The Apple by Michel Faber Read Free Book Online Page A

letter. May I say that you have the most elegant handwriting? Quite a change from that produced by any of the ladies here. Your signature especially caused me to linger over it, admiring its combination of simplicity, confidence & grace. Less refined females imagine that a paroxism of calligraphic flourishes consigns elegance upon them. It takes a signature such as yours to make clear the gulf between the genuine article & its imitations . However, you will be growing impatient with these flatteries (however sincerely meant). You wish to know what I thought of your advice to me. You hope, perhaps, for news that I have freed my slaves & dedicated myself to Christ. On the latter matter I can reassure you; I love our Lord as much as any decent, imperfect man can. The passages you quoted from the Good Book are of course well known to me, as are other passages which take a different position .
    As far as my slaves are concerned, they are free already. That is, I give them as much freedom as good sense allows, & care for them as conscientously as I would my own children (of whom, sadly, I have none). My slaves are contented and healthy; their duties are not onerous. The climate in Georgia is rather more salubrious than you may be accustomed to in England, and the crops grow with little fuss, ripening in the glorious sun that God has seen fit to shine over my modest domain. As I pen these words, Perry, one of my field hands, is playing with Shakespeare, my dog. He does this not because he is obliged to but because he likes Shakespeare and, if you will forgive me boasting, is fond of his master too. In fact, if slavery should ever be abolished – as I fear it will be, if the strident voices in our own Northern states exchange their shouting for bellicose action – I am worried for my poor Perry. He is a trusting & gentle creature, and if he is forced to make his own way in this cruel world, without so much as a roof over his head, I suspect he will suffer a dismal fate .
    I do not expect that these few words will convince you of the rightness of my way of life. I regret that you cannot visit my home & make your own judgements. I can only hope that if you were, by some miracle, to arrive as my esteemed guest, you would find this place to be a happy & pleasant one, lacking only the charm that a mistress might have provided, had not my fiancée been taken from me in tragic circumstances .
    I can assure you that, far from being the hotbed of savagery and squalor that you may imagine, Georgia is really quite a civilised place. It even has a chocolate shop, as you have no doubt already divined. I offer you these sweet trifles as a token of my gratitude for your interest in my soul. A poor gift, I know; some might say an impertinent one. But since you already possess a Bible, the most precious gift any of us can own, it is difficult to imagine what else you might possibly need. Chocolates can, at least, give pleasure, & if you don’t eat them, you can always give them to your parents .
    With my most cordial best wishes …
    Emmeline looked up from her reading.
    ‘Well?’ said her father. ‘What’s your opinion of this fellow?’
    Emmeline folded the letter in her strong fingers and wedged it under the saucer of her teacup. Then she gazed past her father’s shoulder at the snow-frosted window, her eyes half-closed. The grey terraced houses of Bayswater, the iron lamp-posts and the hearse-like delivery carts, had lost some of their solidity for her; they were semi-transparent, shifting ephemera in a monochrome kaleidoscope.
    ‘He can’t spell “paroxysm” or “conscientiously”,’ she remarked, in a faraway tone. Her eyes grew more and more unfocused. She was picturing the lush fields of Georgia, endless acres of fertility. Her man’s property was a vast bed of soft green enlivened with ripe cotton, a wholly mysterious substance she imagined resembling snow-white poppies. And, standing erect in the middle of those fields, his