Remember remember, p.2
Remember, Remember, page 2
Tentatively, he tucks the ominous plant behind the dressing table mirror, then turns his attention to the floor below. He stoops down, the wood creaking beneath his weight, and lifts a poorly fitted board to reveal his stash: a small tin of lemon bonbons.
These are not just sweets. Delphine used to sneak him a few from Lady Harvey’s crystal bowl each Christmas. He hasn’t been brave enough to continue her tradition since she escaped. Still, he saved a penny or two from each boxing victory to purchase a tin from the wisteria-fronted confectioners in Berkley Square.
Vincent twists the tin open, releasing a flurry of white powder and a zesty aroma. He pries a sticky bonbon from the bottom and makes an invisible toast to Delphine as he pops it in his mouth, tartness drawing in his cheeks.
If Lord Harvey finds him eating them, he’ll undoubtedly accuse him of theft and beat him with the pug-topped cane he clings to – a display of status rather than a necessary crutch.
The bonbons give Vincent courage; one final caning would be worth the risk. Of course, there are other things he could do to feel powerful, but he pushes away the thought – an idea too far beyond a little rebellion.
Delphine
Deep in the pit, Delphine dodges the pull of the spectators jostling their way to the stage. She hoists her skirts over her ankles and laments forgetting her nosegay as she sidesteps an acrid-smelling puddle of vomit and spilt ale. She misses the luxury of the lobby already.
As the wait before the match stretches out, Delphine twists and tears her ticket into a dozen anxious pieces, regretting her decision as they float down to the sticky floorboards. Vincent might have liked it as a keepsake.
Resolving to make up for it, she elbows through the crowd of drunken clerks, artisans, landladies and tradesmen to the bookmaker’s table. She passes potters with clay-dusted boots and leather-faced tanners with their unyielding rotting iron odour on her way. Although Delphine doesn’t belong to this burgeoning middle-class ensemble, they usually don’t make life difficult for her. Only two men and one very tall woman push in front of her before she can hand over a ha’penny to the bookie in exchange for a betting slip and vague good-luck wishes.
A much better memento: the crinkled paper is lined with promise. Vincent has repeatedly said that promise fuels the ring’s success. The kind that thousands buy into. Take a chance, fight the odds, wager it all, and maybe you’ll find everything you ever hoped for. Which tonight, in Vincent’s case, is his freedom.
Delphine’s heart lightens when Vincent emerges from the plush crimson curtains on the stage’s wings. Looking out to the crowd, he waves with the confidence he deserves but likely isn’t feeling.
Clinging to the betting slip in her hands, Delphine wills the four words on the paper to come true:
Vincent Mourière to win.
Vincent
Vincent leans on the wooden post at the edge of the ring and folds his arms over the thick braided rope. It’s designed not to hold the fighters in but to keep rowdy onlookers out. The post is dented in the middle and streaked proudly with dried blood – a reminder of how much this could cost. Panic flutters and tight warmth rises in his chest.
‘Gentlemen, take your seats,’ the announcer calls from the centre of the ring. ‘The match is about to commence.’
Vincent eyes up Quickfoot Turner, his opponent. He’s much smaller than Vincent’s carved, wide frame, but that doesn’t make him weaker. Vincent’s learned that from experience. The bell’s metallic shrill echoes in the fallen silence, and he smiles – a once unreachable dream now within punching distance.
Turner bores straight in and darts across the mat towards him. Turner sweeps tufts of auburn hair off his face and makes the first move – what should be a sharp hit on Vincent’s left side.
That’s always his opening.
Vincent easily slides his torso away before he strikes back with a blow to Turner’s gut. One punch down, he smirks; keep your breath steady.
A hiss escapes Turner’s lips as he rebalances himself and slips like a shadow from side to side, as fast as his nickname suggests. When Vincent swings, Turner evades his outstretched arm and whacks the side of his head. It leaves Vincent’s ear ringing like the match bell. Turner lunges once more, but Vincent’s too slow to react as the redhead showers a burst of punches onto his unguarded chest.
The crowd roars their approval. Turner’s been the favourite since the match announcement. Vincent tells himself the cheers are for him. In a rhythm now, Turner strikes again before Vincent can catch his breath. He wallops him in the jaw and jabs his fists into Vincent’s cheek. Vincent sucks down the iron taste from his gums. His head fills with smoke, clouding his vision. Another blow, and he’s down. Vincent staggers backwards.
‘This can’t be it,’ he says aloud, spitting blood out of the ring.
He blinks away the perspiration burning between his eyelashes and refocuses on his target.
This won’t be it.
He leaps forward and lands a hook on the underside of Turner’s jaw.
His neck cracks as his head is flung backwards.
Vincent’s knuckles glisten beneath the swinging oil lamps. He’s still in this. He’s going to win. He has to.
Flustered for barely a moment, Turner swipes again. Vincent blocks him with one arm, the other pounding into Turner’s face. He strikes repeatedly until Turner gasps for air, and his knee sinks to the floor. Vincent thinks of his lemon bonbons, his little rebellions and Delphine. They power him through hit after hit until Quickfoot Turner collapses face-first into the mat. His body shudders against it as he claws his way back up. Sweat flies from Vincent’s forehead as he throws one final blow to his opponent’s neck.
He waits a moment, watches, hopes. Turner doesn’t get up.
The audience cries for it; those about to lose their bets hurtle obscenities as the seconds trickle down. The announcer re-enters the ring – holds out his arms – and settles the yells from the crowd as he counts down. Ten, nine, eight …
Nothing. Seven, six, five … Nothing.
Four, three, two …
Quickfoot Turner twitches and taps his hand on the mat to admit defeat.
‘Mourière wins!’
Vincent’s face breaks into an untempered smile, and he punches the air. The crowd roars. Winning a match is one thing, but this is much more. It is a new start.
He searches the pit for his sister, lost in the clamouring darkness. It’s no surprise that he can’t see her. This year is her fourth spent in hiding. His fourth of meeting her secretly in dark taverns and cemeteries so their master wouldn’t discover her.
No longer. With these winnings, they can finally leave London. The next moments pass in flashes. Turner is aided out of the ring.
The theatre empties. Vincent’s body cries for ice amid all the rapturous pats on the back from stagehands. Applause follows him to his dressing room, where his triumphant grin fades from his face.
‘You are a liar, boy. And a cheat,’ his master says. Lord Harvey seems to loom over Vincent despite being a head shorter than him. He uses the silver pug at the top of his cane to push back a few strands of grey-blonde hair that have fallen loose beneath his freshly powdered white wig. Two deep lines cast a shadow between his brows, permanently fixed in place by the lord’s most common countenance: repulsion. The very expression he wears now.
‘Master, I—’
Lord Harvey’s open palm hits Vincent’s cheek with a crack. Of all the blows he’d suffered tonight, he did not expect this one. It seems he is about to have his second fight of the night. He folds into himself, cheek burning, and lowers his eyes to the ground.
‘A bet for your freedom, you say?’ his master spits. ‘How convenient.’ ‘There was a contra…’ Vincent tries, but it’s useless. The words curdle with nausea in his stomach.
‘Indignant, disloyal wretch. You say I offered you freedom, but where is your proof?’ Vincent staggers back as the lord thrusts his cane into his chest. ‘You have none.’ Lord Harvey hits him again. ‘None.’ And once more, this time landing on a freshly bloomed bruise.
Vincent winces and then forces his body to remain still. Submission is expected of him, but to show pain or discomfort – that is something neither he nor his master can tolerate.
Their eyes meet, any familiarity between them blinded by betrayal. ‘I forbid you to speak of this again.’
But Vincent wants to. The sickness builds inside him, rising with something long suppressed: hot, simmering rage. It is always there; Vincent is ever mindful of it, so it doesn’t boil over.
‘After all I have done for you,’ the lord scoffs in disbelief, ‘saving you from a fate in the fields.’ Harvey begins pacing, no longer looking in Vincent’s direction, swinging his cane like a vindictive tutor admonishing a student. Silence lingers, and Vincent pushes down another terrible feeling. Like he is beginning to lose hope.
‘I thought you were a breed apart from them, the common Negro. I allowed you to rise! An education, a christening – a future. Not just as some fool boxer to entertain the masses but to be above them. I see now that I was the fool.’ He snarls. ‘You truly are all the same.’
With cool precision, Harvey unbuttons the length of his navy jacket and removes his embroidered silk waistcoat. He folds them both neatly, methodically, before laying them on the dressing table.
‘Here, boy,’ he commands.
With clenched fists, Vincent obeys.
Lord Harvey flicks his eyes over to the wall and simply says, ‘Hands.’ Vincent flattens his palms against the wall, his knuckles bruised from the evening’s sorry, hollow victory. He could fight back. He could easily overpower Lord Harvey, but to resist or strike his master would be to raise one man’s fist against the Empire.
Vincent’s eyes stay fixed on the wall, and he focuses on the small brown cracks in the plaster. The harder he stares, the easier it will be to brace for what’s about to come. He’s often felt like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill. It is not the first time Lord Harvey has sent him rolling backwards. But it’s the first time he truly believed he would reach the top.
The cane lifts from the floor.
‘You are not worthy of freedom, beast.’
Vincent will not be crushed under that boulder’s weight again. His fury erupts in a scream. He turns from the wall, and after a lifetime of being forced to slump, rises to his full height. At long last, he towers over his master, whose knees buckle at the unprecedented sight before him. Vincent strikes Lord Harvey, desperate and afraid. The blows land in the place you’d expect: his heart. The force sends the lord stumbling back towards the door.
Fire raging in his ears, Vincent charges and pushes the lord again, so hard that his master’s head slams into a hook on the coat rack, sending his limp body and Vincent’s livery coat to the ground with a calamitous thump.
‘Let him go!’ cries a voice – Delphine’s – as his sister bursts into the room. Had she overheard him ruining their future? She must have thought his situation was dire – by revealing herself to their master, she is risking everything. Vincent sinks to the floor, his body a mass of trembling limbs and gasping breaths. The room seems to pull away from him. Though Delphine is speaking, perhaps taking in the truth of this tragic scene, Vincent cannot hear her. He’s barely registering the opening and closing of her mouth. It’s as if a swarm of locusts has flooded his ears, his thoughts, his vision.
Lord Harvey lies still on the floor, wigless and with a knot of bloody hair splayed over the hardwood, crimson pooling on a mint jacket. Delphine leans over their master; he thinks she’s watching for the rise and fall of his chest.
‘Oh no, oh no, oh no,’ he cries. Is Harvey breathing? Vincent cannot tell. He is ready to be dragged down through the floorboards and meet his eternal damnation.
Then he feels Delphine heaving him to his feet, gripping his shoulders tighter and tighter until the sharpness of her touch commands his attention.
‘He’s still alive. We need to get out of here,’ she says, and he senses the clarity of a plan behind her eyes.
Delphine holds out her hand, and he takes it. She says, ‘We have to go. Now.’
And instead of walking into their freedom, they run for their lives.
Chapter Two
I should have perceived that I had much more yet to suffer than I had before experienced, and that my troubles had as yet barely commenced.
—UKAWSAW GRONNIOSAW
1705-1775, enslaved 1720-1747
Delphine
There’s a familiarity to fear. The way it spikes Delphine’s blood and sharpens her senses. The way it carries her feet, leaving trails of silver footprints behind her.
To be on the run again. To flee through the same deserted alleyways and narrow yards. It triggers a darkness in Delphine that could easily swallow her whole.
So, she focuses on the plan. It is the same as always: to protect her brother. She cannot dwell, cannot think past the next few seconds – the best she can do is keep moving.
It’ll be worse than Hell if they find him. He could be hanged.
Or transported back to the colonies.
Throughout their final months in St Lucia, Delphine and her family thought her brother would be sent to England alone. It wasn’t until they were saying goodbye that Lord Harvey took Delphine, too. His daughter, an only child in London, was of similar age and would certainly appreciate the gift of a serving girl. He owned her. Delphine had no choice.
And neither did her parents.
But no matter how bitterly she’d wished to stay with them, her existence on the plantation could hardly be called a life. It’d be better if Vincent died on the passage than return.
She blinks away the memory as Vincent says, ‘Where do we go now?’
‘I’ve a room at the Temple of… at Marion’s,’ she pants and stops momentarily, hunching over while her heart slows.
‘Is it safe?’
Delphine grimaces between gasps for air.
Months after Delphine’s escape at Ranelagh, Marion found her half-starved in an alley and brought her to the Temple of Exoticies, a brothel at 35 Carnaby Street. The bawd gave Delphine new wide-hooped dresses, food and rest.
Then, she dusted her body with gold and said she’d be worshipped like a goddess with the other girls.
It wasn’t long before men began spilling their complaints. They’d paid for wild and alluring, only to be met with Delphine’s stiff limbs and absent gaze. The bawd would have kicked her out if Delphine didn’t have other skills; she can brew protections and potions like her mother – a midwife and healer – taught her on the plantation. In exchange for ensuring Marion’s coffers were full and the nursery empty, Delphine retained her place. The Temple’s keeper of house and health. Twice Marion has saved Delphine’s life – but the terms for the safety she offers are strange. The kind that only comes from a woman who sells other women’s bodies. A balancing act of profit and care that traps the girls working for her in unending cycles of debt.
‘It’s safe… to start with,’ Delphine says. Before long, nowhere in London will be safe for him. She squeezes Vincent’s hand, and they are away again, running until they reach the Temple’s doors ten minutes later. A red-bricked, three-storey establishment in Soho opposite a bustling tavern.
Delphine twists her key in the lock. It isn’t yet midnight, but most of the candles are out. A slow evening will not help their cause.
They linger momentarily in the coral-wallpapered hallway, fear leaving Delphine’s chest as she breathes in the familiarity of home. In every room, from morning ‘til night, they burn their house scent on tin plates: fragrant rose petals harvested from Delphine’s window boxes mixed with sweet benzoin oil. It masks the odour from the market at the end of the road and any other foul smells penetrating the halls.
‘You’ve brought a big ’un,’ a wispy voice coos from the receiving room.
It’s Charity, still dressed in her daywear, a lavish mauve gown that shines against her mahogany skin. The fuchsia ribbons of her corset sway along with her fresh shoulder-length twists as she saunters towards them.
‘He’s not a cull.’ Delphine keeps her voice low. ‘He’s… my friend.’
‘Oh?’ Charity pouts. ‘Marion won’t like that.’
Charity raises an immaculately shaped eyebrow and steps away. Despite her breezy facade, Charity is always the first to sniff trouble and promptly walk in the opposite direction.
Delphine tilts her head in acknowledgement. ‘Where is she?’
Charity points a braid towards the cellar.
I can do this, Delphine reminds herself as she crosses the hallway. She clenches and unclenches her jaw with each step to the top of the stairs and calls out, ‘Madame? Are you down there?’
Marion bellows from below. ‘Delphine, is that you?’ The bawd’s voice grows louder, her accent three continents whirling in a hurricane. ‘It’s nearly midnight. If you were any later, I’d have locked you out! Left you to sleep on the streets like a common rat. Get down here!’
‘Sorry, madame,’ Delphine says, unsure exactly what she’s apologising for. She hurries down the uneven steps into the cellar, leaving the door open to retain a sliver of light. At the bottom, she ducks beneath a bowing support beam, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. Only a few tallow candles splutter light across the vast space. The sweet, damp smell from the moss-covered bricks mixes with dust and the woody scent of rum.
Below, she passes cement shelves lined with tankards and broken objects waiting to be fixed: a legless stool, abandoned shoe buckles, bones from old corsets, lidless travel cases, and baskets of kindling and coal.
