CHAPTER TWO
The Mysterious Miss Harris

One clear morning, a ship docked at Charleston port in Nevis, and there was a woman aboard.

She was plain and clean, neat and tidy. Her hair was covered, her dresses were smart, but never too much so. She turned up at St. Paul's Church every Sunday without fail, sitting at the back of the pews, and joined in every hymn. She was friendly enough, always using 'please' and 'thank you' like a well-brought up woman, and had a shy smile for every passing individual in the street. A simple, quiet lady, who should have melded effortlessly into society. There was almost nothing remarkable about her. And yet Miss Harris was the local scandal.

For almost nothing was known about her before she came to Charleston. Usually after a person had been there a few weeks, the town gossips could tell anyone anything they cared to know about the person in question. They could reel off family members, trades, titles, every country the person had ever visited. Nevis had been a quiet island for the last few years, even in the large town of Charleston, and there was little for the women to do, no grand social scene like you'd find on Jamaica or Barbados. But despite their best efforts, Miss Harris was proving the exception to the rule.

They knew she'd been born in England, yes, but what city, even what county, was a mystery. They believed that this was her first time in the Caribbean, but there was no conformation of it. Still, she seemed to have adapted very well to the heat. Many English ladies soon collapsed from it upon arrival at the colonies, retreating to their beds for months. And then, where ladies were concerned, they had no idea if she was just a lady, or if she was really a Lady - her social status had never been mentioned. They didn't know her father's income; they didn't even know his first name. And as for the surname - Harris - well, that could mean anything, could belong to anyone.

When she first arrived, they put her at twenty-four, and as she gave no one anything to the contrary (not that anyone asked), that became her age. She was very well educated, almost indecently so, able to read and write, do mathematics and geography, and, if the rumours were true, spoke a little French. It was said Mr Bryant had taken her on to teach his boy history, a governess. And only having been here for two months!

How she learnt it all was a mystery though. She, or her family, would have to have had money to pay for a governess of her own, but if they had it, then why was she teaching now? And if she didn't have it, how'd she learn it all? More to the point, why, indeed how, would she come out to the Caribbean to earn money if she had none?

"Probably ran off with some Frenchman, and lost it all. It was a Frog, you mark my words," such were the whispered accusations of old Mrs Garnis at the market in the queue to the baker's stand, the sharp words of gossip masked with the delicious aroma of freshly baked bread.

"Yes, she struck me as the flighty type," Miss Sprunt nodded in agreement. Undoubtedly the woman had some connection with the French.

This was the first of many rumours that began to spread around Charleston, each more fantastic than the last. Miss Harris was the illegitimate daughter of a Baron, an orphan who was raised in South Africa, a young widow (her husband had been killed by Indians) who had a drinking problem, and was working off her debt.

Yet these were all spoken as far behind her back as the people could manage, and they were always polite to her face. As long as there was a chance she secretly had hundreds of pounds hidden under the floorboards, they showed her every courtesy, albeit blunt courtesy.

And so four years passed at Charleston, each one rather uneventful for Miss Harris herself, and yet each more exciting than the last for the talk surrounding her. For the simple crime that she kept to herself and sought to avoid attention, she became the centre of it. If ever a conversation reached an awkward silence, a new rumour surrounding her became the perfect solution.

Still, life went on. Eventually, Miss Harris moved out of her lodgings at an inn, and rented a small cottage further up the green slopes formed by the volcano that was Nevis Island, away from the town centre. She could be seen every evening walking up the dirt track after finishing at the Bryant house, clutching a basket with her teaching books and a little food from the Bryant kitchen in it. The people frowned and tutted at her climbing silhouette as they peered past the curtains for a few minutes, and then returned to their dinners.

Tonight was no different, and as the last curtain closed in the corner of her vision, Miss Harris gave a silent prayer of relief as she pulled her maid's cap from her head. Finally, she was alone, away from the prying eyes of the townspeople. She wasn't ignorant of their talk, despite their best efforts. Four years of it, and even if she'd been the slowest governess in the Caribbean she'd have caught on.

The sun beat heavily down upon her back even as it was setting, stifling the air with a thick heat that seemed impossible to escape. Today it seemed that not even a small breeze would be granted for relief. In the distance, a few birds were singing their evening songs amongst the foliage of tall emerald trees, and now and then a cry would rise from the undergrowth, some animal hunting or being hunted.

She continued up the path, humming absent-mindedly, her head swimming with dates and kings and queens from the day's lessons. Who'd have thought she'd be making a living out of this? Out of teaching?

Not much of a living though. She sighed, it was true, money was tight. Mr Bryant had been good to her; employing her despite the gossip, originally just to teach his son history, but when the main tutor left, he raised her pay and asked her to teach Joshua all his lessons. She got two square meals a day, lunch in the schoolroom with Joshua, and then this parcel of leftovers to go in her basket for dinner, as well as her wages. It was a good deal, extraordinarily good for someone in her position. Still, it was beginning to occur to her that her dresses were getting looser by the week. And the money was never enough to pay the full rent for her cottage, she had to dip a little out of her savings each month - and her savings were dwindling. She hadn't had new clothes in two years, and she had had to sell some of the few she owned to pay for new boots not two weeks ago when her old ones finally wore out.

She was almost at her cottage now, and she fished into the pocket of the white apron that covered her powder-blue dress. Perhaps white wasn't the best word - it was grey from her weekly clean up of the schoolroom, black in places. It'd have to be cleaned before next Friday - yet another chore to do. Her thoughts flashed back to the present as her hand clasped the old key that unlocked the front door.

Opening the door, she walked into the cottage before shutting it, casting the place in darkness. She didn't need the light, she knew her way around, and candles were expensive. It was a simple two-roomed place, a bedroom and another room that served as a kitchen, a living room and a dining room. But there was a proper fireplace, and a privy out back. More than she could have hoped for.

And she tried her best to make it homely. She had little furniture, a large table in the main room with two smaller wooden chairs, her pallet in her room, her cooking utensils, a brass candlestick, a large tin bath -all poor quality, yet all of it was polished and cleaned regularly. Her prize possession was an old armchair by the fire, bought second, third, most likely fifth-hand from the market. The red colouring of the material had faded in time, but it was still comfortable, more so than her straw mattress, and many evenings whatever volume she had been reading would fall out of tired hands to the floor, and she would fall asleep here by the fire. She would curse herself in the morning when soot marks adorned her face and clothes, but there was no arguing that the nights she spent in it were the nights when she got the best sleep.

The floor was stone and the walls were a deep, dark kind of mud-brick, plain, but she added colour with flowers from the edge of the rainforest, deep reds and purples smelling of honey, and smaller yellow blooms that contributed the sharp scent of lemon to the strange fragrance. Her windows had curtains of a light cotton material that had been her Christmas gift from her young pupil, and when the lightest puff of air drifted by, they would glide up to let the cool air in. A collection of pale shells tied with string hung from one of the beams of the roof, collected in long afternoons walking along the yellow beaches, and they too would respond to wind, glancing against each other to make a soft tinkling kind of music. Tonight however, the curtains remained still in the shadows, and the shells made no noise.

She remembered in the darkness that she had to wash her apron, and light would probably be useful in that scenario, regardless if she normally needed it or not. Reaching out onto the table, she placed her basket down and took up her candlestick, and her old tinderbox. After a few tries, the flame was burning merrily, giving off a soft orange glow. She blinked a couple of times, getting used to the light.

Then she turned, meaning to start the fire, and screamed.

There was a man sitting in her armchair, as casually as though it were his own. A tri-cornered hat rested upon his head, battered and worn around the edges, grey where it had once been brown. The heavy coat that rested on the back of the chair was not in much better condition, and neither were his trousers, nor his waistcoat. His baggy shirt and the strip of linen tied round his waist below a grimy belt had been reduced from white to a grubby grey, much like her apron. His boots looked like they had never been cleaned. He wore some sort of makeshift glove on his right hand, his right only, and it was fingerless, fraying at the edges. All his clothes were joined in a unity of dishevelment.

His hair hung shoulder length, unkempt in a dark tangle of dreadlocks occasionally tied into tatty braids with beads and scraps of cloth. His skin was bronzed and hardened by sun, his beard was tied off in two sections with similar beads to his hair. He had a moustache, his dark eyes were kohl-lined, and what looked like a shabby red bandana poked out from under his hat. All a manner of rings adorned his long fingers.

A grin masked his face, like a cat that'd got the cream, golden teeth glittering in the new source of light.

"Hello, Etty."

The girl placed the candle down on the table, her hand shaking slightly.

"Spar...Sparrow?"