Mosana - Part XXII
EPISODE 22
During the night, I wrote. My plan was simple: I wanted to reproduce Master Wells’ diary and add something implicating. Now, there was one fallback to that, one you might have even thought of: I didn’t have Master Wells’s handwriting. But that didn’t matter, because the new diary wasn’t meant for him. Master Wells was going to have his old diary back. I was saving the new edition for someone special.
I wrote all night the first night, and the next, and still managed not to sleep through my chores.
The third day after I got the new diary, Master Wells came home. He was brought in by the doctor himself. At the sight of the doctor’s brougham, my heart rate spiked. I wondered why the doctor was there. He could have just sent for our coachman to pick Master Wells up from his clinic. But he brought Master Wells himself.
Why?
A thousand thoughts ran through my head, trying to give an answer to the doctor’s sudden appearance.
Maybe he had discovered what had poisoned Master Wells and had come to tell Madam Russell.
Maybe he had come to inspect the house to check for any poisonous substance… and it wouldn’t be long before they began to search the slave quarters.
Maybe Master Wells had told him the last thing he ate before he fell ill… which was served by a slave.
I didn’t want to reason with the logical part of my mind that suggested it could only be a routine visit. So I waited apprehensively, not moving from my spot where I watched the front door closely, half expecting Madam Russell to come charging down to the slave quarters.
But nothing happened. Turned out it was only a routine visit after all. I breathed freely when I saw the doctor drive away in his brougham. I was safe.
For now.
As soon as my concerns about the doctor’s visit faded, I remembered one pressing matter. The diary.
The plan had been to put his diary back and wait for his arrival. Then I would use the decoy diary when I was ready. But since Master Wells was back, it would only be a matter of time before he noticed his diary was missing. And before that happened, I had to put Plan Diary into action. I had to do it now.
I ran to Ms. Nan, praying with all my might that she had what I wanted. I caught up with her at her usual spot, just outside her quarters with the washboards, doing what she knew how to do best.
‘Ms. Nan!’
She turned to me and smiled. ‘What is it, child?’ She always talked calm and slow like everything was alright with the world. She was the only one I knew that seemed comfortable with slavery, as long as she had clothes to wash.
‘Do you have any of Master Wells' clothes with you?’
‘Why, yes,’ she said, slowly. ‘I do have some folded out that I was gonna give him before he went to the hospital. Wanna help me take it in?’
I could have hugged her. That was exactly what I wanted.
‘Yes, Ms. Nan. I would love to help you.’ I beamed.
She walked slowly to her room, while I trotted behind her impatiently, wishing she would hurry the hell up. She finally gave me the clothes and I sped with them to my own quarters. I set them down and got out the new diary. It was a good thing I had written for two full nights, so I had gone a long way. Master Wells’ entries weren’t long per one, and the diary was a medium sized compact notebook. But I wasn’t done recopying the original diary. What I had written would have to suffice.
I sat down to write the final page, not from the original diary, but from my head. The final piece that would damn the butler and seal my plan. I skipped a page and copied the incomplete entry on the next page; that is, the entry he had been trying to write the day he went to the hospital. On the page I left blank, I began to write my own entry. I dated it two days before he fell ill.
August, day 24, year ‘37
I wish I could do something about Amy. I wish there was a way to get rid of her. My love for Susan is about ready to tear me up. I know if Amy were out of the way, Susan would finally notice me. She would love me. But she’s too preoccupied with that offspring of hers who’s just an extension of John! She needs to be detangled from everything that has to do with that foul man. If only I could think of a way, then we could be together. And we could own all this. I have a lot of ideas on how we could expand this empire. But I would have to be by her side! I can be more than just her butler. God knows she needs a man in her life.
To make it look genuine, like it was really him, I added another paragraph. From my study of his diary, I noticed Master Wells usually wrote on different things, like he was telling someone about his day. I thought it was pathetic.
I added:
Gradually approaching fall now. Have to instruct those slaves to prepare the barn for winter. Can’t have them slacking. I should pick a day for inspection, I think. Maybe a week from now, on Sunday, when they wouldn’t be expecting it. So I’ll know those whom I have to whip back into form.
I added some random talk about the weather and closed the diary. It was perfect. I compared it with his diary and noted the similarities. It was the usual length; Master Wells liked to keep each entry one page long, with about three paragraphs. Mine was exactly alike. Good.
I picked up the clothes Ms. Nan had given me and held the diary under them with my left hand. The other hand I put on top. Then I strode to the main house.
I intentionally went through the front door because I wanted to pass by the parlour where I knew Madam Russell would be at this time. She always went there to drink tea, or read the papers, or just brood. I thought it was because she was lonely up there in her own quarters. If she wasn’t in the parlour or attending an event outside the Manor, she was in Amy’s room, visiting her daughter. And this didn’t usually happen because Amy was seldom around. I don’t think the girl liked the quiet house either. And now that I thought about it, Amy didn’t have friends over. And Madam Russell didn’t host any parties at their house. Strange family.
So I made a bit of noise as I stepped in the front door by shutting the huge doors a little louder than usual. I knew I was going to get reprimanded for that. As soon as I was within view, I heard her.
‘Do you intend to break down my door, Mosana?’
I pretended to jump, like I didn’t know she was there, and spilled the clothes in my hands unto the ornate terrazzo floor. ‘N-no, ma’am,’ I stuttered. ‘I didn’t have my hands to hold the door shut properly.’
‘You’re not going to have any hands if you don’t get yourself from there and out of my sight!’
‘Yes, ma’am. Right away, ma’am.’ I was still on the floor, pretending to be a nervous wreck, pushing out the diary from amidst the clothes out into a position where she could see it from where she sat.
But like the observant witch that she was, she asked one question I didn’t expect. ‘And why didn’t you use the slave door?’
She was referring to the back door that led from outside into the store room in the kitchen, and then to the rooms in the house. That’s how we came and went in and out of the mansion. I mentally slapped myself for not anticipating the most obvious question that would result from using the front door. We never used the front door, unless you were sweeping the giant porch or something.
Think fast! I commanded myself.
‘I-I was just coming from the lines, ma’am. Ms. Nan asked me to take the clothes up. I felt it was a long way from the back, so I just came in the front.’ I bowed my head in mock penitence like I was actually sorry to have used the almighty front door. I didn’t give a fly’s ass what door I used. A door was a door. I didn’t see any reason why there should have been “slave” doors.
What I said was true, and it saved me. But not without insults from Madam Russell. Ms. Nan’s quarters was away from ours, as she stayed in the wash house. It was positioned on the east side where the sun rose up each morning, so she could dry the clothes she washed on the lines right beside it. Her quarters faced the front side of the house and was a former hounds kennel before it was remodeled to house her. It was just a long corridor filled with washboards and bowls and buckets. Her bed was at a corner and she had her own bathroom. There was a well too, where water had been drawn for the dogs that had once been there. Now it allowed her wash clothes unhindered.
Walking all the way from the wash house to the back was longer than just going through the front door, and Madam Russell knew it. So after hurling curses at me, she warned me to never repeat the mistake again, even if the distance was as far as all the way to the Indian Ocean.
I nodded my head and got up, using this last gesture to kick the diary in her direction. I stepped forward to retrieve it when she finally took the hint.
‘What’s that?’ she asked sharply.
‘I don’t know, ma’am. I was only taking Master Wells’ clothes up to his room…’ I picked up the diary and started to open it. I did this because I suspected she might have just told me to pick it up and be on my way. I wanted her to take it from me.
She did exactly what I imagined she’d do. ‘Give it to me,’ she said.
I walked up to her tentatively and gave her the diary. ‘Must have been in one of the pockets, ma’am.’
Her eyes were already scanning the slim notebook. She looked at me like she had momentarily forgotten I was there and said, ‘Go back to what you were doing.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said, and left her presence. She didn’t see my satisfied smile.
I picked up the clothes and continued to Master Wells’ quarters. He was there, relaxing on his bed. I dropped off his clothes without any ceremony and left. Out of curiosity, I devised another plan to confirm if the diary had worked as I expected. I went back to the parlour and appeared before Madam Russell.
‘Do you want me to take the diary up now, ma’am?’ I asked stupidly.
She eyed me like she wished she could turn me to dust and said, ‘Get out.’
I took that as my cue and scurried out, this time through the back door. I had gotten my confirmation anyway. She was already deep into that diary. I knew it had caught her attention. I had placed the bookmark, that tiny rope that came with diaries, right where I had written my damning entry.
If all went well, it would be the first thing she read.
______________________________________
During the night, I wrote. My plan was simple: I wanted to reproduce Master Wells’ diary and add something implicating. Now, there was one fallback to that, one you might have even thought of: I didn’t have Master Wells’s handwriting. But that didn’t matter, because the new diary wasn’t meant for him. Master Wells was going to have his old diary back. I was saving the new edition for someone special.
I wrote all night the first night, and the next, and still managed not to sleep through my chores.
The third day after I got the new diary, Master Wells came home. He was brought in by the doctor himself. At the sight of the doctor’s brougham, my heart rate spiked. I wondered why the doctor was there. He could have just sent for our coachman to pick Master Wells up from his clinic. But he brought Master Wells himself.
Why?
A thousand thoughts ran through my head, trying to give an answer to the doctor’s sudden appearance.
Maybe he had discovered what had poisoned Master Wells and had come to tell Madam Russell.
Maybe he had come to inspect the house to check for any poisonous substance… and it wouldn’t be long before they began to search the slave quarters.
Maybe Master Wells had told him the last thing he ate before he fell ill… which was served by a slave.
I didn’t want to reason with the logical part of my mind that suggested it could only be a routine visit. So I waited apprehensively, not moving from my spot where I watched the front door closely, half expecting Madam Russell to come charging down to the slave quarters.
But nothing happened. Turned out it was only a routine visit after all. I breathed freely when I saw the doctor drive away in his brougham. I was safe.
For now.
As soon as my concerns about the doctor’s visit faded, I remembered one pressing matter. The diary.
The plan had been to put his diary back and wait for his arrival. Then I would use the decoy diary when I was ready. But since Master Wells was back, it would only be a matter of time before he noticed his diary was missing. And before that happened, I had to put Plan Diary into action. I had to do it now.
I ran to Ms. Nan, praying with all my might that she had what I wanted. I caught up with her at her usual spot, just outside her quarters with the washboards, doing what she knew how to do best.
‘Ms. Nan!’
She turned to me and smiled. ‘What is it, child?’ She always talked calm and slow like everything was alright with the world. She was the only one I knew that seemed comfortable with slavery, as long as she had clothes to wash.
‘Do you have any of Master Wells' clothes with you?’
‘Why, yes,’ she said, slowly. ‘I do have some folded out that I was gonna give him before he went to the hospital. Wanna help me take it in?’
I could have hugged her. That was exactly what I wanted.
‘Yes, Ms. Nan. I would love to help you.’ I beamed.
She walked slowly to her room, while I trotted behind her impatiently, wishing she would hurry the hell up. She finally gave me the clothes and I sped with them to my own quarters. I set them down and got out the new diary. It was a good thing I had written for two full nights, so I had gone a long way. Master Wells’ entries weren’t long per one, and the diary was a medium sized compact notebook. But I wasn’t done recopying the original diary. What I had written would have to suffice.
I sat down to write the final page, not from the original diary, but from my head. The final piece that would damn the butler and seal my plan. I skipped a page and copied the incomplete entry on the next page; that is, the entry he had been trying to write the day he went to the hospital. On the page I left blank, I began to write my own entry. I dated it two days before he fell ill.
August, day 24, year ‘37
I wish I could do something about Amy. I wish there was a way to get rid of her. My love for Susan is about ready to tear me up. I know if Amy were out of the way, Susan would finally notice me. She would love me. But she’s too preoccupied with that offspring of hers who’s just an extension of John! She needs to be detangled from everything that has to do with that foul man. If only I could think of a way, then we could be together. And we could own all this. I have a lot of ideas on how we could expand this empire. But I would have to be by her side! I can be more than just her butler. God knows she needs a man in her life.
To make it look genuine, like it was really him, I added another paragraph. From my study of his diary, I noticed Master Wells usually wrote on different things, like he was telling someone about his day. I thought it was pathetic.
I added:
Gradually approaching fall now. Have to instruct those slaves to prepare the barn for winter. Can’t have them slacking. I should pick a day for inspection, I think. Maybe a week from now, on Sunday, when they wouldn’t be expecting it. So I’ll know those whom I have to whip back into form.
I added some random talk about the weather and closed the diary. It was perfect. I compared it with his diary and noted the similarities. It was the usual length; Master Wells liked to keep each entry one page long, with about three paragraphs. Mine was exactly alike. Good.
I picked up the clothes Ms. Nan had given me and held the diary under them with my left hand. The other hand I put on top. Then I strode to the main house.
I intentionally went through the front door because I wanted to pass by the parlour where I knew Madam Russell would be at this time. She always went there to drink tea, or read the papers, or just brood. I thought it was because she was lonely up there in her own quarters. If she wasn’t in the parlour or attending an event outside the Manor, she was in Amy’s room, visiting her daughter. And this didn’t usually happen because Amy was seldom around. I don’t think the girl liked the quiet house either. And now that I thought about it, Amy didn’t have friends over. And Madam Russell didn’t host any parties at their house. Strange family.
So I made a bit of noise as I stepped in the front door by shutting the huge doors a little louder than usual. I knew I was going to get reprimanded for that. As soon as I was within view, I heard her.
‘Do you intend to break down my door, Mosana?’
I pretended to jump, like I didn’t know she was there, and spilled the clothes in my hands unto the ornate terrazzo floor. ‘N-no, ma’am,’ I stuttered. ‘I didn’t have my hands to hold the door shut properly.’
‘You’re not going to have any hands if you don’t get yourself from there and out of my sight!’
‘Yes, ma’am. Right away, ma’am.’ I was still on the floor, pretending to be a nervous wreck, pushing out the diary from amidst the clothes out into a position where she could see it from where she sat.
But like the observant witch that she was, she asked one question I didn’t expect. ‘And why didn’t you use the slave door?’
She was referring to the back door that led from outside into the store room in the kitchen, and then to the rooms in the house. That’s how we came and went in and out of the mansion. I mentally slapped myself for not anticipating the most obvious question that would result from using the front door. We never used the front door, unless you were sweeping the giant porch or something.
Think fast! I commanded myself.
‘I-I was just coming from the lines, ma’am. Ms. Nan asked me to take the clothes up. I felt it was a long way from the back, so I just came in the front.’ I bowed my head in mock penitence like I was actually sorry to have used the almighty front door. I didn’t give a fly’s ass what door I used. A door was a door. I didn’t see any reason why there should have been “slave” doors.
What I said was true, and it saved me. But not without insults from Madam Russell. Ms. Nan’s quarters was away from ours, as she stayed in the wash house. It was positioned on the east side where the sun rose up each morning, so she could dry the clothes she washed on the lines right beside it. Her quarters faced the front side of the house and was a former hounds kennel before it was remodeled to house her. It was just a long corridor filled with washboards and bowls and buckets. Her bed was at a corner and she had her own bathroom. There was a well too, where water had been drawn for the dogs that had once been there. Now it allowed her wash clothes unhindered.
Walking all the way from the wash house to the back was longer than just going through the front door, and Madam Russell knew it. So after hurling curses at me, she warned me to never repeat the mistake again, even if the distance was as far as all the way to the Indian Ocean.
I nodded my head and got up, using this last gesture to kick the diary in her direction. I stepped forward to retrieve it when she finally took the hint.
‘What’s that?’ she asked sharply.
‘I don’t know, ma’am. I was only taking Master Wells’ clothes up to his room…’ I picked up the diary and started to open it. I did this because I suspected she might have just told me to pick it up and be on my way. I wanted her to take it from me.
She did exactly what I imagined she’d do. ‘Give it to me,’ she said.
I walked up to her tentatively and gave her the diary. ‘Must have been in one of the pockets, ma’am.’
Her eyes were already scanning the slim notebook. She looked at me like she had momentarily forgotten I was there and said, ‘Go back to what you were doing.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said, and left her presence. She didn’t see my satisfied smile.
I picked up the clothes and continued to Master Wells’ quarters. He was there, relaxing on his bed. I dropped off his clothes without any ceremony and left. Out of curiosity, I devised another plan to confirm if the diary had worked as I expected. I went back to the parlour and appeared before Madam Russell.
‘Do you want me to take the diary up now, ma’am?’ I asked stupidly.
She eyed me like she wished she could turn me to dust and said, ‘Get out.’
I took that as my cue and scurried out, this time through the back door. I had gotten my confirmation anyway. She was already deep into that diary. I knew it had caught her attention. I had placed the bookmark, that tiny rope that came with diaries, right where I had written my damning entry.
If all went well, it would be the first thing she read.
______________________________________
Hey you!
This is late, I'm aware. Sowie.
No long author's note today, but I think Ms. Nan reminds me of the sloth in Zootopia. Lol.
Stay safe. And remember, you can either PROTEST, PRAY, or POST. Let's remind them they f* **ed with the wrong generation.
#endSARS.
Till next Sunday,
xoxo,
Ava.
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