"Slavery is a sin when whites were put to the yoke, but not the African. All men are created equal, unless we decide you are not a man." Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad
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XVII.
The heavens opened as Susanna and her family rode back towards the house, leaving Alex and Mr Bishop behind them in the soaking rain. The drops masked her tears and the sudden booming thunder overhead drowned out the sobs that were ripping themselves from her chest without her control.
Susanna felt like she was bleeding. Outwardly. Inwardly. Everywhere. The only thing keeping her from falling completely to pieces was the fact that her brother's arm was around her waist, keeping her atop the horse.
She had never experienced pain like this before. The worst pain she had ever known was when her father had died. But this was different. This was betrayal, and it was an evil sort of agony that she felt in her very soul.
"It will be alright, Susanna. It will be alright," Adam kept repeating from behind her, but Susanna wanted to shout that it wouldn't be.
How could it be? Susanna was pelted with rain as she cried out. How could Alex have done this? How could he be this way? Every meeting, every look, every touch ... it was all a lie, a charade to blackmail her family. He was laughing at her, laughing at the fool who was too innocent to notice when a man was being false.
And to confess his love in such a scene ... perhaps it was some sort of last-minute effort to continue the plot. He could never love her. One didn't do this to the person they loved.
Susanna barely noticed being led to her bedroom by her mother and Grace. She was in a trance as she was helped into clean, dry clothing, not registering the worried conversation of her mother and sister-in-law. Susanna stared at her reflection in the mirror in her dressing room. She was pale, with her only colour being the red around her swollen eyes. She looked as broken on the outside as she felt on the inside.
Susanna was brought over to a chair by the fire to keep warm as her brother entered the bedroom. Cecily and Grace walked over to him to talk quietly, not knowing if Susanna could hear them or not.
"How is she?" asked Adam quietly, concerned.
"She is devastated," replied Grace softly. "I think she truly loved him. In fact, I know she did."
"What do you know, Grace?" Cecily demanded to know. "Has she told you something? Did she tell you about him, before all of this?"
Grace hesitated in replying, not wanting to betray Susanna's trust. "Only that I know Susanna's feelings were sincere. And upon my conversation with Mr Whitfield last night at dinner, I believed his feelings to be sincere, also."
"You spoke to him?" Adam nearly growled. "You knew?"
"Don't you take that tone with me when I have done nothing but keep the confidence of my friend," Grace retorted tensely.
"Grace, this could have been prevented –"
"How?" interrupted Grace. "What would you have done had I told you of their feelings? Turned him out? We did not know of the deception until a short while ago."
"I certainly would have," grumbled Cecily. "The man dares impose upon my daughter ... seduces her ... and we have but to trust the pair of conmen to keep their mouths shut? What say one of them indulges at a tavern one evening and blabs to anyone who will listen of Alexander Whitfield's great conquest!" She huffed. "You should have paid them, Adam. Susanna's life hangs in the balance."
"I don't believe he has seduced her," insisted Grace. "As I told you, I believed him last night. I believed his sincerity. He cares for Susanna, and he might even love her. It's his friend, that Mr Bishop, who is the villain. I am certain there is more to the story."
"Of course, he seemed sincere, Grace," Adam said, almost condescendingly. "I imagine he is well practised in fooling the families of these girls, these poor girls. Susanna is not his first victim as we heard. And I would never pay them, Mother. I will have him thrown in prison before I sign over a penny."
"He didn't tell me of his feelings. He did not try to convince me of his love for Susanna," Grace said quietly. "He told me, in so many words, that he would let her go to save her the shame of ..." Grace stopped herself. "Enough. That is enough for now. This isn't helping anyone, and it certainly isn't helping Susanna. They are gone, and we must pick up the pieces."
***
"How could you do that to me?" Alex hissed as he and Len both dismounted their horses after arriving back at their tent beside the church. They had not ridden back to Ashwood House as much as Alex had wanted to.
He would wait, a few days at least, for things to settle before he would go to Susanna and explain. He would wait outside until she came. She would have to hear him eventually, and he would tell her everything that he had wanted to down at the pond. He would make this right.
Once inside the ten, Len seized one of their carpet bags and began to stuff it with possessions, props and costumes. "How could I do that to you?" Len laughed sarcastically. "Do what? Carry out our plan?"
"I asked for one more day!" shouted Alex angrily.
"Alex, a blind man could have seen that you were planning on ruining everything. I merely made sure that you played your part in the bargain," snarled Len. "And even then, you managed to prove yourself utterly useless." Len looked upon Alex as though he was an insect that needed to be squashed.
"She didn't deserve that," Alex appealed.
"Why, because you love her?" mocked Len, scoffing with disgust as he crammed another few belongings into the carpet bag. "I always knew you were the brawn, but I never really thought that you completely lacked a brain in that black noggin of yours."
Alex held his tongue, taking a calming breath so as not to throw his fist into Len's temple. Whatever happened, Len was still a white man, and Alex couldn't touch him. "This is the end for me, Len," Alex said through gritted teeth. "I won't do this anymore. I won't go with you."
He knew that things would start to get better the minute he was away from Len. He could start again, and build trust, earn forgiveness. And once she understood, once Susanna had heard the truth, then he would leave for Haiti. He just couldn't leave her like this.
"This is the end alright," Len sneered. "You ruined everything." Len abandoned the carpet bag momentarily to glare at Alex with loathsome anger in his eyes. "Do you have any idea how much money you have cost me?"
Alex knew exactly how much. Thirty thousand pounds. Only Alex had not cost him a penny. The duke had simply refused to pay. Len had only himself and his greed to blame.
"You are useless to me now," Len declared coldly. "Completely useless."
Alex had no desire to be useful to Len. "I want what I'm owed," he said evenly. "Every penny of it." He knew it was dirty money, but he needed it.
To Alex's fury, Len laughed again, a horrid, mocking laugh. "Do you actually think I am going to give you a bloody shilling after what you have cost me?"
Alex saw red, and it took every ounce of his self-control not to beat Len unconscious out of rage. How dare he? He was not Alex's keeper. They were meant to have been partners of sorts, even if the game was wicked. Len owed Alex. "I want my share," he growled.
"Your savage bitch of a mother can rot for all I care," Len taunted. "You are not having a penny from me."
"Then I'll take it," snapped Alex, turning his back on Len and going for the entrance flap to the tent. Len always kept his money on him, more often than not in his saddle back, and Alex would take the whole damn thing.
But before he could even reach for the flap, he felt a blinding pain in the back of his head as his legs gave way beneath him. His vision faltered and his ears started to ring as he heard faintly, "I wonder what I'll get for you."
***
Alex drifted in and out of consciousness for days. Every time that he became too alert, he felt a cloth over his mouth and nose and his world quickly became dark once more.
He vaguely heard voices. He vaguely felt the rock of travel. But he could not discern anything in particular. He couldn't move, not his hands nor his feet, not even his neck to hold his head up to look around.
He was powerless, with a fog in his brain so strong his mind might have exploded.
The first thing that Alex became aware of was a rocking sensation. Side to side, swaying, as though the ground he was laying on was uneven. The fog in his brain slowly cleared over several hours and the cloth never found his mouth again. He was lying on a hard surface, and when he did feel a cloth, it gently wiped his brow.
Alex moved his hands and then his feet, instantly noticing something cool and hard around his ankles. His eyes fluttered open, his vision still blurred, though he managed to focus after a few moments. The ceiling above him was made entirely of timber. The room itself was quite dim, with the only light coming in from a few circular windows on one of the timber walls. Portholes, Alex realised.
He was on a ship.
Alex sucked in a panicked breath as he craned his neck, looking around at his immediate environment. He was in a cargo hold, a small one, and he was not alone. There were others, perhaps a dozen of them, black men and women, chained to the walls, cowering as far from him as they could.
Save for one. A woman was beside him. Woman seemed the wrong word. She was far too young to be described as a woman. She was but a girl who could not have been more than twenty years old. Perhaps even younger. She was beautiful, with smooth, dark skin and high cheekbones that framed an elegant young face. She was thin, very thin, as evidenced from the pronounced bones on her exposed décolletage area. She wore a dirty white dress, that might have been a chemise, and her slender arms and small hands rested on her lap. Her hair was dark and fell to her shoulders in tight curls.
But her eyes were her most startling feature. He had never before seen a woman of colour with eyes such as hers. There were not brown, nor black, nor even a deep hazel. They were gold, nearly yellow in the subtle sunlight from the porthole. Her golden eyes were focussed on him intently, and Alex slowly sat up, noticing then that he, too, was chained just as they others were.
The gravity of his situation had not yet sunk in. He was not ready to panic, not ready to scream or cry for help, to shout out that he was a free man and there had been a mistake. Before he could even comprehend doing that, the girl spoke.
"You are not sick."
Her voice was soft, feminine, and she spoke in French.
"I thought you would like to know." She watched him warily.
"I shouldn't be here," Alex stammered back to her in French, his voice thick, as though he hadn't spoken in days, a week maybe. "I am not a slave. I am a free man. I am gens de couleur libres."
"That does not matter," she replied quietly. "Not to them."
Alex's heart thundered in his chest as he remembered a very significant detail. "Slave trading is illegal," he hissed. "It has been outlawed for three years!"
"That is why there are so few of us," returned the girl. "We are being smuggled, along with whatever else this ship carries. To be sold when we arrive. Just because it is illegal, it does not mean that every man obeys the law."
Alex's head was still heavy as he struggled to comprehend the information. He was being smuggled. How had he wound up on a ship like this? Vague memories of his last conversation with Len filled his head, and Alex's hand went to the back of his skull where he could feel the remains of a lump. Len had knocked him unconscious ... and he ... and he ... he had sold Alex.
"They had been giving you some sort of sleeping draught," the girl continued. "Until you were chained and safely below. One of the sailors spoke French and remarked on your size. They were afraid you would revolt if you were conscious. I have tended you for days, but you are not diseased, though that is why they are afraid of you. They think you are sick." She nodded towards the other people in the hold.
Alex could see the concern in the eyes of his fellow captives, though he saw none of that fear in the golden eyes of the girl.
"You are not afraid of disease?" he asked. "Of dying?"
She shook her head. "What I fear is far worse than death," she murmured.
A chill ran down Alex's spine as he only knew too well what this poor girl was afraid of. He righted himself and leaned against the wall of the cargo hold beside her. What was she doing here? How had she come to be by herself, captured as he was?
"My name is Alex," he murmured. "Alex Whitfield. What do they call you?"
"My name is Belle Desjardins," she replied.
A sudden delayed headache came over Alex then, and he squinted his eyes as he clutched his forehead in the palms of his hands. He cried out in pain before he felt Belle's small hands on his arm.
"You need water," Belle declared. "Please, have you any water for him?" she cried out to their fellow prisoners. "It is not for me, but for him!"
"Sorcière!" hissed one of them, Alex not knowing whom. He heard the word uttered with venomous fear that he forced himself to look up at Belle.
"Witch?" he repeated in a strained voice. "Are you a witch?"
Belle sneered with youthful frustration. "I am not a witch," she hissed. "I was cursed with these eyes, but I do not see the future, I do not see into hell, I cannot call upon demons or ... or ..."
After a few deep breaths, the pain dulled slightly, and Alex was able to right himself again. "I believe you," he uttered.
"If you ask, they might give you water," she urged. "They won't give any to me."
"Because they believe you are a witch?"
Belle nodded, her eyes becoming glassy. "What I had is gone. The only thing they say to me is Exodus 22:18."
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Alex looked upon the young girl with angered pity. He knew not of his own fate, but hers would surely be worse without anyone to care for her. She had tended to him, and now he would do the same for her. Alex was not going to die on this ship, and he was not going to die when they reached their destination. He had survived too much to die now. And by the look in Belle's eyes, he could see that she, too, was a survivor.
----
I know the author warned us that it was only going to get worse, but I seriously think she has some issues upstairs if she thinks that doing this to us is okay! Maybe if we chant "LAURA IS EVIL" loudly enough, she'll feel guilty and throw us a bone?
Hahaha hope you enjoyed it! I saw a picture of a beautiful black woman months ago with these insane golden eyes and I was like "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh that's my Belle!"
The history is true here. Slave trading was outlawed in the US and UK in 1807, and any ship that traded in slaves after this time was considered a pirate ship and was able to be intercepted if caught. Like with any crime, people still committed them and got away with them, and as we know, human trafficking is still a huge issue today.
Now comes the conundrum of what other terrible things I'm going to do to these poor people (and to you!)?
Vote and comment!