A Place Called Freedom (30 page)

“It seems to me he probably is a traitor.”

“He’s a landowner, a member of the House of Burgesses, and a retired officer—how in the name of heaven can he be a traitor?”

“You heard him talk.”

“That’s obviously normal here.”

“Well, it’s never going to be normal in my house.”

Sarah, the cook, came in, interrupting the argument. Jay ordered tea and toast.

Lizzie got the last word, as always. “After spending all that money to get to know our neighbors you succeeded in making them dislike you.” She resumed eating.

Jay looked at his letter. It was from a lawyer in Williamsburg.

Duke of Gloucester Street
Williamsburg
29 August 1768

I am commanded to write to you, dear Mr Jamisson, by your father, Sir George. I welcome you to Virginia and hope that we shall soon have the pleasure of seeing you here in the colonial capital.

Jay was surprised. This was uncharacteristically thoughtful of his father. Would he start to be kind, now that Jay was half a world away?

Until then, please let me know if I may be of any assistance. I know that you have taken over a plantation in difficulties, and that you may choose to seek financial help. Allow me to offer my services should you require a mortgage. I am sure a lender could be found without difficulty. I remain, Sir
,

your most humble and obedient servant—
Matthew Murchman
.

Jay smiled. This was just what he needed. The repair and redecoration of the house, and the lavish party, had already put him up to his neck in debt with local merchants; and Sowerby kept asking for supplies: seed, new tools, clothes for the slaves, rope, paint, the list was endless. “Well, you needn’t worry about money any longer,” he said to Lizzie as he put down the letter.

She looked skeptical.

“I’m going to Williamsburg,” he said.

28

W
HILE
J
AY WAS IN
W
ILLIAMSBURG
L
IZZIE GOT A LETTER
from her mother. The first thing that struck her about it was the return address:

The Manse
St John’s Church
Aberdeen
August 15th, 1768

What was Mother doing in a vicarage in Aberdeen? She read on:

I have so much to tell you, my dear daughter! But I must take care to write it step by step, as it happened
.

Soon after I returned to High Glen your brother-in-law, Robert Jamisson, took over the management of the estate. Sir George is now paying the interest on my mortgages so I am in no position to argue. Robert asked me to leave the big house and live in the old hunting lodge, for the sake of economy. I confess I was not best pleased with the arrangement but he insisted, and I have to tell you he was not as pleasant or affectionate as a family member might be
.

A surge of impotent anger possessed Lizzie. How dare Robert evict Lizzie’s mother from her home? She recalled his words after she had rejected him and accepted Jay: “Even if I can’t have you, I’ll still have High Glen.” It had seemed impossible at the time, but now it had come true.

Gritting her teeth, she continued to read.

Then the Reverend Mr York announced that he was leaving us. He has been pastor at Heugh for fifteen years and he is my oldest friend. Iunderstood that after the tragic early death of his wife he felt the need to go and live in a new place. But you may imagine how distraught I was that he was leaving just when I needed friends
.

Then the most astonishing thing happened. My
dear, Iblush to tell you that he asked me to marry him!! And I accepted!!!

“Good God!” Lizzie said aloud.

So you see we are wed, and have moved to Aberdeen, from where I write
.

Many will say I married beneath myself being the widow of Lord Hallim; but I know how worthless
a
title is and John cares nothing for what society people think. We live quietly, and I am known as Mrs York, and I am happier now than I ever have been
.

There was more—about her three stepchildren, the servants at the manse, Mr. York’s first sermon, and the ladies in the congregation—but Lizzie was too shocked to take it in.

She had never thought of her mother remarrying. There was no reason why not, of course: Mother was only forty. She might even have more children; it was not impossible.

What shocked Lizzie was a sense of being cast adrift. High Glen had always been her home. Although her life was here in Virginia with her husband and her baby, she had thought of High Glen House as a place she could always return to, if she really needed sanctuary. But now it was in the hands of Robert.

Lizzie had always been the center of her mother’s life. It had never occurred to her that this would change. But now her mother was a minister’s wife living in Aberdeen, with three stepchildren to love and care for, and she might even be expecting a new baby of her own.

It meant Lizzie had no home but this plantation, no family but Jay.

Well, she was determined to make a good life for herself here.

She had privileges many women would envy: a big house, an estate of a thousand acres, a handsome husband, and slaves to do her bidding. The house slaves had taken her to their hearts. Sarah was the cook, fat Belle did most of the cleaning, and Mildred was her personal maid and also served at table sometimes. Belle had a twelve-year-old son, Jimmy, who was the stable boy: his father had been sold away years ago. Lizzie had not yet got to know many of the field hands, apart from Mack, but she liked Kobe, the supervisor, and the blacksmith, Cass, whose workshop was at the back of the house.

The house was spacious and grand, but it had an empty, abandoned feel. It was too big. It would suit a family with six growing children and a few aunts and grandparents, and troops of slaves to light fires in every room and serve vast communal dinners. For Lizzie and Jay it was a mausoleum. But the plantation was beautiful: thick woodlands, broad sloping fields, and a hundred little streams.

She knew Jay was not quite the man she had taken him for. He was not the daring free spirit he had seemed to be when he took her down the coal mine. And his lying to her over mining in High Glen had shaken her: after that she could never feel the same about him. They no longer romped in bed in the mornings. They spent most of the day apart. They ate dinner and supper together, but they never sat in front of the fire, holding hands and talking of nothing in particular, the way they once had. But perhaps Jay was disappointed, too. He might have similar feelings about her: that she was not as perfect as she had once seemed. There was no point in regrets. They had to love one another as they were today.

All the same she often felt a powerful urge to run away. But whenever she did, she remembered the child growing inside her. She could no longer think only of herself. Her baby needed its father.

Jay did not talk about the baby much. He seemed uninterested. But he would change when it was born, especially if it was a boy.

She put her letter in a drawer.

When she had given the day’s orders to the house slaves she got her coat and went outside.

The air was cool. It was now mid-October; they had been here two months. She headed across the lawn and down toward the river. She went on foot: she was past six months now, and she could feel the baby kick—sometimes painfully. She was afraid she might harm the baby if she rode.

Still she walked around the estate almost every day. It took her several hours. She was usually accompanied by Roy and Rex, two deerhounds Jay had bought. She kept a close eye on the work of the plantation, for Jay took no interest at all. She watched the processing of the tobacco and kept count of the bales; she saw the men cutting trees and making barrels; she looked at the cows and horses in the meadows and the chickens and geese in the yard. Today was Sunday, the hands’ day of rest, and it gave her a special opportunity to poke around while Sowerby and Lennox were somewhere else. Roy followed her, but Rex lazily remained on the porch.

The tobacco harvest was in. There was still a lot of work to do processing the crop: sweating, stemming, stripping and pressing the leaves before they could be packed into hogsheads for the voyage to London or Glasgow. They were sowing winter wheat in the field they called Stream Quarter, and barley, rye and clover in Lower Oak. But they had come to the end of the period of most intensive activity, the time when they worked in the fields from dawn to dusk and then labored on by candlelight in the tobacco sheds until midnight.

The hands should have some reward, she thought, for all their effort. Even slaves and convicts needed encouragement. It occurred to her that she might give them a party.

The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea. Jay might be against it, but he would not be home for a couple of weeks—Williamsburg was three days away—so it could be over and done with by the time he returned.

She walked along the bank of the Rappahannock River, turning the idea over in her mind. The river was shallow and rocky here, upstream from Fredericksburg, which marked the fall line, the limit of navigation. She skirted a clump of half-submerged bushes and stopped suddenly. A man was standing waist deep in the water, washing, his broad back to her. It was McAsh.

Roy bristled, then recognized Mack.

Lizzie had seen him naked in a river once before, almost a year ago. She remembered drying his skin with her petticoat. At the time it had seemed natural but, looking back, she felt the scene had a strange quality, like a dream: the moonlight, the rushing water, the strong man looking so vulnerable, and the way she had embraced him and warmed him with her body.

She held back now, watching him, as he came out of the river. He was completely naked, as he had been that night.

She remembered another moment from the past. One afternoon in High Glen she had surprised a young deer drinking in a burn. The sight came back to her like a picture. She had emerged from the trees and found herself a few feet away from a buck two or three years old. It had lifted its head and stared at her. The far bank of the stream had been steep, so the deer had been forced to move toward her. As it came out of the stream the water glistened on its muscular flanks. Her rifle was in her hand, loaded and primed, but she could not shoot: being so close seemed to make her too intimate with the beast.

As she watched the water roll off Mack’s skin she thought that, despite all he had been through, he still had the powerful grace of a young animal. As he pulled on his breeches Roy loped up to him. Mack looked up, saw Lizzie and froze, startled. Then he said: “You might turn your back.”

“You might turn yours!” she replied.

“I was here first.”

“I own the place!” she snapped. It was astonishing how quickly he could irritate her. He obviously felt he was every bit as good as she. He was a convict farmhand and she was a fine lady, but to him that was no reason to show respect: it was the act of an arbitrary providence, and it did her no credit and brought him no shame. His audacity was annoying, but at least it was honest. McAsh was never sly. Jay, by contrast, often mystified her. She did not know what was going on in his mind, and when she questioned him he became defensive, as if he were being accused of something.

McAsh seemed amused now as he tied the string that held up his breeches. “You own me, too,” he said.

She was looking at his chest. He was getting his muscles back. “And I’ve seen you naked before.”

Suddenly the tension was gone and they were laughing, just as they had outside the church when Esther had told Mack to shut his gob.

“I’m going to give a party for the field hands,” she said.

He pulled on his shirt. “What kind of party?”

Lizzie found herself wishing he had left the shirt off a little longer, she liked looking at his body. “What kind would you like?”

He looked thoughtful. “You could have a bonfire in the backyard. What the hands would like most of all would be a good meal, with plenty of meat. They never get enough to eat.”

“What food would they like?”

“Hmmm.” He licked his lips. “The smell of fried ham coming from the kitchen is so good it hurts. Everyone loves those sweet potatoes. And wheat bread—the field hands never get anything but that coarse cornbread they call pone.”

She was glad she had thought to talk to Mack about this: it was helpful. “What do they like to drink?”

“Rum. But some of the men get in a fighting mood when they drink. If I were you I’d give them apple cider, or beer.”

“Good idea.”

“How about some music? The Negroes love to dance and sing.”

Lizzie was enjoying herself. It was fun planning a party with Mack. “All right—but who would play?”

“There’s a free black called Pepper Jones who performs in the ordinaries in Fredericksburg. You could hire him. He plays the banjo.”

Lizzie knew that “ordinary” was the local term for a tavern, but she had never heard of a banjo. “What’s that?” she said.

“I think it’s an African instrument. Not as sweet as a fiddle but more rhythmic.”

“How do you know about this man? When have you been to Fredericksburg?”

A shadow crossed his face. “I went once on a Sunday.”

“What for?”

“To look for Cora.”

“Did you find her?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “Everyone has lost somebody.” He turned his face away, looking sad.

She wanted to put her arms around him and comfort him, but she restrained herself. Pregnant though she was, she could not embrace anyone other than her husband. She made her voice cheerful again. “Do you think Pepper Jones could be persuaded to come here and perform?”

“I’m sure of it I’ve seen him play in the slave quarters at the Thumson plantation.”

Lizzie was intrigued. “What were you doing there?”

“Visiting.”

“I never thought about slaves doing that kind of thing.”

“We have to have something in our lives other than work.”

“What do you do?”

“The young men love cockfights—they’ll walk ten miles to see one. The young women love the young men. The older ones just want to look at one another’s babies and talk about brothers and sisters they’ve lost. And they sing. The Africans have these sad songs that they sing in harmony. You can’t understand the words, but the tunes make your hair stand on end.”

“The coal miners used to sing.”

He was silent for a moment. “Aye, we did.”

She saw that she had made him sad. “Do you think you will ever go back to High Glen?”

“No. Do you?”

Tears came to her eyes. “No,” she said. “I don’t think you or I will ever go back.”

The baby kicked her, and she said: “Ouch!”

“What?” said Mack.

She put a hand on her bulge. “The baby is kicking. He doesn’t want me to yearn for High Glen. He’s going to be a Virginian. Ow! He just did it again.”

“Does it really hurt?”

“Yes—feel.” She took his hand and placed it on her belly. His fingers were hard and rough skinned, but his touch was gentle.

The baby was still. Mack said: “When is it due?”

“Ten weeks.”

“What will you call it?”

“My husband has decided on Jonathan for a boy, Alicia for a girl.”

The baby kicked again. “That’s hard!” Mack said, laughing. “I’m not surprised you wince.” He took his hand away.

She wished he had left it there a little longer. To hide her feelings she changed the subject. “I’d better talk to Bill Sowerby about this party.”

“You haven’t heard?”

“What?”

“Ah. Bill Sowerby has left.”

“Left? What do you mean?”

“He disappeared.”

“When?”

“Two nights ago.”

Lizzie realized she had not seen Sowerby for a couple of days. She had not been alarmed because she did not necessarily see him every day. “Did he say when he was coming back?”