Local Customs Page 7

  I knew there was really no choice — my heart had already declared for the Methodists. Within a month I was headed for London with my small satchel of books and my even smaller hoard of savings. I presented myself at the offices of the Wesleyan Society and begged them to train me as a lay preacher. Thanks to my mother, I knew my Bible well, and my parents had presented me with a Bible of my own when I first left home. The Wesleyans were impressed by my enthusiasm, I could see that right away, and after catechizing me with hard questions, they were even more impressed.

  “Thomas,” said one of my inquisitors (how lovely it was to hear my name spoken with such warmth!), “Thomas, I think you are just the man for us. But I also think you may have a higher calling than simply roaming the countryside and preaching under a tree. I think you might consider training to be a missionary.”

  I knew what he was going to say, but still I had to ask.

  “A missionary, Sir? In what part of the world?”

  “Africa.”

  (Of course.)

  At first I was rather downcast, but tried not to show it. Were they sending me to Africa because they suspected no one would listen to me here in England? Were they sending me “back where I belonged”? I decided to put the matter in God’s hands and God let me know He didn’t think much of my whinging. There was one thing, however, I felt I should insist upon. I told the committee I had a sweetheart back at Orwell Park, a strong young woman to whom I was almost engaged to be married. I had told her that if I got on in my new avocation I would send for her. If, after my training, I was to be sent out to Africa, I should like to marry her and take her with me.

  “Is she devout?”

  “She is, but not yet a Wesleyan.”

  “Would she be willing to take instruction?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Then, providing she pledges herself to Methodism and to missionary work, we can think of no objection.”

  I wrote to her that night in care of her sister, who lived in a neighbouring village. I wrote with excitement and love; I could see our lives unfolding like the lives of my parents — a diorama of marital happiness and mutual comfort.

  I did not know I was taking her to her death.

  George

  WHEN LETTY TOLD ME HOW IRRITATED she would get by the sound of Mrs. Bailey’s knitting needles, I thought that her chatter was sometimes like that, for me, and once or twice (she was a great chatterer in bed) I had such a temptation to put my hand over her mouth. Not to hurt her, you understand, merely to shut her up. Chatter chatter chatter. It’s strange, is it not, how the things that initially attract you to someone — in Letty’s case her openness, her lively mind — can, later on, nearly drive you mad. No doubt things that I did drove her mad as well.

  Letty: I hated our damp bodies touching one another. After I shared the conjugal bed in Africa for a while, I was amazed to think of all those families with hordes of children. I suppose the heat doesn’t affect them in the same way and Brodie said large families are very important out here — the sign of a man’s potency. And I doubt if a native woman has the option of a separate sleeping room or a door she can close. I know George thought that I was unresponsive, too “refined” to enjoy the carnal act, but that wasn’t it at all. It was too hot, too slippery, unpleasant in that sense. I suppose his African wench hadn’t minded skin sticking to skin, sheets so damp afterwards you could almost wring them out. Mrs. Bailey told me that natives do it the way dogs do it. I told her I didn’t want to listen to such coarse talk, but I expect it’s true.

  I asked Brodie if love meant anything to them, whether it was a sentiment they understood.

  He smiled: “If you mean our ideas of love — romance and so on — probably not. But they can feel passionately about another person and jealousy is not unknown to them. The ju-ju stalls in the markets are full of potions and powders and dried things to punish the rival or sometimes to do away with him or her (mostly her, I think) altogether. And surely you’ve seen the affection they have for their children? They are not afraid to show it, unlike our northern races. And haven’t you noticed, when you walk through the town, that you rarely hear a child crying? Perhaps if he has sustained a small injury he will cry for a minute or two, but then he is up and running again.”

  “I don’t get a chance to walk through the town very often; George doesn’t like me to wander about. I do know the children here are very bold. I don’t think much of their manners. They follow me.”

  “Oh, they follow you because you fascinate them. They are not used to seeing white women, except for the few missionary wives, but they die off so quickly. It’s just curiousity.”

  “They call me a ghost. They point at me and laugh at me. I so dislike being laughed at.”

  “It’s all good-natured, really it is.”

  “Sometimes I have this terrible urge to slap one or two of them.”

  “I’m surprised to hear that.”

  “Why surprised? It seems quite a normal reaction to ridicule.”

  “They are children.”

  “I dislike children at the best of times, but when a little crocodile of piccaninnies follows me, pointing and jeering, my dislike intensifies.”

  “Perhaps you would think differently if . . . .” He blushed, so I knew what he was thinking.

  “I doubt it. At any rate, my books are my progeny.”

  “Of course.”

  As soon as we had drunk our tea, he left. I knew I would get a note, delivered by one of Mr. Topp’s boys, saying how he had overstepped the bounds of friendship and would I forgive him? Of course I would forgive him. What would I do without him? Yet his words had hurt. Not a mortal wound, more like a paper cut. They stung.

  I tried never to think of that time but she was there, somewhere deep down, squalling, as I lay there with a silk bandage wound tightly against my eyes: Laura.

  George: Brodie Cruickshank. I think he was more than a little in love with her.

  Letty: Tell me, Mr. Freeman, what do you imagine Heaven to be like?

  Freeman: If Hell is all searing hotness, I would expect a more temperate clime. (Laughing. Hee hee. Showing his strong white teeth.)

  Letty

  “AND WHEN YOU ARE FINISHED, George, what then?”

  He was eating half a paw-paw, scraping out the shiny black seeds, which always reminded me of ants. He squeezed half a lime over the orange meat, ready to dig in.

  “What then?”

  “Yes. When you retire. Will you go back to Scotland, spend your days fishing or reading, perhaps writing an account of your years on the Gold Coast?”

  I could see myself in a cozy parlour, writing, while George was doing the same in his study. A cozy parlour not too far from Edinburgh, I hoped. I would need Society. (And with the success of my book on Scott and perhaps my romance about the freed slave woman from Elmina, I would have a secure place there as Letitia Landon, as well as Mrs. George Maclean.)

  “I will die here, Letty, I have no intention of settling in Scotland or anywhere else. This is where I belong; this is where I will be buried.” He squeezed the lime so hard it squirted him in the face.

  That night, when he reached for me, I turned my back. I had never seen marriage to George as permanent exile. There were scores of Army, Navy, what have you in pleasant retirement in London or the Home Counties. Who on earth would ever want to stay out here forever? I could accept Edinburgh instead of London as my final destination, but Cape Coast? Fine for a few years — I was writing well, had become quite efficient at being the chatelaine of the castle, but I needed conversation, admiration, social interaction. It had never occurred to me that George didn’t need those things or felt his role as governor was enough. I was already worried about what would become of me when Brodie went on leave. I knew George and I had our “If she doesn’t like it, she can leave after three years” agreement, but I did like it, most of the time; I just couldn’t see me burying myself out here forever.

  A few days later I
talked to Brodie. “Are you planning to stay out here forever?”

  “I doubt it; why do you ask?”

  “The other night George said he will stay here until he dies.”

  “Oh, but George is a special case.”

  “How so?”

  “I’m not sure I can explain it. There are certain men who ‘find themselves’ in places like this. I think George is one.”

  “You mean he has some ideal self he is trying to live up to?”

  “Something like that, but not exactly.”

  “What then?”

  “I really don’t know how to put it.”

  “And you — you don’t have this?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “You must have had it once, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Possibly. Not anymore.”

  We left it at that.

  George

  LETTY WANTED A PICNIC. I couldn’t really spare the time, but she so rarely asked anything of me I felt I should indulge her. “If you can arrange the ‘wittles,’” I said, “then I can arrange the rest. I suggest we set out after the heat of the day.”

  Beyond the town, the bush extends on three sides. On the fourth is the Castle and the sea. But at the rear of the town a path had been cut long ago; it led past the graveyard and so it was not a route one would take by choice. The graves of the little band of Wesleyans who had disembarked with Mr. Freeman the previous January were already completely covered over with vines and vegetation. It is rather terrifying the way things seem to spring up here overnight. No, past the graveyard would not have been the first choice, except that it was the only choice for an excursion with a picnic — the only way we could take the road west to the salt pond about three-quarters of a mile away.

  I suggested Mrs. Bailey and Letty be carried there in litters.

  Letty: We set off around three, although it was still very warm. If we had left it any later we’d not get back before dark. Mr. Freeman was of the party and Brodie, Mr. Swanzy, Mr. Hutton, Mr. William Topp, and his heavily pregnant native wife. I felt quite strange to be riding whilst she was walking and Mrs. Bailey offered to give up her place, but Mrs. Topp smiled and said no, that it was “no trouble a-tall” and she preferred to walk.

  My bearers were the same giants who had carried me ashore when I arrived. They were so tall that I looked down on the walkers’ heads and could see the sovereign-sized bald spot which was forming on the top of George’s head. (He was not wearing his topi as we weren’t in direct sunlight.)

  The litter was a sort of basket-work affair made of wicker-work with a palm-leaf mattress, a cross between a trug and a butcher’s basket — not very pleasant really, as one was jolted from side to side. The men all carried thin bamboo canes with which they beat at the bushes on either side. The path was quite broad, but it was bordered with dense brush where venomous snakes could be resting. George had assured me that for the most part the snakes stayed out of the way. (Men going abroad at night stamp their feet to let the snakes know they are passing.)

  Swish. Swish. Swish. And then a sharp cry from Mr. Freeman who was out in front. “Halt!”

  A wriggling green mass lay in the middle of the road ahead. Baby mambas, Mr. Topp informed me: “They don’t know enough to get out of the way.” Swish swish swish went Mr. Freeman’s cane and the babies were quickly dispatched.

  “Were they poisonous?” I inquired of Mr. Topp.

  “Not yet, no. But very poisonous when grown. Fatal.”

  Mr. Freeman pushed the broken green bits off to the side and we proceeded.

  After that there were no more incidents and soon we arrived at a clearing above the salt pond — which was much bigger than I had imagined it — and Isaac and two other sense boys who had gone on ahead, spread cushions and rugs and then produced from their hampers a veritable feast of cold fowl, tomatoes, cucumbers, fresh bread, and punch.

  Déjeuner sur l’herbe. I noticed that most of the party ate with their hands so I proceeded to do the same, hoping this would not be my first step on the road to “going native.” A clay pot of water and clean towels cleansed our fingers when we had finished the main course. We followed with those small sweet bananas they call “white man’s fingers” and pieces of fresh coconut.

  “Beauty is deceptive, is it not?” said Mr. Freeman, lounging on one elbow. “That vine in the distance, for instance, whose lovely white flowers will begin to unfold when darkness fall: datura stramonium. Every bit of it is poison. When the flowers are open, they emit a pleasing fragrance and they are fed upon by moths. It is sometimes called devil’s trumpet. No doubt it is on offer at the ju-ju stall, as pills or potion. Perhaps you have seen it in England?

  “Is it similar to the morning glory? “

  “Similar and yet not. The seeds contain a deadly poison and the juice of the seeds, I have heard, is one way to get rid of an enemy. Isn’t that true, Mrs. Topp?”

  “Very true,” she said, “but there are many such things. We call them ‘medicine.’ Some harm; some heal.

  “The trial of the snake’s teeth

  “The boiling palm-oil test

  “The poison nut

  “The calabar bean.”

  “Of course,” said Mr. Freeman, twirling his plucked flower between thumb and finger, “we have deadly plants in England as well. The leaves of the lowly rhubarb, for instance, will kill a child, the seeds of the laburnum tree, the pretty digitalis. I think I could make up a nice sermon on the deceptiveness of beauty — how one shouldn’t trust it, what do you think?”

  “I think,” said I, “that you enjoyed whacking those baby mambas. Was that a Biblical fury, Mr. Freeman, because of the damage done by the serpent in the Garden? Could you not make a sermon out of that? The canes of Righteousness, perhaps? Or perhaps, because Mr. Topp has informed me that the baby mambas are not poisonous, the Sins of the Fathers?”

  “You are teasing me, Mrs. Maclean.”

  “And you have been trying to frighten me, I think.”

  George told me later that he thought I had gone too far, but I didn’t care. The missionary bothered me with his big smile and his ingratiating ways. And I disliked the way he spoke to Isaac and the other boys. Or snapped his fingers at them. Or clapped his hands. “Boy! You, Boy!”

  And I know he thought me silly, frivolous even. He might have approved of Milton, or Dante with his concept of the beautiful lie, but for a woman to write poetry just for the sake of writing poetry, novels ditto — novels! — with no aim of leading the mind up to God, well, how frivolous can you get? I once told him I took my writing very seriously.

  “I know you do,” he said. And sighed.

  Mr. Freeman

  “DEAD TO GOD AND ASLEEP IN THE ARMS OF SATAN”: that is how Charles Wesley described himself as a youth. How much more does this apply to the Fantee people? And it is not as though one had a clean slate to write upon. No No No No No. So many rituals, so much mumbo-jumbo; so many fetishes and taboos. But, with God’s help, we shall overcome.

  Letty

  THERE IS NO TWILIGHT ON THE COAST, no “fairy web of night and day.” Night comes swiftly, like a dark curtain drawn across the sky. I missed the twilight; in London I had always loved the hours between five and seven; it was a magical time. I called them, “the hours of possibility.” Who knew what might happen later on? Of course there was work to be done: clothes must be considered, jewellery scrutinized, hair dressed. There was the mask that one always wears when venturing forth into Society; that must be firmly fixed in place. There was always someone who took my success as a personal affront, some second-rate poet who still dined out on a slim volume published years ago, for instance. “Mmmmm — Miss Landon. Of course I never read you, but my old aunt thinks you are wonderful.” That sort of thing. You must never show that you are at all vulnerable, and fortunately I was quick: “Oh do introduce me to your aunt! She must be so proud of your little book. Are you working on another?”

  And we dined at such an outr
ageous time in the Castle. I had a small sherry and George a large whiskey at seven and then we went in to dinner. If we were hosting a dinner party, then of course we dined much later, but most days our preprandial, prandial, and post prandial activities were over fairly quickly and without a great deal of that spice to the sauce — a lively conversation. I asked him about his day, which was mostly spent adjudicating between claims and counter-claims of a most ridiculous sort: two men both claimed ownership of a shirt; “a certain man” had put “medicine” in the plaintiff’s soup, medicine meaning poison. He asked me about my day. Perhaps we strolled along the battlements, had a quick look at the moon if the clouds had moved away, then George excused himself and went up to his “cockloft” where he played with his telescope, wrote up reports, or practised some air on his fiddle.

  I read — I was re-reading all of the Waverly novels — and later joined him in our apartments. I rarely stayed through the night.

  It was not that George was stupid, but in many ways he lacked imagination (or the painter’s eye, which is very like the poet’s).

  A primrose by the river’s brim

  A yellow primrose was to him

  But it was nothing more.

  He does have a romantic ideal of himself he must live up to, he must be seen always as a fair man, and just. People walk miles to have him hear of their complaints; there is always a crowd before the gates are opened in the morning.

  In my letters home I sometimes “doctored” his dinnertime reports — suggested that he thought for a minute of playing Solomon and offering to rip the shirt in two and thus find out the true owner. I suppose I wanted to build him up in the eyes of my friends. We all do that, don’t we, build people up or tear them down, whichever suits our purpose. (Not George, though, never George. He did no building-up or tearing-down. One of the things I so admired about him was his honesty.)