29
Key West
June 1843
As week later, the Key West Enquirer’s headline was ASSAULT VICTIM CAPTAIN GEORGE LEE SUCCUMBS TO INJURIES. Al?e was to outlive him by just a couple of weeks. By that time, his letter to the sheriff had been published, and the shocked townspeople did little to mourn either of them.
Tom Farrell came over a few weeks after Pedro’s funeral to read his will. “Pedro left you property in Madrid, a hacienda in Castile, and another in the Canary Islands,” Tom told me. “He left you the house in which you spent your honeymoon in Havana, the tobacco plantation and factory at Vuelta Abajo in Cuba, and the house in Key West, along with three boardinghouses, some empty lots, several cigar makers’ cottages, the cigar factory here, and …” Here, Tom paused.
I was gazing at him, trying to absorb it all. “And?”
“Well, he didn’t want you to know this, but he also owned a huge sugar plantation and factory in Cuba. He knew you’d disapprove because of the slaves. You now own over three hundred slaves, Emily.”
I slumped in my chair. So, Pedro had lied to me. I wondered vaguely if any of those poor devils we saw abused near our ship in Havana were destined for his plantation … my plantation.
Aside from all the property, Tom began to rattle off numbers that bewildered me. Pedro had never told me how wealthy he was. There were cash accounts in New York, Havana, and Madrid, and he had other investments, as well. As Tom talked, I glanced over Pedro’s bankbooks and noticed a recent cash withdrawal of $100,000.
“Do you know anything about this?” I asked. He suddenly looked uncomfortable. “What was that, Tom? Where did the money go?”
He cleared his throat. “Emily, remember that one hundred and ten thousand dollars the government paid you in compensation for your land?”
“What about it?”
“The government settled for only ten thousand dollars, Emily. That’s not bad; it’s still ten times what you and Martin paid for the land. I happened to mention it to Pedro the day I received the letter, and he got this idea—”
“What idea?”
“I told him at the time it was foolish. I said you might
?nd out.”
“What? Tell me, for heaven’s sake.”
“Well, Pedro knew you married him for his money, but he adored you. Really, Emily, I’ve never seen a man love his wife as much as he loved you.”
“And …”
“Well, call it a whim. But he wanted to see if you loved him enough to stay with him if you had your own money. So he added one hundred thousand dollars to what the government gave you.”
I felt my jaw slacken. “That was all Pedro’s money?”
He nodded. “I’m sorry, Emily. I shouldn’t have deceived you. But he was adamant, so I …” He held up his hands helplessly. “He was my client. I went ahead and looked after it.”
I stared at him. “You lied to me?”
He nodded. “I felt I had to,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
I got up and asked Juanita to bring us coffee as I mulled over this latest development. And then, as we sipped, I turned my attention back to our work, for Pedro’s estate was now mine to manage; there was no time for sulking.
“Are there any more secrets that you and Pedro kept
from me?”
Tom shook his head. “No. Really, there are not, Emily. And I’d be happy to help you, if I can regain your trust.”
“Good. But I want an honest relationship with you. No more secrets, Tom.”
“I promise, Emily.”
I nodded. “Very well, then. Here’s what needs to be done: I want the sugar plantation and factory over in Cuba sold at once.”
“That won’t be di?cult,” Tom said brightly as he ?icked through some recent statements. “They’re very pro?table.”
As he began writing on a notepad, I continued: “Perhaps they won’t be, Tom. I want all those slaves set free. The new owner will have to pay them if he wishes to keep them on.”
“But Emily,” he protested, “those slaves, they’d be worth”—he scribbled some calculations—“maybe four hundred thousand dollars! And all that free labor …”
I just glared at him. He gave me no further argument.
By the time Tom was through selling off the properties in Cuba and Spain, I was awash with cash. Pedro’s American holdings, including the Key West cigar factory, were all that I retained. I had well over two million dollars, plus some choice properties on the island, which I intended to keep.
Thinking about what Juan Salas had told me in Havana, I set out not to sell land, but to buy as much of it as I could in Key West. I purchased properties beyond William Whitehead’s delineated plots, acquiring undeveloped oceanfront land at the south end of the island. Much of it was still just wooded forest or salt ponds tucked among mangroves inhabited by birds and mosquitoes.
Tom thought I was foolish. “Swamp … no fresh water? What are you thinking, Emily?” But then he said no more about it. He reckoned I had so much money that if I did make a few mistakes, it wouldn’t matter.
I hired a new manager for Pedro’s Key West factory. The next thing I did was to hire more women, a move that shocked most Key Westers. Pedro had employed a few women as lowpaid packers, but not as cigar makers. I made it known that if they could roll cigars, they could work as rollers, and I paid them the going rate for men—twenty-?ve dollars per week. I knew the men would resent this, but I didn’t care. I was going to run the company my way, with the best employees I could.
I did make a few mistakes along the way. My ?rst was the cigar box ?asco. Because it usually took so long for the boxes made in New York to arrive, I started a small factory to manufacture them in Key West. But half the time the cedar wood did not arrive from South America when it was supposed to, and I was left with idle employees at the box plant, packers at the cigar factory with no boxes to ?ll, and a mountain of cigars piling up. I soon closed the box plant.
Selling off the tobacco plantation in Cuba had not been wise, because it made me vulnerable to the vicissitudes of suppliers over there. I had perhaps been a little hasty in my decision, but it was not a disaster—just an inconvenience.
There was much stress, I was to learn, in running a business. Distribution of the cigars was my biggest problem. I usually had to wait for a ship loaded with cotton from the Gulf states to head north and pick up our shipments. This meant that sometimes our cigars languished for a week or so before I could get them shipped off. And again, our production would get backed up.
Once the cigars were picked up and loaded onto ships heading for places like Baltimore or New York City, they were at the mercy of sudden storms. So I had to pay large insurance premiums to protect my seabound assets.
But overall, the next few years were an exciting challenge for me, and a valuable learning experience. I had been a working woman for a good part of my adult life, but always in a minor, menial role. Now, for the ?rst time, I was in charge, managing my own business, and I enjoyed the power that came with that status. It was also good for me, as it occupied a lot of my time. Since I could not be with Andrew, I had to focus on something that could consume my interest. And managing a business helped ?ll the void in my life.
“You just amaze me, sugar,” Dorothy said over tea on one of the rare days when my sister and I could spend free time together. She looked thoughtful. “Do you think you’ll ever marry again?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
She smiled. “Remember how Gran and I were always after you to set your cap for George Lee? Thank goodness you paid us no mind. What a terrible man he turned out to be!”
I ?nally told her about Lee’s attempted assault, and Dorothy looked at me in astonishment. She took my hand. “Oh, Emily. I wish you’d told me at the time.”
For a long moment we sat quietly. Dorothy opened her mouth to speak, then stopped herself. After a pause, she said in a small voice, “It happened to me, too. I was attacked, in fact, it was much worse. But at least I had Eurydice.”
I almost dropped my teacup.
“You’re surprised?” She smiled bitterly. “Yes, sugar, your little sister managed to get herself into a whole mess of trouble with all her ?irting. I … wasn’t the chaste little virgin bride you thought I was.”
She described what had happened years ago, at the home of Maurice de Belisle in the French Quarter, just before she came to Key West for Timothy’s christening. She’d been madly in love with de Belisle’s handsome nephew, Claude, an o?cer in the army. At a large social, Eurydice had been keeping a watchful eye on Dorothy, but there was a slight chill in the air and Grandmère sent her back home in the carriage to fetch her wrap. As soon as Eurydice left, Claude steered Dorothy into the study.
Dorothy blushed. “I was led willingly enough,” she admitted. “It felt naughty. I’d been sipping punch and I just wanted to enjoy myself. We were kissing and touching, and it was very exciting. But then …” Her voice trailed off.
“Then?”
She was silent again. It was still di?cult for her to talk about it.
“I couldn’t get him to stop,” she said, lowering her head. When she looked back up at me, her eyes had ?lled with sadness and pain. “It’s as simple as that. He attacked me. I struggled and tried to push him away. When I tried to scream, nobody could hear me above the music. Besides, he kept putting his hand over my mouth. And he just …”
As her voice trailed off again, I stared at her. I could not help but recall how she had con?ded in me years ago about her delight in surrendering herself to Tom.
“That isn’t the worst of it,” she continued. “A few weeks later, I missed my menses. And I just knew I was pregnant. I tried to get in touch with Claude, but he ignored my notes. Then his unit shipped out. I never heard from him again.”
“What happened to the baby?” I asked. But suddenly, I already knew the answer.
My sister was now crying quietly. “I’ve been wanting to tell you all these years,” she said. “I was pregnant when I married Tom.”
“Does he know?”
She shook her head vigorously. “No. No! And you mustn’t tell him. Ever! Maureen is his favorite. No. He must never know. Nor should Maureen. She adores her father. And it’s just lucky her appearance favors mine.”
“Why are you telling me this now?” I asked.
“Because I always felt I owed you an explanation for my hasty wedding, and for making the plans with Gran instead of you. I know you were hurt, but you would have wanted me to take my time and have a longer betrothal—which would have been the sensible thing to do. But I couldn’t wait. I needed a husband quickly.”
I gathered her into my arms. Dorothy continued to cry. “He mustn’t ever, ever know. Promise even if I die ?rst, you’ll never tell him.”
I held her tightly as I soothed her. “Of course not, darlin’. Of course not.”
I thought I’d really known my sister well, but her ability to harbor secrets continued to astonish me. What else lay hidden inside her pretty head? I hugged her to my chest and rocked with her until a calm settled over her.