Apalachee

CHAPTER TWENTY

chapter twenty The Jamaica sky was bright blue, the air hot and humid as the coach carrying Isaac Bull rolled out of Kingston into the green countryside. Perspiration trickled down his skin beneath his clothes, soaking into his linen shirt to the very ruffles that hung limply from the wide sleeves of his fullskirted coat. He took off the coat, folded it, and laid it on the seat beside him. Even his cravat, stylishly twisted with its ends stuck through a buttonhole of his embroidered waistcoat, felt damp and heavy. He shed the waistcoat and then fumbled through the pockets of his folded coat and found a lace handkerchief and wiped his face. His periwig was like a stifling blanket. It would take time to become accustomed to this new climate. There was never a May so hot as this in England. Isaac settled back and closed his eyes, exhausted from his long sea journey . He had expected to spend this night in Kingston waiting for his cousin to receive notification of his arrival and send a coach for him. But he had barely set foot on land when a helpful stranger, impressed at meeting a kinsman of Theophilus Swade, offered his own coach and driver to take him straightway to Swade Hall. The man had even sent a messenger ahead by fast horse to alert Swade of his arrival. Isaac might be far from the land of his birth, but at least here in this place he would have the connections he needed to reestablish his position in life. Though who could ever have imagined that the time would come when a kinsman by marriage would have greater regard for his interests than did the brother of his own blood. Isaac’s thoughts grew dim, and he slept in the heavy heat. When he awoke again, daylight was fading and the air had cooled a little. Looking out the window of the coach, he saw green fields of cane turning golden in the Jamaican twilight. Mountains loomed ahead like a towering wall, their slopes dark green with the lushness of forest. The high peaks, visible only when Isaac craned his neck almost out of the window, were fading from blue to purple. The cooler air was a welcome relief. Sitting on the edge of his seat, Isaac gave his attention to the world outside and tried to absorb all that was new to him. He especially watched the slaves in the fields, men and women naked to the waist, their faces lost in the fading light so that all he saw was their bodies, starkly black against the golden cane, and the slicing of their long knives, a continuous motion, never pausing, like some bizarre machine. In all his life until this day, Isaac Bull had seen perhaps five slaves, liveried black men in exotic turbans ornamenting wealthy drawing rooms in London. He had never seen anything like this slavery in Jamaica and he studied it closely. As the coach rounded a curve in the road, the coachman called out to him that Swade Hall lay ahead. Then his cousin’s estate came into view, and Isaac smiled slightly and sat back, shaking his head at the size of the house. Its corner towers made it look like a castle. Stretching between the towers were arched balconies atop arched terraces, like double-tiered aqueducts. Here was what a modest investment and good management could earn in the Indies. A man could right his fortune in a place like this and reclaim lost advantages. The coach pulled up in front of Swade Hall, and Theophilus Swade came out to meet it, his paunch and his periwig bouncing with his buoyant stride as he called out a welcome to Isaac and threw open the door of the coach to draw him into his rummy embrace. ‘‘Look at you, you’re a full-grown man,’’ laughed Swade, holding Isaac by his shoulders and pushing him out to arms length. ‘‘But then, every boy who lives long enough turns into one.’’ Isaac laughed. This was the Swade he remembered, the jocular, affectionate husband of his mother’s favorite cousin. ‘‘I’d hoped you’d not forgotten me,’’ he said. ‘‘Forgotten you?’’ said Swade, turning to walk to the house with his arm about Isaac’s shoulder. ‘‘I only wish Anne were alive to see you. I can hear her now going on about Molly’s younger boy. She never thought...