Page 11 of The Summer Country

She didn’t need to hear, again, about Adam’s trip to London, which, apparently, had turned him into a cosmopolitan man of the world with one visit to Bond Street. Or at least to hear Adam tell it. “I meant the cane. There’s just—so much of it.”

Adam looked at her under the brim of his hat. “That is the point of a plantation, coz. Acres and acres of pure profit.”

Yes, but how did people live in the midst of this? Emily couldn’t say it, didn’t want to admit to Adam that she might have any doubts about the course she had set. She would become accustomed to it, she was sure, just as her grandfather had become accustomed to Bristol.

“Just think, Emily,” said Laura, making an effort to rouse herself. Beneath the flush of heat, she looked rather green from the motion of the carriage. “This might be your sugar.”

“It’s not,” said Dr. Braithwaite. In the silence, Emily could hear a pattern of thwack and rustle, the far-off sounds of workers’ voices, clearer now. “This is Beckles land. Your closest neighbors. They’re the largest landowners in these parts—next to Peverills.”

“Is Peverills that large, then?” asked Adam, looking significantly at Emily. “I can just see you, skirts kilted up, scythe in hand. . . .”

“You’ll see nothing of the kind.” The mockery was a bit rich coming from a man who had never ventured farther into the countryside than a picnic on the outskirts of town. She knew quite as much of agriculture as he, which, between the two of them, amounted to absolutely nothing. Emily turned to the doctor. “Does one use a scythe on cane?”

“No,” said Dr. Braithwaite. “The usual implement is a cutlass—a form of machete. I wouldn’t advise attempting it. Not unless you want to lose a leg.”

“You know a great deal about it,” said Adam, and Emily knew he was wondering, as she was, if Dr. Braithwaite knew it from experience, if he, like his uncle, had once been a slave.

“I’ve stitched up more gashes than I care to count. You can tell an experienced cane cutter by his scars,” said Dr. Braithwaite shortly. “You wanted to know when we reached your land? Here it is.”

“This?” Emily clutched at the seat as the barouche lurched over a rut in the road.

Cane stalks long dead lay brown and withered, surrounded by grasses high as Emily’s shoulder, beige and brown in the heat. Vines climbed over the frame of an abandoned shack, like green fingers dragging the structure back down into the earth. An old wagon lay in pieces, one wheel fallen and cracked. The carriage lurched as they took a right-hand turn onto a narrower road, pitted and overgrown.

“This,” said Dr. Braithwaite.

“Mr. Turner did say it was neglected,” said Emily, trying not to show the jolt of disappointment she felt deep down in the pit of her stomach.

After all, what did she know of cane? Maybe this was what it looked like every season, before being cleared for harvesting. Wasn’t being left fallow supposed to make the land more fertile?

“We might be the first people,” she said with an attempt at cheerfulness. “I imagine this must be what the island looked like two hundred years ago, when colonists were first settling here.”

“Except for the structures,” said Dr. Braithwaite drily. He pointed to a stone cone that looked like something out of old Holland, but for the vines that twined it around and around. A snake slithered through the gash that had once been a door. “That’s the Old Mill. The overseer’s house is down that road. The bookkeeper’s house is to the left.”

“The stones seem sound,” said Emily.

“It was built to withstand hurricane and riot.”

The carriage lurched past a pair of stone gateposts thickly twined with dark green vines. An alley of broad-leaved trees spread out before them, and, at the end of it, loomed the house.

Chimney pots stabbed into the sky above high, arched gables. The casement windows had been made to stare out at the Sussex downs, not a Barbados cane field. It was a Jacobean manor house transplanted, all intricate brickwork and ornate finials. Only the wide, shaded portico set into the front of the house made any concession to the climate.

The leaves of the trees and the sun played tricks with Emily’s eyes, making her think—no. It wasn’t a trick. The walls stood jagged, blackened, empty windows opening onto nothingness. A pillar lurched crazily to the side, its mate toppled sideways in the long grass.

“I—” Emily found herself without words. It was majestic and horrible, a testament to the fleeting nature of man’s vanities, and she knew she ought to be finding it all terribly interesting and improving, but all she could do was bite her lip and try not to let her distress show.

“This is as close as we can get,” said Dr. Braithwaite brusquely, and Emily wasn’t sure whether to be grateful to him for taking pity or annoyed with herself for needing it. “The central block is still standing. Although I wouldn’t vouch for the roof.”

Laura’s hand slid into Emily’s and squeezed. “It’s very picturesque.”

Picturesque wouldn’t keep the rain off. “I suppose Grandfather must have bought it for the land,” she said, trying to keep her voice level.

“He probably got it cheap,” said Adam. “You know how he likes—liked—a bargain.”

They all sat in the barouche, like castaways marooned in a rowboat, staring out at the ruin that was now Emily’s.

“It must have been lovely once,” said Laura. “Perhaps he remembered it as it was.”

Lovely wasn’t quite the word Emily would have used. Impressive. Grand. Ruined. “Is this recent?” she asked Dr. Braithwaite.