XIX The end for Angela
Isata started to try to twist her body, back and forth, several times until her momentum had her facing Angela, then reaching forwards with her legs, got them wrapped round Angela’s backside, lifting in the process. This allowed Angela to take a deep breath, whisper “Thank you” and give Isata a kiss. In this helpless and dependant state, Angela felt a calm come over her for the first time since lighting that fire in his lordship’s bedroom.
“I’m……….I’m so helpless………..and I………….hurt………….so much…………yet………..this………..you……….holding me………….it’s so…………..so………….my fate………” gasped Angela, not knowing or caring whether Isata had the strength to listen and understand her ramblings.
With Isata taking most of their combined weight, they hung until the field hands had finished for the day. Now she was sideways on to them, several saw the scar on Isata’s cheek, and dropped to their knees, wailing in the strange tongues, despite the overseers yelling at them to speak English and raining down stinging whip-lashes. Master Orson got the overseers to clear the slaves from the gateway and get them fed. With the help of a ladder, he cut the two girls down. They slumped to the dirt exhausted.
Isata stared at him impassively from the ground, but he was even more impressed by her presence than before. She slowly rose to a sitting position, but Angela didn’t move and her breathing was very noisy. Master Orson gestured to Isata to help Angela get up. “You help her…..help!……..understand?”
“I understand perfectly, MASTER,” retorted Isata.
“Oh, I’m a…I’m sorry, I………..uh……..didn’t know you spoke our tongue,” Master Owen found himself saying.
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Recovered somewhat with rest and food, Angela was feeding the chickens, watched by Lucy who thought even that job was being done wrongly. “You’ve to go away,” snapped Lucy, “I can’t have you round me, both you and Isata. I saw how she helped you at the gate, we can’t separate you now, there’s a bond there, you’re like one of her tribe. I won’t let Orson send her to a brothel, not a sowie. And the field slaves would rather die than disobey her, they’d never take orders from us again. I’ve told Master Orson to get rid of you both. It’ll be for the best. Throw that corn more thinly, give them all a chance!”
Angela had no concept of how she would cope if they were sent away. All her life, but especially since joining His Lordship’s staff, she had been told what to do. Although she loved Isata, what use would a slave be to her?
Orson walked up to the chicken house smiling, his right hand behind his back. “I wondered how the door was opened, when I saw it wasn’t damaged, yet the key was in my breeches the whole time. Are these yours?” holding the crafted chicken bones out to Angela. And since a good girl was taught never to lie, she admitted they were. Orson sat himself down in the sun, and got Lucy, Isata and Angela to sit down with him. Lucy looked with surprise but admiration at Orson; never before had he sat on a par with any slave except her. Together they patiently prised Angela’s story from her, the blacksmith’s shop, her skill with the small parts, her love of locks. She even admitted managing to get the shackles off in York gaol, which Orson thought hilarious, getting one over on His Honour Judge Oscar.
“I’ve no wish to have you to breed white children” he explained, much to Lucy’s relief, “and Oliver, Second Earl of Elmet, has prospered well enough in the past from my efforts. We’re living in a new country, breaking its ties to the colonial past, and I’m fully committed to it. I’ll no longer take orders from the old country, and I’m not happy with the whole idea of slavery to run the plantation. There’s no way that slavery will last for ever, some states don’t allow it now.
“Owen will have you dead by now, for the written record, so Angela Wright no longer exists.” Angela was suddenly rather sad at that news. “Make up a name for yourself and stick to it, there are plenty of people around with nothing to prove their names. Same goes for Isata, too strange a name, use something simple.
“What none of my brothers know is I’ve been investing quietly in various businesses in this new country, instead of sending all the profit to Elmet as Oliver thinks I do. One of them makes metal fittings. I’ll send both of you there. Isata will be fine, the state is called Pennsylvania, and it’s one of the states where slavery is being phased out. The journey will be long and arduous, I’ll give you money and letters of introduction, that will say you’re my niece and her servant.”
Lucy wrapped her arms round Orson, so glad that the two girls would get the chance of a new life, but hundreds of miles from her. Angela did the same round Isata, and gave a long moan of pleasure when Isata’s arms held her even tighter.
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A woman working with metal? That caused some consternation among the men, so the Manager gave her a small shed and some stock, told her to keep out of the way. She took a while fiddling with unfamiliar tools and metal that was a bit different, but eventually made locks that were very good. ‘Ida’ had always been a good trader, taught to bargain by her mother, and had no trouble selling them. She was also good with the money, and the bookkeeping. The Manager saw the product was profitable, so moved them into a larger workshop, and put some of the men to help. ‘Ann’ struggled to get the men to work to her standards, but once Ida intervened, the whole operation ran smoothly, one glance from her quelled any dispute. The business prospered with Ann’s new designs, and Ann did less hands-on work, but every lock that left the workshop had to pass her ‘chicken-bone test’. Since Orson had told his manager to give them a share of the profits, the girls moved together into a new house, complete with large yard and basement.
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“I can manage a little longer I think” groaned Ann, the strain on her arms and shoulders relieved a little as she pushed up against the beautifully made shackles round her ankles.
“You’re doing much better than last time,” replied Ida, “a couple more lashes, I think, then I’ll give you your reward.”
“Make it five, please, my lady.”
So in a rather nice house on the edge of a town known for its metalworkers, a respectable lady who had a connection to a manufactory and her black servant lived an unremarkable life, with a cross in their basement.
On that cross was fastened ironwork of the finest quality, secured with unpickable locks, onto which a good Yorkshire lass submitted herself to erotic punishments given by her imposing goddess, but none of the punishments were savage.
The End
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