Phoebe had been of the Cunning Plantation for weeks now, slowly getting to know the place whilst the family was away. The large plantation house fronted with columns of white stone was by far more grand than the one she had known as a child. Unlike many, it was built entirely of stone in defense of the often heavy Caribbean storms.
The house itself was circled by a set of neatly laid gardens which in turn were closed by a high hedge wall, secluding the private house from the dreary fields with their black workers. The fields themselves patterned the surrounding land, worked endlessly by slaves for up to eighteen hours a day, with few or no days of rest.
Each task of the production was long and arduous, to say nothing of dangerous.
Phoebe had explored most of the estate but had kept far away from the mill and boiling houses for she already knew what she'd see there. In the mill, slaves constantly fed the sugar cane into grinding wheels. It was a tedious job that led to a wandering mind and hundreds lost their arms, the bones ground to dust when caught. The workers were oversaw by another slave with a sharpened machete and if they were lucky, he'd be nearby to take their arms off in a swift blow to save them from being drawn further into the crushing wheels.
Worse were the boiling houses where slaves refined the sugar in huge vats, ladling off the waste product until the substance was pure. The boiling heat of the process, made unbearable by the merciless sun beating down on the buildings was excruciating but the burning was nothing compared to getting the boiling sugar on your flesh. It stuck like glue, eating away at the flesh until it cooled, almost impossible to get off. It was not unheard of for slaves to fall into the vats completely and Phoebe could only hope that the end was quick when they did.
As a housemaid and ladies maid, she lived in the large house, in the servants quarters where she had a simple sleeping cell. But she spent the time she wasn't working in the slave town on the grounds, which was hidden by a stand of trees so that the family should never have to see it's ugliness. Ten windowless shacks housed the plantations one hundred odd slaves. The conditions were nowhere near as bad as some, where the workers were packed in like salt fish in a barrel.
It was from the tree line that she saw the family return, a small procession coming up the coast road. She'd been enjoying the shade with some of the other women, who were sharing the small time of freedom they had when the masters were away.
The sight of the family send her scuttling back to the big house at break neck speed. She knew by the time she had reached the servants entrance that she would never make it through the twisting back corridors to the yard before the family did. It filled her with a sick dread as she forced herself on, the leaden weight in her stomach seeming to hold her down as she began to flag. She almost burst into the yard, finding it hard to slow from the last burst of speed. As she skidded into line with the other maids she almost wept at the scene she'd maid. An unknown gentleman was handing down the steely mistress of the house from the carriage while the master and his son stood nearby. All turned at her entrance and although she kept her head low, she knew the fabled burning eyes of the Cunning family would be fixing her with the dread glare. She felt the young Richard's most of all, his touched almost deep enough to brand her soul. It was almost the same, an unknowing force that made her want both to thrust her chin out with dignity and cover her chest with one arm and grip the cloth or her dress to her thighs in misguided protection.
'As I was saying Sir John.' Richard Cunning continued in his interrupted conversation, biting each word off through a clenched jaw 'I have also taken on the Hobson land, have you been there? It makes a sizeable increase to the land we'll be farming.'
Despite her burning face and the breathlessness Phoebe felt, her mind mercilessly processed this information, increasing her horror.
