The Sea Above Me the Sky Below

By Mi Ackland

James Mace feels himself blessed, not only is he heir to a prosperous Gloucestershire farm, but he is engaged to the girl of his choice. An impulse to seek travel and adventure with the armies of the Duke of Marlborough, though, will bring unimagined consequences and life beyond the boundaries of Europe on the slave plantations of the West Indies. In Jamaica James will face moral and personal choices which shake him to the core.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mi Ackland
• Release date: Oct 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463227459

Mi Ackland

Mi Ackland has sold short stories, mostly of a ghostly character, to High Street magazines in the UK. She has also been published in All Hallows magazine. Tell Her My Tombstone Lies is the sequel to The Sea Above Me the Sky Below.

Book preview

Chapter One

It was only five miles from Stow on the Wold to Chipping Campden. He could relax his tired muscles and aching injuries now and anticipate the pleasures of home before they became real and alloyed with responsibilities. It might be only two and a half years since he’d left by this same road, but it encompassed a lifetime of change. No Paul rode at his side, nor would he ever again. An attack of the flux, so devastating in its effect, so sadly commonplace among soldiers, had seen to that.

Through the murky December light James could spy the tower of St James Church in the distance. Hidden in the dip lay Aston Subedge and the ancient moated farmhouse that was Kas’s home, but dead tired, and hungry, his own hearth was his goal. Reunion with Kas was something which he’d dreamt of since he’d woken from the fever which almost claimed him after Blenheim. He’d imagined that reunion with all his senses, but it would save for just one more night. It would save until he was washed and fresh and a night’s rest had dulled the pain of his wounds.

Leaving Kas had been the downside of seeking adventure with the First Foot Regiment. Space from her had never been one of his needs. In time he’d grown weary of the marches, the tedium of winter camp; but service had satisfied his craving for experience of life beyond the sheep pastures and turnip fields of the Cotswolds and the brandy-breath of his father. Bavarian beer cellars and mountains were known to him now. He was content, he felt, for the ordinariness of home.

His mount became hesitant on the downhill stretch to Campden and James’s attention returned to the moment. He dismounted till the slope levelled then leapt back on using a convenient tree stump. They were almost in the honey coloured streets of Campden now. He closed his eyes and drew on the sheep-scented air. Home…

In the fading light a passer-by turned abruptly with startled eyes. It looked like Mrs Drinkwater, wife of the sexton. Her mouth fell open. James smiled into his muffler and lifted a hand in greeting. He expected people to be surprised by his reappearance, but not stricken. Someone else, he couldn’t be sure who it was beneath a voluminous hooded cloak, was also regarding him with every symptom of astonishment. James hadn’t the energy or will to stop and talk. He pressed on up the street. It was at the turning to the church, that he reined in. On an impulse he headed up the lane. A tree did to tether his horse. Five minutes boy, then home, a rub down and a brimming manger.

He knew where to find the memorial. On the church wall near the west window, Clara had written. James blew on his chilling fingers and went inside.

Emotion stirred as he spied the name through the sinking December light: In memory of Paul Uttley January 2nd 1679 - January 9th 1704, nephew of Roderick Mace of Hill House in this parish. He died while serving his country. And then James’s heart gave a great, squeezing, lurching thump. It bumped and raced and his breathing lost its rhythm. A freshly carved postscript had been added on the plaque: Also Roderick’s son James, who laid down his life at the battle of Blenheim, August 4th 1704, aged twenty-two.

He stared at the inscription and passed an unsteady hand over his eyes, replicating the gesture of the sexton’s wife in the High Street. Also of James aged twenty-two. He continued to stare stupidly as if the words might change, translate into some comprehensible form, if he gazed long enough. Then he plunged up the nave, ran from the graveyard and leapt on his startled horse.

An owl was already hooting in the wood below Hill House when he rode through the gates. At the sight of his home, a pulse of reassurance steadied his shock. The ancient raised herb bed still stood crumbling in the middle of the court yard, with its woody lavender and rosemary bushes shooting out of control; the door in the wall to the orchard was still squeaking in the wind. Home: it hadn’t changed.

From the shadows a stable boy emerged. James recognized him and nodded before leaping down, but the boy stumbled backwards with a gasp. James opened his lips to issue an instruction, but stopped when the front door opened and a woman emerged. It was Clara, Paul’s widow, and she too shrank backwards, staggering to rest against the doorpost. Chives, the family cat, slunk out and minced forward. He, at least, suffered no doubts.

It’s me Clara.

She uttered an inarticulate gasp and peered through the dusk. "James? James? Her voice was feeble with incredulity. It really is you… You’re not a ghost."

Ghosts don’t need horses. He dismounted with a crunch of boots on the gravel.

That settled it. She flung herself into his arms and clung there. Oh James, James you’re alive!

Something in her attitude had always suggested deep feeling for him and he returned the embrace before gently disengaging himself. Believe it, it’s true. You were ahead of yourselves when you added that postscript on Paul’s memorial.

Clara wiped a sleeve across her eyes. Word was that you were killed. It seemed easy to believe, with Paul dying earlier in the year - good news was something which didn’t come our way. But now it has!

I wrote on my own account as soon as I could after I recovered.

Clara struggled to find the next words. I received no news direct, but Henry Andrews was injured in the same action and word got through from him. He said you’d been felled with a musket shot to the neck and, and - bayoneted through the chest. Her voice shook. He saw you dead at a field hospital.

Henry may have seen me, but I wasn’t dead. I was in a fever for days and despaired of. He glanced at the wintry sky and shivered. Let’s go in. He scooped Chives up in his arms.

A single candle burnt upon a table at the bottom of the stairs; its buttery flame wobbled in the draught as they closed the door. Something in Clara’s manner hinted at troubles as yet unspoken, and James laid a hand upon her shoulder. Her jade-green eyes looked up to meet his and in that instant a thought crashed into his tired mind.

But if everyone thought I was dead then Kas must have too!

She turned sharply away into the parlour. That’s just it James, she did. Clara’s voice was pained and her eyes sought a place to hide. Her hands fumbled as she poured glasses of brandy. She struggled on, That’s why when Geoff Clifford rode over to offer his condolences they were natural partners in grief.

Apprehension. Foreboding. James could hardly force himself to speak. Geoff? Where does he come into it? It was natural that his friend of old would be saddened by his death. That was all.

"He rode over, daily. The servants at Honeywells said Kassandra did nothing but stare into the empty fire grate for weeks after the news broke that you were dead. He made himself her rock. That’s why Mr Eton welcomed Geoff’s help. That’s why he favoured Geoff when the offer of marriage came. Nobody thought there was any chance of you returning. Her voice trailed away. You were buried in all our minds."

James was scrambling for his hat and crop which he’d discarded on the bottom stair. When are they to marry? When is it to be?

Clara dropped her eyes and pretended to attend to some spots of wax on her cuff. They already are married James. Her voice was so low he could hardly hear it. Less than a month ago.

He heard the clink as a jug of water was placed outside his room. He couldn’t face the servants nor anyone, not even his father who had been out at the time of his arrival, or Paul’s daughter Alice. With the shock freshly searing his heart and mind he could do nothing but shrink into his room and plead exhaustion. November the thirtieth… While he had been making his plodding progress home, they had been exchanging vows. He couldn’t believe it. It was a misfortune which blasted into atoms every personal certainty which he had constructed: Kas was meant for him, he was meant for her; nothing could change that. But now she was somebody else’s and everything was changed. How had it gone so wrong, so quickly?

He paced to the door, to the wash-stand, to the chest, swigging brandy, tearing through his memories for a sign that Kas might ever have favoured Geoff. But he could find none. Kas had been his own special friend in childhood and she had returned aged fifteen, from an experimental term at a London girls’ school, transformed by adolescence into something else. After that return there had been no future for them except a future together. Everyone had recognized it. Their fathers had welcomed it. Bit of an odd girl, like her father. Spend too much time with their heads in books. But they’re good people and she’s the best-looking girl for miles around… had been Roderick’s summing up. Mr Eton had minced more delicately through his words of welcome: I believe there are qualities in you which fit you to be my daughter’s husband like no other man could… And you are a handsome fellow, James; anyone can see that you make a natural pair…

James threw another draught of brandy down his throat and reached again for the bottle. To remember the past now was beyond bearing, but he could think of nothing else. He sank onto the bed and tried to close his eyes, but rest was impossible and no sooner had be pulled the cover over himself than he was up again and pacing round the room. If he had been shipwrecked by a giant wave he could not have felt more that his entire world had turned upside down. The sea was above him, the sky below. Sickness hurned his stomach. Disorientation spun his mind.

From his window, the tall chimney pots of the manor at Aston Subedge were just in sight, a solid darkness against the lesser darkness of the sky. Kas would be asleep or plaiting her pale hair in preparation for sleep. Geoff would be doing - whatever it was he did... James tore his neck cloth off with violent force. Of all people to steal into his shoes and take his place! His closest friend! If it had been any other man the shock and pain would not feel so great, but Geoff! Some time in the next few days he would have to ride over and face them. Banquo’s ghost would have nothing on him. Better to face them on his terms, ready with words prepared than to encounter them suddenly, unexpectedly on the streets of Chipping Campden. He couldn’t trust his composure to a chance meeting. A spasm of despair racked him, and he slashed the curtains shut.

He was too weary to look much into the future, but a voice whispered that the best chance of his life had come and gone early. Shivering, not only with cold but with shock, he undressed and splashed water into his ewer. Then, for the first time since she’d fastened it round his neck, on the lawn which ran down to the moat and where a bat had flitted, he removed the miniature, placed it carefully at the back of a draw, and turned the key.

Brandy-soaked exhaustion finally drained James into sleep when the first reluctant promise of light smudged the horizon. But it was not a peaceful or prolonged sleep. Nightmares of a wedding where he found another man standing in his place at the altar disturbed his rest and visions of Kas dressed for their wedding in a shroud started him into wakefulness. His eyes were heavy, and his head ached when he blinked upon the first day of his changed world: yesterday he had thought to be Kas’s husband in the New Year; today he knew that would never be. Outside his window, low cloud swirled. Getting out of bed seemed a worthless effort, but to lie there with his thoughts for company left him prey to every regret.

Roderick was seated at the table when James trudged down, and his mauve-blue eyes glistened into heightened beauty at the sight of his son. He stepped forward and laid a hand on both James’s shoulders. They were almost on a level. It was as close as they would ever come to an embrace.

James heart gave a little tug of emotion which took him by surprise. Father…

The two men regarded each other.

I never quite believed it when Andrews told us you were gone, boy. Never felt it in my bones. And now we’ve the greatest gift ever… Welcome home.

His father’s voice was thinner than he remembered and there was a look about him which did not suggest improved health. For all the disgust Roderick occasionally aroused in him, James felt a glow of warmth, a relief almost, to encounter him again in this world. For all his faults, Roderick mattered. He hadn’t particularly known it as an intolerant twenty-year-old; already failure and suffering and experience had made his values truer.

It’s good to be back, father. It was hard to speak the words which tumbled within him and to discharge the emotion he sat down and cut a slice of bread, a mundane, steadying act.

I was over at the vicarage with Dick Richardson yesterday. You’d gone to bed when I came back, and Clara broke the news. His voice shook. I let you sleep. Thought you’d need the rest.

…I did.

Roderick coughed uncomfortably. You’ll have to tell us about your experiences. When you’re ready, that is.

James’s life as a soldier already felt distant and unimportant. The news of yesterday had seen to that. Yes, some day.

Losing Paul - it was a blow. It leaves Alice without a father. Paul wasn’t a year old when he lost both his parents. Roderick glanced at Clara who was fiddling nervously with a napkin. Brought back memories.

Yes, it must have. It occurred to James that he had never much considered his father as possessing a life before his own existence, that Sophie Uttley had been Roderick’s sister and that Roderick might have felt a deep care for Paul on her account. More gently he continued, He was not ill for long. The life drained from him very quickly. Do not fear that he suffered greatly, it wasn’t like that. Many men died that month.

Thank God you escaped. We are twice blessed. It was unlike Roderick to be so effusive and James noticed.

Thank God... So James had felt at the time, but now he wondered if he cared so much. His spirit burnt low and the effort of forging on and generating a new future did not offer shining attractions.

You will come to life again, Roderick pronounced quietly, as if reading the blankness of his son’s expression. No disappointment lasts forever. It was his first reference to the subject, a veiled one.

This one might, thought James, but he said nothing.

You are young and have much on your side. New directions will appear.

New directions didn’t interest James. He wanted the old ones.

But you will not see that just now, you won’t even want to see it. Roderick understood his son well enough to make no closer reference to Kassandra. He perceived the conflict which swirled behind James’s flinty expression.

The farm prospers? Nothing untoward has struck since I went away? With relief, James switched to homely matters. He had dreaded the subject of Kas being broached.

All is well. Roderick stretched his legs painfully. No trouble with the stock. No disasters with the weather. No fires in the hayricks. He smiled, the mauve-eyed, lazy smile of old.

And yourself?

Fine fettle, boy.

James eyed him. The long thin frame looked thinner than ever, but he did not press the point. Where is Alice? She will have grown a lot since I last saw her.

Eating in the kitchen. We told Gwen and Dan she should take her breakfast there and give you peace on this first morning. We’ll have her in when you’ve eaten.

There was no need for that. She can come in now.

I’ll get her, and the servants. They’ve been excited to explosion point since Clara told them the news.

Facing the astonished joy of Dan and Gwen and Dizzy was a trial, but it was soon over. Alice’s naïve squeals were easier to take, but they also left a disturbing echo: for the first time it occurred to James that with Paul gone responsibility for her fell partly on to him. He gave her a squeeze and put her down on to the floor. He’d returned home looking forward to new responsibility, but fate had played a sour trick on him. There was going to be new responsibility, but not the kind he’d dreamed off.

James dreaded the inevitable attention that his ill-timed reappearance would cause among his neighbours. In a country district where drama rarely amounted to more than someone’s prize ram escaping, every tongue for miles around, he guessed, would be chattering once this news spread. And his bizarre downfall was unlikely to only be a five-minute wonder.

It’s a relief to have you home, declared Clara when Dan had carried the last of the plates away. The responsibility of the farm has weighed heavily, hasn’t it? She looked across the table to Roderick who smiled.

Not a responsibility which we couldn’t carry. Will do so again, if the need arises.

Clara’s pretty mouth pursed at Roderick’s bluff response.

James took a swig of ale. I thank you Clara for the extra effort you have made. You are a tailor’s daughter, not a farmer’s. I realize that.

Roderick gestured to James with his own tankard. That arm looks stiff as a hay fork.

But not half so useful. Luckily, it’s the left one. In London I delayed my return by a day or two to see a famous physician. Dr French advised that I should regain most of the use, eventually. He shrugged. The bayonet which cracked the bone was aimed for my heart, so I’ll settle for a bad arm, recovery or no.

Clara raised an eyebrow and James got up. Time to see how the farm has been getting along. Will you come with me, Father?

Oh, best if you arrive at your own conclusions. I’m tired. Didn’t sleep a wink last night with the excitement of having you back. Spent half the night pinching myself to see I wasn’t dreaming. And he looked as if he hadn’t slept. A miracle, boy, better than a miracle. Roderick rose unsteadily from his chair. I’ll be going over the books when you’re done.

It was another change, James thought. The books could have gone hang two or three years earlier and Roderick would have been all for an excuse to leap into the saddle. He was slowing down. That was clear.

James occupied the rest of that morning riding round their land and visiting his strips of farm which were not enclosed. His father’s assurances were all well and good, but it made sense to see it with his own eyes. And at least it occupied time. During the many tedious hours in camp, he had dreamt of this reclaiming of all that was his, or all which would one day be his, but now it felt less than meaningless. Kas wasn’t joining him at Hill House. If the door fell off the barn, who cared? If that rotten plank in the hayloft wasn’t fixed, what did it matter? If the pond at the back silted up, so what? But he viewed it all and endured the greetings of the labourers, most of whom had worked with him in cheerier times and were pleased by his return. Jethro Jinx was foremost among these. Jethro was a tall young man, almost as tall as James himself and broader and heftier by far. James remembered him as steady and unusually temperate - precious qualities in the workforce.

Jethro’s ink-blue eyes lit up when James rode by. Sir, I never believed much in Bible stuff, though I sit in church most Sundays, but when Dizzy told me yesterday you were home - well I started to believe miracles are real!

Talk of miracles is on everyone’s lips today, Jethro, even my father’s, and I do not believe he was ever very God fearing.

Both men laughed, but there was restraint in their humour. Jethro understood as well as the next man what James was going through behind his smile. He knew it better than most.

Clara tells me you’re to marry Dizzy and you’ll both be staying on with us.

S’right, Sir. Course if Dizzy gets to have a babe then it might be just me in harness, for a while anyway. He grinned. But we’ll take that fence when it comes.

Has father talked about a cottage - but of course he will.

All’s arranged, Mr James.

All’s arranged. James wished the same were true of his own life. Jethro was the servant and he the master, but, just for a second, he felt envious. He squeezed his horse’s ribs and shook the reins. I wish you both the best Jethro. And he nodded and moved on.

James continued his ride beyond the limits of Roderick’s land, just to occupy his time and avoid inaction. It was time to start thinking of returning home for some food when he reined in and viewed the landscape. A plume of smoke curled among trees in the distance. From his close knowledge of the area he guessed it to be coming from Honeywells. Mr Eton was reclusive and seldom crossed the moat to leave his home, but news of James’s resurrection from the dead would have reached the Eton household. It would take more than a moat to block sensational news like that. Word of his return would have burst upon other households too… James turned in the saddle and glared at an array of taller chimney pots: the Manor. Suddenly incandescent anger ignited in him and he spun Gus round and galloped home.

Baking bread, a favourite scent in former times, met his nostrils when he shoved through the door and began to haul off his boots.

Clara appeared from the kitchen with flowery hands. When she saw his demeanour her cheerful expression fell. Were things not as you hoped? Her voice was anxious, so anxious that it cut through his self-absorption.

The farm looks well enough, what I’ve seen of it. Don’t worry, Clara. An effort to be business-like, shake off his emotional cloud. He dropped his voice, I think the old man must have been ailing a while.

Slowing down, may be.

For all father’s become - intemperate - he’s always looked to his property. He glanced to the parlour door which was shut. There are hedges which need work, ditches which are silted up, tiles to be secured, trees that need pruning. Not like him to let the farm slide.

I’m sorry not to have attended to more.

I didn’t expect to find you personally up the ladder. Father’s had a lifetime to learn his craft. He knows what’s to be done. They passed into the parlour. From here Roderick could be seen on the other side of the yard feeding apples to the horses with Alice. No need for hushed voices.

I forgot, there are a few letters waiting in the study. Roderick remembered them after you rode off. He hadn’t the heart to do anything with them when you - died. I think one of them must be from your uncle.

Yes? James’s voice was flat, without interest.

It arrived shortly after we lost Paul, so the news must be very stale. Anthony Castor brought it by hand. He was in Jamaica on business.

Anthony Castor?

You know, that man from Bristol. He was at your engagement.

Mention of the engagement felt like a needle shoved in his flesh. Was he? Oh, yes. I think I remember. Let’s find out what stale news he has brought. James passed into the small ‘study’ which was in the newer wing of the house. It occupied a cold, north-eastern corner and was unwelcoming. A small portrait of James’s mother, painted when she was still unmarried, hung from the wall. James glanced at her fine but cold features. What could her brother wish to say to him?

James broke the seal and unfolded thick paper. It was headed Wiseman’s, Jamaica. My dear James, the letter began, although I have never seen you, your mother wrote of you when you were very young, and now that I have more years behind me than ahead, you come often to my mind. Well, you’re never in mine, Uncle, reflected James. His eyes returned to the paper. My plantation here prospers and I am become moderately well-do-do. But I am fifty-three years old, an age when a man starts to think of his legacy. James began to sense how his uncle’s thoughts might be running. The letter continued another circumstantial paragraph or two before it came to its real point. James, if it pleased you to join me here and take over some of the burden of the estate, you would be claiming your right as my kin. There is a fine house, not vast but…

The letter had plenty more to say, and James read it all through twice with growing interest, to ensure he’d misunderstood nothing. He stepped to the window which faced east across the winter vegetable plot towards Meon Hill beyond. Today the view looked intolerably dank and miserable, as miserable as his spirits. His eyes wandered over the letter again and he moved back to the smaller window, with its limited but reassuring view into the farmyard. Dan was at the pump filling a bucket.

A dry cough from the doorway refocussed his thoughts. What news did he have, James?

It was not in James’s mind to uproot and bolt to Jamaica to escape his demons, so there was no reason to conceal Vallender’s proposal from Clara, but he knew that the mere mention of moving on would trouble her. He made a show of folding the letter and replacing it in the draw. And all the while tension tweaked Clara’s features.

You know that my uncle owns a sugar plantation, of course.

Yes. He left Stow and tried his luck in the Caribbean before you were born. Roderick mentions him occasionally. He did not like his brother-in-law much.

Well, Vallender is in his fifties and finding the running of the place harder. He would like a younger man to come and begin to learn the business. I am a farmer and he believes the transition would not be difficult.

Clara’s heart began to pump harder, hard enough to have made the rhythm visible through her dress, if James had been detached enough to observe it. But too many thoughts were whirling in his mind for him to observe anything at all. In short, I have an open invitation.

Clara pulled up the other chair and looked intently at James. And the property which is already your responsibility, this one – who will look after that? Your father who is not much younger than Vallender, and slowing down by your own observation? Me perhaps, a woman, and not born to farming? There was a crack in her voice.

"I’m only telling you what my uncle wrote. I didn’t say the idea attracts me; the death rate, I’m told, is high in the Caribbean even among the planters. Also, I am not pleased by stories which I’ve read about plantations. I know little about slavery, but it can only be an immoral system: on the continent of Africa native tribes routinely make slaves of each other in conflicts and war, and merchants send ships to buy them up at slave markets. Anthony Castor must be one such who has accrued a fortune by shameless exploitation. Vallender