Caxton (10 page)

“This nasty man made such a disgraceful scene,” wrote Mr. Stannard, “that Mr.
McRae and I were obliged to request the assistance of Sheriff Tippet, who posted
a constable in the main house to ensure that Mr. Swart did not depart with anything
from the inventory or do damage to what remained. Mr. McRae and I, together
with Mr. Tippet and a few other citizens, were present to escort Mr. Swart forever
from the property. We rode with him as far as the Hove Creek bridge, and bid
him
adieu
as his wagon clattered across it.”

In his letter to his father, Hugh described Brougham Hall and Caxton, then
dwelt on a number of ideas that would guarantee the plantation’s solvency:

“…Many merchants here in Philadelphia defy the law and contrive to be paid
in Crown specie for the goods they manage to sell to factors in the various
outports of Britain. If they did not subvert the law, they would be in a bad
way and little could be accomplished in the way of trade between the mother
country and these colonies. There is such a shortage of coin here that a needlessly
complex system has grown up of barter, tobacco notes, colonial paper, and foreign
coin, all fixed to the value of sterling; and the merchant farmer, artisan,
mechanic, or planter who can pay for necessities with hard money has an advantage
over his perhaps more prosperouslooking brother in trade, whose prosperity is
in fact owned by a distant creditor. Mr. Talbot is one of the former, I am happy
to say, and his credit and solvency are as solid as the Portland Bill. Now,
although many Virginia planters live in a more gorgeous style and manner than
do a great many landowners in England, it is at the price of continual indebtedness
to their London agents. I do not propose to put Meum Hall in such a precarious
circumstance, and herein suggest that the value of the tobacco and other material
Captains Eales and Rowland take out on the Ariadne and Mr. Worley’s Busy be
reimbursed in part with coin, British or foreign, it matters not which….”

Following a discussion of other means of ensuring success, Hugh added
,
“Of course, the foregoing methods are in direct contravention to the ruinous
wisdom of the Board of Trade and Parliament. At the moment, Father, my only
advice to these powers is that the Crown acquire an interest in a silver or
gold mine in Mexico or Alto Peru. God knows it makes war on the Spanish for
more specious reasons than that. If it were not for Lord Anson and his treasure-gathering
prowess, in what penurious state would the Crown be this year? But, I believe
that we would both agree that, whatever our Mint’s policies or shortcomings,
I should receive credit in your books for five hogsheads of tobacco, and be
paid again for five, if I ship you five. I will await your reply in Virginia….”

Two days before his departure, almost a month after his return from Caxton,
a mail packet arrived in Philadelphia, bringing Hugh a letter from his mother.
In it she announced the marriage of Reverdy Brune and Alex McDougal by the vicar
of St. Thraille’s Church in Eckley, Surrey. “The banns were posted here for
some time,” wrote Effney Kenrick to her son, “but I spared you the news of that.
I suppose the Brunes and McDougals felt that a ceremony here at St. Quarrel’s
would have been awkward and perhaps cheeky enough to provoke interference by
your uncle….”

Hugh felt a brief pang of loss when he read the news. He could not decide whether
it was a pang of disgust or regret. And the emotion passed. He put the letter
away with his other correspondence in a trunk, not because of its contents,
but because it was a letter from his mother.

On the following Tuesday, he boarded the brig
Tacitus
, bound for ports
in Chesapeake Bay, including Yorktown and Caxton. Four days later, he stepped
ashore in Caxton, and hired a cart and horse to take him to Meum Hall.

H
ugh Kenrick was a true aristocrat. This everyone in Caxton knew before the
wind and current had carried the
Amelia
a mile up the York River on the
October afternoon of his departure. The news, eagerly spread by Arthur Stannard
and Reverend Acland, shocked the planters, townsmen, and their families out
of their post-victory ball lethargy. Reece Vishonn, once he had recovered from
his amazement, began to talk with other planters about having a welcoming banquet
for Hugh Kenrick. “But only after a decent interval has passed,” he explained
to the others over a meeting at the Gramatan Inn, his favorite “place of public
retreat.” “We must allow his lordship to settle into his new home.” The banquet
was scheduled for November at Enderly.

In the mid-November issue of the Caxton
Courier
, at the top of a back
page column of advertisements and announcements, there appeared this notice:

The Honorable Hugh Kenrick, lately removed to this county, desires all who
would deal with him and his property in future to send their regards, courtesies,
business, etc., to his residence, Meum Hall, formerly Brougham Hall. He further
desires that persons favor him with the address of Mister Kenrick, in private
company, in public, and in correspondence. Salutations in any other form or
style will not be acknowledged either by him or by his agents. — Hugh Kenrick,
Esq.

The notice in the
Courier
bewildered the planters. They could understand
neither the design nor the motive behind such a request, and neither Mr. Stannard
nor Mr. McRae could enlighten them much on the matter.

“Why would he wish anyone to flout the courtesies due his rank?” asked Henry
Otway. “It don’t make sense!”
Mr. Stannard could only shrug his shoulders. The
Courier
notice was printed
three days before the scheduled banquet, to which Hugh had accepted the invitation.
“I cannot say, sir,” he answered. “I can tell you that his purchase of Brougham
Hall was contingent on Mr. McRae and me respecting that very same
dictum
.
When we enquired, he said to the effect that such courtesies have no place here,
and that they were tiresome to him.”
“Balderdash!” exclaimed Vishonn. He was not only disappointed and confused,
but vexed; he somehow felt cheated of the opportunity to entertain a person
of high station and possibly lucrative connections. “Is he ashamed of his rank?
Many of his rank ought to be, but not that lad!”
Mr. Stannard shrugged again. “Who is anyone to question the wishes of a baron,
sir? But, I must warn you, Mr. Vishonn: Honor his preferences, or he may never
again set foot inside your house. Mr. McRae and I can vouch for the steadiness
of his mind. He is a determined young man.”
Jack Frake, who had heard the news about his new neighbor a day after Hugh Kenrick
had sailed back to Philadelphia, also read the notice. He did not venture an
opinion on the subject to anyone. He waited.

* * *

The leading planters of Queen Anne County, descendants of the last century’s
Cavalier adventurers, entrepreneurs, and settlers, inherited a presumption of
aristocracy. Their reasoning was that if it had not been for the Commonwealth
and Protectorate, they would have come naturally into the landed aristocracy
that remained after the passing of the Cromwells and the return of the Stuarts.
Many of the planters were distantly related to faraway, ennobled descendants
of families that had survived the strife and turmoil of that very different
age, the high points of which were the Glorious Revolution, the accession of
an unambitious monarchy, and the Act of Settlement.

Yet, were they offered the chance, not one of them would have traded his status
in Virginia for a baronial estate in England. In the colony, while they carried
no titles, they wielded some power and influence, were allotted some prestige,
and commanded much respect. Ladies and common womenfolk curtsied to them in
public, merchants, artisans, and tradesmen doffed their hats to them in greeting,
and humble farmers, landless dependents, and slaves made room for them on the
road and in Caxton’s streets. And, just as in England, first sons had uncontestable
claim to all that their fathers owned, once their seniors had passed on to their
final reward. Queen Anne County was Tory in attitude and tradition, Whiggish
in practical politics, and comfortably complacent in a re-created English venue
of the planters’ yearnings and imagination.

The Caxton aristocracy — headed by Reece Vishonn, represented in the House
of Burgesses by Edgar Cullis and William Granby, and in full control of the
county court and church vestry — respected Jack Frake, but did not count him
one of their own. They were obliged to respect him, if only because he was once
a confidant of the late John Massie, and also that man’s son-in-law. That he
had proved himself a crop master also counted for something in their scale of
approval. Also, they were grateful that he was himself a gentleman, and had
retained the name of the plantation he had inherited.

And, they were relieved that he was a solitary man. It did not escape their
constant notice that he did not so much avoid their company, as neither seek
it, nor miss it, nor depend on it. Their encounters with him were nearly always
accidental or happenstance. He was approachable by them, but did not often approach
his fellow planters. He did not envy them their power, riches, or respectability.
These omissions saved them the effort and obligation to value him as an ally
in their common concerns. The respect Jack Frake commanded and which they granted
him chafed against their gentlemanly sensibilities. A gentleman in everything
but his parental lineage — they had heard stories and rumors about his Cornish
background — he was too admirable to detest and openly ostracize, as they did
Amos Swart. A commoner in everything but his bearing, character, and hard-won
wisdom, Jack Frake could not be forgiven his criminal past. Were they certain
that he had been reformed and remolded by the late John Massie, his fellow planters
might have deigned to overlook Jack Frake’s status as a former felon.

But they sensed that John Massie had had little to do with the character and
purpose of the man who now owned Morland, that the key to Jack Frake’s character
and actions lay in his criminal past. They knew nothing about the Skelly gang,
other than that it had been a smuggling ring eradicated by the Crown, and that
Jack Frake had been a member of it. They could not reconcile the phenomena of
Jack Frake and a band of cutthroats. They sensed that he was merely a felon
matured, that he had never been reformed, was not reformable, and would spurn
any attempt to reform him. They could not decide whether he would view such
an attempt as a grave offense to his character, or dismiss it with amused contempt.
Nor could they decide if the violence he could visit on any one of them with
pistols or swords on a field of honor was worse than the violence he could inflict
on their self-respect. They suspected that the latter was worse. So, they left
him alone.

Only Reverend Albert Acland seemed to understand Jack Frake, and was unafraid
to express what he truly thought of him. Attendance in his church was mandatory,
and a person who neglected to regularly audit his services could be arrested
and either fined, jailed, or put in the stocks. He could not recall the last
time he had seen Jack Frake among the congregation. The Massie family pew stall
was usually vacant on Sundays, or occupied by strangers. But the men who had
it in their power to punish Jack Frake as a religious truant, would not make
him answerable. The men who served as county judges and parish vestrymen were
also the leading planters, on whose beneficence and largesse Stepney Parish
and Reverend Acland depended. They refused to even discuss Jack Frake or the
possibility of privately reprimanding him for his transgression.

Reverend Acland attributed their obstinacy to insipid favoritism; he also strongly
suspected that they feared the owner of Morland. Resentment and righteous contempt
festered in his mind. He was powerless to bring Jack Frake to justice. He took
his revenge on the other planters by preaching frequently and insistently to
them at services against pride, power, negligence, arrogance, and all the other
sins which he — and they — knew they were guilty of committing. If you will
not answer to me for your calculated, gross oversight, he reassured himself,
I will remind you that you will someday be answerable to God. Reverend Acland
was an exception to the rule among Anglican ministers in the colony. His sermons
were delivered with the fervor and persuasiveness of a New Light divine.

* * *

Forewarned by the notice in the
Courier
and Arthur Stannard’s earnest
assurances, Reece Vishonn in turn impressed upon his fellow planters the importance
of heeding Hugh Kenrick’s wishes. The welcoming banquet, as a result, was a
qualified social success — qualified only because of the grudgingly observed
request, together with a formal distance that the young newcomer seemed to place
between himself and his host and host’s guests. Hugh Kenrick’s only compliment
to the company was that “Virginia planters are, as a rule, better garbed and
better read than their counterparts in England, and certainly more hospitable.”

Mr. Vishonn and his guests did not know what to make of Hugh Kenrick. Here
was a true aristocrat who paradoxically disdained his rank, or seemed to be
indifferent to it. His mien implicitly mocked their pretensions to being a colonial,
disenfranchised elite, and this made his presence uncomfortable to them.

Although it was a less spectacular event than he had hoped for, Reece Vishonn
felt the satisfying relief of knowing that Mr. Kenrick had no political plans
and had shown no evidence of interest in usurping his position as the county’s
de facto
leader.

This was subtly confirmed for the master of Enderly by Hugh Kenrick near the
end of a brief speech of thanks to his host and his companions. “In conclusion,
allow me to cadge a line from the unfortunate Polonius, which he addressed to
King Claudius, and which will indicate my sole purpose for having come to this
fair setting: ‘Let me be no assistant to the state, but keep a farm and carters.’”

Before the company could answer with applause, one of the guests laughed, and
rose to reply, “You may rest assured, sir, that you will encounter no manslaughtering
Hamlets here. Swords there are aplenty, but nary an arras!”

Only then did the rest of the company fully grasp the meaning of Hugh Kenrick’s
words and applaud. He bowed slightly to the speaker. “Thank you, Mr. Granby,
for a worthy riposte. Rest assured that I am not the hiding kind, neither of
myself, nor of my designs.”

“What do you make of him?” Vishonn asked Ralph Cullis after Hugh Kenrick and
most of the guests had departed. The banquet had been a midafternoon dinner,
and now the sun was beginning to touch the western horizon. The host, Cullis,
and Reverend Acland sat together in Vishonn’s spacious study with glasses of
claret.

“He is an amiable fellow, sir,” said Cullis. “Charming to a fault, wise ahead
of his years, earnest, thoughtful, already a lodestone of distaff speculation
— I have heard my daughter Eleanor remark that he is the most eligible bachelor
in these parts — excepting, perhaps, your son James,” added the planter, referring
to his host’s son. “But, he is remote of deportment. I could not help but think,
throughout the affair here, that he was merely humoring us.”

Vishonn frowned in disagreement. “Not my impression, sir! I would say that
he is shy, and had his property on his mind. He confided in me that today the
rest of his things from Philadelphia had only just arrived.” He paused. “I would
say that he is a brave and enterprising fellow to undertake such a sticky problem
as Brougham Hall. He did not show it, but I sensed alittle fear in him concerning
the project. He knows it will be no mean feat to return old Covington’s place
to its former glory.” Vishonn turned to Reverend Acland. “And you, sir? What
do you say?”

“It remains to be seen whether Mr. Kenrick is a Polonius or a Hamlet, sir,”
said the clergyman. “I did not engage him much in conversation — he is skillful
at not speaking with persons with whom he does not wish to speak — but observed
his commerce with you others. He is too young to be so gravely melancholy.”
Acland smiled in expectation of appreciation by the two other men of his allusion
to the “melancholy Dane.”

But Ralph Cullis merely stared blankly at him, while Vishonn scoffed. “
Melancholy??
Gads, sirs! Forgive me for saying so, but that’s a most tilted appraisal! He
is a lively, spirited, strong-keeled fellow, no more melancholy than I am!”
but he paused to add, “However, you seem convinced of your observation, Mr.
Acland. Why?”

The clergyman shrugged once. “Perhaps he has come here to expiate some great
sin, or to absent himself from the sins of others. My friends and brothers of
the cloth in England have some intelligence about his family. It is not complete,
but it indicates a stormy household, in which
Mr.
Kenrick has been as
much sinned against, as has sinned.” Reverend Acland paused to sip his claret.
“The truth of one or the other will emerge only after he has been among us for
some time. He strikes me as a man who is struggling to quell some racking torment.
I would be flattered if he came to me for spiritual consolation or advice, but
he has not yet crossed the threshold of our church.”

Whatever that torment may be, sir, thought Reece Vishonn, I earnestly hope
that it is nothing into which you may sink your righteous teeth.
Ralph Cullis toyed with the temptation to remark on the slim odds of Hugh Kenrick
being lashed or fined by the sheriff for nonattendance, but thought better of
it and settled for clearing his throat.
Reverend Acland departed shortly after this exchange to take advantage of the
waning daylight. Vishonn and Cullis pondered Hugh Kenrick’s marriage prospects,
but only briefly, for all the planters but Henry Otway had eligible daughters,
and an unspoken rivalry among the families had ensued to win the prestige of
claiming a baron for a son-in-law and a baroness for a daughter. The two gentlemen
also ventured speculation about Hugh Kenrick joining their Freemason’s lodge.
They concluded that they could not predict how he might reply to an invitation.
Finally, as Ralph Cullis prepared to leave, he asked his host the question that
was on their minds all day: “I wonder what Mr. Frake will make of him, and he
of Mr. Frake?”
Reece Vishonn barked sharply once in a laugh. “Of this I’m certain, Mr. Cullis,”
he answered. “They will either find themselves to be brothers in spirit, or
they will be two wild boars, and we shall be witnesses to a savage brawl!”