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“Ah, my man has seen us come in and sent out the carriage,” Maurice said as he took his sister and Heather in hand.
“Maurice!” Heather objected. “Do you see that? They are selling people. We must do something. We must put a stop to it. Maurice, this is wrong. It is indecent and certainly not Christian. You—we must do something.”
She was stunned by what she saw, but Maurice seemed to ignore her as he ushered her and Louise into his curricle with the Brabant crest emblazoned on its doors.
“Jem, my dear Jem,” Maurice greeted the driver warmly and introduced the females to him, “Jem Starkes, my sister, Louise, and our good friend, Miss Heather Martin.”
The Englishman was young and nodded shyly as he held the door open for them and said, “It is good to have you home again, my lord.”
Heather sat beside Maurice, Louise sat across from them and spread her skirts.
Louise had been watching the sale of black men and women and turned to her brother, an accusation in her tone. “Heather is quite correct, mon frère. This situation is unacceptable. Maurice. I never thought you of all people would turn a cheek to such practices. Slaves. They are selling slaves in the market. Non. Can it be you approve?”
Heather waited for the answer, glad that his sister had taken up her cause.
“It is not what you think,” he said softly. “Nothing is ever just what it seems.”
“What is it then?” Louise interjected. “Slavery is not what I can ever approve of.”
Heather gasped. “Oh no, never say you are a slave owner?”
“I am not a slave master as are the other plantation owners. I bought my people, oui, but I do not treat them as slaves. I had no choice, as here in Barbados it is a way of life that one cannot fight. I would not have been allowed to farm my plantation had I put up an argument against slavery. So, instead, I don’t take as much profit and I pay my workers small amounts…nothing that the other plantation owners would notice. I allow them to be married, and argue this with the leading ministers who are beginning to agree with me. I even allow them and their children some schooling. More than that, I cannot do in this environment and still run a plantation here.”
“You must try and make the other owners see they are wrong—that slavery is indecent. You must,” Heather cried out.
Maurice hung his head. “I have tried, and I do believe some of the better plantation owners are beginning to agree, but financing a plantation always wins out, and slavery goes on and on. I am but one man, and at the moment, the political climate would not allow me to win this argument. If I continue to balk the system, the council would revoke my permit, and it would be the end of my plantation. What then of the people who work for me? Non, I do the best I can.”
Heather sat back and silently contemplated what he had said. He was right. One man alone could not win. How then to evoke change? With a movement? With women who felt the same as she and Louise? With Christian ministers who might sympathize with this point of view? If she lived here, she would work to abolish slavery, yes, she would.
But you have decided to return to England, she told herself. She would leave Louise to take up the cause, that is what she would do.
She took to watching the passing scenery as her mind mapped out a way to begin the process to abolish slavery. She was not uninformed. She knew that many of the plantations in the Indies used slaves to work their crops.
In the past, it was only a story. It was words that she had heard, but now, now up close, she was utterly dismayed. It wouldn’t be easy for a woman to effect change. As it happened, women did not have any rights. What could she do but organize the good wives to plead their case with the men in their families? Yes, but Maurice wasn’t family? She had no right to criticize his way of life. She went back to concentrating on the scenery, the wide fields covered in sugar cane, not yet fully grown. The land seemed browner, flatter than she had imagined it would be.
As though reading her mind, Maurice said, “Our rainfall occurs from June to November, petite, and even then, we are not drowned with rain as are our neighboring isles. The land is low, and much of it was deforested over one hundred years ago by your own countrymen.” He reached over to Jem driving the horses forward and touched his shoulder. “Isn’t that right, Jem?”
“Aye,” Jem answered happily. “What trees there were have long been felled to make way for our main crop…the sugar.”
“But what a waste…?” Heather cried.
“No, ma’am,” Jem answered. “No waste. We shipped tons of Barbados cedar, fustic, and logwood to England.” He stopped himself and shyly returned his attention to the horses and the road.
“Go on, Jem,” Maurice encouraged.
“‘Scuse…I did not want to overstep,” he answered.
“Nonsense. Tell my ladies more,” Maurice scoffed.
“If you look there, my lord…ladies,” the lad pointed to a lowland field sprouting sugar cane no more than two feet high, “I think, my lord, you will be pleased.”
“Mon dieu, Jem. You did it,” Maurice said with some excitement, evidently well pleased.
“It was as hard as I expected, but, I think, worth the sweat.” Jem turned and grinned at the comte. “Getting rid of some of those old stumps took a bit of time, but everyone pitched in and we got it done.”
Heather listened quietly to their continued exchange. Everything about Maurice convinced her that he was a good man. She had known that from the start, and thought his only fault was pride. She realized she was wrong. Yes, he was proud of his heritage, of his capabilities, of the home he had built here on the island, and it must have hurt him to beg her to be his wife, and then be rejected, yet he took it with grace and composure.
Was she a fool? Any other woman in her predicament would have jumped at the chance. What did the future offer her child? If she managed to make it home safely, and before the baby was born, what would they face?
