has to teach us!”

“Oh, do sit down, Reginald,” Sir Geoffrey said wearily. “It does us no harm to listen for a change.”

“I most certainly shall not sit down! A beggar wanders into my estate from off the street and—”

“Really, I hardly think her to be a beggar,” said Mister Gainesville. “She dresses in silk, does she not?” Addressing Grace directly, Mister Gainesville asked, “Why did you come here, miss?”

“I am the only survivor of a family, slaughtered and sold,” Grace said, her eyes fixed on Mister Hathaway. “I want to get to America to find my husband, who is right now being put up for sale on a slave auction block. I came to ask for your help. I came to
beg
for your help.”

All eyes shifted to Jasper Hathaway. Flushed and sweating profusely, and struggling mightily to master his new teeth, he made a pitiful sight. In the end, he did not manage to utter one single coherent word.

“Will anyone help me?” Grace pleaded.

There was no compassion in Lord Reginald’s eyes as he rose from his seat. But before he could speak, Lady Charlotte said, “A carriage waits for you, Grace.” She had floated into the room completely unnoticed. “It is in
front
of the house. Go now!”

“Lady Charlotte!” Lord Reginald bellowed. “I shall not have you—!”

“Now, Grace!” Lady Charlotte repeated.

Lord Reginald lunged at Grace, but she sidestepped him and dashed through the sitting room doorway. Down the
hall, Rustin himself held the front door open for her. Lady Charlotte ran for the doorway and positioned herself between the sitting room and the hall in such a way that her husband could not get around her without being most indelicate.

Sir Geoffrey Philips sank back onto the settee. He pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his waistcoat and mopped his face and wiped his eyes. He opened his mouth, but then he closed it again and sadly shook his head. Sir Geoffrey was not a heartless man. But he was a man with great holdings in the indigo market. That was something he must not overlook.

“Watch out for Mister Hathaway,” Grace called back. “He is a snake at your feet, Lord Reginald. You would do well to keep a stout stick in your hand!”

“Do not think you have seen the last of me,” Lord Reginald roared at Grace, the vein in his forehead ready to pop and his clenched fists pounding the air. “Like as not, something will be found missing from my house. Greater ones than you have burned at the stake for thievery!”