The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor (7 page)

S
HORTLY AFTER DARK,
she is summoned to the house. She finds Lutz pacing in the main hall, his face transfigured by satisfaction.

“A great business, woman. A great business.”

“Why do you not join us, Mr. Lutz?”

“Me? What could I do but interfere? We have done good business here and much more to come. And you, Mrs. Willisams, life will go better for you, I can tell you that.”

“In what way, Mr. Lutz?”

“I’ll see to it that you have a better house here. Tomorrow, you’ll take the Roberts house. That drunk and his whore have no place on this plantation. You’ll have his place, you will. And money.”

“May I ask what is required of me?”

“Required?” Lutz pulls his head back in exaggerated puzzlement. “Required? Nothing but that you continually assure the commodore of the wisdom of this business and my very great regard for him.”

“I see.”

“There is the wagon now. Go.”

Charlotte stops at the door, her thoughts unformed.

“Thank you, Mr. Lutz,” she says.

Lutz comes to the door, holds it open, standing near her.

“Do not,
Mrs. Willisams,”
—he splashes a liberal dose of acid on these words—“do
not
let me hear”—his foul breath washes over her face—“that you have denied the commodore any of the favours a man might ask a woman. That would be a most dreadful mistake.”

He shuts the door.

That’s it then, Charlotte realizes. I am to service a very old master rather than a merely ugly one.

H
ARPER
H
OUSE
is the Jamaican country home of the sixth Earl of Ruffield, who now hardly visits the islands and is an old friend and associate of Walker. The pomp and ceremony of the place remind Charlotte of Lord Lafford’s house in Sussex, where she had been presented on the occasion of her eighteenth birthday. She stops short when the brown-skinned servants wave her toward the double doors and suppresses the ill thoughts of the truth she conceals and the mixed-race child she carries. Then assuming the grandest pose she can muster, she sweeps into the room where the commodore waits.

For a time after the commodore greets her, they stand together in the drawing room and sip Madeira wine. She had had the wagon ride to determine the tale she should tell, but who knew what the wheedling Lutz had said to Walker. Whatever he saw to be to his advantage, certainly. Better sail as close to the truth as possible, while steering off its sharpest rocks. She could say she now found herself to be wasting dreadfully in these tropical climes and would prefer to … ah, the rub. Prefer to what? She could hardly return to England. Indeed, there is real danger Walker might actually be acquainted with her father.

Dinner is announced. They have hardly settled into their chairs when Walker leans across to her.

“Dear Mrs. Willisams, the very kind Mr. Lutz has told me of your loss and I offer again my deepest condolences to you. Now please, you must tell me your circumstances, for I assure you I am your most attentive listener.”

She had not expected so vigorous a probe. Before she can conjure up a reply, he continues.

“Mrs. Willisams, this is no place for an Englishwoman on her own. What shall you do?”

And at that moment, and wholly to her own astonishment, Charlotte Taylor begins to weep. From weeping she falls to explaining, and from explaining to telling the truth, or as much of it as she dares. He shows no special response and raises no query. As she speaks, she regains her composure and is able to insert an innocent fiction about letters of introduction stolen at sea. When she is finished, ending with her beloved husband’s burial—he who sought to serve his King in the heavy clay of a land he never knew—there is silence.

Finally, Walker speaks.

“I don’t know of a ship returning to England this week,” he says. “But you may sail with me and then leave for England from my trading post in Nepisiguit.”

“Nepisiguit? Where is that?”

“It’s in British North America near the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, my dear. It is my small part of His Majesty’s colony of Nova Scotia. I have certain knowledge of a ship that will sail from there in early September and I will arrange that it take you home.”

She looks at the weathered face that regards her steadily and sees no trace of baseness or deceit. The commodore lifts his claret glass to his lips, sips, then sets it down.

“I confess that I can propose only this circuitous route. But you
cannot
stay here. It is intolerable that you should do so. You are not bred for such a place, as is clear to see, and there are those here who would willingly take advantage of your innocence. I intend to raise anchor as soon as the cargo is stored and the tide is high. That will be early tomorrow morning. If this is agreeable to you, Mrs. Willisams, please do leave all arrangements to me.”

And that is the end of the discussion about her departure. Throughout the rest of the meal, the commodore entertains his
guest with stories of his first voyages to the West Indies. He tells her how he had sometimes thrived and sometimes not as he traded in those changeable waters. Indeed, the islands had new owners so often, he had felt compelled to inspect the flag in every harbour to know whether he would enjoy the welcome of Britain, France or Spain—countries not always in perfect agreement. At some point, as he pours her port, she is cognizant of the fact that, save the stories of events long past, he had spoken not a word on his own personal account.

“You have not mentioned your family, commodore. How you must miss them, at sea so often.”

He looks at her a long moment, but his expression is opaque.

“I am a widower, madam,” he says. “And childless.”

She is without a reply. How could she express condolence for his loss without appearing condescending in respect to his childless state? He might, perhaps, have preferred to remain childless. As indeed, at this moment, did Charlotte.

At the door he kisses her hand and again Charlotte feels a surge of emotion. Her suspicion and plotting had been undone by a gracious man’s simple kindness. Then a servant leads her not to Lutz’s plain wagon, which had been dismissed, but to the commodore’s own carriage.

As she draws into the village, Lutz is leaning in a chair against the front of his house, a mug in one hand, his pipe in the other and a bottle at his side. A single lantern burns overhead.

“Was the dinner to your liking?” he asks.

“Yes.”

Suddenly he’s upon her. Grabbing her arm in a viselike grip, steering her into his office, slamming the door behind them. He pushes her into a chair and stands before her as though she’s on trial.

Lutz snorts. “And what of our good commodore? Did he meet with success?”

“I understand you have made good business together.”

“Hmm. But did he meet with success here, in the petticoats?”

“Mr. Lutz?”

He steps toward her.

“I think he did,” he slurs. “Or God help you.”

“I’ve done nothing to displease the commodore. I ask you to leave me alone.”

“We have made a bargain,” says Lutz, “and now I’ll have you!”

“You will not!”

He stands a moment, breathing heavily.

“If you will not give over, I’ll beat you—and you should know—I’ve beat many before you.”

Charlotte sees the lust and anger and drink combined in the man’s already cankered countenance.

“Mr. Lutz,” she says, grasping at a tone and subject that might reach him. “If you were to beat me or take me against my will tonight, word must reach Commodore Walker. It would spell the destruction of the trade you do now with the commodore and all you hope to do. Do not let the drink destroy all you’ve done.”

He stares at her in the carefully balancing manner of a drunk. Finally he says, “You will lay with me when he’s gone, woman.”

Buying herself what time she can she replies, “I owe much to you, Mr. Lutz.”

“Damn you
do
too! You owe me a great deal!”

Muttering threats about what he’ll do if she dares to leave this room, he crosses to the anteroom at the back of the office. Charlotte hears the scraping of the chamber pot on the floor as he draws it forth with his foot.

“I shall piss myself if I have no relief,” Lutz says. He chuckles and sets the candle down while fumbling with his breeches.

“Let me help you,” she says and without stopping for even a fraction of a moment she crosses the floor, grabs the candle and is out the door in a single movement. It is black as pitch inside. Lutz roars and as she bolts down the stairs she hears the chamber pot rumble across the boards and Lutz fall heavily, cursing her.

She extinguishes the candles and runs across the field to Mattie Higgs’ hut.

“Mattie! Mattie!” she calls outside the woman’s door. “It’s Charlotte.”

She appears, sleepy-eyed.

“Mattie. Let me share your straw tonight. I fear mine may be infested.”

She rises at dawn, finds Mattie is already gone and returns cautiously to her hut and seeing it undisturbed, she makes the final preparation to leave. She selects apparel suitable for travelling and this time, being knowledgeable about sea-faring, carefully packs the items she would need for the voyage in a parcel and ties it with twine. She also gathers a few of Pad’s personal effects—a square of cotton he often wound around his neck, the three silver strands he’d bent into a bracelet and the packet of seeds from the garden that he’d tucked in with his belongings, promising that one day he’d plant a garden for her like the one she left behind. There isn’t another thing she wants to bring as a reminder of this place. The trunk is ready, so is the parcel. She scribbles the day’s thoughts into her diary.

Then Charlotte walks to the main house, helps herself to a cup of tea and a slice of the morning’s baked bread, takes her place at the table and begins the day’s entries as though nothing whatsoever has changed. Lutz finally appears at the door, looking the worse for his night. She resists the impulse to look up lest she betray her anxiety.

He prowls around the premises, bellowing orders, directing his prurient gaze at Charlotte. The wagons make the short trip to the dock a dozen times. Charlotte waits, barely able to concentrate on her chore, wondering if this nightmare is really coming to a close? Lutz has gone to the dock. By now Charlotte is pacing back and forth to the tea stand, trying to lessen the tension she is feeling. The tide will soon be high. She fears she’s been left behind.

A
WAGON APPROACHES
. Charlotte dashes to the door. It is Lutz, alone, and bearing an envelope. Her heart tumbles into a pit deep in her breast.

He enters the office silently and lays the letter on her desk. The seal had been broken.

“Now you are exposed,” he says.

So it was to be for her—unending punishment and salvation unendingly denied. For a moment she sits numbly. She looks down at the letter. She sees it is addressed to Lutz. She unfolds it and reads the opening lines.

“I know you will be pleased to learn that I am able to convey Mrs. Willisams to her home in England, though I can offer only an indirect route through my trading post in Nova Scotia. In token of my gratitude for your kindness to her, I am sending over a dozen bottles of my best port, originally a gift to me from—”

“You are a damned whore!” calls Lutz, but Charlotte is already out the door, her heart bursting with joy.

M
ORNING IS ALWAYS
the right time for a departure, when the ship and the day set out together and nothing but prospects lie ahead. The sky over Jamaica is clear that morning and a steady breeze blows in the channel that crochets the islands to the sea. The birds hover and call. The air is fresh and sweet with the distillations of the tropics. Charlotte stands near the fo’c’sle. She can see Commodore Walker in busy conversation on the quarterdeck and beyond him and the little
Achilles
’s wake the hills of Jamaica. How beautiful, she thinks, as its landscape diminishes to a glittering emerald. A young man climbing the fo’c’sle stops partway up to greet her with a smile.

“Morning, madam.”

“Good morning.”

He is perhaps twenty, his blond hair curling out from under his cap, his blue jacket and bright white shirt a match for his eyes.