Miss-bella had been taking mercury for months. Phibbah said she didn’t trust it. Too silver, she said. Nothing without colour had any good use.

By nightfall, Miss-bella had twisted her sheets into a pile and sat brooding on them, like one of the yellow hens. The room was flanked by dark wood: the dresser, covered with an army of glass bottles and jars, and the night tables, lightened only by doilies Phibbah had crocheted for her. She clawed her fingers into her nightgown and lifted it over her head, her laughter ringing out. It was Phibbah who went over to her and yanked it back down.

Three days later, Miss-bella lost a tooth. It came out yellow as an old pearl. Phibbah took it away, though Miss-bella tried to cling to it. ‘Now I’ll have a gap, like yours. Ugly.’

Phibbah dropped the tooth into the bowl of water, stepped over a splash of vomit. ‘Ugly not the worst thing a body can be.’ She lifted a square of damp cotton, and held it as if it had taken her by surprise, like she’d forgotten what she wanted with it in the first place. ‘That man’s medicine making you sicker than dirt.’

But Miss-bella wasn’t listening. She’d spied me. ‘Loitering?’ She lifted her head, her face red as beef. ‘Don’t watch me! Insolent girl!’

Since Miss-bella was ill, Langton said, he’d take his breakfast in the inside dining room instead of out in the fields with his overseers. Keep an eye on things inside. I helped Phibbah serve, platters loaded wrist to elbow. Johnnycakes and butter to start with, and goat’s milk she’d got that morning. Langton took his time. Pulled out his chair, settled himself into it, snapped out his napkin, tilted his glass, and pinned his lips around his mouthful of milk. As soon as Phibbah came in, he cleared his throat. ‘You know . . . I been puzzling hard about the way things stand upstairs, girl.’

Something about the way he spoke churned my insides. Phibbah must have felt it, too. Her feet hitched, like weeds in a net, and she left it too long before answering. That drumbeat of silence pounded into my own chest.

‘Well. Miss’s going be happy you thinking on her.’

‘No, no.’ He raised a brow. ‘I don’t think she will. You know why? You know what conclusion I came to? I’ll be buggered if what ails my wife isn’t a case of poisoning.’

Phibbah moved to the table, around it, set down the platter of breadfruit, the bowl of fruit, the gold-rimmed plate that held the salted codfish and his slices of ham and his eggs, too, fried in pork grease the way he liked them. His eyes followed her, shot with blood, as if he’d sat up all night with a bottle of rum, as was sometimes his custom. As if he might in fact still be drunk. She set down the last plate, and turned, unsteady on her feet, said she’d go fetch the coffee.