Like Chaff in the Wind (The Graham Saga) Page 10

  No, Alex agreed, but where would she possibly find a buyer?

  “Talk to the captain,” Mrs Gordon said. “Or if you like, I can do it.”

  The only distraction from her constant worrying about Matthew was the unfolding soap opera starring Mrs Gordon. Alex hadn’t noticed before how attractive she was, dismissing her as being quite old, but now that two men’s eyes hung off Mrs Gordon, Alex began to see her in a different light. She had a strong face, thick grey hair that was always carefully brushed and braided – a few softening tendrils allowed to float free from under her cap – a plump mouth and then those bright eyes. Yes, her skin was lined, and when she laughed her eyes almost disappeared inside a pouch of wrinkles, but her complexion was rosy, she had all her teeth, and then of course she had her chest.

  “You’ve done something,” Alex said, tilting her head to one side. Mrs Gordon flushed and muttered something along the lines that she most certainly had not. “The neckline,” Alex grinned. “My, my, Mrs Gordon, you’re showing quite an expanse of skin.” Expanse was an exaggeration, but there was definitely more white skin visible, so much more that even Don Benito noticed, stopping on the way to the dinner table to look at Mrs Gordon.

  If there hadn’t been three feet of table between them, Mr Coulter would have fallen face first into that bosom, so eagerly did he lean towards it, and Captain Miles had to get up from the table on several occasions, always detouring round Mrs Gordon’s chair. The object of all this interest merely smiled and inquired if anyone wanted more pie.

  During daytime, Mrs Gordon distributed her attentions fairly between the two men. She mended Captain Miles’ shirts, took a daily walk to the little cemetery with Mr Coulter, listening to his rambling accounts of his wife.

  “He found her dead in the yard one afternoon. Her heart just gave out. And the poor man blames himself, because she wanted so badly to return home,” Mrs Gordon shared with Alex, patting the little headstone. She sighed and let her eyes sweep the little graveyard. “All these souls, buried so far from their homes.” Alex nodded, a pitching sensation inside of her. Matthew, she groaned, and she knew that he was tottering on the razor’s edge, hanging somewhere between life and death. She fell to her knees and prayed, to God that he might keep him safe, to Matthew that he must stay alive; for her as well as for himself.

  “Ah, lass,” Mrs Gordon sank down to kneel beside her. “He’s in God’s hands, and there he lies safe.”

  *

  Captain Miles spent most of his mornings overseeing the repairs on his ship, and after an extended dinner break he’d slip out, mumbling something very vague as to where he was going. One afternoon Alex followed him as he hurried off in the opposite direction of the port, making for a small building behind a stout wooden fence. He knocked on the gate and was let in by a man Alex recognised as Smith. From the fenced yard Alex could hear voices, high voices, and she understood that this was where Miles was lodging the women from his hold, safe from the roving eyes and hands of the local males.

  She was still standing there when he came out again, this time with two of the younger girls in tow. The three of them walked back in the direction of the town, with Alex tagging after them. By the church a cart was waiting, and the two girls were helped up to sit in the back. One of them was crying, her hands clutched around her bundle. There was a low voiced discussion between Captain Miles and the man holding the reins, a pouch flew through the air, and the mules were clucked into walk.

  “Bond servants or wives?” Alex asked Captain Miles, startling him so much he nearly dropped the pouch.

  “Bond servants.” He frowned at the criticism in her voice. “They chose themselves.”

  “To go to Virginia, not to bloody Barbados.”

  “Not all that different.” And he had asked the girls, he told her, selecting only the ones who said they would gladly stay here instead of risking yet another leg at sea.

  “It must cost you a fortune to keep them in food over the winter.”

  “Aye.” The women were bringing in some money themselves, he explained, doing laundry and the odd bit of sewing, but that barely covered the cost of food.

  “And why do you keep them locked up?”

  “I’m not keeping them locked up, I’m keeping them locked in. I won’t have them stolen away at night.” He threw Alex a look. “You should be careful, Mrs Graham. You’re being unnecessarily bold in following me like you did today.”

  “Right; so someone would try and rob me away.”

  “As I said; there are different kinds of slaves. And some of them are women who are kept locked up out of sight.” If his intent was to scare her, he succeeded; Alex stopped walking out alone.

  Chapter 13

  After the incident with the sled, Matthew retreated even further into himself. He rarely spoke, kept his eyes to the ground, and concentrated on keeping the gasping flame of life inside of him alive.

  It had been Kate who had snuck back to help him once dark had fallen, Kate who had steadied him all the way to the shed after first having washed his lacerated back. He had scarcely noticed, all of his concentration required to set one foot before the other, but he had managed to whisper a weak ‘thank you’ when she left.

  For the days immediately after his beating he had not been able to move, but once he was back on his feet, he was singled out for the hardest labour, drenching him in sweat during the day and making him shake with chills in the early evenings. Not once did he complain, he just plodded, a witless beast that did as he was told, when he was told.

  September passed into October, and with a heavy heart Matthew closed the door of hope on Alex coming this year, because with winter just around the corner there were no ships.

  “You still think your wife will come for you?” Elijah asked Matthew in an undertone as they hoed their way down the harvested fields.

  “Aye, she’ll come.” And I must keep myself alive till then, he told himself. He ate everything that was set before him, and still his stomach yawned open with hunger. Occasionally he stole; a raw turnip, some carrots from the kitchen garden, the odd egg, and once a fragrant pie left to cool outside the kitchen window. He gulped it, and was immediately sick, his stomach repelling such richness after months on meagre, insufficient rations.

  *

  Halfway through October he fell sick. Not even Jones considered him fit for work, studying him with impassiveness.

  “Take him over to the cook house,” he instructed Elijah. “Put him in the backroom there. I’ll have one of the women come and tend to him.”

  It was blissful to lie in a room where one wall was constantly warm, and Matthew huddled as close as possible to the warm stone, wrapping his long thin arms tight around himself. He might have the ague, but he didn’t really know. His head felt about to burst, horrible twisting headaches that bloomed behind his frontal lobes and crept down to paralyse his neck and spine. Any movement made black spots dance before his eyes, and he was so weak he couldn’t stand to piss, someone had to help him even with that.

  Glimmers of consciousness dropped through his head, and he saw that he was naked and that someone had covered him with an extra blanket. Another glimmer, and there were soft hands on him, a supporting grip around his shoulders as someone helped him to drink.

  He floated; high above himself he soared, and he flew all the way back home, hanging unseen over woods that flared with autumn colours, over his meadows and his house. He saw Joan kiss the boy in her lap, and he floated down to place his own soft kiss on curling hair, wishing that he be allowed to hold his son at least once more before he died.

  He drifted even further, drawn to her, his heart, his wife. She was crying in her bed and he knew it was for him, so he tried to whisper words of comfort in her pretty, slightly pointed, ears. All this drifting wearied him. With relief he dropped back into himself and there was yet another glimmer, and now he recognised the eyes and the hair.

  “Kate,” he said, and the angel smiled and nodded.
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  He shook with fever and there was another body close to him, as naked as he was, and he heard someone tell him she was here, and that she’d hold him tight throughout the night. Matthew Graham smiled and thought that maybe he would live after all.

  He didn’t know how it all came about. He woke to a moment of lucidness and found her beside him on his pallet, and he was filled with the urge to prove that he still could, that deep inside there lived a man. She turned towards him and he was safe in her arms. He moved slowly inside her, one part of him here, the other part on a Scottish hillside with a strange lass named Alex smiling up at him. He drifted away, and for the first time in a week he slept, a heavy dreamless sleep.

  “What happened?” Matthew asked Kate a day or so later. He was sitting up in bed, feeding himself.

  “What happened when?” She smiled and smoothed a long strand of hair away from his face. He recoiled, forcing her to drop her hand.

  “Did we…” Matthew frowned. He was sure they had, but he couldn’t recall when or how.

  “Several times,” Kate said.

  Matthew felt sick with shame.

  “It’s alright, I know you’re a married man. You’ve called her name so often these last few days.” She sighed and heaved herself back on her heels before standing up. “You still think she’s coming?”

  Matthew nodded.

  Kate gave him a sad little smile. “I thought my sweetheart would come as well. But it’s been three years now…” She gave Matthew a frank look from nutmeg brown eyes, and shook her hair free off its faded linen cap before she deftly re-braided it and covered herself. “What if they don’t? What if you and I spend what little time we have left to us hoping they will come, and then they never do?”

  The thought chilled Matthew to the bone. “She will, I know it here.” He clapped himself on his chest.

  “And if she does, will she mind? Will she resent that you took what comfort you could?”

  He smiled faintly; knowing Alex she’d claw his eyes out – or perhaps not, given the circumstances.

  “I don’t know.” He closed his eyes and let himself fall back into sleep.

  In the middle of the night she came to him, and he was half asleep and disorientated, but not enough not to know that this was Kate, not Alex. And he didn’t care, he held her to him, silencing the humming voice of conscience by saying he was ill, and he needed this. Urgent hands on his skin, a warm and welcoming place to burrow himself into, a short escape from an existence he didn’t want, a life he needed so desperately to forget. Kate was here, and Alex wasn’t, and he was angry with her for that; she should have come by now, somehow she should have found him and saved him. But Kate was here… So gentle, with hair that smelled of sun, and a dark surprised laugh when he took her yet again. He fell asleep on top of her, barely noticing when she slipped out from underneath him. But he woke when she kissed his nape, murmuring a goodnight before she tiptoed out into the dark.

  Next time Matthew woke, Jones was standing beside him, scrutinising him.

  “On the mend?” He used a foot to nudge Matthew into sitting and then standing. Matthew fell as the blood rushed from his head, landing on hands and knees.

  “Two more days,” Jones said, “then I expect you out in the yard.”

  Matthew gritted his teeth to keep the bile washing through his mouth from splattering all over the well-polished boots in front of his nose.

  Kate found him shivering all over and crawled down to him in an attempt to warm him.

  “What happened?” she asked, her voice loaded with tenderness.

  “Jones, he expects me back at work in two days.” He had no words to describe the fear that flowed through him as he contemplated staggering out to work. Jones would not spare him, nor make allowances for his weakened state, and Matthew doubted he would make it to Christmas if he was put to work in the same way again.

  “I don’t want to die, I want to live.” He twisted to see Kate’s face. “I have to, I have to be alive when she comes.”

  Kate just nodded, dark eyes growing even darker. Something flitted over her face, and Matthew was uncertain as to why she looked so disgruntled. And then he understood, and however mean spirited it made him, he was flattered by her jealousy.

  “I’ll keep you alive.” She hugged him close, he let her. Her hands danced over him, they touched and held and guided him, and he drowned himself in her, in this welcoming woman with dark eyes and hair the colour of ripening rye.

  *

  Two days later, Matthew stood as unsteadily as a new-born foal and listened as Jones distributed the tasks. To his great relief he was not sent out to the fields, but down to the stables, and he almost fell to his knees to thank Jones. It was hard work anyway for a man who should still have been in his bed, and by noon he was uncomfortably cold as the wind that whistled through the open doors cooled his sweating skin. Jones stood and watched through hooded eyes, making sure Matthew knew that every shovelful of horse manure, every barrow load was counted.

  “Where are you going?” he asked Matthew once the day was done. Matthew stopped mid step to the cook house.

  “To bed,” he replied, very confused.

  “Not there.” Jones used his riding crop to indicate Matthew’s old living quarters. “You go back there.” Matthew turned and walked in the direction he was pointed. He couldn’t help it; his head swivelled to where Kate was standing, and for an instant their eyes met.

  For three days, Matthew managed to remain on his feet before collapsing in a new bout of fever and Jones reluctantly agreed to have him moved back to the cook house.

  Once again there were nights when Matthew swam in and out of consciousness, nights with Kate pressing herself very close as she warmed him and held him. And Matthew responded to her, using hands and all of himself to give her something back. She was lithe and soft, a welcoming embrace that rocked him and soothed him, that roused him until he clenched his buttocks with need. Her long fair hair, so soft against his skin, her hands, her thighs – her every part he explored, and she was willing and eager under him.

  Occasionally, he wondered if perhaps somewhere Alex was doing the same, drowning her sorrows with someone else, but just thinking that made him set his teeth. She was his, goddamn it, and she wasn’t allowed… He, after all, was a man, with stronger urges and hotter needs.

  The hypocrisy didn’t escape him, and one morning Matthew turned to face Kate. There were some things he hadn’t done with her; he had never spooned himself around her like he used to do with Alex, and he had never held her hand, fingers braided together like he always did with Alex.

  “I can’t do this anymore.”

  Kate’s eyes darkened with hurt. “Why not?”

  “I can’t. I expect Alex to remain faithful to me, so how can I not do the same?”

  “But it’s different, you’re a man. You need this, all men do.” Her hand strayed down his belly, but he arrested it and shook his head.

  “Nay, Kate. This has to stop. I’m a married man, and I have vows to keep.” He let his hand rest on her cheek. “You saved my life. You nursed me and gave me back myself when I was sure I would die. I owe you for that, and will always be grateful. But I don’t love you, lass. In my heart Alex sits alone, and I can’t do this anymore; not to you or to her.” He stood with his back to her and dressed, aware all the while of her eyes on him, on his legs, his bare buttocks. He tightened the piece of rope he used instead of a belt and crouched down beside her.

  “Will you still be my friend?” he asked, stroking her hair. She nodded, her eyes shiny with tears. “That makes me glad, and I couldn’t ask for a better one.” He tweaked her cheek and stood up. “I have to go.”

  Kate smiled unsteadily and gave him a slight wave.

  “Will I be seeing you tonight?” he asked as he stood at the door.

  “Of course,” she said. “I’ll be here; where else?”

  *

  It was strange how one single point of human contact
could make such a difference, Matthew mused some days later. Every night there were some moments of conversation with Kate, a quick sharing of the events of the day, and suddenly he was no longer an invisible slave, he was a man again. And there were evenings when he couldn’t help himself, pulling her close, once almost tumbling her behind the cook house, but at the last moment he’d regain his sanity and back off, leaving both of them panting with stoked desire.

  It was a slow burning fuse to a keg of gunpowder, and inevitably one night it exploded and afterwards he drowned in shame, apologising repeatedly and promising it would never happen again. Kate just smiled.

  Kate glowed and bloomed, she raised her hand as if by chance to her hair, she smoothed aprons and skirts to lie close to the shape of her body, and all the while her eyes would dart to where Matthew was sitting. He wasn’t sure what he felt for her; gratitude, aye, lust, undoubtedly, but at times there were more complex emotions involved as well, and Matthew felt his face heat with shame. Here he was professing that his beloved wife, his Alex, would come for him, and on the sly he was swiving another. It didn’t help when he realised Jones was an amused spectator, intelligent eyes flying from Matthew to Kate – eyes that sharpened with interest when they studied Kate.

  After one hasty coupling behind one of the curing barns, Matthew decided that this had to end – he was behaving despicably. However, matters were taken out of his hands, and one day Kate was no longer at the cook house, replaced by a surly woman who slammed the plates down before the men. When he asked, he received blank stares and shrugs; no one seemed to know where she had gone, and it worried him that something might have happened to her. Whenever he could, he gravitated towards the big house, but all through the last weeks of the year he saw her not once.

  “She may have been sold,” Elijah said.

  Matthew hadn’t even considered that option and looked at him, aghast.

  “Sold to where?”

  Elijah had no idea.

  The day before Christmas he saw her again and he wished he never had. He’d been called for, Jones needed a scribe, and Matthew was crossing in the direction of the plantation offices when he saw the door to Jones’ lodgings swing open. He increased his pace, not wanting to incense the overseer by being late, and just as he passed the open door, he saw Kate, half-dressed in the arms of Jones. Over her disarrayed hair, the overseer met Matthew’s eyes, and Jones’ big hand slid down to rest on Kate’s buttocks and squeeze. Jones smiled. Matthew looked away.