Chapter 26
“What does one wear to a sugar mill?” I asked Patrice the next morning after she brought up breakfast.
“I saw most of the workers dressing in light clothes. They say it’s mighty hot in the mill.
” She looked at the options I had strewn out over the bed.
“I wouldnae think ye need so many underthings. Wear the thinnest skirt and a lightweight shirt.” She then looked at my long hair.
“Ye should put yer hair up, too. ’Tis dangerous in there. ”
I furrowed my brows. “How much do you know about sugar processing?”
She pulled up one shoulder. “Lottie talks a lot while we work.”
Since Patrice seemed to have a good understanding of what to expect, I took her advice and dressed quickly. Then I let her put my hair up tightly. After going a few days without it being pinned up, I scratched at the pinching feeling. I much preferred having it down.
“Ready?” Patrice asked me.
I nodded. “Ready.”
At the bottom of the stairs, Elizabeth waited.
She didn’t wear a dress like the majority of the women I’d seen on the estate.
She dressed in trousers and a light-flowing shirt with sleeves that had been cut off at the shoulders.
Her arms were bare, as they were the first time I’d seen her.
Her skin looked smooth and flawless, her muscles evidence of her capabilities.
Her name might have been similar to mine, but she seemed to differ from me in every other way.
She looked me up and down, nodding. “You seem to know what you’re getting into,” she said in a conversational tone. “Let’s go.”
We walked quite a distance from the big house, toward the large windmills in the center of the biggest fields that grew the sugar cane.
As we walked, she started preparing me for the mill.
“The big house is comfortable, but until you spend time in the mill, you will never understand our life here. The mill is a dangerous and grueling place. The workers who spend their days in the mill suffer the worst out of anyone. Mary has made sure mill workers are paid more than farm workers and has increased safety measures over the years, but it still is the most difficult place to work.”
I wondered where she was going with this. “Why did you invite me to come with you?”
She laughed lightly. “Don’t think I want you to suffer, Miss Findlay. While the mill is a difficult job, it can also be a good place to have a conversation while contributing to the work. I wanted to get to know you better.”
We entered the mill and the heat hit me like a tidal wave of lava. Fires burned under dozens of metal containers, liquid steaming in each of them. An immense machine with rollers moved slowly but powerfully. I pointed to the machine. “What does that do?” I asked Elizabeth.
She led me nearer to it and pointed to the people working at the machine.
They were taking the sugar cane from bundles and feeding it into the rollers.
“They feed the cane in, and the machine squeezes out the juice.” We moved along the line and she showed me a canal where the juice was collected.
“The juice flows into these clarifiers,” she continued, pointing to large metal pans where people were adding what looked like ashes to the juice.
“They remove the impurities. Then it moves on to the coppers.” She showed me the large metal basins that I’d noticed when we first came in.
She stood in front of them. “This is where we will be. We’ll transfer the crystallizing sugar into the next copper.
It is time-consuming, but we can speak while we work. ”
She spoke to a few of the women who were working at the coppers. “You can take breaks. We’ll take your shifts.”
“No, Eliza, we need the pay today,” one of them said.
“Don’t worry, Sarah, you will still be paid. Miss Findlay and I won’t receive wages in your place.” She smiled at the woman, who laughed gleefully and waved away the other woman who had been working beside her. “If you insist,” she said as they left in lighter spirits.
“You don’t get paid for your work?” I asked Elizabeth as she motioned for me to join her at the copper.
She handed me a ladle. “I receive payment for my work on the Maelstrom. I help out in the fields and in the mill when we’re not sailing because I care about the mission.”
“Does your family live there, or in the big house with you?”
“My family died in Jamaica when I was young,” she said. She showed me how to scoop out the thickening syrup and place it in the next copper. I followed her instructions before commenting on what she said about her past.
“Is that where you were born?” I asked. If she was willing to speak of her life, I wanted to learn more about her.
“No, I was taken from Africa with my parents at age six. We were transported to Jamaica and lived there as enslaved people until they died just one year before the trade was abolished.” She glanced at me. “Am I overwhelming you with details?”
I shook my head. “Not at all. I am listening.”
“I was about fifteen, and Mary purchased me from a planter in Jamaica. She set me free along with everyone else here. I worked on the farm for about five years, then Captain Whitmore joined her efforts in protecting the mission and opposing Jacque Corsaire. I joined his crew. I fell in love with the sea and have been the first mate of the Maelstrom for the past three years.” She smiled softly at me as she concluded her life story.
“So how long have you been sailing?”
“Five years in all.”
“That would make you five and twenty, then?”
“That’s right. How old are you?” she asked. I could feel her curiosity about me mounting. Now that she told me her history, it was my turn to oblige.
“Three and twenty.” I glanced at her. She was waiting for more. “Graham and I became engaged just before my twentieth birthday.”
“And you grew up in Scotland, correct?”
“Yes, in a place called Edleroy with my father and brother, Cameron. My mother died before I had a chance to remember her, but my brother and I are close. And my father sent me to English schools in order to learn etiquette and manners of nobility. It’s why I don’t speak with a Scots dialect,” I told her.
“I admit I don’t hear a significant difference between your accent and Graham’s.” She shrugged. “You both sound British to me.”
I laughed. “I’ll try not to take offense at that.”
“Can you tell I am from Jamaica, or does my accent sound the same as those from St. Kitts?” she asked me with a smile.
“Good point.” I scooped another ladle of the hardened syrup. “What else would you like to know?” Speaking with her had begun to thaw the tension between us, at least it had for me.
“Tell me about the Graham you know.”
I raised my eyebrows at her. “Does his past really matter to you?”
She scrunched her eyebrows. “Of course it does. He is important to me, and you don’t know how much he has struggled these months.
We weren’t sure he would wake up, and when he did, without any memory of his life, it was challenging.
It took me weeks of coaxing to get him out of a deep depression.
But once he began forming bonds with us, he seemed to find himself.
I’ve been by his side, and he’s improved a great deal and has become comfortable in his new life.
But I believe it’s important for his future to remember his past. I think he knows that, too.
It isn’t something he has admitted to yet”—she scooped another ladleful and then looked at me again—“but I imagine he feels your arrival is both a curse and a blessing.”
“That’s very…direct,” I said, surprised. “Since we’re being candid, can I ask you how far your relationship with Graham has developed? It’s clear you have feelings for him.”
She nodded, acknowledging the truth of my words. “We have both admitted we care for each other, but we also knew of your existence.”
“The pocket watch,” I said, recalling her comment about my likeness just after they rescued us from the dinghy.
“As soon as I saw you, I knew that whatever our relationship could have been had to wait until he remembered…you.” Her face betrayed her disappointment.
“Are you under the impression that you and he will reach an understanding once his feelings for me are resolved?” I hoped that wasn’t her meaning, but I waited to have it contradicted.
“Not exactly, but I think the most important thing is that he regains his memories. You must also suspect that you’re the only person who can jog his memory.” Her voice sounded sorrowful, as if she wished she could be the one with the most influence in his life.
“That is my assumption, yes.” I tapped the ladle on the copper. “That is, if it is possible he will remember anything…”
Elizabeth placed her hand on my arm to stop my tapping.
I looked into her serious face. “He will. And until he does, please don’t worry about me.
We may care for each other, but I believe I’m honorable enough not to fall in love with a man who is betrothed to another.
You’ve traveled across the world for him; he is aware of that and feels responsible for it. ”
Several knots formed in my gut. She certainly was more honorable than me. I had to force the memory of kissing Mr. Ashby from my mind. I nodded and we both scooped silently for several minutes. A man came to stand behind us. “How is it looking, Eliza?” he asked in a deep, smooth voice.
“You’re the expert, Dan. What do you think?”
Dan came to the copper next to me, where we’d been pouring the thick syrup. He dipped his elbow in the hot liquid and I gasped. “You’ll burn yourself!” I exclaimed.
He looked at me with a laugh and took the syrup between two fingers, testing its thickness.
He nodded. “I think it’s ready.” He motioned for two men to take the copper and pour it into a hogshead.
He supervised them and when the task was done, he looked at me curiously.
“Who’s this, Eliza?” He took a rag and wiped his fingers and elbow as he waited for an answer.
“This is Elsie Findlay. She’s engaged to Slate,” she introduced us. “Miss Findlay, this is Dan Daniels, the head boyler. He’s the most important man on the estate. Without him, we would never make any profit.”
Dan laughed. “It’s true, you’d all be doomed without me.”
Just then, a scream sounded near the machine. Dan burst into a run toward it.
Elizabeth dropped the ladle and touched my shoulder. “Come on,” she said. We joined the crowd gathered near the rollers and saw a woman lying on the floor, several men with machetes surrounding her.
“Did she get caught?” someone asked.
I looked at Elizabeth with wide eyes. “Do people get caught in that machine?”
She nodded. “It happens frequently in other mills, but is rare here.” She pushed through the group. “Dan, did they get her out fast enough?”
The boyler nodded and lifted the woman into his arms. “She’s unhurt. It was close, though.” He nodded to the men surrounding her. “Good work, men. You prevented another tragedy.”
A cheer sounded in the mill, celebrating her safety. Dan carried the woman outside. I looked at the men with the machetes and Elizabeth rejoined me. “Why are they carrying weapons?” I asked.
“As a safety measure. If someone gets a hand caught in the roller, they use their machetes to make sure a life is not lost.” She pointed to her wrist, suggesting the men would cut someone’s hand off.
“That's…awful.” I shivered at the visual. Thank goodness it hadn’t come to that today.
“As I said, it’s a dangerous place.”
It wasn’t as if I hadn’t believed her, but seeing the proof right in front of me made it real. The farm was not a utopia, no matter how much Mrs. Bowers had taken pains to make it so. I wondered how else one could make money here in order to escape such grim realities.
As we continued our work at the coppers, I started thinking about this journey I’d been on.
Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined I’d be in a sugar mill, working alongside an amazing woman such as Elizabeth, who happened to be my rival in love.
Never would I have expected to be trying to help my betrothed remember me, or that I’d be stricken with guilt after getting too close with his business partner…
it could be a cautionary tale to keep children from running away from home.
“What are you thinking?” Elizabeth asked me.
“Just about the strangeness of life. I’m wondering how I got here from where I started. All of this is beyond anything I could’ve imagined.” I looked at her with a bewildered expression.
She laughed, then spoke wisely. “I was told once that one of two things are always certain to happen in life: nothing, or anything.”