Authors: Chris Dolan
At harvest and sowing – three of each a year on the Coak Estate – every uncultivated piece of land was taken up by makeshift houses. In the intervening months the land was emptied again. Shacks were easily dismantled and carried on the back to other plantations. Since emancipation, islanders had become like turtles, moving slowly under the weight of their shells, from pasture to
pasture
. If Coak’s dream of a great factory and Shaw’s of a flourishing, settled community were ever to be realised, it was essential that they provide year-round work and put down stronger roots, deeper foundations, for their people.
Elspeth played her part by overseeing the enhancing and
improving of the old slave houses. She and her women set to work on cleaning up the stonework, clearing the weeds, putting down stone flooring and installing furniture. Shaw allowed the
experiment
to go ahead on the understanding that this was an
investment
the women themselves were making to the estate, and any expenses incurred were to be met by them. They had no actual money, naturally, but there was a notional wage rate, and owings were noted down in a book to be repaid at a later date, once their increasingly extended indenture had been served. No one was
permitted
to seek work elsewhere while indebted to Lord Coak.
Even those men who had found a partner were tempted away by work elsewhere. Already, after four years, some who had fathered children cared little about leaving them and their mothers behind, making faint promises of return. Diana continued to insist that not being bound by a God-fearing marriage ceremony made this
behaviour
only too easy. Shaw, though not a man of religious orthodoxy, eventually concurred. The only option was to bring a minister up from Bridgetown – a journey few clerics were anxious to make, and fewer still were acceptable to the factor.
Reverend Galloway attempted to make the journey in a
polished
gig, but the roads were in such a dire state that it gave up the ghost at Blackman’s Gully, obliging the minister to continue on foot, arriving short-tempered and outraged. “This estate,” he proclaimed the minute he set foot inside the gates, “has fallen by the wayside.” He told them that terrible things were heard in town of the morality – or lack of it – in this outpost. “We hear of
concubinage
, fornication, illegitimacy, and an aversion to hearing the word of God spoken.”
“We are so far from town, Minister, and have so much work to do,” confessed Diana.
“Nothing should inhibit a good Christian from making the
journey
to church, at the very least for the important rites of marriage, birth and burial.”
“We still say our prayers, and our Captain here reads from the Bible whenever such a circumstance arrives. And so do I.”
Her argument only incensed the good Reverend more. “As for your Captain, I very much doubt he has been schooled in the proper
readings of the Good Book. In your own case, do you truly believe that a woman may represent God at such homespun rituals?”
The man had arrived angry and became angrier as the day wore on. He could hardly believe his ears when Elspeth proposed he
perform
a general wedding rite to legally bind in the eyes of God those who were already cohabiting.
“You wish me to give my blessing to your desecrations? I think not, Mistress.”
It seemed the minister had come all this way merely to condemn and convict the lost flock to the fires of damnation. But Elspeth, used to the ways of recriminating clerics from her days with
travelling
players – when many such men attempted to drive them from town – had a strategy for just such a contingency. Settling the
minister
before a plate of fried chicken and eddoes and a large jugful of ale, she called Diana into a secret meeting in her chambers.
“Reverend Galloway may find it beneath him to marry all those in want of it, but I think he shall wed at least one deserving couple. Who do you think would volunteer?”
Diana shook her head sadly and replied that she had not observed much hunger for the sacraments amongst her sisters.
“What about Jean Morton?”
“Not ideal.”
“Has she not been living harmoniously with one of the men new to us?”
“Ben McGeoch. A Roman Papist, ma’m, and not one to keep it hid.”
“Bessy Riddoch has two babes by her companion.”
“Two different companions, tragically.”
“Susan Millar?”
“She partakes of no spirituality.”
They could not between them come up with one couple who could be safely presented before Mr. Galloway. Those who had already borne children could hardly be portrayed as good Christians and Diana would not consent to lie – even by omission – before a man of God. But for her plan to succeed, Elspeth needed at least one marriageable couple.
“That leaves you, Diana.”
Diana stared at her mistress in astonishment. “And who is it you think I should wed? Shall I step outside and seize the first uncouth cutter I see?”
“Come, come Diana. Everyone knows you and Robert Butcher are in love!”
“In love! We are acquainted neighbours! We pray together and console one another.”
“What more should respectable wedded partners do? Well
perhaps
something – but even that, I wonder, is not so far hidden beneath your piety. Mr. Butcher would make a fine husband I think. Consider your position in our little family here, Diana. The rest of us look to you, and look up to you – it would be a fine example to us all.”
“Surely it is you, ma’m, we would follow in such matters.”
Elspeth laughed and returned Diana’s question: “And to which uncouth cutter would you have me propose?”
“I mean his lordship, of course.”
Elspeth flapped away the question. “His lordship is not at home. And the more likely proposal I’d accept would be adoption.”
“To care for and guide you – what more would a respectable woman need from a marriage?”
Elspeth swept out of the kitchen, aware that she looked like her old childish self walking out peevishly on her mother. On the porch, she calmed herself, took stock and decided on a plan. She saw to it that the minister was served further rations of food and ale, and a flask of rum, then went in search of Robert Butcher. As she suspected, that gentleman needed less urging.
One hour later, Diana, at turns glowering at Elspeth and beaming at Robert, stood by her fiancé – hastily splashed and combed – in front of Reverend Galloway, sweetened by a second jug of ale, and mollified now that he had an acceptable professional task to
perform
. The ceremony was officiated in the kitchen. When the godly man inquired why so humble a location had been chosen for the greatest of the Lord’s sacraments, Elspeth replied that the recipients of that rite were the humblest of His creations and a kitchen was an apt setting. Galloway nodded solemnly and, while he prepared himself spiritually for the ceremony, Elspeth went out and spoke to
the men and women who, treating the occasion as a holiday, were roaming around the herb gardens and bluff. Emissaries were sent out to chattel-houses and canefields to bring the flock – furtively, behind the cover of the trees – to the shepherd. Elspeth, delighted with her ingenuity, gave bluster to Sir Walter Scott’s words:
“Whoop, Jack! kiss Gillian the quicker
Till she bloom like a rose, and a fig for the minister!”
Earnest again in the kitchens, Mistress Baillie bade the Reverend stand with his back to the door, to benefit from the freshness of the draught. Those girls and men who had agreed to partake in the ruse placed themselves in the camouflage of the figs and overgrowth of the bluff between house and cove. In that way, they could see the minister without him seeing them. Those who had already coupled stood together; a few women stood between two men. Mothers held their sons and daughters aloft.
Galloway intoned his lines like a hambone actor at the
heartrending
finale of a poorly-written melodrama, insisting first on
testing
Diana and Robert on Calvin’s catechism: “What is man’s chief felicity?”
With much nudging and mumbling Diana succeeded in
getting
Robert through the examination. “I believe in de holy ghos’, holy chur’, cammunion o’ Sents and de rising again o’ we body, life everlasting.”
Then, like Antony addressing the Romans, the minister
projected
to the audience of five – the fiancés themselves, Elspeth, with Mary Miller and Errol Braithewaite acting as guarantors. How much more drama he would have given his oration had he known that the true number of betrothed numbered nearly forty.
“Dearly beloved brethren! We are here gathered together in the sight of God and in the face of His congregation to knit and join these parties in the honourable estate of matrimony, which was authorised …”
On he went, repaying in full measure his rations and rum by selecting the longest text possible for such an occasion. “…
sembably
it is the wife’s duty to please and obey her husband in all things that be godly and honest, for she is in subjection …”
Elspeth flinched at every movement in the trees, every squeak
and giggle, beyond the open door. The old fool of a minister liked to embellish his rituals with much pacing and changing position, so by the end of the long afternoon he was directly facing the open door. Her heart leapt every time she saw a limb protrude from behind a tree, or an arm stretched up in a yawn, a child scampering from its hideout and being pulled back in with muted laughter. Galloway, mercifully, was much too transfixed by the power of the Word to observe any of these give-aways. “Whosoever polluteth and
defileth
the Temple of God, him God will destroy!”
At last, Robert and Diana were invited to join hands, which she did poignantly, and he gratefully, and the ceremony was brought to an end. Whereupon the rest of the hidden community appeared as if from nowhere from under boughs and behind hillocks. The
minister
naturally expressed his surprise at this sudden congregation, likening it to the appearance of the lepers before Christ. Elspeth assured him that the solemnity of his words and the beauty of his voice had brought God-thirsty people to him, and that seemed to dispel any suspicions he might have had. In this way the rite of holy matrimony was administered to all generally – albeit, quite literally, behind the minister’s back.
As a group lined the driveway to wave cheerio to their saviour, Bessy Riddoch smiled broadly and called out:
“The minister kissed the fiddler’s wife,
An’ couldna preach for thinkin’ o’ it!”
Families for many generations to come considered their
betrothals
covered in full by the procedure enacted in the year 1838.
His lordship himself was not in the country that day, but on his return, having been informed of the general wedding service, he came armed with bouquets of dried wild heather from Scotland, and suggested to Elspeth that they include themselves in the
sacrament
. Although he himself had not been actually present, she had – if God’s law could penetrate thickets and transcend the
hoodwinking
of His minister, then it could permeate the clean, open air of an ocean and bind patron and protégée as well.
He made his offer so lightly. Like a frolic, or another game of dressing up. It was impossible to rebuff, to let him down. She smiled,
coloured her cheeks as only an actress can wilfully do, and curtsied. “Why my Lord! A mere milkmaid such as I?”
He pressed his offer, laughing, insisting she take the posy from him. She recited lines from her father’s “The Shepherd Lass o’ Aberlour”: “Though ne’er I’ll be mistress o’ the good Laird’s lot / but forby I’ll be empress o’ his cot!” Still acting, she feigned
weeping
, declaring she could never live up to such awesome
responsibility
. He looked at her with deep sadness, and she saw in him the lad at the London Naval, consumed with love for his Anne Bonnies and Salammbos. She was stung by pity for him, and by guilt at her own selfishness. The only favour this man had asked her – in return for freeing her, caring for her, paying for her, keeping her in dresses and books, giving her the run and running of his house – and she was about to reject him.
And for what benefit? She could not leave this place. She would never find a husband amongst ploughmen and carters, and anyway, she would always have George, her first, truest and only husband. The spirit of his child glowing forever within her.
Another role then. Lady Coak. Mistress of Northpoint,
matriarch
to New Caledonia. That night, she recited for her bridegroom:
“A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw;
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song …”
The next day Lord Coak informed one and all that, henceforth, Miss Baillie would now be addressed as Lady Elspeth, and the
plantation
– in honour of all the loyal women who had settled there, and had begun to stock his estate with future generations – was to be renamed Roseneath Estate. Francis O’Neill fashioned a signpost for the gate, misspelling the name “Roseneythe”.
Elspeth had the Lyric’s old backcloth repaired to its former glory. Calling upon the seamstress skills of her colleagues, they began the lengthy business of repairing the fire and water damage and, in
time, whole sections of embroidered stars, crystals and snowflakes were returned to their original exquisite state. It was finally hung at the back of the main hall at the beginning of 1839, taking a full three days and all the spare time of the brawniest men and the talents of the deftest seamstresses to put in place. A further curtain was hung in front of it, so that the community could take its meals in more sombre surroundings. The curtain was only revealed during the regular concert nights and tea-meetings.