Stolen Waters

9:16-18)

Chapter One

We shall never return.

What an absurd notion! Yet Maria could not banish the thought from her mind. Standing silently on the deck of the Oriana, she looked back towards the English coast. As she watched, the thin dark strip of land disappeared beyond the horizon, snuffed out between opposing elements of ice-grey sky and steel-grey ocean. It was as though a door had closed, shutting out the old life, the old world.

For a fleeting moment, she glanced at the face of the young lady beside her. Sarah might never go back to her home — though there was no reason why she should not visit it again someday — but there was little likelihood that she, Maria, would remain in the Indies. On the contrary, it was more than likely that her stay would be a short one. The position was, by its very nature, temporary.

‘Surely I shall see England again,’ she murmured to herself. But there was a strange feeling within her that it was not to be.

Unbidden, she recalled her only other passage by sea when she was but thirteen. It was her sister who had stood beside her that day over eight years ago. Constanza had laughed at her younger sister’s fears then, calling them foolish fancies. But less than a year later, Constanza died in childbirth. James, her adored English esposo, returned to her homeland to fight beside the Iron Duke. Maria was alone in a foreign land. Her relatives in Spain were all dead. Even James was gone now, among the many young men who perished on the bloody field of Waterloo.

It was left to a clergyman — a friend of James’s father — to take her in. The Reverend Jonah Markwood was kind but poor. He could not afford to support Maria for ever, so she was forced to seek employment as soon as she came of age. A former Oxford scholar who had turned evangelical, Reverend Markwood gave Maria an education that many men would have envied. It was this which secured her the position of governess with Lord and Lady Grantham at Petrel House in Hertfordshire.

Maria had never returned across the Channel to her home. Now the vast expanse of the Atlantic would lie between her and all that was familiar and dear to her.

Yet what was there, really, to miss? To what could she return? Nothing but the hope of another position in some respectable household and the prospect of years of genteel drudgery.

Lady Grantham’s words echoed in her mind:

‘You insolent Spanish slut!’ she hissed when Maria attempted to defend herself against the vicious charges which the woman who employed her did not scruple to lay at her door, accusing her of conduct with Lord Grantham which had never entered Maria’s mind. For a moment, Maria’s temper — usually held ruthlessly in check — had flared up. She confronted Lady Grantham as an equal, which they both were in God’s eyes, if not in man’s.

But she had wasted her breath. Lady Grantham’s hatred was equalled only by her malice. She drove the governess out of her house in the middle of the night. Maria barely had time to pack her meagre belongings and bid farewell to little Catherine. Catherine was a most unusual child. Indeed, there was nothing very childlike about her. She had a mind as hard and calculating as her mother, though there was more heart to her. It was she who had led Maria to old Mrs Sheltby, her aunt in Bath. Had it not been for Mrs Sheltby’s kindness, Maria’s fate might have been much worse. There were few opportunities available for a penniless woman turned out of a titled household without so much as a letter of reference.

‘Lay out a fresh gown for me, Maria.’ Sarah’s voice interrupted her musing. ‘And see if you can procure some water for a bath. I am fagged to death already.’

‘Of course, Mrs Romford.’ Maria gave a quick curtsy and hurried below deck to their cabin, to attend to her duties as Sarah’s companion.

For a moment she was in danger of envying the tall blonde Englishwoman. At least Sarah had a husband to greet her at the end of her journey, and a family to grieve for her departure. Then Maria tried to picture Sarah’s mother, the aloof Mrs Spenmoor, grief-stricken over someone, and felt an absurd desire to laugh. Her uncharacteristic attack of self-pity left her abruptly. It was useless to dwell on the past. Better to forgive, forget, and get on with the business of living.

* * * *

The weeks which followed were to seem very strange to Maria when she recalled them in later years. It was a little like being in Limbo, she imagined. Everything was unsettled. There were no familiar sights or faces to reassure them. There was only the endless, rolling sea in every direction and the constant sensation of movement without any sign of progress.

From the first, they were treated with great respect by the rather rough-looking crew. Maria was somewhat surprised at this, until one day she was taking a turn about the deck and chanced to overhear a snatch of conversation between two of the sailors.

‘A nice piece, that! I wouldn’t mind getting under that skirt, I can tell you,’ the first man said.

‘You’d better have a care, Bill,’ the second sailor answered. ‘That’s Matthew Romford’s wife you’re talking about.’

What’s so great about this Romford bloke?’

‘He’s one you don’t cross, that’s for sure,’ his companion said with considerable emphasis. ‘You can bet ‘e wouldn’t take kindly to anybody messin’ with ‘is wife! Matthew Romford’s one of the big guns on St Edmund’s. Even them what don’t like ‘im — and there’s quite a few — know better than to get ‘is back up. You jus’ leave well enough alone. There’ll be plenty of willin’ wenches when we reach port.’

‘The Spanish chit is the filly for my money anyway. What say I have a try at that one?’

‘You’re a fool if you do. Romford would be mad as ‘ell if anyone was to bother one of ‘is servants. Well, she’s ‘is wife’s servant — and not to be touched. They say ‘e even treats ‘is Africans like they was people!’

Maria, concealed behind an outside corner of the ship, quietly retreated before she could hear more. But what she had heard could hardly be forgotten. Matthew Romford was obviously a man of considerable power and influence. He was both feared and respected.

For the remainder of the voyage, Maria had the odd sensation that this man whom she had never seen, and of whose existence she had been unaware only a month before, was as much a companion as his wife, with whom she shared accommodations. It was as if he were watching over them, and she was aware of an absurd feeling of security — a strange certainty that no harm could come to them while they were under his protection. If his presence could be felt with such force across the Atlantic, Maria wondered what it would be like when she came face to face with him.

Sarah had very little to say about the mysterious figure who was her husband—and she had ample opportunity to impart such information as the days passed. The two of them were constantly in each other’s company.

They were both good sailors, as it turned out, never ill even in the roughest weather — and the Atlantic had a good supply of that. The only other passengers were Mr and Mrs Tuckton, a middle-aged planter and his wife. But the lady was generally confined to her apartment and the gentleman was hardly a suitable companion. On the brief occasions when they were forced to be sociable with him, he confined himself to merely ogling Sarah. With Maria, he ventured further—and discovered, much to his surprise, that the Spanish girl had uses for a hat

pin of which he had not even dreamed.

So Sarah and Maria were left to bear each other company and provide each other with such entertainment as they might devise. At first, Sarah was rather distant — whether from shyness or pride, Maria could not be certain. But as the days became weeks, she began to converse a little more freely and abandoned her endless games of patience in favour of backgammon. Normally the last resort of idle young ladies, this game helped to relieve many dull hours in their cramped quarters.

* * * *

‘I think I will go mad if I have to spend another hour on this ship!’ Sarah exclaimed one night as they rocked to and fro on a sea which was unusually calm. Though it was late, they both lay in their beds with the small lamp flickering between them, neither of them much inclined to sleep.

‘Dr Johnson once said that being on a ship is like being in gaol, with the added possibility of being drowned,’ Maria said.

‘This place might as well be a cell,’ the younger girl conceded. ‘It’s no bigger than a decent closet at home. Are these the elegant accommodations we were promised? Is this the fast-sailing coppered brigantine advertised in the Gazette?’

This indignant speech was one of Sarah’s endless variations on a theme she had been voicing ever since their departure. In truth, their room was rather larger than the one assigned to Maria when she was governess at Petrel House. But what might seem quite comfortable to a governess was not likely to please a spoilt young woman who had recently married into yet greater wealth.

‘It could be worse, Mrs Romford,’ Maria said, attempting to appease her. ‘You could be floating down an American river in an Indian canoe.’

Sarah’s response was instant. ‘Like Laura in Self-Control she exclaimed. ‘Have you read it, then, Maria? I thought you considered novels beneath you or some such thing. I’ve never seen you reading anything but your Bible.’

‘Believe me, señora, my Bible is far more entertaining than most novels. More edifying too. But I read good novels when I can. Mrs Brunton’s books are not favorites of mine, however. I can conceive of nothing more unpleasant than a solitary canoe trip in the wilds of America.’

‘But it is so romantic!’

‘I fear I have no taste for romance.’

Sarah was visibly shocked by such an odd sentiment. ‘But there are few books so noble as a modern romance,’ she protested. ‘Think of Clarissa Harlowe’s sacrifice!’

‘She would have done better to have stuck a knife into the heart of Lovelace. Instead, she pined away like a fool and left someone else to do the job for her.’

Sarah, propping herself upon one elbow as she lay in bed, looked quite scandalized. ‘How can you say so, Maria? No decent Christian lady would behave in such a manner.’

‘Perhaps not,’ Maria conceded. ‘I have known but few real ladies — and fewer Christians. I may not be the best judge. But I do know that in real life one is not likely to be abducted by masked ruffians or locked in a dungeon. The dilemmas we face daily are less spectacular but far more important in building character.’

‘And do you never dream of meeting a man such as the heroes in those books? I do!’

‘I do not dream of men at all,’ Maria said flatly. ‘And surely you need not have such dreams now. Does not your new husband strongly resemble the heroes of Mrs Radcliffe and Walter Scott? Mrs Sheltby certainly admires him.’

‘Matthew?’ Sarah questioned, apparently surprised at such a suggestion. She paused a moment, reflecting. ‘No. Matthew is very sensible and industrious — at least, he must be if he is a successful planter. Of course, I am not very well acquainted with him, but he does not seem to me at all heroic.’

Until now, Maria had thought that Sarah’s marriage must be a love match. She had imagined a whirlwind courtship, with the romantic-minded young Englishwoman swept quite off her feet by the dashing planter from the Indies. But it was clear that this was not the case. With a shock, she realized that Sarah was not in love with her husband. Her tone even indicated a certain fear of the man.

‘But he is very handsome, is he not?’ Maria asked, speaking her thoughts aloud. ‘I am sure Mrs Sheltby has said so on more than one occasion.’

‘Yes, I suppose he is good-looking,’ Sarah said, with a lack of enthusiasm not lost on Maria. ‘Here,’ she added, as an afterthought, ‘I will show you his likeness. He gave it to me shortly before our wedding.’

She reached beneath the bed and produced a small leather case. In this was a carved mahogany box which contained a number of feminine items including a silver mirror and comb. From underneath this miscellany, Sarah pulled out a little oval frame and handed it across the small space to Maria, who had sat up in bed.

The single plait of rich dark hair, which Maria generally wore in an unfashionable coil at the back of her neck, fell across her shoulder as she leaned forward to get her first glimpse of Matthew Romford. Peering down in the dim light of the lamp, she was all the more amazed at Sarah’s indifference to her husband. The face in the tiny portrait would have suited any hero between the marble covers of a Minerva Press production.

It was a face of distinctly masculine beauty. The high cheekbones and determined chin indicated the latent strength of the man. The mouth was wide but full and well formed. And those piercing grey eyes seemed to penetrate to her very soul. The artist, whoever he was, had captured not merely a countenance but a character. She found herself unconsciously echoing Mrs Sheltby’s sentiments: this was her idea of what a man should be.

‘Do you think him handsome?’

Maria started a little at the unexpected question and blushed in the semi-darkness. How long had she been staring at those painted features?

‘I think there can be no doubt that the man in this portrait is very handsome indeed,’ she answered carefully, returning the object in question to its owner. ‘Is it a good likeness?’

‘Oh yes. It is the image of Mr Romford.’

‘I must say he has the appearance of being romantic, at least. In another age, he could have been a pirate or a privateer.’

‘Do you think so?’ Sarah seemed sceptical.

‘I should think he would have made Lord Byron quite green with envy.’

Sarah laughed. ‘I think you are a good deal more romantic than you would have me believe!’

‘I have no objection to romance, so long as it is confined between the pages of a book.’ She lay back upon her pillow and gazed up at the ceiling. ‘Real life is very different. Few people are either so noble or so vile as characters in most novels. Virtue and vice are constantly at war within most of us, and fools as well as knaves will succumb to the latter.’

‘Well, I hope you do not mean to condone immoral behavior! But it is really very late,’ Sarah added somewhat primly, ‘and we had best get some sleep. We will have to continue this argument some other day.’

With the lamp out, Maria lay awake, her mind occupied with what had been said and a great deal that had gone unspoken. Mr and Mrs Matthew Romford ... a beautiful young English bride and her handsome esposo. But now it seemed that this was not the case. Whatever the husband’s view might be, it was plain that Sarah Romford was a woman who was not entirely satisfied with the hand Providence had dealt her.

Maria did not doubt that the marriage had all been arranged by Sarah’s mother, Mrs Spenmoor, who reminded her of Lady Grantham. They were both domestic despots: little Napoleons who cared not how many suffered so long as their ambitions were achieved. What means had been used to coerce Sarah into the match, she hardly dared to conceive, but she did not doubt that the Spenmoors had received a considerable settlement, which would allow them to live the rest of their lives comfortably in the fashionable society of Bath.

And what kind of man was the mysterious Mr Romford? A man to be feared, if the sailors were anything to judge by. A man who was accustomed to getting his own way. Cold, hard, ruthless. He had probably chosen a wife as another man might choose a horse. To him, this marriage was merely the acquisition of another item of property. Having found what he considered suitable, he simply bought and paid for it, with no thought that the property in question was another human being.

But after all, what more could be expected from a man who owned slaves — whose wealth and position had been bought with the blood and sweat of countless Africans? Everything within Maria rebelled against the casual brutality of slavery. In the household of the Reverend Jonah Markwood, the very idea of slavery had been anathema.

‘No man can be esteemed of greater or lesser value than another because of the color of his skin. In the sight of God, all men are equal—and equally loved. He who does not love his neighbor, whatever their race or creed, is unworthy of the Kingdom of God.’

So Maria had been taught, and Reverend Markwood had extended this precept to women also. He had schooled Maria in everything from Latin to mathematics and classical literature. The chief preoccupation of her tutor, however, had been religion. Though he never openly censured her, she was aware that he was horrified by her Catholicism. But in the end, his simple faith and genuine compassion had prevailed and Maria had embraced many of his Evangelical teachings. Were he alive to know that she was going to live in the home of a slave-owner, how distressed he would be!

So once again her thoughts returned to Matthew Romford. How could they not? In a sense, not only Sarah’s future but her own as well were bound up with this man. There was something so compelling about him — a force of personality which reached out even from the small painted likeness. How proud he looked — as proud as Lucifer. And as beautiful, with his golden hair and silvery eyes.

‘Stop it!’ she told herself sternly. This was madness. Why should this man take such possession of her thoughts? It was the devil himself appearing as an angel of light. ‘Oh God,’ she prayed fervently, ‘let me not be deceived by fair looks or fair words. Help me to be true.’

Still, when she awoke the following morning, her first thought was a name: Matthew. And while she could not clearly recall her dreams, she was afraid that they had involved a tall blond man whose cold grey eyes had been surprisingly warm as they gazed at her.

* * * *

They were leaving the coolness of the north behind, pushing steadily forward into the tropics. The air grew warmer as they approached the Leeward Islands, and Maria felt she could even detect a subtle change in the fragrance of it: more pungent, more heady. Occasional birds, especially gulls and a stray pelican or two, began to appear. Even the fish seemed magically to sprout wings and soar before the bow of the ship.

Sarah grew daily more discontented. Maria herself was restless and uneasy. Her dreams were more frequent and more vivid than ever. She almost felt as if Matthew Romford were somehow calling her, summoning her to — to what? Was she going mad?

On one occasion, she thought she saw the dim outline of mountains far off to the starboard side of the ship. The captain confirmed that they were indeed the mountains of Hispaniola. They were in the Indies. It would not be long now before they reached their destination.

The wind was favorable and the weather remained bright and hot for the next few days. Then, one morning Maria could detect a certain excitement — an increased level of noise and laughter — amongst the crew. She looked ahead and, in the distance, detected a faint grey-green mound on the horizon.

‘There she is, miss,’ Captain Lumford said behind her. ‘St Edmund’s Island! It’s a good thing, I’m thinkin’, that we made such good time and didn’t put in at Nassau first.’

A few minutes later, Maria was aware of still another change. She noticed it first in the sky. A small patch of dark cloud seemed to stretch itself over them in a thin, flat canopy until the whole sky was a blackened, angry bruise above them. The wind increased as the cloud grew and the waves began to prance about them like a herd of frightened horses.

All eyes looked up, and the sailors were pointing and murmuring to each other, their former enjoyment forgotten.

‘What is happening?’ Sarah asked, coming to stand beside Maria at the rail.

‘I do not know,’ Maria admitted. ‘But men of the sea can read signs in the heavens which we cannot. I think, perhaps, those clouds mean more than just rain.’

She had hardly finished speaking before she began to perceive something very unusual. The flat underbelly of the grey-black cloud was swelling slightly at one spot. Maria had the feeling that it was giving birth to something — some pagan storm-god or sky-demon.

As she continued to watch in horrified fascination, the small protrusion grew, stretching slowly down towards the water like the arm of God. But was He reaching out to heal or to destroy?

‘Christ!’ one of the sailors cried out. ‘It’s the bloody father of all waterspouts!’

‘What are we going to do, Maria?’ Sarah whispered. Turning towards the English girl, Maria saw that she was as white as the seafoam churned up by the roaring fury of the waterspout.

‘There is only one thing we can do,’ Maria answered her with a calm born more of resignation than courage. ‘We must pray that Christ will quiet the tempests of the Caribbean as He did those at Galilee. For it is certain that no power on Earth can stop what we see before us now.’

Sarah was trembling so much that Maria put one arm about her shoulders to steady her, while her other hand clung to the railing as the ship dipped and tilted wildly.

‘I —I cannot pray,’ Sarah said. ‘I’m too frightened.’

‘You must,’ Maria replied, and slowly began to recite the paternoster. Sarah’s eyes were closed, but Maria still stared out at the writhing black monster before her, like a giant serpent dropped from the clouds to sink its fangs into the sea. The wind whipped the ribbons of her bonnet around her throat and flung the salt spray in her face, but she did not move. When the swaying, churning waterspout had touched the water, it had been almost half a mile away. Now it was moving rapidly towards them, bearing down upon them relentlessly as they stood and watched in terrified awe.

‘Get a knife!’ one of the sailors shouted above the rushing sound of wind and water, and the words were echoed by others. ‘A silver knife. Get it!’

From somewhere below deck — whether the galley or the captain’s cabin, she could not tell — a knife was brought. Maria ended her prayer, sending up a silent word of her own to God. A gnarled hand held aloft the knife and performed a ritualistic cutting action in the direction of the waterspout. By now, it was but a few hundred yards off the port side.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, without warning, the lower end of the tornado seemed to waver, to break like a cracked egg, and the funnel receded from the surface of the deep with a dramatic suddenness which made Maria catch her breath. In a matter of seconds, it was over. The wind died down, the sea became less frenzied and the crisis had passed.

A cheer went up from the crew, who surely had seen their share of maritime wonders. But nothing could harden a man’s soul to the raw power of the elements and the possibility of death.

‘It’s over.’ Sarah opened her eyes at last.

‘Our prayer has been answered,’ Maria agreed. Yet she felt that the waterspout had been a kind of warning. So suddenly could destruction come upon one ... so treacherous was the place to which they had come. There were forces at work here which even a man such as Matthew Romford could not command.

Maria turned again towards the island, which was growing steadily larger as they approached. He was there. He was waiting. Matthew Romford.

Chapter Two

After the waterspout, a heavy rain began to fall, forcing the two women below deck. The sea became calmer, and it was not more than an hour before the sun came out again — and so did Sarah and Maria.

They were now quite close to land. A large peninsula jutted out from the main body of the island, displaying a rocky shoreline and foliage so densely packed that it was difficult to distinguish one tree from another. Only the occasional palm, springing up above the bushy undergrowth, was recognizable to Maria.

As the ship rounded the point, they had their first view of Port Elizabeth. A cluster of undistinguished buildings hugged the shore behind the docks, then spread in a haphazard manner up the low hill which lay directly beyond. It was as if a giant hand had scattered a box of multi-hued toy houses on the earth with no thought as to where they might fall.

In the midst of this architectural jumble, a rather more respectable-looking stone building stood out, with tall columns and regularly spaced windows. It must be the meeting place of the local assembly.

Maria, fascinated by the color and bustle of the little town and the minute figures moving like ants along the wharf, felt a sudden surge of excitement and hope. Turning to her companion, she could tell at once that Sarah’s reaction was not so favorable. Her face bore all the signs of shock, and a dismay bordering on despair.

‘I think,’ she said, her voice thick and halting, ‘that I shall go below for awhile.’

Sarah turned away, and Maria reflected how difficult this must be for her. For herself, she had survived too much to be daunted by the primitive conditions before her. But to Sarah, after the imposing monuments of London and the elegance of Bath, with its gleaming crescents and well-paved streets, this hot and dusty village on the wrong side of the Atlantic must seem like a sun-drenched nightmare.

The island was indeed a New World, where a dark-skinned people lived and died in chains so that English ladies might sweeten their beloved tea. And this island was now her home.

The ship drew nearer and the ant-like creatures moving about on shore gradually assumed their recognizable shapes as human beings. But how different a