We were to be married on the twentieth day of October, and in those intervening weeks I could hardly think of anything other than that beautiful creature, clothed as simply as a negress, barefoot, her glorious hair tied carelessly back from her lovely face. I lost myself in happy reverie, to know that she had wanted me as much as I did her. Though we were now betrothed, I had little more occasion to spend time alone with her than I had had before, but that distance and mystery only increased my desire. I pined for her, imagining her with one of her many suitors, jealous of all the months or years they had been in her presence and I had not, jealous of the times they had danced with her, their arms at her waist, jealous of her touch, her whisper, her disarming smiles. I imagined her soon tied to me forever in marriage, her wild, mercurial spirit so unlike those docile, simpering, boring, proper women like Mary MacKinnon. Life with Bertha would always be new, always exciting. I was mad for her; I was wild with longing. I could not wait to have her for my own.
Her father welcomed me into the family with a smile and a cigar and a toast of rum punch. He seemed to have come to accept me fully as a partner, to see that I did have a head for business, that my education had been all he would have hoped for in a partner as well as a son. So often in marriages such as this was to be, the arrangements are quite drawn out, as the families argue and bargain over every little jot and tittle. But in this case, they were so easily made that I could hardly believe it myself.
I had imagined that we would live in Spanish Town after the wedding, but when she was told, Bertha wept at the idea. Valley View had always been her home; she could not imagine living anywhere else. I gave in on that, for the house there was large and it was clear that Jonas wanted us there. He had expressed a desire for me to begin keeping an eye on the management of the sugar operations on both his large estate and my much smaller one, in addition to our joint business ventures in Spanish Town. It was not a great distance to Spanish Town, or even to Kingston. The thirty thousand pounds had made it quite possible for me to buy the Sea Nymph, and I already had plans for refurbishing it.
I saw the whole of it as an astonishingly lucky turn of events. I had been in Jamaica for less than three months, and here I was on the verge of marriage to the most beauteous creature I could imagine, and with a golden future ahead of me. It could not have been better if it had all been planned that way.
Which, I eventually came to understand, it had been. All of it. From the time I was put to work at Mr. Wilson’s mill to the time I arrived in Jamaica to the time I had first seen Bertha. The only unexpected event was the one chance encounter I had had with her, and at which, if I had been wiser or more experienced or more prescient, I would have known to flee. As it was, I walked right into it, with my eyes open, believing only that I had been granted an incredible future.
Chapter 6
Although we were married in the handsome Church of Saint Jago de la Vega in Spanish Town, the wedding was small: I had no relatives in the West Indies, and I did not know how to contact my shipboard friends, Osmon and Stafford. Whitledge had sent a kind note with his apologies. Mr. Arthur Foster, my solicitor—and Mr. Mason’s as well—attended with his wife, who appeared distracted. A few of Mr. Mason’s friends came with their wives, and left as soon afterwards as they could. Of course, Richard Mason was there to stand with me. And in my heart Carrot and Touch were there as well, to praise my choice of bride and applaud how well I had done for myself.
We took a honeymoon tour of the island, stopping the longest at the lovely Montego Bay. We spent our days there strolling along the shore and gazing out to sea. It is a wondrous sight, that sea—the deepest turquoise far out, then turning lighter and lighter blue, until near to shore all one sees is sand beneath clear water.
The torrid heat had abated by then, as had the hurricane danger, and the palm trees swayed in a gentle sea breeze, the sand like sugar beneath our feet. I had not particularly noticed the night skies before, but now I saw that the stars seemed brighter than I had ever seen. I felt, truly, as if I had entered paradise; I could not have been happier or more sanguine about my future. It’s true that Bertha’s moods were somewhat hard to predict—at times the water’s vista entranced her and she ran barefoot on the sand, screaming her delight like a child, but at other times that same vastness unsettled her, and she cowered beside the sea, clinging to me and weeping. I did not mind: I would rejoice in her happiness or hold her in my arms to calm her, whatever she needed. My heart was full of love.
I found her on the beach one evening after dinner, when I returned from a solitary stroll. She had been with Molly, her body servant, when I left, but when I came upon Bertha later, she was alone, sitting on the sand, a clamshell in her hand, drawing it slowly and forcefully across the inside of her wrist. She was so absorbed that she did not notice my approach. I bent down beside her. “What are you doing?” I asked, for I could not imagine.
She smiled up at me ingenuously. “It feels so good,” she said.
“But does it not hurt?” I asked. “Look, you have made scrapes there. Oh, my darling, you’re bleeding.”
She smiled more broadly. “It feels good,” she repeated, licking the blood from her wrist.
I placed my hand over hers. “I will give you a golden bracelet for that wrist.”
She leaned against me. “You will give me gold and jewels and babies,” she murmured.
“I will give you whatever you want,” I said, and I believed it then. “Bertha,” I said, pointing, diverting her attention, “see that flight of birds against the sunset.”
“They’re beautiful,” she said.
“You are beautiful,” I responded. I took her in my arms and she dropped the clamshell; I held her close and we kissed, and then we walked on down the beach.
I came to learn that, unless she was putting herself on display at a ball, she was uncomfortable in unconfined spaces, and that the presence of people she did not know made her restless and, sometimes, angry. At those times, I could not always calm her, and she would retreat into our rooms with Molly, who had been at her side since childhood and who seemed able to calm her when I failed to do so. They would sit in the semidark, with the shutters drawn, and Molly would sing to her in some African language that I of course did not understand, and perhaps Bertha did not, either, but the repetition of the melody soothed her and in time she was able to rejoin me and smile, both of us pretending that such events were normal.