Page 12 of The Summer Country

“It’s been this way for as long as I can remember. When I was young, boys would dare each other to come up here after dark. Brave the duppies. Ghosts,” Dr. Braithwaite translated. Bringing himself back to the present, he said briskly, “There was more than one ankle broken that way. Still is, I gather. I set one last week.”

“There you are, Em,” said Adam. “Shall we? There’s the governor’s reception tonight.”

She wasn’t ready to retreat to Bridgetown yet. “We’ve only just got here. And there’s hours yet before we need to get dressed.” She looked uncertainly at Dr. Braithwaite. “Could I . . . see it? Since we’ve come all this way?”

“There are snakes.”

“I’m wearing boots. Stout ones.” Looking down at Laura’s dainty footwear, she said, “You’d best get started on the picnic. I won’t be long.”

Adam looked from Emily to Dr. Braithwaite. “I’ll come with you.”

And leave Laura alone? Laura, flushed with heat, was clearly in no condition to go adventuring. “No need,” said Emily firmly. “We won’t go far.”

Adam looked like he might argue, then shrugged and leaned back. “As you will, coz. We’ll be here, eating all the cakes.”

“Don’t blame me if you turn an ankle,” said Dr. Braithwaite resignedly. Swinging down, he held out a hand to her. “Miss Dawson?”

“If I do,” she said, “at least I have someone to set it.”

She hopped down and landed heavily on what must have once been a fine sweep of gravel, but now was rutted from rains and neglect. The doctor hadn’t, she realized, been joking about the danger to her joints. The ground ahead of them was full of bits of masonry and unexpected holes.

On the ground, rather than in the carriage, the full bulk of the house made itself felt, the blackened gables pushing high into the sky, the wings stretching on and on in either direction. It made Emily feel very small and insignificant; her grandfather’s great house on Queen Street had been on a more human scale.

Emily craned her head, taking an involuntary step back. “It’s rather large, isn’t it? It dwarfs one, rather.”

“It’s meant to.” Dr. Braithwaite steadied her with a hand on her elbow. “Careful now.”

A flight of stairs led to an arched portico, missing pillars making it look like a jack-o’-lantern’s grin. “Is that the entrance?”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t advise entering.”

Emily looked quizzically up at him. He was taller than she’d realized; she felt quite small beside him in her sensible, flat-heeled boots. “I thought you said the central block was still standing.”

“Standing, yes,” said Dr. Braithwaite. “But that doesn’t mean it’s sound. The floor is rotted out in parts; the stairs are treacherous. If you must go adventuring, I’ll take you around the side.”

“It’s hardly idle curiosity. It is my house after all.” Perhaps if one cleared away the debris . . . it might not be so bad as it looked.

“If you’re looking for buried treasure, you’ll be disappointed.” Dr. Braithwaite led her sideways, not up the stairs but past them, down the length of the house. The ground-floor windows were all but obscured by a prickly hedge bristling with green fruit. “Anything of value is long gone.”

They turned the corner, and the full scope of the destruction was laid bare. Large chunks of masonry had fallen at crazy angles, blackened beams resting on hollow foundations. Bits of intimate debris lay among the rubbish: a charred, cracked chamber pot. A child’s doll, the limbs scorched, the face blackened.

Emily found herself leaning down toward the doll. “Snake,” said Dr. Braithwaite tersely, and she jerked back.

“What happened here?” she asked.

Dr. Braithwaite navigated expertly around a blackened pile of rubble. “Fire.”

“Well, yes, I gathered that.” Perhaps it was the solidity of the central block that made the devastation so jarring. Walls still stood at various points, waist high, shoulder high, creating a crazy maze where once there must have been chambers and corridors. One staircase spiraled to nothingness. Another opened onto a fragment of what once might have been a gallery of sorts.

They paced the perimeter in silence, until Dr. Braithwaite said, “There was a rising here forty years ago. I don’t imagine you’ve heard of it.”

“I haven’t. But I can imagine why.” Emily stopped, looking up at him. “I belong to the Bristol and Clifton Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. My father is a founding member of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. I heard Mr. Frederick Douglass speak when I was a girl.”

Dr. Braithwaite raised a brow. “Then there’s nothing I need tell you. I am sure you can imagine the whole of it.” Before Emily could defend herself, he went on. “The revolt occurred for the usual reasons. It began in St. Philip and spread to Christ Church. Peverills was one of the plantations torched.”

“Was the owner so cruel, then?” Even as she said it, she realized her own mistake, and quickly added, “Not that a man would need to be abused to break his chains. The very institution of slavery . . .”

“You can spare me the sermon, Miss Dawson. My uncle owned slaves when I was a boy.”