THE FILE ON THE MAYFAIR WITCHES 1 page

PART III

Port-au-Prince
Saint-Domingue

Stefan,

Having sent you two brief missives from the ports at which we dropped anchor before our arrival, I now begin the bound journal of my travels, in which all of my entries shall be addressed to you.

If time allows, I shall copy my entries into letters and send them to you. If time does not allow, you shall receive from me the entire journal.

As I write this I am in most comfortable if not luxurious lodgings here in Port-au-Prince, and have spent two hours in walking about the colonial city, much dazzled with its fine houses, splendid public buildings, including a theater for the performance of Italian opera, and with its richly dressed planters and their wives, and the great plenitude of slaves.

No place equals Port-au-Prince in my travels for its exotic qualities, and I do not think that any city in Africa could offer so much to the eye.

For not only are there Negroes everywhere performing all tasks here, there is a multitude of foreigners engaged in all manner of trade. I have also discovered a large and prosperous “colored” population, composed entirely of the offspring of the planters and their African concubines, most of which have been freed by their white fathers, and have gone on to make a good living as musicians or craftsmen, shopkeepers and undoubtedly women of ill fame. The women of color I have seen are surpassingly beautiful. I cannot fault the men for choosing them as mistresses or evening companions. Many have golden skin and great liquid black eyes, and they are quite obviously aware of their charms. They dress with great ostentation, possessing many black slaves of their own.

This class is increasing daily I am told. And one cannot help but wonder what will be its fate as the years pass.

As for the slaves, they are imported by the thousands. I watched two ships unload their miserable cargo. The stench was past describing. It was horrible to see the conditions in which these poor human beings have been maintained. It is said that they are worked to death on the plantations for it is cheaper to import them than to keep them alive.

Harsh punishments are visited upon them for the smallest crimes. And the entire island lives in terror of uprisings, and the masters and mistresses of the great houses live in fear of being poisoned, for that is the slave’s weapon, or so I am told.

As for Charlotte and her husband, all know of them here, but nothing of Charlotte’s family in Europe. They have purchased one of the very largest and most prosperous plantations very close to Port-au-Prince, yet near to the sea. It is perhaps an hour’s carriage ride from the outskirts of the city, and borders great cliffs over the beaches; and is famed for its large house and other fine buildings, containing as it does an entire city with blacksmith and leatherworks and seamstresses and weavers and furniture makers all within its many arpents, which are planted with coffee and indigo, and yield a great fortune with each harvest.

This plantation has made rich men of three different owners in the short time that the French have been here, engaged in endless battles with the Spanish who inhabit the southeast portion of the island, and two of those owners quit it for Paris with their earnings, whilst the third died of a fever, and now it is in possession of the Fontenays, Antoine Pére and Antoine Fils, but all know that it is Charlotte who runs this plantation, and she is known far and wide as Madame Charlotte, and every merchant in this city pays court to her, and the local officials beg for her favor and for her money, of which she has a seemingly endless amount.

It is said that she has taken the management of the plantation into her own hands down to the smallest detail, that she rides the fields with her overseer—Stefan, no one is held in more contempt than these overseers—and that she knows the names of all her slaves. She spares nothing to provide them with food and with drink and so binds them to her with extraordinary loyalty, and she inspects their houses, and dotes upon their children, and looks into the souls of the accused before meting punishment. But her judgment upon those who are treacherous is already legendary, for there is no limit here to the power of these planters. They can flog their slaves to death if they wish.

As for the household retinue, they are sleek, overly dressed, privileged, and audacious to hear the local merchants tell it; five maids alone attend Charlotte. Some sixteen slaves keep the kitchen; and no one knows how many maintain the parlors, music rooms, and ballrooms of the house. The famous Reginald accompanies the master everywhere that he goes, if he goes anywhere at all. And having much free time, these slaves appear often in Port-au-Prince, with gold in their pockets, at which time all shop doors are open to them.

It is Charlotte who is almost never seen away from this great preserve, which is named Maye Faire by the way, and this is always written in English as I have spelled it above, and never in French.

The lady has given two splendid balls since her arrival, during which her husband took a chair to view the dancing, and even the old man was in attendance, weak as he was. The local gentry, who think of nothing but pleasure in this place for there is not much else to think of, adore her for these two entertainments and long for others, with the certainty that Charlotte will not disappoint them.

Her own Negro musicians provided the music; the wine flowed without cease; exotic native dishes were offered, as well as splendid plain-cooked fowl and beef. Charlotte herself danced with every gentleman present except of course her husband, who looked on approvingly. She herself put the wineglass to his lips.

As far as I am able to learn, this lady is called a witch only by her slaves and in awe and respect on account of her healing powers which have already gained a reputation but allow me to repeat—no one here knows anything of the occurrence in France. The name of Montcleve is never spoken by anyone. The history of this family is that it has come from Martinique.

It is said that Charlotte is most eager for all the planters to join together to create a sugar refinery here, so that they may reap higher profits from their crops. There is also much talk of driving our Dutch ships out of the Caribbean, as it seems we are still most prosperous, and the French and Spanish envy us. But no doubt you know more of that than I do, Stefan. I did see many Dutch ships in the port, and have no doubt that my return to Amsterdam will be a simple matter, as soon as my work here is done. As “a Dutch merchant” I am certainly treated with every courtesy.

This afternoon, when I grew tired of my meanderings, I came back here to my lodgings, where there are two slaves to undress me and bathe me if I should allow it, and I wrote to the lady and said that I should like to visit her, that I have a message for her which is of the utmost importance and comes from someone very dear to her, dearer perhaps than any other, who entrusted me with the proper address on the night before her death. I have come in person, I said, because my message was too important to be enclosed in a letter. I signed my full name.

Just before I began this entry, the reply arrived. I should come to Maye Faire this very evening. Indeed a carriage will be waiting for me at the entrance of the inn just before dark. I am to bring what provisions I need to stay the night, and the night after, as suits me. This I intend to do.

Stefan, I am most excited and not at all fearful. I know now, after having given it the greatest thought, that I go to see my own daughter. But how to make this known to her—whether to make it known—deeply troubles me.

I am strongly convinced that the tragedy of the Mayfair women will come to an end in this strange and fertile place, this rich and exotic land. It will come to an end here with this strong and clever young woman who has the world in her grasp, and surely has seen enough to know what her mother and her grandmother have suffered in their brief and tragic lives.

I go now to bathe and properly dress and prepare for this adventure. I do not mind at all that I shall see a great colonial plantation. Stefan, how shall I say what is in my heart? It is as if my life before this were a thing painted in pale colors; but now it takes on the vibrancy of Rembrandt van Rijn.

I feel the darkness near me; I feel the light shining. And more keenly I feel the contrast between the two.

Until I pick up this pen again,

Your servant,
Petyr Post Script: copied out and sent by letter to Stefan Franck this same evening. PVA

Port-au-Prince
Saint-Domingue

Dear Stefan,

It has been a full fortnight since I last wrote to you. How can I describe all that has taken place? I fear there is not time, my beloved friend—that my reprieve is short—yet I must write all of it. I must tell you what I have seen, what I have suffered, and what I have done.

It is late morning as I write this. I did sleep two hours upon my return to this inn. I have also eaten, but only that I may have a little strength. I hope and pray that the thing which has followed me here and tormented me on the long road from Maye Faire has at last returned to the witch who sent it after me, to drive me mad and destroy me, which I have not allowed it to do.

Stefan, if the fiend has not been defeated if the assault upon me is renewed with mortal vigor, I shall break off my narrative and give you the most important elements in simple sentences and close and seal this letter away in my iron box. I have already this very morning spoken to the innkeeper, that in the event of my demise he is to see that this box reaches Amsterdam. I have also spoken with a local agent here, cousin and friend to our agent in Marseille, and he is instructed to ask for the box.

Allow me to say, however, that on account of my appearance these two men believe me to be a madman. Only my gold commanded their attention, and they have been promised a rich reward upon delivery of the box and this letter into your hands.

Stefan, you were right in all your warnings and presentiments. I am sunk now deeper and deeper into this evil; I am beyond redemption. I should have come home to you. For the second time in my life I know the bitterness of regret.

I am now scarcely alive. My clothes are in tatters, my shoes broken and useless, my hands scratched by thorns. My head aches from my long night of running through darkness. But there is no time to rest further. I dare not leave by ship this very hour, for if the thing means to come after me, it will do it here or at sea. And it is better that it make its assault on land so that my iron box will not be lost.

I must use what time I have left to recount all that has taken place …

… It was early evening on the day I last wrote to you when I left this place. I had dressed in my finest clothes and went down to meet the coach at the appointed time. All that I had seen in the streets of Port-au-Prince had prepared me for a splendid equipage, yet this surpassed my imaginings, being an exquisite glass carriage with footman, coachmen, and two armed guards on horseback, all of them black Africans, in full livery with powdered wigs and satin clothes.

The journey into the hills was most pleasant, the sky overhead stacked with high white clouds and the hills themselves covered with beautiful woodland and fine colonial dwellings, many surrounded by flowers, and the banana trees which grow here in abundance.

I do not think you can imagine the lushness of this landscape, for the tenderest hot house blooms grow here in wild profusion all year round. Great clumps of banana trees rise up everywhere. And so do giant red flowers upon slender stems which grow as high as trees.

No less enchanting were the sudden glimpses of the distant blue sea. If there is any sea as blue as the Caribbean I have never beheld it, and when it is seen at twilight, it is most spectacular, but then you will hear more of this later, for I have had much time to contemplate the color of this sea.

On the road I also passed two smaller plantation houses, very pleasing structures, set back from the road behind great gardens. And also just beside a small river, a graveyard laid out with fine marble monuments inscribed with French names. As we went very slowly over the little bridge I had time to contemplate it, and think about those who had come to live and die in this savage land.

I speak of these things for two reasons, the important one to state now being that my senses were lulled by the beauties I saw on this journey, and by the heavy moist twilight, and by the long stretch of tended fields and the sudden spectacle of Charlotte’s plantation house before me, grander than any I had beheld, at the end of a paved road.

It is a giant colonial-style mansion, and by that I mean it has a great pitched roof with many dormers, and beneath there are porches stretching the length of it, supported by mud-brick columns which have been plastered over to look not unlike marble.

All of its many windows extend to the floor and are decorated with very green wooden shutters which can be bolted both against enemy attack and against storms.

A heady profusion of light came from the place as we approached. Never have I seen so many candles, not even at the French court. Lanterns were hung in the branches of the trees. As we drew nearer. I saw that every window was open to the porches both above and below, and I could see the chandeliers and the fine furnishings, and other bits of color gleaming in the dark.

So distracted was I by all this, that with a start I beheld the lady of the house, come out to the garden gate to see me, and standing among the many flowers, waiting, her lemon-colored satin dress very like the soft blooms that surrounded her, her eyes fixing me harshly and perhaps coldly in her young and tender face so that she appeared, if you can see it, a tall and angry child.

As I climbed down with the aid of the footman onto the purple flags, she drew closer, and only then did I judge her full height to be great for a woman, though she was much smaller than I.

Fair-haired and beautiful I found her, and so would anyone else looking at her, but the descriptions of her could not prepare me for the picture she presented. Ah, if Rembrandt had ever seen her, he would have painted her. So young yet so like hard metal. Very richly dressed she was, her gown ornamented with lace and pearls and displaying a high full bosom, half naked one might say, and her arms were beautifully shaped in their tight lace-trimmed sleeves.

Ah, I linger on every detail for I seek to understand my own weakness, and that you may forgive it. I am mad, Stefan, mad over what I have done. But please, when you and the others judge me, consider all that I have written here.

It seemed as we faced each other that something silent and frightening passed between us. This woman, her face sweet and youthful almost to an absurdity of tender cheeks and lips and large innocent blue eyes, studied me as if a very different soul lurked within her, old and wise. Her beauty worked like a spell upon me. I stared foolishly at her long neck, and at the tender slope of her shoulders and again at her shapely arms.

It struck me stupidly that it would be sweet to press my thumbs into the softness of her arms. And it did seem to me that she regarded me very much as her mother had regarded me many year ago, when in the Scottish inn I had fought the devil of her beauty not to ravage her there.

“Ah, so, Petyr van Abel,” she said to me in English and with a touch of the Scottish to it, “you have come.” I swear to you, Stefan, it was Deborah’s youthful voice. How much they must have spoken together in English, why, it might have been a secret language for them.

“My child,” I answered, in the same language, “thank you for receiving me. I have made a long journey to see you, but nothing could have kept me away.”

But all the while she was coldly taking my measure, as surely as if I were a slave on the auction block, not disguising her appraisal as I had taken pains to disguise mine. And I was shocked by what I saw in her face, a thin nose and deep-set eyes, for all their size very like my own. Cheeks a little low and full, very like my own. And her hair, though it was a glorious mane of pale gold, brushed straight back from her forehead and held in place by a great jeweled comb, in color and texture very like my own.

A great sadness consumed me. She was my daughter. I knew that she was. And there came to me again that terrible regret I had known in Montcleve. I saw my Deborah, a broken puppet of white wax on the stones before the church of Saint-Michel.

Perhaps my sadness was felt by Charlotte, for a shadow fell over her countenance, and she seemed determined to defy this feeling as she spoke:

“You are as handsome as my mother told me,” she said, half musing, and half under her breath and with a slight raise of one eyebrow. “You are tall and straight and strong, and in the fullness of health, are you not?”

“Mon Dieu, madam. What strange words,” I said. I laughed uneasily. “I do not know whether you flatter me or not.”

“I like the look of you,” she said. And the strangest smile spread over her face, very clever and disdaining, yet at the same time childishly sweet. She gave a little bitter stretch to her lips as a child might do it, almost to a pout, it seemed, and I found this unspeakably charming. Then she seemed lost in contemplating me, and said finally: “Come with me, Petyr van Abel. Tell me what you know of my mother. Tell me what you know of her death. And whatever your purpose do not lie to me.”

And there seemed in her then a great vulnerability as if I might hurt her suddenly and she knew it, and was afraid.

I felt such tenderness for her. “No, I haven’t come to tell lies,” I said. “Have you heard nothing at all?”

She was silent, and then coldly she said: “Nothing,” as if she were lying. I saw that she was scanning me in the very way that I have scanned others when trying to pry loose their secret thoughts.

She led me towards the house, bowing her head ever so slightly as she took my arm. Even the grace of her movements distracted me, and the brush of her skirts against my leg. She did not even look at the slaves who flanked the path, a very regiment of them, all holding lanterns to light our way. Beyond lay the flowers glimmering in the darkness, and the massive trees before the house.

We had all but reached the front steps when we turned and followed the flags into the trees, and there sought out a wooden bench.

I was seated at her behest. Darkness came fast around us, and the lanterns strung here and there burned bright and yellow, and the house itself gave forth an even greater dazzle of light.

“Tell me how I shall begin, madam,” I said. “I am your servant. How would you hear it?”

“Straight out,” she answered, her eyes fixing on me again. She sat composed, turned slightly towards me, her hands in her lap.

“She did not die in the flames. She threw herself from the church tower, and died when she struck the stones.”

“Ah, thank God!” she whispered. “To hear it from human lips.”

I pondered these words for a moment. Did she mean the spirit Lasher had already told her this, and she had not believed it? She was most dejected and I was not sure I should say more.

Yet I continued. “A great storm hit Montcleve,” I said, “called down by your mother. Your brothers died. So did the old Comtesse.”

She said nothing, but looked straight forward, heavy with sadness, and perhaps despair. Girlish she looked, not a woman at all.

I continued, only now I took several steps backwards in my account and told her how I had come to the town, how I had met with her mother, and all the things which her mother had said to me about the spirit Lasher, that he had caused the death of the Comte, unbeknownst to Deborah, and how she had upbraided him for this, and what the spirit had said to her in his defense. And how Deborah would have her know and be warned.

Her face grew dark as she listened; still she looked away from me. I explained what I thought was the meaning of her mother’s warnings, and then what were my thoughts on this spirit and how no magician had ever written of a spirit that could learn.

Still she did not move or speak. Her face was so dark now she seemed in a pure rage. Finally, when I sought to resume on this subject, saying that I knew something of spirits, she interrupted me: “Don’t speak of this anymore,” she said. “And never speak of it to anyone here.”

“No, I would not,” I hastened to answer. I proceeded to explain what followed my meeting with Deborah, and then to describe the day of her death in great detail, leaving out only that I had thrown Louvier from the roof. I said merely that he had died.

But here she turned to me, and with a dark smile she asked:

“How died, Petyr van Abel? Did you not push him off the roof?”

Her smile was cold and full of anger, though I did not know whether it was against me or all that had taken place. It did seem that she was defending her daimon, that she felt I had insulted him, and this was her loyalty, for surely he had told her what I had done. But I do not know if I am right in this conjecture. I know only that to think she knew of my crime frightened me a little, and perhaps more than I cared to say.

I didn’t answer her question. She fell silent for a long time. It seemed she would cry but then she did not. Finally:

“They believed I deserted my mother,” she whispered. “You know I did not!”

“I know this, madam,” I said to her. “Your mother sent you here.”

“Ordered me to leave!” she said, imploring me. “Ordered me.” She stopped only to catch her breath. “ ‘Go, Charlotte,’ she said, ‘for if I must see you die before me or with me, my life is nothing. I will not have you here, Charlotte. If I am burnt I cannot bear it that you should see it, or suffer the same.’ And so I did what she told me to do.” Her mouth gave that little twist again, that pout, and it seemed again she would cry. But she ground her teeth, and widened her eyes, considering all of it, and then fell into her anger again.

“I loved your mother,” I said to her.

“Aye, I know that you did,” she said. “They turned against her, her husband and my brothers.”

I noticed that she did not speak of this man as her father, but I said nothing. I did not know whether I should ever say anything on this account or not.

“What can I say to soothe your heart?” I asked her. “They are punished. They do not enjoy the life which they took from Deborah.”

“Ah, you put it well.” And here she smiled bitterly at me, and she bit her lip, and her little face looked so tender and so soft to me, so like something which could be hurt, that I leant over and kissed her and this she allowed, with her eyes downcast.

She seemed puzzled. And so was I, for I had found it so indescribably sweet to kiss her, to catch the scent of her skin and to be so near her breasts, that I was in a state of pure consternation actually. At once I said that I wished to talk of this spirit again, for it seemed my only salvation was the business at hand. “I must make known to you my thoughts on this spirit, on the dangers of this thing. Surely you know how I came to know your mother. Did she not tell you the whole tale?”

“You try my patience,” she said suddenly.

I looked at her and saw her anger again.

“How so?”

“You know things that I would not have you know.”

“What did your mother tell you?” I asked. “It was I who rescued her from Donnelaith.”

She considered my words, but her anger did not cool. “Answer me this,” she said. “Do you know how her mother came to summon her daimon, as you call him!”

“From the book the witch judge showed her, she took her idea. She learnt it all from the witch judge, for before that she was the cunning woman and the midwife, as are so many, and nothing more.”

“Oh, she might have been more, much more. We are all more than we seem. We only learn what we must. To think what I have become here, since I left my mother’s house. And listen to what I say, it was my mother’s house. It was her gold which furnished it and put the carpets on the stone floors, and the wood in the fireplaces.”

“The townsfolk talked of that,” I said. “That the Comte had nothing but his title before he met her.”

“Aye, and debts. But that is all past now. He is dead. And I know that you have told me all that my mother said. You have told me the truth. I only wonder that I want to tell you what you do not know, and cannot guess. And I think on what my mother told me of you, of how she could confess anything to you.”

“I’m glad she said this of me. I never betrayed her to anyone.”

“Except to your order. Your Talamasca.”

“Ah, but that was never betrayal.”

She turned away from me.

“My dearest Charlotte,” I said to her. “I loved your mother, as I told you. I begged her to beware of the spirit and the spirit’s power. I do not say I predicted what happened to her. I did not. But I was afraid for her. I was afraid of her ambition to use the spirit for her ends—”

“I don’t want to hear any more.” She was in a rage again.

“What would you have me do?” I asked.

She thought, but not apparently on my question, and then she said: “I will never suffer what my mother suffered, or her mother before her.”

“I pray not. I have come across the sea to … ”

“No, but your warnings and your presence have nothing to do with it. I will not suffer those things. There was something sad in my mother, sad and broken inside, which had never healed from girlhood.”

“I understand.”

“I have no such wound. I was a woman here before these horrors befell her. I have seen other horrors and you will see them tonight when you look upon my husband. There isn’t a physician in all the world who can cure him. And no cunning woman either. And I have but one healthy son by him, and that is not enough.”

I sighed.

“But come, we’ll talk more,” she said.

“Yes, please, we must.”

“They are waiting for us now.” She stood up, and I with her. “Say nothing about my mother in front of the others. Say nothing. You have come to see me … ”

“Because I am a merchant and would set up in Port-au-Prince, and want your advice on it.”

She gave a weary nod to that. “The less you say,” she said, “the better.” She turned away and started towards the steps.

“Charlotte, please don’t close your heart to me,” I said to her, and tried to take her hand.

She stiffened against me, and then assuming a false smile, very sweet and very calm, she led me up the short steps to the main floor of the house.

I was miserable as you can imagine. What was I to make of her strange words? And she herself baffled me for she seemed at one moment child and at another old woman. I could not say that she had even considered my warnings, or rather the very warnings that Deborah had implored me to give. Had I added too much of my own advice to it?

“Madame Fontenay,” I said as we reached the top of the short stairs and the door to the main floor. “We must talk some more. I have your promise?”

“When my husband is put to bed,” she said, “we will be alone.” She allowed her gaze to linger on me as she pronounced this last phrase, and I fear a blush rose to my face as I looked at her, and I saw the high color in her rounded cheeks also, and then the little stretch of her lower lip and her playful smile.

We entered a central hallway, very spacious, though nothing on the order of a French château, mind you, but with much fancy plasterwork, and a fine chandelier all ablaze with pure wax candles, and a door open at the far end to the rear porch, beyond which I could just make out the edge of a cliff where the lanterns hung from the tree branches as they did from those in the front garden, and very slowly I realized that the roar I heard was not wind but the gentle sound of the sea.

The supper room, which we entered to our right, gave an even greater view of the cliffs and the black water beyond them which I saw as I followed Charlotte, for this room was the entire width of the house. A bit of light still played upon the water or I would not have been able to make it out. The roar filled this room most delightfully and the breeze was moist and warm.

As for the room itself it was splendid, every European accoutrement having been brought to bear upon the colonial simplicity. The table was draped in the finest linen, and laid with the heaviest and most elegantly carved plate.

Not anywhere in Europe have I seen finer silver; the candelabra were heavy and well embossed with designs. Each place had its lace-trimmed napkin, and the chairs themselves were well upholstered with the finest velvet, replete with fringes, and above the table, a great square wooden fan hung from a hinge, moved back and forth by means of a rope, threaded through hooks across the ceiling and down the wall, at the end of which, in the far corner, sat a small African child.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 528