Home! Lilah had never been so glad to see any place in her life as she was to see Heart's Ease on that sundrenched afternoon. As the carriage turned in to the long drive that led to the main house, Lilah felt the welcome shade from the twin rows of tall, leafy palms that lined the drive like an embrace. She looked toward the red-tiled roof of the house, which could just be glimpsed through the trees. Her excitement was such that she could hardly sit still. On either side of her, Leonard and Kevin smiled in indulgent amusement at her sudden attack of the fidgets. Aware of their grins, Lilah nevertheless craned forward eagerly to get her first look in nearly six months at the sprawling white stuccoed plantation house where she'd been born. She hoped never again to leave for much longer than overnight.
"Lilah!"
"Miss Lilah!"
At the sound of the carriage wheels, her stepmother, Jane, was first out on the verandah, and down the stairs. Behind her came Maisie, her skin shining like polished ebony in the heat as it always did, her whipcord thin body belying her reputation as the best plantation cook in Barbados. The rest of the house slaves piled out behind Maisie, tumbling down the stairs to greet the beloved daughter of the house.
"Lilah, welcome home!"
Lilah half fell out of the carriage into her stepmother's arms, hugging the gentle woman whom she had grown to love dearly over the years. Maisie stretched out her hand to pat Lilah's shoulder, then saw that her fingers were white with flour and drew back with a chuckle.
"Miss Lilah, we done thought you was dead!"
"Oh, Maisie, it's good to see you! It's good to see all of you!"
Once Jane released her, Lilah hugged Maisie, laughing as she disregarded the old woman's protests about floury hands. Looking over Maisie's shoulder at the smiling, weeping slaves, Lilah met a pair of eyes she had feared never to see again.
"Betsy! Oh, Betsy! I was afraid you had drowned!" Lilah fell into Betsy's arms and the two girls hugged each other soundly.
"You came a lot closer to drownin' than I did, Miss Lilah! Our lifeboat was spotted by another ship in less than a day! The lifeboat you and Mr. Kevin was in was the only one that was lost-and when Mr. Kevin got home and said that your lifeboat had wrecked and you'd been swept away by the sea-well, I tell you, I never want to live through time like the one just passed! And to think of the adventures you've been havin', while we've been breakin' our hearts over you!"
"Terrifying adventures, Betsy," Lilah said, drawing away from her maid to smile at the rest of her slave family. "I am so glad to see you all I declare I could cry! But I won't-at least not until after I see Katy. How is she, Jane?"
"She's been grieving herself to a skeleton over you, of course. Her baby, lost at sea! You'd better go straight up."
"Yes, I will."
"I'll carry up water for your bath, Miss Lilah, and lay out some clean clothes. I know you'll be wantin' to get into your own things as soon as may be."
Lilah looked down at the cheap but pretty dress that her father had bought ready-made from a seamstress in Bridgetown when he discovered to his horror that she had only men's clothes. Compared to what she had been used to wearing ever since the Swift Wind went down, this gown was magnificent. But as Lilah remembered her own wardrobe, from underwear to day dresses to the most elaborate ball gowns fashioned of the finest materials with the finest workmanship, she was suddenly eager to change. To be herself again.
"You do that, Betsy. And thank you all for the welcome home. I've missed every one of you more than I can say."
She swept up the steps and into the house with Jane and the slaves trailing behind her. Her father and Kevin would see to the horse and buggy, then most likely go about their business. The work on a sugar plantation the size of Heart's Ease was never ending, and required both men's full-time attention.
"Lilah, honey, is that you?"
Katy Allen occupied a small room at the top of the three-story house. Blind and bedridden, she scarcely ever went downstairs. She had come over from England with Lilah's mother, some sort of poor relation who was years older than the girl she was hired to chaperone, then stayed on until her charge's wedding and beyond. After Lilah's birth and her mother's death, Katy had taken on the role of the baby's nursemaid and, later her governess. She occupied a place in Lilah's heart second only to her father, and she wept as Lilah came to where she sat in the big rocking chair in the corner of the room and embraced her.
"It's me, Katy." Lilah felt her throat tighten as she hugged the frail old body, breathing in the sweet powdery scent that clung to the woman and had comforted her from earliest childhood.
"It is I, dear." Even at moments of extreme emotion, Katy could be counted on to remember her mandate as governess. This prosaic reminder made Lilah smile as she pulled back to look lovingly at the pale, lined face under its cap of snowy hair.
"It is I, then."
"I knew you hadn't drowned. No child who got into as much mischief as you did and survived would be taken like that."
"You shouldn't have worried." Lilah, undeceived by Katy's brave words, hugged her again. This time a tear, followed by a laugh and a sniff, coursed down the paper- white cheek.
"Don't you go away again, you hear?"
The old woman reached out and drew Lilah's head to her lap, where it had rested many times awash with childish tears, and stroked her hair.
"No, I won't, Katy. I won't," Lilah whispered. As the well-loved hand moved comfortingly over her shorn locks she vowed that she was home to stay.