Chapter One: 1722

“Florencia!”

Her chocolate eyes snapped open in fright; as quick as a rabbit, she rolled over and found herself staring at a young girl. The small cabin in which they were in was gloomy, for the whale-oil lamp beside the door had burnt itself out during the night, but nevertheless, Florencia recognised her sister through the murk. She had dirt-dark hair and buff skin that seemed to glow as her older sister wondered why the girl was awake so early; something in the air that suggested that dawn had hardly broken.

“Rita, what-?”

The nonage girl was wearing little more than her shift and the stays their mother insisted they wear to give them an appealing shape for marriage. She appeared to have not been up for long as there was a rumpled look about her and air of sleepiness, prompting Florencia to wonder what the matter was as Margarita was not normally victimised by terrors in the night.

“I heard Mama talking to the captain,” the little girly piped up, with nonplussing brightness for that time of day, “He says someone saw a ship!”

She watched her older sister half raise herself from the warm bed; Florencia’s first thought was why she had not been woken by their mother, whose gout made her walk like a pegleg, thumping across the boards. Her next thought was of when their captain, a consumptive Frenchman, had said to her mother and Aunt that another ship on the route they were taking was a bad sign, because they were not taking a conventional route to Port-au-Prince. She supposed that he was scared of the British, through whose waters the Le Dauphin passing-or so a kindly sailor in the crew told her. Florencia had no idea what would provoke the British to harass their Bermuda sloop.

“Where was it?” She asked, pushing her rucked blankets aside.

Her sister took her by the hand and pulled her out of bed. The two padded barefoot along the corridor and clambered up the stairs and onto the deck, where Florencia’s vision was filled by mist that clung to her skin. A gentle sea breeze buffeted her tousled hair, and brought a tang salt rushing past her that she breathed in deep. There were banks of fog surrounding the sloop, and a gang of sailors milled about, smoking and working. A few looked at the pair of sisters curiously whereas the latter remained ignorant as they moved over to the railings. The older girl followed her sibling’s hand and was drawn to look at the distant horizon as Margarita pointed at the fiery gash beneath the rolling clouds.

“Over there,” she said, pointing, “he only saw it for a second-”

“Children!”

A short ball of fat limped onto the deck with a loud shout. Their mother was obese enough for her large rolls of skin to bulge through her satin bed-gown, but the poor light mercifully spared them the sight of her dimpled white flesh, which often reddened from where the latest layer of ceruse had been scrubbed off.

“What impropriety is this?” She continued, trilling in horror as she stared around at the sailors watching them, “You are only in your under-things! And you should be asleep at this hour!”

She pointed at the gaping maw in the deck that was the hatch.

“Go to back to bed, now, the both of you-now!”

The woman stood aside awkwardly and tittered as her offspring descended into the darkness again; only Florencia looked suitably shamefaced as she scurried back to bed. She did not hear Margarita behind her, however, so stopped and looked back.

“But Maman,” she heard her sister say, “I wanted to show Flory the pirate ship!”

Their mother laughed nervously.

“Wherever did you hear such a thing, Rita dear?”

“From Mr Marchand and you, Maman.”

Florencia envisaged their mother twitching violently.

“You were dreaming, child,” the latter told her youngest, “Now go to bed and go to sleep!”

A small pair of feet appeared at the top of the stair, and Florencia quickly shut her cabin door.

*

It was hotter when she woke up for the second time. Her woollen blankets were sweaty and unbearable as Florencia shoved them aside and answered the person knocking at the door. She found herself confronted with a swarthy woman who had grown rather hunchbacked with advancing age. The latter bustled in and chivvied her over to the writing desk that had been crammed in between the wall and the bed. The maid, Pia, flung open the large chest that sat on the floor and pulled out a padded pannier, handing it to Florencia, who dutifully tied the whalebone cage around her waist. She then accepted help for manoeuvring her marquee-like dress over her head.

The sack-gown was made of dark blue cotton printed with a coral-coloured floral pattern and stitched with silvery vines. She smoothed it down and tied her wavy brown hair up with a coral coloured ribbon that matched the flowers, and then picked up the mirror on the desk to check that she looked all right. Pia had left it out for her, and looking into its glassy surface, Florencia saw a creamy face with big chocolate eyes staring back.

Her mirror had been an expensive gift from Federico Velázquez, who was descended from the Conquistador of the name. The Spanish king had made had made him his Viceroy in Cuba, causing the man to abandon his wife in the Old World as he grew fat and rich in the new. He kept a mistress in her place, but the very sight of a nine-year-old heiress had momentarily turned his bearded head. However, she had found herself dispossessed, he ignored her, although her mother had continued to encourage the ‘splendid’ match-Florencia, however, was almost glad that they were effectively penniless.

“Flory!”

A thump from above told her that the Condesa was on the move, so she quickly stowed the mirror away and squeezed herself out of her room, along the corridor and up the stairs. She found herself blinded by the hot sunlight for a moment, but the moment she was accustomed to it, Florencia spotted her aunt and mother.

They were seated around a delicate table as her little sister, Margarita, played at their feet with her doll, Adora.

Their Aunt Clara was neither graceful nor elegant; indeed, her naturally voluptuous figure had been spoiled by far too much good food over the intervening forty years. Her great bosom was straining out of her lacy stays and threatening to spill out of her mink-edged brown gown as she sipped her tea and reapplied white lead to her broad face. A black hood tumbled down from her black hair, which she had greased with lard and powdered white; Aunt Clara was taller than her sister and completely unlike her nieces. Indeed, Margarita in comparison was made of little more than bird bones and buff coloured silk.

“Flory darling!”

Her mother beckoned her oldest daughter over and enveloped her in colourless flab as she hugged Florencia and cooed proudly.

The Condesa Lucia was even more rotund than her fat older sister. Her rattan chair creaked dangerously under her great weight. She did not look quite like the albino raisin her sister Clara was, although her bosom was similarly teetering on the edge of freedom. She had been forced to unbutton her marzipan-hued satin gown to stop it splitting, but the seams were still bulging as she flipped a long and powdered ringlet over her shoulder with a drizzle of white dust.

“All these men,” she glared superciliously at the crew before leaning over and muttering to Aunt Clara, “such a licentious lot.”

The girl at her feet looked up curiously. Margarita’s doll was wearing a striped silk dress with leading reins that flapped slightly in the breeze.

“What’s lie-sent-she-us?”

Her mother smiled knowingly but did not answer. She lifted a delicate teacup to her lips and watched out of the corner of her eye as a tall and pin-thin man walked out of the great cabin and strolled over to their table. There was a small, sly smile on the Condesa’s face.

“Ladies,” he said in French, “I trust you are well?”

“Quite,” Aunt Clara replied primly, “although I wish your men would stick a canopy up-it is most dreadfully sunny, if you have not noticed...”

The sun had burnt the morning’s fog away; as Florencia gazed out to sea, she could see none of the silvery clouds.

“A canopy would interfere with the crew’s work; this table is getting in the way enough as it is.”

Jules Marchand was a phlegmatic man. He captained the Le Dauphin and wore a wig made of iron grey curls; in his bony right hand he was clutching a brass spyglass, which he raised to his eye every now and then.

“We must not tan,” Aunt Clara informed him primly, “It would be dreadfully unfashionable-my sister and I have relatives to impress in Hispaniola-”

“Dearest Lucie has already informed me so.”

He smiled thinly, then shared a knowing look with the Condesa., whose sister appeared dreadfully annoyed. Margarita watched on curiously.

“How safe are we with your men?” Aunt Clara asked stiffly.
“I have not seen them bat an eyelid in your direction,” Captain Marchand replied, “I picked them most carefully, Madame de Barriga-”

“Call her Claire!” The Condesa chuckled, nearly spilling her tea in her amusement, “Seeing as we are all to be French-isn’t that right, my little Marguerite?”

Her youngest daughter laughed, and asked Marchand, “What would Adora be called?”

The bony man, so unlike his obese wife, smiled and replied, “L’amour.”

Everybody laughed; even Florencia smiled as she looked at the gaggle before turning back to the sea. A moist breeze ruffled her; they were passing a flat island with a white sand beach and a shock of palm trees that swayed with the ship. It appeared to be uninhabited, and behind her, Pia brought out straw hats up for everyone as someone on the prow called out, “Ship ahoy!”

Marchand, who had been gabbling on, jumped up at once and snatched up his spyglass. The women paled and Florencia moved to look at where the calico-clad sailor was pointing. She only saw green foliage and blue sky as Aunt Clara arose heavily from her chair with a loud crack.

“We will reach Hispaniola tomorrow afternoon, won’t we?” The Condesa asked nervously.

“Lucie-”

Aunt Clara took Florencia by the arm without another word and pulled Margarita to her feet, chivvying them both to the hatchway with her rolling gait. The sisters found themselves personally escorted down into the cool dimness and led to the cabin at the very end of the corridor, from where Florencia had not long emerged. The edge of her dress, for she was the only one clothed in a birdcage, squeezed through the door and sprung back a little to its original width as she turned to face her aunt.

“You two stay together and stay in here,” the woman puffed, already breathless, “You can come again up later when the sun goes in.”

She shut the door and lumbered off, but not before Pia had poked her crooked nose in for a moment and muttered something beneath her breath. She pulled a copal rosary out of her pocket, clutching it in her bony white hands as she too vanished from sight.

“Why are we going to Hispaniola?” Margarita asked her sister, as soon as the door was shut.

“Our mother and aunt want to see their cousin.”

Florencia sat herself down on her narrow bed. It had been built into the ship, so that there was a hollow beneath it, stuffed with luggage as she swung her legs and caused her dress hem to flutter around her ankles. She looked wistfully at the loose skirt and jacket that their mother had dressed her sister in.

“But why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do Maman and Aunt Clara want to see their cousin?” Margarita persisted.

Florencia shrugged. However, she knew full well why because she had overheard the two whale-like women talking the night before they had fled Cuba.

“I have no idea; you will have to ask them.”

Her sister clutched her doll loosely in her arms. The cook’s prize pig shifted restlessly in a cabin down the corridor, and the veal calves in the room opposite the sow lowed miserably.

“I think that man spotted the pirate ship again,” Margarita suddenly said, “It was following us yesterday.”

“What?”

The little girl nodded, playing with Adora again on the floor.

“You could see the sails on the horizon, but when I pointed it out to Mr Marchand, he just said it was an albatross.”

“Maybe it was,” Florencia reasoned, looking around the sweltering cabin.

Her sister shook her dark head.

“Seabirds don’t have black flags,” Margarita replied matter-of-factly.

Florencia stared at her, and then at the ceiling as the ship picked up speed with a thunder of feet, raised voices and a stomach-flipping lurch. She heard fine china rattle and break and her mother shriek about how green tea was bad for silk.

“You wait here,” she told her sister, “I’ll be back soon.”

The door was luckily unlocked; pushing it open, she closed it behind her, crossed to the square of light shining into the corridor and climbed up the six stairs that led to the bright deck.

A silver teapot dripping brown liquid bumped into her mules. Florencia picked it up and put it back on the little table when she reached it. Her mother was still muttering about wasted money as Pia threw the shattered remains of delicate porcelain cups and saucers overboard. The old maid quickly wiped the table down with a rag as well and shuffled aside; none of them noticed the pre-teen girl amongst them.

She noticed how much her mother looked like a congealing cream cake with a small smile. Her Aunt Clara was glaring blackly at her newest brother-in-law, who was standing on the prow with his spyglass and staring furiously out to sea, which, to Florencia, appeared devoid of all life other than the Le Dauphin.

“That stupid man!” Aunt Clara fumed, “Why on Earth did you marry him? He jumps at his own shadow, for God’s sake!”

“Do not use the Lord’s name in vain!” Her sister admonished, although she looked far from happy herself. There was a large brown stain on her bodice and the wind was tousling her neatly arranged ringlets.

"There is nothing out here but cloud and water!” Aunt Clara added, nodding her head smartly.

Florencia glanced up and saw a few fluffy clouds scudding across a pale forget-me-not blue sky; when she skirted around he bickering woman, she found that the water they were bobbing on was a deep blue-green colour. There was nothing but a huddle of islands not far off to break the crysocolla monotony.

“You can never be too careful!” Her mother kept on trilling, “Open water’s dangerous!”

“Only if you happen to be scared of fish.” Aunt Clara replied succinctly.

The Condesa looked darkly at her fat sibling and accepted the cup of fresh tea that wizened old Pia offered her; neither sister or their maid noticed Florencia walk away from the railings and closer to Captain Marchand.