CHAPTER ONE
In the small and reserved community of Chudleigh, Manchester
Darlene Haynes was only fourteen years old and George
MacLeish was barely eighteen years old when they eloped. George’s parents were
very wealthy plantation owners. They owned the land as far as the eye could see
in any direction except for bits and pieces on the outskirts which they doled
out to workers who have proven to be loyal.
They lived in a mansion which was the envy of their many
influential friends and visitors. Darlene’s parents were one of the lucky recipients
of land given by George’s parents. They did not own much, just the little two
room board house and the little plot of land on which they eked out a meager
living when they were not working on the plantation.
George was not full blooded white as both his parents were
half breeds themselves, but most people did not notice this, maybe because of
their position or the high skin toning. Darlene was of the same stock but dirt
poor and there in was the problem.
Darlene’s parents were very angry that George had gotten
her pregnant at such an early age. They always thought of him as a responsible
young man and were very surprised and upset when they found out their daughter
was pregnant by him. They knew that there was going to be a problem. There was
no way that George’s parents were going to accept a penniless Darlene in their
family.
“Darlene!” Her mother exclaimed when
she told her the very disturbing news. “How could you do this to us? You have
put us to shame. Do you think that George is going to want you after this?”
“Mother!” Darlene exclaimed angrily,
“George has promised to marry me.” Mother I am sorry if I have disgraced the
family. I had no intention of doing so but I love George.”
“Promised to marry you indeed … , a
promise is a comfort to a fool,” her mother scoffed.
“Mother, let’s just drop it, okay, I
realize that we are not getting anywhere,” Darlene retorted.
“Yes, I will drop it for now, but I
must ask you this, how do you think George is going to react in a couple years
from now? How is he going to maintain a family, for as sure as I am sitting
here, his parents are going to disinherit him? Do you want to be responsible
for that?”
“Mother! Oh mother! What do I do? I am
so sorry,” she wailed with tears in her eyes.
“Hush my child God will work it out,”
she whispered in a teary voice as she pulled Darlene close to her. “I blame
myself. I should have told you about the birds and the bees.”
“Mother he is going to marry me.”
“Darlene you are just too young to get married or to even
to have a family. You are just a child yourself. Not to mention, your father
will not agree to such a silly idea.”
“Silly mother! It is very harsh for you to say such a
thing when you also got married very young.”
“Exactly, I am speaking from experience, and besides, how
are we going to get your father to agree to this.”
“Mother, I wasn’t even thinking about Pa. Oh my God, how
am I going to tell him that I am pregnant?”
“Get George over here tomorrow and we will both tell your
father together. It is not going to be easy but what’s done is done.”
As her mother requested, the following day George turned
up at the house nervous and sweaty. Darlene’s father was so very angry about
the pregnancy that he walked out without giving them his blessings. Her mother
kept stressing on the embarrassment and disgrace they had both brought upon
their families. George kept quiet and just listened with his head tilted
sideways.
Darlene was always
a stubborn child, and despite the embarrassment they caused their family, no
amount of pleading could persuade the young couple not to get married and
against the wishes of both their parents, they eloped to Trelawny state where
it was legal to get married without their parents consent.
Darlene and George had a mutual respect for each other,
but the puppy love phase soon came to an end. They must now face the reality of
life. They no longer looked at life through rose tinted glasses. They had more
problems in their marriage than they had expected and being young, they did not
know how to cope with it.
George spoke very few words these days. The once jovial
and carefree George was now withdrawn and hardly smiles. Darlene tried to find
out what the problem was but was harshly pushed aside for her efforts. She
became depressed as she watched the once happy George drew further and further
away. She could not help but remember what her mother had said to her and this
made her more worried.
Five months into the pregnancy,
Darlene had a miscarriage; this made George’s parents very happy, as they
thought their son would divorce his wife, but to their disappointment, he was
determined to stay with her. His father, desperately wanting his son back,
thought this was the perfect opportunity and so he approached him. “Son, when
are you coming home?” his father asked. “Your mother and I are looking forward
to having you back in the house”.
‘‘As soon as you are willing to accept
Darlene,” George sternly answered, and that was the end of their conversation.
Four years and three miscarriages
later, Darlene thought she would never carry a child to term, that is; until
her fourth pregnancy. She knew this time something was different, something was
special. She prayed night and day for a miracle, like “Hannah of the Bible”,
all she wanted was a baby.
Then one hot summer night, as the breeze blew and the
crickets chirped, Darlene started feeling labor pains. This to the couple was a
blessing, like that of “Jesus to Mary”. Darlene's moans could be heard all over
the house, while George paced nervously back and forth in the dining room, like
a horse on a race track.
The moans suddenly stopped. The untrained midwife walked
into the dining room with a baby in her arms. “Mr. McLeish, meet your
daughter”.
“Thank God!” he sighed in relief.
The experience was a very joyful one for them. They
finally had a beautiful daughter, they named her Gertrude. The couple found
their love again, and successfully had five more children. A blessing in the
eyes of the couple, but a burden on their finances. Darlene and George were
living a less than comfortable lifestyle, but somehow they were determined to
make it work.
Darlene and George lost three of
their eight children in their childhood illnesses. Only five survived;
Gertrude, Rosita, Singleton, Nora and Vera.
Due to the couples’ stubbornness, Mr. and Mrs. George and
Darlene McLeish were now very poor as George’s family had disowned him and he
now had a family to support. He was left with nothing when his family
dis-inherited him. They were so angry with him for marrying Darlene, and even more
upset when he did not end what they thought was a farce of marriage after his
wife‘s first miscarriage.
They wanted to have nothing to do with him. They set up
their home on a piece of land his father had given him years ago. Fortunately
he had asked his father to give him the deed to the land. His father gave it to
him for his eighteenth birthday, shortly before he eloped. Here he and Darlene
eked out a meager living.
At thirty years old, Darlene had the
appearance of a forty year old woman. She was not able to give her children the
life she had hoped. Most of her days and nights were spent crying. She was
always angry with her children for having been born. She blamed them for all
the problems she had and refused to even think of the fact that it was her own
stubbornness that has brought her to this end. As soon as they were old enough
to help on the farm, she would put them to work and not send them to school.
The children, especially Gertrude, were never given the opportunity to learn to
read and write.
Numerous times Darlene had asked
George to reconcile with his parents. She though if he did, then his parents
would help them financially. She knew education was important, but she needed
the help on the farm.
George received an urgent message
from his parent’s home; he did not know what to make of it. The bearer of the
message simply said, “your parents want to see you right away, please come
now”. George hesitated, “what do they want with me”, he thought. “Haven’t they
punished me enough?” He was sitting quietly on the front porch of their three
room board house when the visitor came with the message. He did not move even
after the visitor left and so Darlene who was watching from a window went to
see what was wrong.
“Why so glum?” Darlene asked her husband,
“You seem to have had some bad news?”
George shifted his position so he could look at her, his
face a study of perplexity, he replied, ‘”I just got a message from my parents,
what do they want with me? If it is to tell me to leave you again…” He stretched
his hand towards her and she grasped it. “They can go to hell for all I care.”
“Sssh”, Darlene consoled him running
her fingers through his hair a gesture he loved and one she knew would soothe
him. “You have not seen them in a long time and it is possible they have
changed. People do change you know?”
“I am not going,” he said half
convincingly.
“Now you listen to me George Haynes
McLeish”, she said in a stern no nonsense voice. “You are going to see them and
that is that. They are the only parents you have. You disobeyed them once, and
you will not do it again”. She sat down beside him still holding his hands and
looking up into his face. “When I think of the agony you have gone through over
these many years, I will not sit back and watch you continue to slowly pine
away.”
“But sweetheart…..”
“Sssh” she put a finger to his lips.
“If I was not the selfish person I was back then I would never have held you to
your promise. Mother was right. She told me what would happen but I did not
believe her”, she said with a faraway look in her eyes.
“Your parents did not do anything
wrong, they only wanted to protect you because they love you. He looked deep
into her eyes and saw once again that beautiful girl of fourteen whom he fell
in love with. “I will go my love, for your sake I will go,” and he got up and
left.
All kinds of thoughts were passing through his mind but he
pushed them aside. “It makes no sense to worry about the unknown,” he thought.
“When I get there it will be time enough to worry.”
Entering his boyhood home filled him with nostalgia. It
was as if he had stepped back into time. There were the trees he climbed as a
child, there was his old swing that his father had made for him, the nooks and
crannies he roamed as a child beckoned him. He stood there, looking around,
eyes filling up with tears. He was only just realizing how much he had missed
this place. A voice from the past broke his reverie and he turned toward the
sound of the voice wiping the tears away and hoping there was no one near enough
to see that he was crying.
“George!” The voice called again,
“George is that you?”
“Yes mother,” he answered. “I am
here.”
She stretched out her hand and he hesitantly took it in
his rough palms. She looked at him, stepped forward to hug him but stopped
herself as she remembered that as a child he was embarrassed by her hugging him
in public. Instead she shook hands with him.
His stance was stiff and nervous. He wanted to get it over
with. “Well mother,” he said without any preamble. “You sent for me, what is it
all about?”
“Let’s go inside, your father wants to
see you,” she said turning as she
spoke.
He
followed her into the cool living room, a place he dared not go as a child. The
room was as he remembered it, beautifully furnished with Queen Anne’s settee
covered with burgundy and green damask covering. The drapes were made of a
lighter material with similar coloring and patterns. They were drawn to either
side by a silken cord and fastened to the wall. There were paintings hanging on
the opposite wall underneath which were pictures of his grandfather, a stern
looking West Indian man of English descent. He followed his mother through the
corridor he remembered so well, to the bedroom where as a child he would flee
to when he had a bad dream. His mother opened the door and he saw a frail old
man sitting up in the bed with the bed clothes pulled almost to his neck. He
sucked in his breath audibly.
His
mother turned as to say something, thought better of it and turned away again.
Softly she said to the figure in the bed, “Mercel, George is here.” The old man
slowly opened his eyes, looked at George and beckoned him closer with his
feeble bony hands.
George
was at a loss, this could not be the strong invincible man he knew to be
father. “No way”, he thought. He walked towards the bed, took the feeble hands
in his and said “Father, I am here.”
His
father slightly squeezed his hand and whispered, “My son, Oh my son!” and fell
back on the bed with a loud grasp. Moments later he died peacefully.
George
sent words to his wife Darlene about the death of his father and she encouraged
him to stay with his mother until after the funeral. Three days later they
buried his father in the shade of the spreading guango tree he loved so much. A
few relatives, his son, his grandchildren and a few friends from the past
attended the funeral. Darlene did not attend the funeral but she felt that the
children should attend in support of her husband. His friends had all started
drifting away when his business failed. Some say he started giving up when he
lost his son.
After
the funeral the lawyer called them together. He informed them that unpaid debts
and doctor bill plus the funeral expenses had eaten away at the savings his
father had and that the only hope of salvaging anything was to sell the house.
George
was flabbergasted to say the least, but this was the reality of the situation.
When
the lawyer left his mother said to him, “it took over thirty years before I
could get your father to speak of you and he almost died without speaking to
you. If you had not come your father would have died without your forgiveness.”
“How
did he know I had forgiven him?” he asked.
“The
fact that you came was to him a sign of your forgiveness. You do not realize
how much like him you are. Even as a young child I could see so much of him in
you and I believe he realized that too. Neither of you wanted to compromise.”
“And
what of you mother?” He asked. “You behaved as if I did not exist. How could
you my own mother, do such a thing?”
“I
too have my share of pride,” she said, “and I thought that you would see the
mistake you have made and ...”
Her firmly outstretched his right arm
out with the palm facing her as a gesture to stop her from speaking. “But mother!” he exclaimed.
She
held up her hand to silence him, “let me finish what I was saying. I thought
you would be home long ago. I thought it was all a childish dream but when many
years had passed and you did not come home I realized that you were more of a
man than I had given you credit for. I finally decided to see you but your
father forbade me and you knew what he
was like. I suppose I could have disobeyed but I must admit I was a little
scared of him. However, before he took sick, he realized that he could not have
been more proud of you for taking your stance and living by it. He had planned
to come and see you but he fell ill and within three weeks he was dead. Son,
can you find it in your heart to forgive a foolish old woman?”
“Oh
mother!” he said with a cracking husky voice. “I do forgive you.”
He
was given a portion of the money from the sale of the property and this helped
him to send the younger children to school but by this time Gertrude was too
old to go.
His
mother left to live with her younger sister in Montego Bay ,
and every now and then he would visit her.
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