Page 56 of The Summer Country

“When I was five years old, Miss Mary Anne’s father died.” Jenny took a deep breath, striving to keep her narrative simple. “The colonel sold his holdings in Jamaica and came here, to Beckles, to manage the plantation for his sister. I believe—I believe the colonel’s properties were heavily mortgaged. The luck had run against him.”

“He plays deep, I understand.”

“You know?”

“One hears. It isn’t considered a demerit in a gentleman, any more than drinking deep.”

“But you don’t.”

“No. I don’t. Whether that makes me virtuous or merely dull, I can’t tell you. But I’ve never had much sympathy for rakehells. It’s shameful that we call manly in the wealthy what we would account beastly in the poor.” He checked himself. “But you didn’t summon me to hear a homily. So the colonel sought to recoup his fortunes at his sister’s expense?”

Jenny nodded. “Yes, but nothing so clumsy. My fath—the colonel made a pet of Miss Mary Anne. He lavished her with gifts. He bought her gold bracelets and French dolls and—and me.”

He had dressed Jenny to match the doll, in cambric and lawn, with a gold necklace like a chain about her neck, her hair scraped back and hidden beneath a lace-edged cap.

This is your maid Jenny. I brought her from Jamaica especially for you. She’s yours now. I’ve deeded her to you.

You can do with her what you like.

She could remember the day the letter came from Barbados; how her father had come for her in the quarters, telling her that she was his best girl, his very favorite girl, and she was to accompany him on a grand adventure, and if she was very good, there would be a new dress in it for her. A new dress and gold locket.

It wasn’t until they were leaving Jamaica that the reality of it had hit her, that they were leaving her mother behind and her little brother. Couldn’t they come too? she’d begged her father.

And for what? He’d sold them, her father told her, indifferent.

When she’d asked where, he’d told her to mind her manners or he’d do the same to her, sell her somewhere they’d throw her into a black pit of a mine to grub for gold. Or would she prefer the fields? he’d inquired with mock civility. He could set her to hoeing sugar, out in the fields until her skin burned black and her back was bent and she looked an old crone at eighteen. There’d be no fine dresses for her, oh no, and no gold lockets either. She was nothing—except insomuch as he chose to distinguish her with his regard, and she should be bloody grateful he had.

She had cried that night into the sleeve of her new dress, bought so dear, too dear, feeling, somehow, obscurely guilty, as though she were responsible for the loss of her mother and half brother.

The locket had been taken from her upon arrival, gifted to Mary Anne. Jenny’s neck had been nothing more than the case for the carrying, a method of display, like a dog with a message in its mouth. More fool she, to have been tempted and believed, if only for a moment, that such things might be for her.

She still dreamed of her mother sometimes, of the feeling of arms around her, a hand stroking her forehead, a soft voice singing her a lullaby. She dreamed of her, and woke with tears on her cheeks, longing for something she barely remembered she’d had.

“Jenny?” said Mr. Davenant.

“Dust in my throat,” said Jenny huskily, grateful for the darkness. “I was to stay beside Miss Mary Anne in all things, to brush her hair and listen to her confidences and do her lessons. But what I didn’t realize was that my father—the colonel—had other tasks in mind.”

Mr. Davenant leaned forward intently. “Does he acknowledge himself your father?”

“Yes. When he wants something of me, he reminds me of the blood that binds us. Other times . . .” She wouldn’t think of that now. Only the story she had to tell. “Miss Mary Anne adored her uncle. She was his darling. But the year she turned twelve, accidents began happening. Little things at first. The horse she was riding bolted. There was glass in her stew. A kitchen maid confessed to having dropped the glass and was sold as punishment.”

Mr. Davenant lifted his head, looking at her sharply. “You said ‘at first.’ What happened after?”

“The colonel began to be away a great deal, for business. At least, that was what he said. Whenever he was away, something would happen. Not every time, but often enough. There was a spider in her bed. Sarah Bess got bitten changing the linen.”

“What happened to her?”

“She died.” Jenny’s throat tightened at the memory. Sarah Bess’s arm had swollen and festered, and nothing they had done, no poultice they put on it, did any good. She had died shivering and crying out, so hideously swollen that not even her closest family could bear to be near her. “The colonel—he joked that Miss Mary Anne must have a guardian angel looking after her.”

Mr. Davenant shifted, leaning back, away from her. She couldn’t see his face for the shadows, couldn’t tell whether he believed her or not. “I see.”

“We didn’t see, not then. We didn’t even see when the colonel started asking after her health. Miss Mary Anne had headaches, from the time she was a girl. They came on during the rains. He made it sound like—oh, like there was something wrong with her mind. But you know that already.”

“Yes.”

“It’s not true, any of it,” Jenny said fiercely. “If she’s become hard, it’s since then, because she’s had to be. Miss Mary Anne, she never got on with the other ladies, but all the boys used to call—Will Alleyne and Johnny Clarke and—”

“My brother,” finished Mr. Davenant for her.