Voyage In The Dark

Anna describes the setting for her conversation with Walter that night: “There was the light on over the sofa and the tray with drinks, and the rest of the house dark and quiet and not friendly to me. Sneering faintly, sneering discreetly, as a servant would. Who’s this? Where on earth did he pick her up” (43)?

They have come from meeting Walter’s cousin, Vincent. Walter believes that Anna should take singing lessons and that Vincent may help her with procuring a job: “‘I want you to get on. You want to get on, don’t you?’” (44).

Anna has not thought about her future: “‘I want to be with you. That’s all I want’” (44).

Walter mentions Anna’s “predecessor” knew how to “get on” and calls Anna “a baby” (44).Witnessing Anna’s apparent discomfort, he tells her to be happy.

Anna begins drinking a whisky and tells Walter her whole family enjoys drinking. She recounts her childhood in the West Indies, her Uncle Bo, who seems to her favorite, and that when she was younger, she “wanted to be black” (45). On her mother’s side, she is fifth-generation West Indian and describes the beauty of her mother’s family’s place, Constance Estate, its gardens, and a room with books where the overseer kept his lists of slaves. Anna realizes she has not forgotten the names written there.

She continues to talk about her life, including the entry of her stepmother, Hester, and their moonlight rows with Black Pappy, their boatman. Anna continues to talk in an incessant and intoxicated stream of the land and her family, and repeats she is from the West Indies.

After Walter takes her to the bedroom, she continues to remember the names on the slave-list and other memories until she gets up to leave.

In her own room, she is unable to sleep:

That was when it was sad, when you lay awake at night and remembered things. That was when it was sad, when you stood by the bed and undressed, thinking, ‘When he kisses me, shivers run up my back. I am hopeless, resigned, utterly happy. Is that me? I am bad, not good any longer, bad. That has no meaning, absolutely none. Just words. But something about the darkness of the streets has a meaning’ (49).

Anna meets Hester in London. Hester wants to discuss a letter that has left her “rather upset” (50).

After small talk, Anna speaks of her activities to her stepmother, which include singing lessons and an upcoming show. Her stepmother cuts to the letter she wrote to Anna’s Uncle Ramsay (Uncle Bo) to return her back to the Caribbean after expressing to Anna that “‘things didn’t seem to be turning out as I had hoped when I brought you over here, and that I was worried about you, and that I thought this might be the best thing’” (51).

In the letter, Uncle Bo accuses Hester of usurping the property that was meant to be Anna’s inheritance from her late father and refuses to be a part of Hester’s initiatives:

You know as well as I do that the responsibility for Anna’s support is yours and I won’t tolerate for a minute any attempt to shift it on my shoulders. Poor Gerald spent the last of his capital on Morgan’s Rest (much against my advice, I may say) and he meant it eventually to be his daughter’s property. But, as soon as he was dead, you chose to sell the place and leave the island (52).

Hester feels that the letter was an inappropriate attack on her intentions and that Anna’s father was unfairly cheated and what happened to him was a “tragedy” (53). In her continuing emotional outburst, Hester reveals that the estate was worthless, adding, “And never seeing a white face from one week’s end to the other and you growing up more like a nigger every day. Enough to drive anybody mad” (54).

In her anger, she mentions Uncle Bo’s discrepancies, which included fostering illegitimate mixed-race children and alcoholism. Hester can no longer continue to pay for Anna, as her own income is low, and she has paid already for some of Anna’s expenses and emergencies, such as her illness while in Newcastle.

Hester attempts to call Anna’s mother “coloured” (56) and although she was not, Hester still found Anna’s friendship with Francine, a black servant, unacceptable. As her rant on Anna’s upbringing, her uncle, and the life led in the Caribbean continues, Anna interjects: “You won’t have to give me any more money. Or Uncle Bo or anybody else either. I can get all the money I want and so that’s all right. Is everybody happy?” (57).

Hester calms she will no longer bear the responsibility of Anna. Anna goes back to the days in the Caribbean with Hester, who “was always talking about Cambridge” (59);remembers Francine, with whom she could be “happy” (58);her aging father, who took her across their land to see the flowering nutmeg trees; and the moment that Anna understands she may leave her home for England, so she stands in the sun until she gets a headache. From then on, she becomes ill for several months.

At the end of her reverie, Anna mentions she writes once to Hester, who returns a postcard, and “after that I didn’t write again. And she didn’t either” (63).