Madda Femi's Long Reach

April 1799

An Atlantic gale strained HMS Lutine’s masts against her shrouds and stays. The wind roared capriciously, veering from west to north and back again. The ship see-sawed, heeling to port and starboard, pitching and yawing at the waves’ direction. Torrential rain lashed her deck. Lookouts, blind in the darkness, peered for any sign of land. The sounding line warned of a rapid shallowing beneath the keel. The shriek of the storm drowned out the Captain’s commands. And junior officers braved the heaving deck to cajole the sailors manning the halyards and sheets to drop some sails and keep the others taut.

To survive they had to run before the weather and avoid the rocks that guarded the foot of the Cornish cliffs. Sheer prominences that stood as grave markers for centuries’ worth of foundered ships. For a while, it looked as if the Lutine would avoid their fate. The crew was experienced and the captain a master of his trade. But nature cares nothing for man’s vanity. The winds increased in speed and power and drove the ship inexorably on. Broken yards, ripped from their braces, entangled in heavy canvas and dragging lengths of rope, fouled the deck and crippled the crew’s ability to steer the ship.

The end came quickly. The oak hull, two feet thick and metal-strapped to resist cannonballs, was pierced by jagged rocks as easily as a careless seamstress might prick her finger. Holes were tortured into gashes. Roiling seas poured unhindered into the lower decks. Now water-weighted, the ship stalled in its death throes as the pressure of the sea forced it against fatal rocks. Her death-rattle was a roll that left her masts perpendicular to the water’s surface.

The officers and men stood little chance. Some were drowned below decks. Others were hurled into the heaving water and dashed against the rocks. Alone among the ship’s company, Beth made it to shore. She did not know how. One minute she was bracing herself in her cabin. The next, a rush of water washed her out through a broken porthole. And then, as firmly as an Italian mother, had picked her up, cradled her to its bosom and laid her down on a bed of coarse sand.

The reprieve was temporary. Her spine was crushed. Her legs immobile. She lay there long enough to see the weather break and the skies lighten over the shattered ship now idly bobbing on quiet waves, lashed to its final resting place by the ropes that had once been its sinews. Beth lay supine, her eyes closed. Her hand opened and a small gold container fell to the sand. To its tightly twisted top was welded a length of chain. Its body was covered in etched letters. And impressed upon it was the message:

“Hunc spiritum relinquite in pace. Si turbatur, liberatori suo perniciem adfert.”

As Beth lay dying, her mind pictured another ship. A ship she had boarded as a 17-year-old girl. A ship that would take her from the place of her youth and transport her to a place beyond her imagination.

March 1796

On a gray, chill day, Elizabeth Lindsey boarded a ship in Liverpool. She was seventeen and eager to flee the grime and smoke of the newly industrialized English Midlands, a land of perpetual drizzle. Her head overflowed with tales of far-flung places. The venerable Mrs. Chalmers, the family’s housekeeper, had sons in the merchant marine. They told tales of exotic people, inhabiting teeming cities, in mysterious lands of strange customs and peculiar Gods. Elizabeth, or Beth as she was known by the family, was the only child of Alexander Lindsay, the widowed 6th Earl of Balcarres.

The Earl was a military man, a Major General. When younger, and a mere Major, he had fought and surrendered with General Burgoyne at the Battle of Saratoga. This poor showing had not diminished his prospects, as promotion to his current rank attested. He was appointed Governor of Jamaica. England's largest possession in the West Indies and a source of incredible wealth for her mercantile class and its aristocratic patrons.

At the end of April, the ship reached Jamaica’s thriving port, Kingston. On its docks an army of longshoremen unloaded ships from Europe stuffed with furniture and other luxuries the newly wealthy sugar barons demanded for their colonial homes. Ships from Africa discharged slaves, transported to replace the hundreds who died every year under the lash and boot of plantation overseers. In turn, the empty ships were loaded with tons of the white gold craved by Europeans.

In still air, the heat was unbearable. But sea breezes were common. And the rainy season brought relief with afternoon showers. The Governor’s Palace, in the capital Spanish Town, was built with thick walls, high ceilings, and deep windows, shaded by awnings and local trees. Shutters kept out direct sunlight. And the gardens had pools and fountains fed by cool underground springs.

Beth joined Jamaica’s social whirl. Civil servants, military officers, and prominent traders maintained important homes in the city’s best neighborhood. Dinner parties and balls livened the social calendar. In due course, she made friends with other young adults.

But her best friend and closest companion was not from that set. Isaac was the product of a blend of backgrounds - an African-Caribe with European blood. He was a descendant of escaped slaves or Maroons in the local parlance. A precocious talent, by dint of a ferocious intellect he had earned a place on the governor’s staff. It wasn’t odd to find locals working as servants in the palace. But it was unusual to see one dressed in a sober suit in the manner of an English clerk. Isaac worked as a liaison between the Governor’s personal secretary and the household staff. He spoke perfect English and the local creole - a blend of corrupted English and Akan, a tribal language of Ghana.

Unbeknownst to her father, Beth would walk with Isaac, after his work was done, around the native areas of Spanish Town. There, streets were lined with shanty houses thrown together with whatever material lay to hand. She met Isaac’s mother, Madda Femi. She was a woman of great faith, who combined the Christian Trinity with the West African religion, Vodun, and its belief in the controlling force of spirits. Who Isaac’s father was his mother never said. He could have sprung from the seed of a grandee casually exercising his droit de seigneur. Or perhaps he was the product of a tender if forbidden love.

February 1799

After three years on the island, Beth had adopted the relaxed lifestyle of the locals. She had learned the native patois and easily made friends among the Maroons. Until the attack changed everything.

She was walking with Isaac, her arm casually looped through his, as they ambled through the early evening’s dimming light. Suddenly, they were accosted by three rum-soaked sailors. In their baleful prejudice, they saw a defenseless white woman at the mercy of a bestial Black. And liquored up, they were going to protect her honor. One grabbed Beth's arm and roughly pulled her away from Isaac before they surrounded him, swinging billy clubs.

He raised his arms to war off the blows, but the force of the assault drove him to his knees. Beth screamed at their misunderstanding. But the men, crazed by righteousness and blinded by racism and alcohol, beat Isaac with abandon. She grabbed at one of them, but a club caught her on the temple and she bowed in pain. The man lost his footing and tripped back into her. His bulk pushed her to the ground and her head slammed into the packed dirt. She was dazed and the world dimmed.

As Beth regained consciousness, she saw a swirl of locals encircle a spot, peering down at something hidden. She rose shakily to her feet and looked for Isaac. She found him lying in the middle of the mass. His eyes were open but life had left him. His head was cradled in his mother’s lap. His jacket was ripped, his shirt torn, and his britches were down below his knees. His stomach had been badly gashed. And further down, below his pubis, there was a bloody void. The dirt road was soaked with an impossible amount of blood.

She heard a keening. And saw his mother grasp him by the shoulders and pull his limp head to her breast as if she might give him life once again. To no avail. He was beyond suffering, while his mother was at the beginning of her agony.

Beth stood there in shock until she was bundled into a passing carriage and quickly returned to the palace. There the butler saw the dirt on her dress and the shock in her eyes. He commanded her maid to take her to her rooms. There the maid removed her soiled clothes and led her to the bath. She lay in the cool water numb to the day’s events. Eventually, she dried off, went to bed, and was soon asleep. She woke up as the sun was rising.

After breakfast, her father summoned her and told her she was being returned to England. The Lutine was sailing five days hence and he had arranged passage. In the interim, she was not to set foot outside the palace. Beth did not listen to him. In the afternoon, when the household dozed through the heat, she went to a gate in the wall at the bottom of the garden. She pulled back the bolt securing it. Walking quickly, and keeping her head bent beneath a broad-brimmed hat, she hastened to the Maroon neighborhood.

She reached Madda Femi’s house. Some women were chatting outside. Seeing her they fell silent. She begged their pardon and asked if she might see Madda. They stepped aside to allow her entrance through the low doorway. In the gloom, she saw Isaac’s mother sitting silently in her rocking chair while other women fussed around.

“I’m so sorry, Madda,” Beth said.

The woman had aged a decade in a day. She turned her head to look at Beth directly.

“Child, I am glad you are not hurt. I saw what you did for Isaac. I will go to my grave grateful that he was a good enough man that others felt he was worth fighting for. He will take his mother’s love and the knowledge that he made a difference with him on his journey.”

“Madda, I will treasure him always. He was the finest man I have ever known,” said Beth, adding, “I am being sent home, but I wanted you to know how much I respected your son.”

Madda stood up and walked over to a large sturdy sideboard. She opened a drawer and took out a gold object on a chain.

“I want you to have this Beth,” she said, as she placed the gold cylinder in her hand. “This was given to me by my mother. Who received it from her mother. And her mother before her. And so on back. How far, I do not know. I am now an old woman, and will never have a daughter, even by marriage. So I leave it to your care. And perhaps one day you will have a daughter to leave it to.”

April 1799

When the rescue party found her, Beth was dead. Other bodies had washed ashore. They were gathered and given proper Christian funerals. The Earl never made it back to England. He was taken by yellow fever. Without an heir, the title went to his younger brother, Beth’s uncle. He had five children. And his children had children until a two-times great-granddaughter married Sir Oswald Mosley. And they had a granddaughter named Rosamund.

August 1972

Rosamund Mosley was walking alone on a foggy beach in Cornwall, idly eyeing the pebbles and shells that were washed in and out of tide pools at low tide. She picked things up and examined them before tossing them away. The sun was setting as the fog thickened. As she turned for home, before it obscured her path, she spotted what appeared to be a metallic cylinder with a chain attached. She brought it back to the cottage she was sharing with a girlfriend for their holiday. Both of them needed a breather from a London gripped by the sex and drug excesses of the glam rock era.

She showed her find to Violet, who examined it under a light. And in an act that would have despaired antique lovers everywhere, she gave it a good scrubbing with a sponge. Removing the grime revealed an almost perfectly preserved gold cylinder with a tightly twisted top to which a chain was attached.

Rosamund peered at it with a magnifying glass. She wrote down the words she read,

“Hunc spiritum relinquite in pace. Si turbatur, liberatori suo perniciem adfert.”

“That looks like Latin,’ she said to Violet. “I wonder what it means?”

Neither had been classically educated. And as the cottage had no Latin dictionary, they remained ignorant.

“I’m going to the pub. Are you interested?” Violet asked Rosamund.

“No. I’m tired. You have fun. But do you think you’ll be able to get there through the fog?”

“No problem, I’ll walk down the middle of the road following the white line. I doubt anyone will be driving tonight.”

An hour later Violet was being chatted up by a nice young man who said he was something in finance. And Rosamund was idly watching TV when she heard a knock on the cottage door. She opened the door. The fog had eased enough that she could see three men.

One of them said, “Hello. I’m so sorry to disturb you. But we seem to have run out of petrol. I was wondering if you might have a phone that we could use to call AAA or a taxi.”

Rosamund was uncomfortable at the request. But her Good Samaritan instincts overcame her apprehension. She let them in. As the front door closed, none of the men made a move for the phone she pointed to. The one who had made the request walked toward her until she could smell the whiskey on his breath. He pushed her hard, back onto the sofa.

Ninety minutes later they were gone. And Rosamund was lying numb in a hot bath, willing her mind to forget everything. When Violet returned, she sensed Rosamund’s distress, and finally got her to relate the events of the evening.

“We should call the police,” said Violet.

“Tomorrow. I will tomorrow. Not tonight.”

And with that, Rosamund went to bed. That night she dreamed she was on an island walking with a mocha-skinned man dressed in old-style clothes. The sun was lowering in the sky and her arm was linked through his. They were talking and he was making her laugh. But she couldn't hear what he was saying, until, at the very end, he looked her in the eyes and said, “You will be avenged. Those that hurt you are even now journeying to suffer their reward. Be at peace.” And in her sleep, she felt a calm wash over her.

The next day it was Violet who called the police. Hanging up, she told Rosamund they were on their way. Soon an Inspector Delford arrived with a uniformed sergeant. He asked Rosamund to tell him what had happened the night before. She did. It was oddly cathartic to tell these strangers the details of the attack. It was as if the revelation cast away the power the violence had over her. In a way, it was a confession, even if it were others who had sinned.

When she finished, the detective looked at her appraisingly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sealed plastic bag. In it was the gold cylinder. But the top with the chain had been unscrewed.

“Do you recognize this?”

“Yes, I found it on the beach yesterday. Where did you get it?”

“It was found in a car with three dead men.”

“Dead? How did they die?”

“They were stabbed”

What the detective didn’t tell Rosamund was that the three men had been found with their shirts ripped open and deep lacerations on their abdomens. Their trousers had been yanked down and they had been fatally mutilated and their blood splashed throughout the car. Nor did he tell them that he had had the Latin translated. In English it said:

"Leave this spirit in peace. If he is disturbed he will bring ruin to his liberator.”

At the inquest, Lowen Ives, a local vet, was called to testify. He related how he had seen a car driving toward him. And as he stepped to the side of the road to let it pass, it had suddenly picked up speed and lurched side to side. Then it had veered off the road and accelerated before it skidded into a low stone wall. The engine had died, but the headlights continued to shine. The light reflected off the wet rocks and illuminated the scene.

He had gone to render assistance. But on reaching the car it was obvious the men were beyond his help. He insisted he had seen no one leave the car.

Inspector Delford corroborated Ives' testimony. The furrows in the grass indicated the car had been speeding before the brakes were slammed on. The only tracks outside the car were the vet’s. Three men had been brutally murdered. But no murder weapon was found. And there was no trace of the murderer.

The coroner returned the only verdict she could, “homicide by a person or persons unknown”.

But Rosamund knew who it was.