THE MASTER PASSION ~ Chapter One, West Indies Boyhood
This Founding Father was not born to the purple, like the others.
This Founding Father was not born to the purple, like the others.
Sharing a sick feeling, Alex and Jamie Hamilton stood on
barefoot tiptoe and peeked through flimsy wooden louvers, all that separated
the rooms of their small West Indian house. Both boys were red-heads, but there
the resemblance ended. Eleven year old James was well-grown and strong. Alexander,
seven in January, was delicate, fast-moving and nervous, like a freckled bird.
“An idiot would have known not to trust him.” The beautiful
dark eyes of their mother flashed. Rachel faced her husband, a slight man of
aristocratic feature, who wore a white linen suit. Like him, it had seen better
days. His wife’s tone was challenging, her arms akimbo. Her stays, containing a
generous bosom, rose and fell.
“I—I—took him for a
gentleman.” Father sputtered, attempting to fall back upon a long ago mislaid
dignity. “He gave me his word.”
“His word!? Which means bloody nothing! How many times did I
tell you what was going to happen? How many times?”
“Shut your mouth, woman!”
A sharp crack sounded as he slapped her. Rachel, hair
spilling from beneath her cap, staggered backwards. From the kitchen came the
fearful keening of Esther, their mother’s oldest slave.
“There’s naught canna be dune noo!" James Hamilton, his long
face flushed, roared the words. Scots surfaced whenever he was angry.
“Yes, nothing to be done. As usual.” A livid mark glowed
upon Rachel’s face, but she, with absolute disregard for consequences, righted
herself and finished what she had to say.
“This time Lytton’s going to let you go. And if you can’t
even manage to hold a job with my kinfolk, where will you get another? What are
we supposed to live on? Air?”
In spite of the fact that it was winter on the island, the
best weather of the entire year, Alexander shuddered. Distilled fear slid along
his spine.
How many times in his short life had he watched this scene
replayed? Listened to Mama shout Papa’s failures, watched as his father,
humiliated and enraged, used his fists to silence her?
A business deal gone bad! Money lost….
Will we move again?
Every change of residence, from Alexander’s birthplace on
cloudy Nevis, to St. Kitts, and from there to St. Croix, had carried them to
smaller houses and meaner streets. The carriage, the two bay horses and the
slaves who tended them, were only a memory.
Mama was shrieking now, about loans and due dates, things
which she declared “any fool” could understand. Frozen, knowing what would
surely come, Alexander watched as his father, crossing the room in two quick
strides, caught his mother by the shoulders.
With the strength of rage, he threw her like a rag doll. She
struck the wall so violently the flimsy house shook. Small emerald lizards
stalking the mosquitoes drawn by candlelight, vanished into shadow.
Silenced at last, Rachel crumpled to the floor, sobbing. Her
once gay calico dress, muted by many, many launderings, lapped her. The under shift,
always scrubbed to a sea-foam white, drifted from beneath.
James Hamilton, breathing hard, blind with rage, tore open
the door and strode past his cowering, terrified sons. For the last time, Alexander
saw his beloved father’s face, a sweating mask of fear.
* * *
“Come on, boys. Out of there.”
A candle shone in the balmy West Indies night. The voice wasn’t
unkind, just drunk and hurried. From outside came the bell-chorus of an untold
host of peepers.
Alex and Jamie, in shirts too ragged to wear during the day,
had been asleep in the only bed. There was a mattress filled with palm fronds
in the next room upon the floor, but this time of year scorpions came in. When
Mama hadn’t returned, they’d decided to sleep in the greater safety of her bed.
Jamie groaned, sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. The
Captain of the Guards, Mr. Egan, leaned over. He breathed rum and seemed
unsteady. Behind him, supporting herself on the door frame, was Mama. She was,
Alexander noted with a thrill of disgust, bare-shouldered, her cap removed, her
shining dark hair loosened.
“Out, boys,” she echoed. “Esther said she’d beat your
mattress and lay it out after supper. What are you doing in here?”
Neither boy replied. She didn’t want an answer. What she
wanted was for them to leave. Tomorrow she’d give them a scolding, but not
tonight. At the moment there were other, more important things on her mind.
“Here, young fellow.” Egan, muscles rippling beneath his
shirt, handed Jamie the candle. Obediently, Jamie took it. Their rooms were,
after all, rented space in the front of his house.
“Use this to look if you’re worried something’s in your bed.
Your Ma and I won’t be needing it.”
He threw a grin at Rachel, who was restlessly tossing a dark
curl over a pale shoulder. Mrs. Lavien or Mrs. Hamilton—whichever name she used
now that she was living alone with her sons on St. Croix—was almost thirty, but
she still turned heads whenever she passed along Christiansted’s bustling main
street. Anticipation caused the captain to deliver a slap on the rear to speed
the smaller boy along.
“Don’t you touch me!” Alex spun and glared, his thin face
white under coppery curls.
Jamie grabbed a handful of his brother’s shirt. “Oh, come
on, Alex!” He dragged his slight brother through the door. “The captain didn’t
mean anything.”
Alexander was wide awake now, his eyes blazing blue fire. The
distant echo of surf, the sighing palms, the intoxicating fragrance of Lady of
the Night that climbed in profusion over the house, held no power to still his
pounding heart.
Grinning, Egan stepped back, threw an arm that was
infuriatingly proprietary around his mother.
“Yes. Don’t start,” Rachel cautioned. “Just mind your own
business and go back to sleep.” Her dark eyes turned toward Egan. One hand
moved easily across his chest, taking in the feel of hard flesh beneath. Alexander
wanted to kill them both.
“If you and Jamie slept where you were supposed to, this
wouldn’t happen.”
“Come on, woman.” Egan terminated the conversation, pulling
her playfully through the door into the darkness.
“The little brats.” Their mother was heard to sigh when the
door closed. “I swear they do it on purpose.”
In the next room, the boys busied themselves in a thorough
inspection of their mattress. Satisfied at last about the absence of scorpions,
they extinguished the candle and lay down together. From over the transom came
whispered laughter and the sound of the captain’s boots dropping to the floor.
In the soft darkness, beside his now stolidly motionless
brother, Alexander crammed fingers tightly into his ears. Tears pooled against
his cheek.
“Oh, Papa,” he whispered into the night. “Papa, please come
back...”
