January 25th, 1776
Dr. Trefusis hath arrived today on the boat with the women, clutching his wet, torn letter of passage, that he might come below and inquire after my health, which he heard was not of the soundest.
I averred that I mended, though others sicken. Now there are ten of us here upon these mats and the flock-bed of sickness, which stinks most revoltingly of our illness.
He and Bono sat by my side, though clearly their senses were assaulted by the noisome sheets and the breath of myself and those around me. Bono hath been highly solicitous of my health, showing me all the kindnesses of which he is capable.
“Bono hath informed me,” said Dr. Trefusis, “that you met with a young drummer of Oyo. I trust the discourse was fruitful?”
Being exhausted, I knew not what to answer.
“He asked him about Princess Cass,” said Bono. “They talked a real long time.”
There was, at the mention of her name, a silence among us; none wished to speak, as would further words disturb her lingering spirit.
I said to Bono, “You will perhaps accept my apologies for my deception.”
Bono nodded; then shook his head. He offered no absolution, nor any rancor.
He asked, “You ever going to tell me that story? You want to tell me how she . . . ? You wish to . . . I would be gratified to know.”
Dr. Trefusis shifted uneasily, little relishing the discomfort this inquiry occasioned.
To Bono, I said, “I will tell you now.”
“It would,” admitted Dr. Trefusis, “perhaps be salutary for you to recount it.”
And so I began.
I have heard others’ stories and recorded them in these pages; there is no need to animadvert to my own. Though Bono had, it transpired, heard the general outline some days before from my tutor, this was our first true rehearsal of its particulars and the stripping away of the lie I had told him when first we met at Great-Bridge; and so, again, she danced the minuet in Canaan and she fell; she lay sickening; she demanded fairy tales from Ovid; she was practiced upon by the ineffectual cruelties of the scientists, heated and cooled; and at last, expired.
Dr. Trefusis listened to us both; and Bono asked the questions he wished to know.
He posed a few inquiries with anger to Dr. Trefusis, demanding to be told of who conceived of that grim — I write it — that grim autopsy.
Dr. Trefusis allowed as it was Mr. Sharpe; and protested that he himself had argued against it in the strongest possible terms, but that Mr. Sharpe would not be turned from his path, and Mr. Gitney’s spirits were sunk too low, his mind too dejected, for resistance.
When the story was complete, Bono appeared harrowed and gray.
“Tell me, sir,” said I to Dr. Trefusis, “tell me of her youth.”
“I know nothing of it,” said he, “save what she told you.”
“When she first appeared at the College.”
“I was not in residence there at that time,” said he. “I know only that she was big with you and spake almost no English.”
“When,” I asked, “was she discovered for a princess?”
“As soon as she could make herself understood by her captors.”
“By which term you intend Mr. Gitney.”
“He was indeed her captor,” said Dr. Trefusis. “As was I, later. As were we all who resided there. Though Mr. Gitney owned her until the end.”
“No one owned her,” said Pro Bono. “No one could ever own her.”
Dr. Trefusis concurred. “Your mother walked with the stars in her hair. The rest of our company squatted around her and picked out equations in mud.” Smiling with melancholy, said he, “‘Rara avis in Terris, nigroque simillima Cycno.’”4
4 “A rare bird upon the Earth, not unlike a black swan.”— Juvenal, Satire VI [Editor’s note]
When he had gone, Pro Bono lay with his head back against the planks. “Prince O.,” he said carefully, “I heard a story.”
I asked him to relate it.
He said that Aina, the cook, had told it him; and that she had heard it from another woman who had lived at the College of Lucidity before Bono had come to reside there.
“I vowed to myself I wouldn’t tell it you. I thought I never should. Prince O. . . .”
I begged him tell me; but he betrayed some confusion. He would not relate the story; he says he shall when I am well, when I am strong. One final story which he knows.
And so, with trepidation, I await my full recovery.