Page 96 of The Summer Country

“Or Sir Walter Scott?” said George, with a sheepish smile. “It might sound like a tale, but such things did happen.”

In earlier, less civilized times, perhaps. But this was the year 1854. Emily didn’t quite understand romanticizing a time when life had been poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

It was the more recent past she was interested in. She saw huts scattered along the slope, perched upon outcroppings of rock, gardens scratched into the stony ground. Trees grew thick around them, breadfruit and custard apple, trees bearing oranges that were nothing like the carefully cultivated orange trees that grew in pots in Laura’s father’s conservatory.

“There’s a pretty prospect from the next rise,” said George. “We could set out our picnic there.”

Emily glanced back at the houses. “I was hoping we might speak to some of the people who lived here. I had thought that maybe someone would remember my grandfather.”

“We can ask. Shall we make inquiries first and picnic later?”

“If you’d rather eat first . . .” The problem with people like George was that one felt the need to be nice in return.

“No, no, that’s quite all right. The cold collation will keep.”

“All right, then. Thank you.” Emily wasn’t sure what it was about his unflagging helpfulness that she found quite so irritating. He was being all that was kind. She should be grateful. But his very diffidence made him opaque; it was impossible to tell, beneath those flawless manners, what he was really thinking.

George swung down from his horse and held out a hand to help her down. Gesturing to the groom to take charge of their mounts, he said, “Shall we inquire here?”

The dwelling in front of them was scarcely a house, just a box made of rubble and lime, with crudely cut squares for windows. Shutters of sorts had been fitted to them, but one had come loose, and through it Emily could see a single room, crowded with pallets, a well-worn table in the middle of the room. The hearth was in a sort of stone cairn a few feet away.

A woman was working in the garden, yanking at weeds on her hands and knees, a baby strapped to her back, another, wearing only a cloth around his waist, playing in the dirt, minded by an older child with a soiled kerchief around her head, who couldn’t have been more than four.

Another woman was feeding damp stalks into a mill of sorts, turning the handle round and round to squeeze out a pale juice. She didn’t bother to look up as Emily and George approached.

“Hullo,” said George, with a winning smile. “Do you know where we might find the Fenty house?”

“Fenty?” The woman slowly straightened, scrubbing her palms against the skirt of her dress, and Emily realized she couldn’t be much older than herself, was younger perhaps, but her skin was grained with dirt and freckled from the sun, two teeth missing from her mouth. “I don’t know any Fentys.”

Her accent was a thicker version of Emily’s grandfather’s. It was strange, so strange, to think of her urbane grandfather here, in these hills, his nails dark with dirt.

“Is there perhaps someone who’s lived here quite some time?” Emily asked hastily. “My grandfather came from these parts and I was hoping to find someone who knew him.”

The woman clearly found this rather eccentric behavior, but was willing to humor her. “You might talk to Old Betty.” She indicated the far end of the ridge. “She live above the mile tree.”

“For your trouble,” said George, and produced a coin, which disappeared rapidly into the woman’s bodice. To Emily he said, “I believe that’s the mile tree she means.”

It was a large tree, with bunches of thin green leaves like the bristles of a broom. Emily picked her way carefully down the rocky path. She felt as though she’d stepped into a different country. After the bustle of Bridgetown and Beckles, the isolation and silence were almost eerie. “What was she growing?”

“Arrowroot and eddoes. There’s not much will grow in this soil. But the rents are low.” He paused in front of the house the other woman had indicated. There was no need to knock. A woman had opened the slatted doors. Her skin was impossibly weathered and wrinkled, her back stooped, her thin gray hair pulled into a knot.

“Are you Betty?” Emily inquired, tactfully leaving off the “Old.” She was beginning to think that it might have been better to simply picnic and go home. “We were told you might have known my grandfather. Jonathan Fenty?”

She opened her mouth to speak and Emily saw that she was missing most of her front teeth. Those that remained were blackened and crooked. A stream of incomprehensible syllables emerged.

“I’m afraid I didn’t catch that,” said Emily apologetically.

“She said that she knew your grandfather from when she was a girl,” George translated. The woman interjected. George bent his head to listen. “I beg your pardon, she knew your grandfather’s sisters. Your grandfather was grown and gone to Peverills. He didn’t come back much.”

“You were younger than my grandfather?” That would make her around Mrs. Davenant’s age, but Emily would have thought Betty at least two decades older.

Betty was looking at Emily as though she thought her rather slow. Emily tried to remember what she’d meant to ask. “Did you know Rachel Fenty? My grandfather’s sister? Do you know—did she take in needlework for Peverills?”

The woman gave a rusty laugh. “My lady,” she said tolerantly, and then something else that Emily didn’t quite get, although she thought she was beginning to discern the shapes of words.

“She says that would be a fine thing,” said George. “Rachel Fenty was the sloppiest seamstress in the parish.”

The woman added something.