Two sisters, p.1
Two Sisters, page 1
To my mother, Makeda, and all the sacrifices you made.
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, the characters created by the author are fictional and their stories a work of fiction.
CONTENTS
Cover
Dedication
1.Ruth
2.Anna
3.Ruth
4.Ruth
5.Anna
6.Ruth
7.Ruth
8.Anna
9.Ruth
10.Anna
11.Ruth
12.Ruth
13.Anna
14.Ruth
15.Anna
16.Ruth
17.Anna
18.Anna
Author's Note
Copyright
1.
RUTH
Falmouth, Jamaica
1781
I raced through the plantation of River House, my dress kicking out in front of me, dashing through rows of sugar cane. I weaved through the tall grass-like clumps, laughter caught between short breaths, trying to distance myself from my half-sister, Anna, who was closing in.
If she caught me, my punishment would be to serve Mistress Charity, the white lady who came to the house at least once a week to bother Master John Ambrose, the plantation owner. Mistress Charity was desperate to be Master John’s second wife. His first wife died some years ago, long before Anna was born, but Master John was never interested in remarrying, so he would force Anna to entertain Mistress Charity while he locked himself in his study, pretending to be busy.
Anna didn’t like entertaining Mistress Charity, who was wicked with a short temper and a quick hand. So, she had challenged me to a race – whoever lost would have to do the other’s chores for an entire week. That included scrubbing the floors, changing bedpans, beating the rugs and, most importantly, dealing with Mistress Charity.
Anna must have thought it would be an easy win, which is why she had suggested the game. I laughed at the idea that my younger sister could catch me.
“Look at your dress,” I told her. “You will trip over that hem within two seconds.”
She smirked, her light brown eyes glistening, “Then you won’t be afraid of a little bet.”
We spat on our palms and shook hands to seal the deal. Then Anna turned her back, covered her eyes and counted from one to ten. This gave me enough time to slip off my shoes before clearing the steps of the porch and running towards the fields.
I wasn’t wrong about Anna struggling. She dressed like a white lady with too much money and not enough to do. The sort that paced their veranda fanning themselves violently because they were too hot, but still wanted to wear those ridiculous dresses.
As well as owning the plantation, Master John was also Anna’s father, and he often brought back pretty – but inconvenient – dresses from England for her. They always had frills that crawled up Anna’s neck, puffy long sleeves that itched her skin, and a ridiculous number of bows on the front – all beautiful to look at, but far too hot for the Jamaican sun.
Anna would try to share these with me, but I was much taller than her and besides, I would rather not be weighed down by unnecessarily extravagant outfits.
I hid behind a tall stalk about six feet high to catch my breath. I had reached the path in the middle of the plantation that separated one side from the other. It was where the overseer rode his horse on the dirt road watching over everyone as they slaved under the heat with little rest.
To get to the other side, I had to cross the road without the overseer, Walter, spotting me. He was evil. Worse than the manager of the sugar-cane mill or the clerks that helped him with his duties.
It was obvious from when I was old enough to understand that Walter had a great dislike for me and Anna, but more so me. It was also common knowledge on the plantation that he happened to be Master John’s cousin.
Walter was the main overseer on the plantation. Nothing happened without his say-so. He was a rough-looking man with a constant scowl under his moustache, dark evil eyes hidden under his broad-brimmed hat, and a deep scar on his left cheek from when a slave defended himself during a beating.
The slave paid with his life.
Walter never went anywhere without that hat. Sometimes, I daydreamed about stealing it while he slept and filling it with biting ants.
Mama said it was because he despised the special treatment we received from Master John. When Anna was four years old, her father allowed Mama and me into the house. It was more convenient, he said; Mama could get up in the night with Anna and he wouldn’t have to send for her.
Anna had a bedroom on the same floor as his, while Mama and me he allowed a back room on the ground floor. Mama became the housemistress, which didn’t go down well with many, but especially angered Walter.
Up until then, Walter had been given free rein around the plantation. Master John was often too busy with the accounting or travelling to England, so he never questioned Walter’s decisions. Until things changed with Mama.
“I will not interfere with how you conduct your business,” Master John had told him the day we moved in to the house. “But you will not touch Liza or her child, and you will most certainly not touch Anna.”
Walter did not take kindly to those rules. In fact, it made him worse.
He accused me of stealing sugar cane and eating it. He bribed one of the house girls to plant a china cup under Mama’s bed. He hadn’t dared try anything with Anna yet; he knew if he overstepped, Master John would have to get rid of him. Still, to him, we were all the same – even if Anna’s skin was as pale as moonlight. We were all slaves. In fact, he was the only one who treated her like one of us. The only person who saw us standing side by side – Anna with her fair skin and light hair, me with my dark skin and braids – and looked at both of us with disgust.
The worst thing he did was try to sell me one time when Master John was away in England on business. Walter went on a rampage looking for us, but Cook hid us inside the fireplace, covering us with wood, and everyone protected us. Even as they were whipped, one by one, no one gave us up.
Walter wasn’t someone to be trifled with. Especially being so far away from the house and out of Master John’s earshot. But I was never one to let a small matter of an overseer who wanted me gone get in the way of having fun. It was the one thing about me that drove Mama mad, and the thing Anna and I constantly fought about.
“Ruth, wen yaah gonna learn dat man looking fi a reason tuh sell yuh?” Mama would say after saving me from Walter’s grasp for the hundredth time.
“What should I do?” I had asked. “Lock mi self in di house and never leave?”
Mother shot me a cutting look. She had made me learn ‘proper English’ alongside Anna, whom Master John insisted on having lessons, and would scold me whenever I slipped into Jamaican Patois. The two were similar and yet completely different; the Patois rolled off my tongue like a song, where the English felt stiff and sharp.
“Yes,” Mama had replied with Cook echoing her, “Dat exactly wah yuh muss do if dat wah it takes.”
But that wasn’t what I wanted. I loved the outdoors. I spent so much time cleaning floors, making beds and emptying bedpans that the sun always called me outside.
The swaying leaves from the sugar cane whispered to me, begging me to come out and play. I could not ignore it. Even if Walter stood on the steps with a whip in his hand, I would find a way to feel the wind on my face. It was the only time I felt free, even at the risk of having my freedom taken away.
I peeked through the leaves, looked left, down the long dirt road, then right. There he was, about thirty feet away from me, climbing off his horse, the thick black whip hanging loosely off the hook of his trousers. Betty, he called that whip. Betty, his best friend.
I tiptoed out of the grass and stepped on to the road with just the tip of my toes, as though the dirt road would tell on me if it felt my soles.
I heard a movement behind and peered over my shoulder only to see Anna creeping towards me gleefully. I covered my mouth to hide the squeal, and dashed across the road, diving into the grass on the other side.
The grass was thicker this side of the plantation. The slaves had not started cutting down this side of the road yet. It was easier to hide here; the cane leaves towered over me at least twelve feet high. I pushed my way through, keeping close to the road. Anna was closing in on me, much to my surprise. She didn’t seem to have stopped once, but when I took a quick glance over my shoulder, her hair was frizzled from the heat, and I thought how angry Mama would be when she saw her so dishevelled and unladylike.
I felt a pang of guilt for my sister. Anna was, after all, the reason why I was not slaving away in the fields the way the overseer would like.
It was because of Anna that I was allowed inside the big house. Mama said if she had not had Anna, who knows what would have happened to us. Just like Papa was sold to someone else, the same thing could have happened to us.
I couldn’t remember Papa. Mama said it was because I was only a babe when he was taken from us. She rarely spoke about him and when she did, her face would go blank and she would get this wild, terrified look in her eyes. So, I stopped mentioning him.
Anna was our saviour. The more I thought about all the attention and special treatment she got, the angrier I became, and I was about to call off the game when a familiar sound stopped me dead in my tracks.
I listened carefully, heart dropping to my feet. There it was again. A sound I had heard too often; the same sound that woke me in the middle of the night, sweating and gasping for breath.
I squinted through the tall grass and spied the overseer testing his whip against the ground. The swish it made through the air sent chills through me. It was a thing he did before you felt the whip on your skin. It was meant to unnerve you, set you on edge, not knowing when the blow would fall. I leaned further out to get a better look. Behind the shadow of the overseer, there was a young girl tied to a tree, her hands bound behind her.
I knew that girl. I knew everyone, but this particular girl, Sarah, was born the same day as me. We were birthday twins. Her mama and mine were bought together. When we moved into the house Mama got Sarah a job in the kitchen, so I didn’t understand why she was out here, tied to a tree, about to be whipped. I pushed through the thick stalks frantically, my breathing so loud anyone around me could have heard it. This is when Mama would have told me to mind my business, to let grown people handle it. I reached the last row of leaves that hid me and lowered myself to the ground.
The overseer was just a few feet away. He was so close I could smell him. He smelt of tobacco and sweat, and a stench adults describe as death. He smelt of death.
I took a deep breath and stepped out into the open.
2.
ANNA
I saw what she was about to do and raced through the long grass, grabbing her just as she stepped out into the open.
“Ruth, no,” I hissed. She tried to pull her dress out of my firm grip. But I held on for dear life.
“Please,” I begged. “It’s not your concern.”
“But it is,” Ruth argued. She tried to leave again but I yanked her back, knowing it was exactly what Mama would do if she were here.
“Ruth, please.” My voice broke as I tried to get her to understand. We weren’t really supposed to be out here; Mama said it was too dangerous, and she was right. I would happily have played inside all day, but not Ruth. There was a certain defiance about her. She wouldn’t be told what to do. She was fearless and her fearlessness got her into trouble.
She was angry at me. I could see it in her face, the way her eyebrows pushed together making lines in her forehead.
“Yuh might be able to turn yuh eyes away, Anna, as though di sun is blinding yuh,” Ruth hissed. “But,” she pointed towards the girl, “dat could be mi, and one day, it will be. What will yuh do then? Say it is not yuh concern?”
My face fell that she could ever think such a thing.
“That isn’t fair, and you know it.”
The sound of the whip on the ground made us both jump and I was ready to leave, but I could see in her eyes she was not.
“Don’t stop me, Anna, or I will never speak to yuh again. Yuh hear?” She turned on her heels and ran out into the road just as the overseer raised the whip above his head.
Heart pounding so loud it was thick in my ears, I ran back the way I had come. Through the long grass, across the road, into the banana trees. I ran as fast as I could but it didn’t seem fast enough. The dress was holding me back, so I stopped and stripped off the layers of petticoats and threw them to the side. I paused, before picking up each petticoat, folding them neatly and carrying them under my arm. My chest ached but I no longer heard the whip and that only made me run faster. I reached the house and ran around the side, bumping into Alfred, one of the clerks.
“Watch it, girl,” he snapped. I apologized profusely, running around him and towards the kitchen, where I could hear Mama singing. The kitchen was separate from the house, a building on its own, and the doors were open, with the smell of sweet porridge filling the air. Outside the kitchen I looked for somewhere to hide the petticoats from Mama. I found a stone behind the door and stored them under it for later.
I took a deep breath and ran in and yelled, “Mama,” loud enough for her to hear but not too loud that it would be unladylike. The singing stopped, and she and the other ladies turned to look at me.
Mama’s face fell. “Anna! Why yuh look like dat? Ruth tek you to di fields again?”
She started her usual telling-off about how it was not ladylike, that I wasn’t to follow my sister because now I looked improper, like someone who didn’t have a home.
She marched over to me, licked her thumb and pressed my hair down, all the while talking. I cringed under the feel of her spit on my skin and she told me to stop moving; that I did this to myself. Joshua, one of the field boys, appeared in the doorway, out of breath.
“Mistress Liza,” he said. “Come quick. Di overseer ’ave Ruth.”
Mama stopped what she was doing, lifted her dress above her knees and started to run. I didn’t have time to tell her that was why I was there. Mama ran through the back of the house and I ran around it, to the front door where I knew she would appear. I didn’t go in with her because I didn’t want Papa to see me. I didn’t want him to know I had been in the fields.
I waited at the bottom of the steps, pacing, biting my nails – a bad habit I picked up from when I was a baby. Joshua waited behind me not saying a word. Eventually, I turned and he was looking at me strangely.
“I was going to tell her about Ruth,” I mumbled.
He nodded.
“Yes, miss.”
I turned away from him, glancing up at the door, which was still closed.
I turned back, biting my nails. “She didn’t give me time, that’s all.”
He nodded again, agreeable but not agreeing. I didn’t have the same sort of relationship with everyone that Ruth did. I didn’t spend any time outside the house if I could help it, not unless Ruth dragged me to one of the parties held by the workers’ houses. Being among the slaves made me feel a guilt I still could not describe. I felt their eyes on me, judging, wondering what I was doing among them in my silk dress and bows. I was more aware of myself when I was with them.
Suddenly, the door opened and Papa marched out not looking too pleased, Mama running beside him.
“I can’t keep interfering in field business,” he was saying, barely touching the steps. As he reached me, he glanced in my direction. He took me in: my unkempt hair, my dress marked by passing branches and dirt from the ground.
He sighed. “Can’t you keep her clean?” he said to Mama before heading towards the plantation.
When they reached the dirt road, I ran into the fields to hide, afraid that Ruth would think I interfered. I stumbled through the tall leaves, all the while keeping an eye on Mama and Papa, who approached the crowd now forming. Papa pushed through the crowd just as the overseer raised his whip above his head, and through the parted crowd I saw Ruth standing in front of Sarah, blocking her from the whip.
“Stop this at once!” Papa shouted, marching towards them with Mama beside him. I let out a trembling breath of relief when the overseer lowered his whip.
My father was usually a quiet man. He didn’t raise his voice, even when he was angry. But his face would get tight and he would stare for so long it made people feel small. He marched up to the overseer, who lowered the whip, so it hung on the ground swinging from side to side, still menacing, still hoping.
“You were specifically told not to lay a hand on that girl,” Papa said, stopping just a few steps from the overseer as they met each other eye to eye.
“She is a slave,” he spat. “One who was interfering in business that did not concern her,” Walter replied, matter of fact.
Papa stepped closer. “You will stand down,” he said in a low but steady voice. “Or you will lose your job.”
For a moment it seemed like the overseer was not going to move, but then he did; he stepped back.
Mama rushed over to untie Sarah’s arms from the tree. She whispered something to her, and Sarah ran towards the house. She then turned to Ruth, checking her face for any marks, moving Ruth’s face from side to side as she looked her over.
When she realized she was unharmed, Mama dragged her away by her arm. I hurried after them, catching up as they headed back to the house.
“Why you keep putting yourself in danger like dis, Ruth?” Mama said, her tone lowered so that only we could hear.
“What else am I to do?” Ruth cried, trying to keep up with her mother without stumbling.
“Walk away,” her mother snapped. “It is her or you. You understand dat? We can’t save everybody.”
