Page 131 of The Summer Country

“I could spread the word at Bayleys,” said King Wiltshire. “There are like-minded souls there. They’d help.”

Nanny Grigg nodded and looked to Jackey. “Your friend Franklin. He’d help us?”

“A few years past, an overseer—a white man—broke into his house and tried to rob him. Franklin beat him off. Franklin got six months in the gaol. You know what the overseer got?” Jackey looked around the little group, his face grim. “Whatever he wanted from Franklin’s house. He’ll help us, all right.”

“Jenny.” Nanny Grigg turned to her, all business. “Who at Beckles would help?”

“I don’t know.” She wasn’t sure what she thought about all this. Her old instinct, to keep her head down and avoid trouble, warred with a burning sense of injustice, a furious need to do something, anything. Seeing the way they were looking at her, she added quickly, “I’m not trying to shirk my share. The old master, Colonel Lyons, he liked to set people against each other. I wouldn’t trust anyone not to tell the mistress.”

Nanny thought for a moment, and then said decisively, “There’s Davenant. You’ll be our eyes and ears in the council. Whatever he says, whatever papers he has from England, you bring to us. The more we know, the better. We’ll spread the word.”

“Charles—Mr. Davenant—said they’d have it back again, the bill, I mean,” said Jenny.

“And what will they do?” said Nanny. “The same. No disrespect to your Master Charles, but if we wait for him to argue them into sense, we’ll all be dust and our great-grandbabies yet in chains.”

Jenny thought of Lottie, in gold bracelets and red leather shoes. Lottie, who, at the wrong word, would be clapped in irons and hauled back to Beckles, stripped of her lace and ribbons and set to work digging weeds and watering cattle.

She could feel the features of her face set in a hard mask, echoing Nanny’s. “Whatever’s needful, I’ll do it.”

Nanny nodded. “We’ll have the island in arms by Christmas.”

But it wasn’t Christmas; it was nearly Easter by the time the groundwork had been laid. The papers buzzed with news of the registry bill and its rejection; planters sent petitions to Parliament and angry screeds to the Spectator in London and the Mercury in Bridgetown.

“You see this?” Nanny said. She read aloud from the Spectator: “‘The vulgar are influenced by names and titles.’ Oh, it’s the names that are the trouble, right enough. If I were a rose, I’d smell sweeter. ‘Instead of SLAVES, let the Negroes be called ASSISTANT-PLANTERS; and we shall not then hear such violent outcries against the slave trade by pious divines, tender-hearted poetesses, and short-sighted politicians.’ Assistant planters, is it? If they want to visit Simmons, I’ll show them who’s short-sighted. Let them spend a day being an assistant planter, and see how they like it.”

Slowly, quietly, their network spread. A slave named Bussa, at Bayleys, took charge of finding arms. Two freedmen, Cain Davis and John Richard Sarjeant, joined the cause. Davis was free, but his children were still slaves. With no master to answer to, he was able to circulate through the fields, conveying the intelligence that the queen was to free them but the assembly had denied them, and if they wanted their freedom they must fight for it.

The leaders of the conspiracy were to meet at the River Plantation for a dance on Good Friday to finalize the details.

“A dance at the River?” Mary Anne eyed Jenny askance in the dressing table mirror.

“Do you need me tonight?” Jenny asked, trying to look as if it didn’t really matter. They would go ahead without her, she knew, but it would look bad. And she wanted this. She wanted a hand in it; she wanted to bring it about herself, for herself, for Lottie, for Charles.

“Don’t I always need you?” said Mary Anne absently, rooting through her jewel box. She looked up. “Is it a man?”

“A man?” Jenny didn’t have to feign her surprise.

“I wasn’t born yesterday, you know,” said Mary Anne. “You’re constantly at Simmons. Yes, yes, I know you like exchanging recipes with Nanny Grigg, but if you haven’t learned to get claret stains from silk by now, you never will.”

“There might be,” Jenny said slowly. Better for Mary Anne to think her infatuated than seditious. “He’s a driver, at Bayleys, but he often calls at Simmons.”

Mary Anne closed her jewel box with a snap and looked up at Jenny in the mirror. “If you must go courting, let me find you someone at Beckles. Johnny Cooper, perhaps. He has a good leg.”

Jenny found herself smiling despite herself. “Queenie would have something to say about that.”

Mary Anne didn’t return her smile. “It’s not her place to say anything,” she said smartly. “Would you like to be married? I could arrange it, if you liked. You could have a house in the yard. A baby.”

A baby to add to the rolls at Beckles. Increase of slaves, one infant, out of Jenny. Value sixty dollars. “I haven’t forgot my last baby.”

Mary Anne turned in her seat, and her hand rested briefly on Jenny’s. “Babies die,” she said matter-of-factly. It was, Jenny knew, her idea of comfort. “My mother lost three before she had me. It’s sad, but there it is. You can’t mourn the rest of your life. It isn’t healthy.”

Would she be saying the same if it were Master Neddy? “No, Miss Mary,” said Jenny. “About the dance . . .”

“Go. I can’t have you looking like death.”

“Thank you, Miss Mary.” Jenny began to walk away, not going too fast, not wanting to look like she was hurrying.

“Wait.” Jenny stopped at the door. Her mistress was looking at her speculatively. “If you tell me who it is, I’ll see about buying him. It’s little enough to keep you happy. If he’s a good worker.”