Devil Water (61 page)

The Negro grinned, displaying a startling blaze of white teeth in the midst of ebony skin. “Ol’ song my mammy teached me, mistiss,” he said. “Dancin’ song from Guinea. Mammy she say sing it to make happy things come, but I dunno what the words mean.”

“I
hope
happy things come,” said Jenny smiling. “Sing your song, Eugene!” A slave can sing and hope, she thought, even a slave who has been beaten twice this week. So why should I despond? The certainty that she had communicated with Rob on the night of their landing had never quite failed her. Though there were moments of discouragement, they passed, and her primary mood was one of unreasoning anticipation. She hammered her heels on her horse’s ribs and slapped its neck, thinking with a pang of Coquet, who had been sold long ago when Jenny left school. The gelding snorted resentfully, then lumbered a bit faster until Jenny was abreast of Evelyn. “It’s very lovely out here this morning,” said Jenny.

Evelyn looked about her in astonishment, seeing nothing but the everlasting denseness of trees hemming them in. “What’s so lovely?” she asked crossly. She disliked riding, and her father had given them time for no breakfast except his tiresome boiled milk.

“This --” said Jenny, waving her arm. “Oaks, beech, pines, holly, all bigger than I’ve ever seen, and then the flowering ones -- in there looking like tulips,” she pointed, “and those violet redbuds, and the wild pink crab, see it? The air’s so sweetly fresh and scented. And look, what’s
that?
That glorious red bird, like a flying ruby!”

“Like a cardinal’s hat,” said Evelyn. “For which it’s named. Virginia’s full of them. Lud, Jenny, you’re daft about nature! I’m not. I find this countryside lonely and fearsome. There may be wolves in there. For all we know, there may even be Indians. Oh they say the hostile ones are fled to the West, but that’s what the settlers thought right here, before they got massacred.”

“That was a long time ago, wasn’t it?” said Jenny.

Evelyn shrugged. “Why do you suppose we have an escape tunnel to the river at Westover? You saw it yourself.”

“I didn’t think it was for fear of
Indians,”
said Jenny very low, glancing quickly over her shoulder to see that Eugene was out of earshot.

“Oh, that’s a topic never to be mentioned!” Evelyn gave her ironic laugh. “I saw that you’ve been shocked by the way my father has had to deal with his people, but I assure you it’s the only way they understand. At that Father is milder than he used to be, or than my mother was. Well do I remember when she branded her maid across the mouth with a curling-iron for lying.”

“And did that cure her?” asked Jenny.

“She never spoke again, and was sent to the Quarters for a field hand, where I believe she was a good worker.” Jenny made a sound, and Evelyn went on swiftly. “Oh, the system has grave faults, but you mustn’t be mawkish. The Negroes don’t toil as hard as many a cottager on his own plot in England, and every planter constantly tends to their health and well-being.”

“Like any valuable livestock,” said Jenny. “Why not?”

Evelyn laughed again. “I hold no brief for my father usually, yet one must be fair. He’s not of those who think the Negro has no soul -- is nothing but a talking beast. He prays with them nightly, and on the whole most of them respect or even love him.”

“Just the same,” said Jenny stubbornly, “there is the escape tunnel to the river.”

“And so there is,” said Evelyn. “Jenny, can you not find a more congenial subject for conversation, and
can
you make that nag of yours move faster? There’s Father way ahead and beckoning to us.”

Jenny ceased frowning and gave Evelyn her quick enchanting smile. “I’ll try on both counts,” she said.

At ten o’clock they reached the Chickahominy River, and the ferry, which awaited them. Here the minister, Mr. Fontaine, made his farewells. Peter Fontaine was a tall, thin widower in the thirties. He had been born in France of an ennobled Huguenot family who suffered bitter prosecution after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Fontaines had fled to England, and then Ireland, where Peter had been educated at the university in Dublin. He had gone into orders and been ordained by the Bishop of London, then he and his family had emigrated to Virginia in 1716. Young Fontaine had been appointed to Westover parish in 1720, when Byrd met and approved him during the latter’s brief visit to Virginia.

Byrd found Fontaine to be an intelligent godly man, sound in doctrine, observant of his duties, while tactful enough never to exceed them or to offer unwanted advice. A minister should know his place -- which was in no way equal to the level of the plantation owners. Fontaine looked solemn enough in his black clerical suit, yet it was obvious to Jenny that the minister’s mind was not at the moment on religion, or even politics, as he helped Evelyn dismount. There was the way he bent over Evelyn, after pressing her waist a little longer than was necessary, there was the look in his prominent brown eyes and his caressing tone as he said, “Ah -- Miss Byrd, I hope you have not fatigued yourself on this long ride.” Though he had little accent, his inflections were French, which somehow enhanced his mellow voice.

Evelyn denied fatigue, while vouchsafing the minister a languishing look, and he cried, “Good! Pray take care for yourself amongst the fleshpots of Williamsburg!”

Evelyn laughed. “I’m
longing
for them! Do I dare hope I’ll be subjected to temptations as wicked as in London?”

Fontaine shook his head. “You are pleased to jest with me,” he lowered his voice, “but I assure you that I shall be so anxiously awaiting your return.” He bowed over her hand, brushing it with his lips, bowed to Byrd who had not heard this speech, and then to Jenny. He mounted his horse and rode back towards his rectory.

Eugene tethered all the horses except his own to a hitching post to await the ferry’s return with some of the servants Byrd had sent ahead yesterday. They were now on the other side of the river with Byrd’s coach and pair, which was ready to continue the journey.

Everyone boarded the ferry. It was a large flat barge, poled and paddled by three men. The Chickahominy, though only a short tributary of the James, was a large river -- as broad as the Thames, Jenny thought in astonishment. Everything over here seemed so big, except the houses. She was quiet for a time, enjoying the breeze and sparkling water; then she turned to Evelyn, who sat next her on a bench, and said, laughing, “I observe, Evie, that you’ve made a conquest of the minister!”

Evelyn tilted her head, her huge brown eyes held an answering twinkle. “I believe I have,” she said. “Father’d have an apoplexy if he was aware of it -- and you needn’t be jealous, my pet. You’ve got our doughty Captain Randolph moaning and sighing like a grampus.”

“I’m
sorry
for Mr. Fontaine,” said Jenny Math spirit. “You lead him on, Evie. You know you do.”

“Why not?” asked Evelyn. “It’s amusing, and though I shall never marry anyone but Wilfred, I’ve not gone into a nunnery. Life is dreary enough without refusing any diversions it does offer. I give you this sage advice also.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Jenny. She turned farther and looked squarely at her friend. “Evie -- you spoke as though you thought there was a chance that you and Sir Wilfred might still marry. How
can
you?”

Evelyn’s face changed. It became for a second defenseless, while her hand went to touch the locket hidden in her bodice. “I don’t know,” she said seriously. “ ‘Tis a feeling, a certainty, as you said about Rob -- that Wilfred and I will be together somewhere -- someday. It’s not like me, I know, to have fancies, much more like my romantical Jenny. But I
have
it. It rather frightens me.”

Jenny, who loved her friend, wanted to say something encouraging, but could not find appropriate words. Wishing for Evelyn to be together with Sir Wilfred meant wishing for the death of Elizabeth Mordaunt Lawson. What else? And this was the dark, strange part of Evelyn, which Jenny dared not explore. They were both silent, until the ferry’s prow grazed the shore. Then Evelyn jumped up, crying gaily to her father, “I hope, sir, the servants have food for us in the coach! I’m hollow as a drum, and you wouldn’t wish to exhibit a starving daughter to the big-wigs of Williamsburg!”

At noon they reached the capital. Byrd was pleased that they had slightly bettered the usual time for the forty-five miles journey. He was also pleased to note as they entered town from the Jamestown road that several new houses had been built near the College of William and Mary. The little capital was expanding nicely, though now it was jammed with the visitors who had come here for the spring session of the Assembly. In the ordinaries they were sleeping three and four to a bed -- if a bed could be found. Every lodging was pre-empted, and although he was not a bit fond of his brother-in-law, Byrd had already secured an invitation to visit John Custis in his town mansion on the Back Street, south of Palace Green.

As the coach turned down Duke of Gloucester Street the girls hung out of the windows to see what they could, and Byrd amiably gave them information. “Here you see the College,” he said waving his hand towards a long brick building with a cupola. “Sir Christopher Wren made the design of it. To the left is Brafferton House, where Indians are educated, at least it was built for that purpose, though the savages take sadly to civilization. Halt!” he called to Job, the coachman, who pulled up his horses. “Look down the street, my dears,” said Byrd. “ ‘Tis the nearest thing in this country to an elegant vista.”

Evelyn and Jenny looked. Duke of Gloucester Street was a scant mile long and straight as an arrow. It was lined with shade trees and small white clapboard houses behind picket fences. At the further end loomed the imposing brick mass of the Capitol. It was topped by a tall cupola, where the British flag hung limp today below the weather vane. “I see,” said Evelyn, nodding to her father. “College at one end; Capitol at the other. Very neat. But it’s so odd never to see anything built of stone over here. I confess I expected a trifle more grandeur in Williamsburg.”

“It has certainly no resemblance to London,” said Byrd dryly as the coach began to move again. “Bruton church ahead on your left,” he continued, “where that old tartar of a Commissary Blair no doubt still thunders away from the pulpit on Sundays. The rest of the time sticking his fat paws into every single piece of Colony business. I’ll soon find out if he’s got a stranglehold on
this
Governor the way he had on Spotswood and the rest.” Byrd had so far kept on neutral terms with the formidable James Blair, who was not only Commissary -- or Deputy -- for the Bishop of London and Rector of Bruton parish, but President of the College and senior member of the Council as well. Blair was a tough old Scot, and in quarrels with past governors he had always won. It was he who had eventually ousted Nicholson and Spotswood; for the latter feat Byrd gave the old man uneasy credit. Governor Spotswood had been Byrd’s enemy.

Just before they came to the Palace Green, the Byrd coach turned south a block then into a driveway which entered the Custis place, called “Six Chimneys.”

“So this is where my uncle lives?” said Evelyn, looking past the large brick great house to the separate little shacks which served as kitchen, washhouse, necessaries, and slave quarters. “ ‘Tis a plantation in miniature!” The coach stopped, Eugene dismounted and went to apprise Major Custis of their arrival.

“My brother Custis has done very well for himself,” said Byrd scowling. “Small wonder since he enjoys your mother’s inheritance, as well as that of his poor wife.”

This acid speech was not strictly true, and Evelyn knew it. “Why, Father,” she said, “you made a
bargain
with Uncle Custis, didn’t you? You got all my mother’s lands in exchange for assuming Grandfather Parke’s debts?”

“A foul bargain,” cried Byrd. “They concealed the extent of the debts from me! Those debts which still crouch on my back like the Old Man of the Sea -- and that usurer -- that Shylock -- Micajah Perry in London, I’ll never be free from him, and ‘tis all the fault of John Custis!”

“Oh, Father,” said Evelyn shaking her head. “Don’t shout! We shouldn’t stay with Uncle Custis if you’re going to be angry at him.”

“I wouldn’t stay,” Byrd snapped, “except for you. Can’t lodge you in an ordinary! Besides you’re blood kin to his children, and the least he can do is to expend some of his ill-got wealth on our entertainment!” Byrd drummed his fingers on his satin-clad knee, thinking of old wrongs.

“Father . . .” said Evelyn tilting her head, and looking up at Byrd through her lashes. “Is there any man you really
like?
I mean here in Virginia, of course.”

“Naturally!” he shouted, glaring at her. “And, miss, you are impertinent! “

“Forgive me, sir,” said Evelyn sweetly. “I only wondered.”

Jenny had perforce been silent during this interchange, in which Evelyn as usual had managed to make her father look slightly ridiculous, without his being aware of it. Jenny was sometimes a trifle sorry for Mr. Byrd, and was relieved when Eugene opened the coach door to announce that Major Custis was in his garden -- please to come in and he’d be with them directly.

John Custis received his relations in an abrupt way, with the air of a man who has been interrupted in an important task. He had been supervising the disposition of holly bushes and cedars just received in a cargo from England and, though the season was late for it, he was laying out a new rose bed. Gardening and his son, Dan, were his only vital interests. His dress was careless, his shorn head was covered with a stained old cap; at forty-seven he was bowed by rheumatism, his thin mouth twitched from the effects of chronic pain, sternly ignored. And he was a woman-hater. His marriage to Frances Parke had been a nightmare of quarrels which finally became shamefully public when they resulted in legal action. Frances had, however, been dead ten years, and Custis never scrupled to thank the Lord for his release.

“Well, so here you are!” he said to Byrd. “Had enough of your beloved England, eh? And this is Evelyn. Looks like her mother, and her not lamented aunt. A handsome lot, the Parkes, but that’s all I can say for ‘em. Evelyn’s got a temper like all the Parkes too, I dare say?’