Chapter 4 #2
Soon, Richard’s father stepped out onto the veranda and joined us, cigar in hand.
He was a tall man, brown haired like his son, and with observant brown eyes that seemed to catch every detail.
Despite their physical similarities, his entire manner was completely opposite to that of his son, whose indolent posture and attitude conveyed disinterest in almost everything around him.
I rose as he approached. “Edward Fairfax Rochester, Mr. Mason.”
“Ah yes,” he said. “I have been interested in meeting you, young Rochester. Your father is a fine friend of mine.”
“And I in meeting you,” I responded. “My father told me a great deal about you and about Jamaica.”
“And I suppose Richard has been trying to tell you about Valley View?” he asked. “Though he is hardly a worthy instructor.”
I laughed warily. “He knows a great deal more than I,” I said.
Jonas Mason’s eyebrows rose at that, and he turned and walked to the nearest chair. “I have no doubt that Richard is anxious for the two of you to be on your way. His interests are more in the social life than in anything to do with the plantation. Always have been.”
Richard sat silently beside me; I had the idea that he had heard this type of comment before and was pointedly ignoring his father.
“You are finding your accommodations in Spanish Town to your liking?” Mr. Mason went on.
“Indeed. The house could not be more comfortable, nor more conveniently situated.”
He nodded approval to my response. “And I understand you have the same housekeeper?” He leaned forward in his chair. “By the name of Sukey, I believe?” He asked the question casually, as if he had no connection to her.
“Yes, sir, and she is a very capable person,” I replied. “I feel fortunate to have her. And Alexander as well,” I added.
Mr. Mason settled back into his chair and puffed on his cigar.
“Fine,” he said, the smoke drifting from his mouth as he spoke.
“Very good.” He may well have wondered about the nature of my relationship with Sukey, but I was not about to embarrass myself by trying a clarification, and I said nothing more.
A few moments later Richard rose. “We must be on our way,” he said. “Dinner will be on the table and the musicians warming up by the time we arrive.”
“And Richard could not bear to miss out on anything like that,” his father added sardonically. “But you would be wise,” he said to me, “to wait an hour or so if you don’t want to be caught in a downpour.”
“Don’t tease us, Father,” Richard said. “Anyone can see there’s not a cloud in the sky.”
“And as anyone who has lived here all his life should know, that makes no difference at all,” his father responded.
I sensed that I was in the middle of a low-level battle that had been going on for a long time, and I sat back in my chair to await the outcome. But once energized to go, Richard would not back down. “Come on, Rochester,” he said. “We have diddled here more than we should have already.”
“So?” his father said. “You have diddled all your life.”
Ignoring him, Richard was already descending the steps, and I had little choice but to follow.
I gave Mr. Mason a departing tip of my hat and asked if he would be following soon.
He responded that he would come when it was appropriate, which I did not quite understand, but I left him there and hurried after Richard.
It should have been less than an hour’s trot to Monteith, but twenty minutes into our journey the skies opened and we urged our mounts forward until we could find shelter under the fat fronds of a banana plant.
“He is always so sure of himself,” Richard grumbled.
“It makes a person want to defy him just as a matter of principle.”
I said nothing, which seemed the soundest policy, until Richard turned on me. “I suppose you think I am a fool.”
“What goes on between you and your father is no concern of mine,” I said. It was perhaps not the wisest thing to have said, but I had no interest in taking sides between them.
“Fathers!” he said in a dismissive tone. He had lived since birth in close quarters with his father; I, on the other hand, had spent nearly my whole life wishing for a connection with mine. Neither of us could fathom how the other felt.
The rain stopped as quickly as it had come, the sky was blue again, and by the time we arrived at Monteith we were nearly dry. Once inside, I could not help stopping to gaze about. I had not gone indoors at Valley View, so this was my first plantation house.
Most of the big houses in Jamaica seem built with the weather in mind.
The breezes flow through the many open windows, and indoors from room to room.
Roofs overhang enough to keep the sun from shining directly in and the rain from soaking the veranda furniture, and the floors are bare of carpets.
A massive repast was laid out on a large table, and a staff of negro house servants was busy filling and replacing platters and bowls as the guests—who were already quite numerous—nibbled and drank and chatted.
I was interested in seeing if I recognized anyone there, for I had harbored hopes of seeing at least one of my fellow passengers from the Badger—Whitledge or Osmon or, less likely, Stafford—but none was in evidence.
With his hand on my arm, Richard guided me through the room, stopping now and then to introduce me to clusters of gentlemen.
They were mostly planters from nearby, and a few merchants from Spanish Town and one from as far away as Kingston.
I discovered I could almost always tell the planters from the merchants, for the planters had the same kind of languidity about them that I had noticed in Richard, while the merchants seemed at the same time intense and easily distracted, as if, like my father and his friends, they were always looking for a way to earn an advantage.
It passed through my mind that I was to be a bit of both—planter and merchant—and I wondered how I would appear to others.
As we strolled about the room, a young lady attached herself to Richard’s other side and simpered up at him that he had not yet introduced his handsome friend.
“Ah yes,” he said, turning to me. “This is the recently arrived owner of a small plantation near Valley View, Edward Fairfax Rochester—Miss Mary MacKinnon, whose hospitality we are so much enjoying here at Monteith.”
I made a bow. “My pleasure, Miss MacKinnon,” I said.
“And mine as well, Mr. Rochester.” She had fair skin but a poor complexion, but she did have dimples, which she showed off at every opportunity. “Will you stay for the ball?” she asked.
“Of course,” Richard replied before I could respond.
“Lovely,” she said, “I will count on it.” She was gazing straight at me as she spoke, and I understood her meaning, but I already had Richard’s sister on my mind. Had she been the one peering through the window at Valley View?
“Not very attractive,” Richard commented rather crudely as she hurried off, no doubt to report to her friends what she had learned of me. “And did you notice? She lisps.”
We had been making our way toward another, larger room, and now I could hear the intriguing sounds of unfamiliar instruments.
As we entered that next room I saw a half dozen or so negroes clustered in a far corner with two or three drumlike instruments and a fiddle or two and some horns, which they played with nearly professional skill.
In time, the dancing began. Miss MacKinnon claimed me for a reel almost immediately and for several dances thereafter.
She was pleasant enough, but not a particularly interesting conversationalist. Her attention was flattering, I suppose, but I didn’t want it to appear that I was particularly attached to her.
I danced with various other young women as well, though I think it was not that I was so desirable a partner, but simply that their lives were so limited that any stranger was a welcome change.
Despite the attention I garnered, I kept my eye on Richard, hoping he would give me some kind of sign when his sister appeared.
Yet it was well into the evening before a bustle of activity at the doorway announced the arrival of a cluster of young ladies.
Everyone paused to watch them flit into the room like a covey of bright birds.
No sooner had I stopped to watch than I felt a hand on my arm.
Expecting Richard, I turned—and found myself once more in the company of Miss MacKinnon. “It’s your Miss Mason,” she whispered.
“My Miss Mason?”
“Well, you are staying with them, are you not?”
“In truth, I am not,” I said.
“Truly?”
I could not help smiling at her obvious pleasure with that news. “Truly.”
But Richard was there at my elbow by then, pulling me away from Miss MacKinnon. “You must meet her; you simply must,” he urged.
The circle parted as we approached, almost as if they were expecting us, and I saw in the center of that group the most astonishing-looking woman I have ever seen.
She was tall, as tall as I at least, and she had masses of black hair that shone as if it had been oiled and that fell into curls that framed her face and clustered on her shoulders and hung down her back nearly to her waist. She was dark skinned, but not as dark as I, and her eyes were black, with thick black lashes.
She wore a dress of brilliant red with some sort of bangles on it, and that dress was cut in such a way as to leave little to the imagination.
She stood among her coterie of friends like a queen, proud and elegant and stunning.
“My dear sister,” Richard said as we came close, “may I present Mr. Edward Fairfax Rochester. Rochester, my sister, Miss Mason—Miss Bertha Antoinetta Mason.”
Bowing over her hand, I said, “I prefer Edward, if you please.”
She smiled broadly. “But I don’t please,” she said. “I prefer Fairfax. And you may call me Antoinetta.”
It was my turn to smile then. And to be unconventional. “I shall call you Bertha,” I said.
Her eyes clouded for a moment, but her smile remained.