Chapter 26: My Name Is Henry

[November, 1678]
Oxford, Oxfordshire

UNBEKNOWNST AT FIRST to her lovers or to Master and Mistress Heathcoate, Sandrine began to make cautious inquiries concerning her son. At Mass, where she was the only African in the congregation, Sandrine was tolerated with a formal courtesy. Nevertheless, she began to speak with the two or three non-white parishioners. Through them she learned of other foreign residents of Oxford, most from England’s colonies.

It took weeks, but she heard about an African boy who worked at a bookseller’s establishment on the other side of town from Master Heathcoate’s print shop. One afternoon she visited the shop.

She almost fainted when she saw the boy unpacking packages of books. He was so much lighter than she was, and his features were less African than hers as well, but somehow she knew, even if she’d never seen him before, he was the baby who had been taken away from her at birth. His cheekbones and nose were hers. She knew without a doubt it was her son. He appeared to be about twelve years old.

“Good afternoon.” Her voice almost broke when she spoke the greeting.

His eyes widened when he saw her. He could not have recognized her, but Sandrine’s blackness and her beauty provoked a response in the boy not unlike what Roger had experienced when he first met Sandrine.

“Good afternoon.”

“My name is Sandrine. May I ask your name?”

He looked puzzled but he responded.

“My name is Henry. How may I help you?”

“How old are you, Henry?”

Henry’s puzzlement turned to uneasiness. He stepped back through an opening at the rear of the shop.

“Father,” he called, “will you assist, please?”

“What is—”

The man Sandrine remembered from those two nights years ago stopped dead when he saw Sandrine.

“You? What are you doing here?”

Sandrine stared. She knew she could not afford to antagonize the man but she saw no need to cringe before him. She was no longer a slave and she was no longer in his power. She had the protection of Gérard and Amélie and her own status now as a printer’s assistant.

“My name is Sandrine. I assist Master Merle Heathcoate in his printing business. I came to Oxford with the daughter of my former employer, Lord Sanderson, and his foster son, who is enrolled in B— College.” Sandrine had never before in her life invoked the name of Amélie’s father and her former lover, but now it seemed necessary.

Henry’s father continued to stare at her.

“But why are you here?”

Sandrine knew the man understood why she was there.

“Henry is my son, is he not?”

“No!”

Sandrine took a step forward.

“You would deny it, sir?”

Henry interrupted his stare at Sandrine and turned to his father.

“Father? Is this true? How—”

Henry’s father made a comforting noise and put his arm around the boy’s shoulders. Sandrine saw pain the father’s eyes but he was not immediately hostile.

“You will excuse my son, please. Perhaps we could continue this conversation in a day or so? I must prepare him, and his mother.”

His eyes were pleading now. Sandrine chose to accept his request.

“Very well, shall I return on Friday, two days hence?”

“Yes,” the man replied, his tone full of relief, his next words as unexpected to himself as they were to Sandrine. “Please come to tea. If she wishes to accompany you I would welcome your former employer’s daughter as well.”

Sandrine nodded and turned to leave.

“Until Friday, sir. Until Friday, Henry.”

Henry nodded but did not speak.

“You will come with me, Amélie, no? I cannot bear to speak with this man alone. Not when this is about my son.”

Amélie leaned close to Sandrine and hugged her tight. Kissed her cheek. “Of course, Sandrine. Friday.”

The two women presented themselves on Friday to a cautious reception by mother, father and Henry. The latter remained silent throughout the visit, but Sandrine watched him carefully and saw he’d missed nothing.

After his wife had poured out the tea the father opened the conversation.

“May I speak, Mistress Sandrine?”

She was not yet at ease at being addressed with such formality and surface respect, but Sandrine nodded.

“I shall not dwell on our earlier meetings.” He glanced briefly at his wife, who remained without expression. Sandrine was confident she knew or suspected the circumstances of these meetings that were, in all truth, rapes. “I was unaware at the time that you had become pregnant.”

He paused to sip his tea. With a glance at his wife, still expressionless, he continued. “Some months after I returned to England, my wife ... miscarried.”

Here he touched his wife’s arm. She did not flinch but she did not respond, either.

“The baby my wife carried was a girl. She would have been our first child.” He sighed. “The doctors told us my wife would not be able to bear children, ever. Indeed, she was lucky to survive.”

This time Sandrine saw kindness in his glance at his wife. Her expression was tender, but she did not speak.

“Not long after this I made another trip to your island, to Martinique. Your former owner had incurred a large debt to me and to others I represented. It was pure chance I arrived just before you gave birth. In conversation with the man I learned of your condition and decided, on the spot, to accept the newborn in satisfaction of your owner’s debt. I would reimburse the others out of my own pocket.

“It was not ‘the’ newborn, it was never ‘a’ newborn! He was my baby, my child!”