Bertrice Small - Deceived

"But you will be almost eighteen then," Oralia objected weakly.

Aurora laughed. "Oh, Mama, I'm certain there will be someone willing to overlook my vast age in exchange for my dowry."

"You are quite impossible," Oralia said. "I wonder if you will ever find a man to put up with you." But she smiled as she spoke.

"I'd rather be with you here on St. Timothy" came the reply.

"Does Aurora's plan suit you, George?" Oralia asked her son.

"Aye, it does," he agreed.

"Then it is settled," Aurora said, and they all agreed it was.

The duke's valet, Browne, awakened him quite early, as his master had requested he do. While the sky was light, the sun was not yet up. The air was warm and quite still for a change. He bathed and dressed quickly, for he was to ride with George and Aurora before the sun became too hot for his inspection. By ten o'clock in the morning George told him the heat would be too much for him, as he was unused to it.

Browne handed him a deep saucer. "A bit of tea, sir. The cook was kind enough to make it up. The family stock is really quite palatable. We may not be in civilization, but it ain't bad here but for the heat. I hardly closed my eyes all night."

"You'll be quite used to it by the time we leave, Browne," Valerian Hawkesworth said with a smile. He drank the fragrant tea, setting the saucer down on a small table when he had emptied it.

"Master George sent up this hat for you to wear, sir." Browne handed the duke the broad-brimmed straw head covering, remarking, "It surely ain't fashionable, is it, my lord?"

Clapping the hat on his dark head, the duke picked up his riding crop and left his bedroom. In the airy downstairs foyer he found his two companions waiting. He was a bit surprised to see that Miss Spencer-Kimberly was wearing breeches. "You do not ride sidesaddle?" he said.

"Of course not," she said. "The terrain is rough on the island. It is not some tame London park, your grace. Do all English ladies of fashion ride seated, their leg thrown awkwardly over their saddle's pommel? It is an extremely uncomfortable way to ride. I firmly believe that is why Cally never took to a horse. She is of a delicate nature, and felt unsafe seated so unnaturally. Still, I could never get her to ride astride. She thought it not feminine." The look she gave him challenged him to agree with her stepsister.

"I believe," Valerian Hawkesworth said, neatly sidestepping the issue, "that as we are to be related by marriage, Miss Spencer-Kimberly, that you should call me something other than your grace. I shall call you Aurora, and you may call me Valerian."

"Oh, may I?" Aurora said, her eyes wide, her voice unnaturally sweet. She fluttered her lashes at him.

"Sister, behave yourself!" George scolded her. "Valerian isn't used to your sharp tongue and teasing ways." He grinned at the duke. "She's quite a minx, I fear. Papa never quite knew what to do with her. He doted on both the girls, and both are spoiled."

"I think I know what I should have done with her," the duke said, his dark blue eyes hard. "I suspect Aurora has never felt a hard hand on her bottom. It reforms the worst jades."

George saw the fire in her eyes and said quickly, "We must be off. The sun will be up before we know it! Come along now."

"I know nothing about sugar except that it is sweet," Valerian said to his companions. "Tell me about it as we ride."

"It's a never-ending round-robin of labor," George said. "We have four large fields on this side of the island, and four on the other side, which once belonged to the Meredith family. We rotate the fields. This year we are harvesting on this side of the island, and the other side is fallow, but being constantly fertilized, for cane takes a great deal of nourishment from the soil. We harvest every eighteen months. In a year, before the one side is ready for harvesting, we replant on the other side. The fallow fields need to be weeded in the between times. During the rainy season, usually between May and December, we plant. In the dry season, usually from January to May, we harvest our crop. We are never idle."

"How is cane planted?" the duke asked.

"We propagate, using cuttings from the tops of mature plants. The slaves dig holes and fertilize. Our father's father planted in long trenches, but now everyone holes because it prevents the soil from eroding and conserves moisture. Once the cane is planted, it is a constant round of fertilizing and weeding until the cane is cut."

"How many slaves do you have?"

George thought a moment, and then he said sheepishly, "I don't know. Enough to do the work, of course."

"How many new slaves are required to be bought each year? I have been told that the mortality rate on sugar plantations is extraordinarily high due to the hard work and harsh conditions," the duke remarked. As they approached the fields, he could already see black men and women at work, cutting and stacking the cane.

"The mortality rate on St. Timothy is relatively low but for old age and an occasional accident." Aurora spoke up now. "Papa hated slavery. Had he been able to run the plantation without slaves, he would have done so, but he realized it was not realistic. He did the next best thing. He gave them decent housing and food. We have trained one of their own to doctor them. Field slaves work hard, but our slaves are not overworked, and Sunday is a day of rest for everyone on St. Timothy, free, bond, and slave alike. Consequently, our slave women bear live children who grow up to work in the fields next to their fathers. I cannot remember the last time a slave was bought. It is not like that on neighboring islands and plantations. Under English law the slaves have absolutely no rights at all. A master can kill a slave for no cause and still be within his rights. It's horrible! Those poor blacks are worked around the clock until they die, and their owners care not. The slavers call regularly from Africa, bringing new consignments of unfortunate souls to be used, and then disposed of without thought. It is outrageous! But we do not do that here on St. Timothy."

She spoke with such passion that she surprised him. He had thought her merely sharp-tongued and spoiled, but Aurora, it would seem, had a conscience. As he did not like slavery either, it pleased him.

"Actually, treating our people humanely works to our advantage," George told the duke. "They are used to working together, have made themselves into several field crews, and for their own amusement compete against one another. When the harvest is in, we reward them all, the lion's share going to the most productive crew. It's certainly better than working them to death and then having to teach and break in new men. I have four black foremen, a and each of them has trained an assistant. And my clerks are all black men. And another advantage to our way is that since at least three generations of our slaves have been born on St. Timothy, there is no incentive to rebel, and there is no longing for Africa, from whence their ancestors came. St. Timothy is our home, all of us, black and white."

"How many hours a day do your field slaves labor?" Valerian asked George as they stopped a moment to look over a field that was already half cleared.

"We are in the fields by six o'clock in the morning, and toil until noon when the sun is so vicious. They return to the fields about two o'clock, and stay until sunset."

"Is there much malingering?"

George shook his head. "When a field hand goes to the doctor, it is because they are genuinely injured or ill. These are honest people, and their families would not allow them to feign illness."

"Do many run away?"

"Where would they go?" Aurora said. "British law says a slave has absolutely no rights. If a black cannot show papers of manumission, it is assumed they are runaways. They are jailed until their owners can be found, and if they are not, they are resold. No one has run from St. Timothy in my memory, for they are safer here, and better treated than anywhere else in the colonies."

They rode into the fields toward a group of centrally located buildings. The field hands greeted them as they passed them by.

"These buildings house the cane mill as well as the boiling and refining houses," George explained. "The cane is cut as close to the ground as possible, the leaves stripped, and then the cane is cut into three- to four-foot lengths, bundled up, and brought to the mill. Within the mill the slaves crush the cane to extract its juices. We then boil the juice, clarify it, and it crystallizes into sugar. We take a little of the molasses, which is what is left after we clarify the cane, and make our rum with it. It's a long, tedious, hot process. Only the strongest men can work here."

"You make enough rum only for your personal use?"

George nodded.

"Would it be possible to make more rum?" Valerian asked.

"I always wanted to do that!" George said enthusiastically. "There is a good market for rum outside the islands. We would need to build a facility to bottle it. Papa never wanted to do it, but I think we need to diversify, and build up our resources. If we lost a crop to a hurricane, we would have the means to plant again, and to survive. Papa said we would have to borrow to build, and he wanted no part of the island endangered by moneylenders."

"Do you have enough slaves to start such a process?" the older man queried the younger. "Or would it be necessary to buy new slaves?"