A Place Called Freedom Page 30

  Mack enjoyed the beer, a rare treat nowadays. While they were drinking Pepper said: "Hey, Whitey, have you ever run into anyone who crossed the mountains?"

  "Sure have," Whitey said. "There was a trapper in here one time, said it was the best hunting he ever saw, over there. Seems a whole gang of them goes over there every year, and comes back loaded down with pelts."

  Mack said: "Did he tell you what route he took?"

  "Seems to me he said there was a pass called the Cumberland Gap."

  "Cumberland Gap," Mack repeated.

  Whitey said: "Say, Mack, weren't you asking after a white girl called Cora?"

  Mack's heart leaped. "Yes--have you heard tell of her?"

  "Seen her--so I know why you're crazy for her." He rolled his eyes.

  "Is she a pretty girl, Mack?" Pepper teased.

  "Prettier than you, Pepper. Come on, Whitey, where did you see her?"

  "Down by the river. She was wearing a green coat and carrying a basket, and she was getting the ferry over to Falmouth."

  Mack smiled. The coat, and the fact that she was taking the ferry instead of wading across the ford, indicated that she had landed on her feet again. She must have been sold to someone kind. "How did you know who she was?"

  "The ferryman called her by name."

  "She must be living on the Falmouth side of the river--that's why I didn't hear of her when first I asked around Fredericksburg."

  "Well, you've heard of her now."

  Mack swallowed the rest of his beer. "And I'm going to find her. Whitey, you're a friend. Pepper, thanks for the beer."

  "Good luck!"

  Mack went out of town. Fredericksburg had been built just below the fall line of the Rappahannock River, at the limit of navigation. Oceangoing ships could come this far, but less than a mile away the river became rocky, and nothing but a flatboat could negotiate it. Mack walked to the point where the water was shallow enough to wade across.

  He was full of excitement. Who had bought Cora? How was she living? And did she know what had become of Peg? If only he could locate the two of them, and fulfill his promise, he could make serious plans to escape. He had been suppressing his yearning for freedom while he asked after Cora and Peg, but Pepper's talk of the wilderness beyond the mountains had brought it all back, and he longed to run away. He daydreamed about walking away from the plantation at nightfall, heading west, never again to work for an overseer with a whip.

  He looked forward eagerly to seeing Cora. She probably would not be working today: perhaps she could walk out with him. They might go somewhere secluded. As he thought about kissing her, he suffered a pang of guilt. He had woken up this morning thinking about kissing Lizzie Jamisson, and now he was having the same thoughts about Cora. But he was foolish to feel guilty about Lizzie: she was another man's wife, and there was no future for him with her. All the same his excitement was tinged with discomfort.

  Falmouth was a smaller version of Fredericksburg: it had the same wharves, warehouses, taverns and painted wood-frame homes. Mack could probably have called at every residence in a couple of hours. But of course Cora might live out of town.

  He went into the first tavern he came across and spoke to the proprietor. "I'm looking for a young woman called Cora Higgins."

  "Cora? She lives in the white house on the next corner, you'll probably see three cats sleeping on the porch."

  Mack's luck was in today. "Thank you!"

  The man took a watch from his waistcoat pocket and glanced at it. "But she won't be there now, she'll be in church."

  "I've seen the church. I'll go there."

  Cora had never been a churchgoer, but perhaps her owner forced her to go, Mack thought as he went outside. He crossed the street and walked two blocks to the little wooden church.

  The service had ended and the congregation was coming out, all in their Sunday best, shaking hands and chattering.

  Mack saw Cora right away.

  He smiled broadly when he saw her. She certainly had been lucky. The starved, filthy woman he had left on the Rosebud might have been a different person. Cora was her old self: clear skin, glossy hair, rounded figure. She was as well dressed as ever, in a dark brown coat and a wool skirt, and she wore good boots. He was suddenly glad he had the new shirt and waistcoat Lizzie had given him.

  Cora was talking animatedly to an old woman with a cane. She broke off her conversation as he approached her. "Mack!" she said delightedly. "This is a miracle!"

  He opened his arms to embrace her but she held out a hand to shake, and he guessed she did not want to make an exhibition outside the church. He took her hand in both of his and said; "You look wonderful." She smelled good, too: not the spicy, woody perfume she had favored in London, but a lighter, floral smell that was more ladylike.

  "What happened to you?" she said, withdrawing her hand. "Who bought you?"

  "I'm on the Jamisson plantation--and Lennox is the overseer."

  "Did he hit your face?"

  Mack touched the sore place where Lennox had slashed him. "Yes, but I took his whip from him and broke it in half."

  She smiled. "That's Mack--always in trouble."

  "It is. Have you any news of Peg?"

  "She was taken off by the soul drivers, Bates and Makepiece."

  Mack's heart sank. "Damn. It's going to be hard to find her."

  "I always ask after her but I've never heard anything."

  "And who bought you? Somebody kind, by the look of you!"

  As he spoke a plump, richly dressed man in his fifties came up. Cora said: "Here he is: Alexander Rowley, the tobacco broker."

  "He obviously treats you well!" Mack murmured.

  Rowley shook hands with the old woman and said a word to her, then turned to Mack.

  Cora said: "This is Malachi McAsh, an old friend of mine from London. Mack, this is Mr. Rowley--my husband."

  Mack stared, speechless.

  Rowley put a proprietorial arm around Cora's shoulders and at the same time shook Mack's hand. "How do you do, McAsh?" he said, and without another word he swept Cora away.

  Why not? Mack thought as he trudged along the road back to the Jamisson plantation. Cora had not known whether she would ever see him again. She had obviously been bought by Rowley and had made him fall in love with her. It must have been something of a scandal for a merchant to marry a convict woman, even in a little colonial town such as Falmouth. However, sexual attraction was more powerful than social rules in the end, and Mack could easily imagine how Rowley had been seduced. It may have been difficult to persuade people like the old lady with the cane to accept Cora as a respectable wife, but Cora had the nerve for anything, and she had obviously carried it off. Good for her. She would probably have Rowley's babies.

  He found excuses for her, but all the same he was disappointed. In a moment of panic she had made him promise to search for her; but she had forgotten him as soon as she got the chance of an easy life.

  It was strange: he had had two lovers, Annie and Cora, and both had married someone else. Cora went to bed every night with a fat tobacco broker twice her age, and Annie was pregnant with Jimmy Lee's child. He wondered if he would ever have a normal family life with a wife and children.

  He gave himself a shake. He could have had that if he had really wanted it. But he had refused to settle down and accept what the world offered him. He wanted more.

  He wanted to be free.

  30

  JAY WENT TO WILLIAMSBURG WITH HIGH HOPES.

  He had been dismayed to learn of the sympathies of his neighbors--they were all liberal Whigs, not a conservative Tory among them--but he felt sure that in the colonial capital he would find men loyal to the king, men who would welcome him as a valuable ally and promote his political career.

  Wilhamsburg was small but grand. The main street, Duke of Gloucester Street, was a mile long and a hundred feet broad. The Capitol was at one end and the College of William and Mary at the other--two stately brick buildings w
hose English-style architecture gave Jay a reassuring feeling of the might of the monarchy. There was a theater and several shops, with craftsmen making silver candlesticks and mahogany dining tables. In Purdie & Dixon's printing office Jay bought the Virginia Gazette, a newspaper full of advertisements for runaway slaves.

  The wealthy planters who made up the colony's ruling elite resided on their estates, but they crowded into Williamsburg when the legislature was in session in the Capitol building, and consequently the town was full of inns with rooms to let. Jay moved into the Raleigh Tavern, a low white clapboard building with bedrooms in the attic.

  He left his card and a note at the palace, but he had to wait three days for an appointment with the new governor, the baron de Botetourt. When finally he got his invitation it was not for a personal audience, as he had expected, but for a reception with fifty other guests. Clearly the governor had yet to realize that Jay was an important ally in a hostile environment.

  The palace was at the end of a long drive that ran north from the midpoint of Duke of Gloucester Street. It was another English-looking brick building, with tall chimneys and dormer windows in the roof, like a country house. The imposing entrance hall was decorated with knives, pistols and muskets arranged in elaborate patterns, as if to emphasize the military might of the king.

  Unfortunately Botetourt was the very opposite of what Jay had hoped for. Virginia needed a tough, austere governor who would strike fear into the hearts of mutinous colonists, but Botetourt turned out to be a fat, friendly man with the air of a prosperous wine merchant welcoming his customers to a tasting.

  Jay watched him greeting his guests in the long ballroom. The man had no idea what subversive plots might be hatching in the minds of the planters.

  Bill Delahaye was there and shook hands with Jay. "What do you think of our new governor?"

  "I'm not sure he realizes what he's taken on," Jay said.

  Delahaye said: "He may be cleverer than he looks."

  "I hope so."

  "There's a big card game tomorrow night, Jamisson--would you like me to introduce you?"

  Jay had not spent an evening gambling since he had left London. "Certainly."

  In the supper room beyond the ballroom, wine and cakes were served. Delahaye introduced Jay to several other men. A stout, prosperous-looking man of about fifty said: "Jamisson? Of the Edinburgh Jamissons?" His tone was a little hostile.

  The face had a vaguely familiar cast, although Jay was sure he had never met the man before. "The family seat is Castle Jamisson in Fife," Jay replied.

  "The castle that used to belong to William McClyde?"

  "Indeed." Jay realized the man reminded him of Robert: he had the same light eyes and determined mouth. "I'm afraid I didn't hear your name...."

  "I'm Hamish Drome. That castle should have been mine."

  Jay was startled. Drome was the family name of Robert's mother, Olive. "So you're the long-lost relative who went to Virginia!"

  "And you must be the son of George and Olive."

  "No, that's my half-brother, Robert. Olive died and my father remarried. I'm the younger son."

  "Ah. And Robert has pushed you out of the nest, just as his mother did me."

  There was an insolent undertone to Drome's remarks, but Jay was intrigued by what the man was implying. He recalled the drunken revelations made by Peter McKay at the wedding. "I've heard it said that Olive forged the will."

  "Aye--and she murdered Uncle William, too."

  "What?"

  "No question. William wasn't sick. He was a hypochondriac, he just loved to think he was ill. He should have lived to a ripe old age. But six weeks after Olive arrived he had changed his will and died. Evil woman."

  "Ha." Jay felt a strange kind of satisfaction. The sacrosanct Olive, whose portrait hung in the place of honor in the hall of Jamisson Castle, was a murderess who should have been hanged. Jay had always resented the way she was spoken of in reverent tones, and now he welcomed gleefully the news that she had been a blackhearted villain. "Didn't you get anything?" he asked Drome.

  "Not an acre. I came out here with six dozen pairs of Shetland wool stockings, and now I'm the biggest haberdasher in Virginia. But I never wrote home. I was afraid Olive would somehow take this from me too."

  "But how could she?"

  "I don't know. Just superstition, perhaps. I'm glad to hear she's dead. But it seems the son is like her."

  "I always thought of him as being like my father. He's insatiably greedy, whoever he takes after."

  "If I were you I wouldn't let him know my address."

  "He's going to inherit all of my father's business enterprises--I can't imagine he'll want my little plantation too."

  "Don't be too sure," Drome said; but Jay thought he was being overdramatic.

  Jay did not get Governor Botetourt to himself until the end of the party, when the guests were leaving by the garden entrance. He took the governor's sleeve and said in a low voice: "I want you to know that I'm completely loyal to you and to the Crown."

  "Splendid, splendid," Botetourt said loudly. "So good of you to say so."

  "I've rccently arrived here, and I've been scandalized by the attitudes of the most prominent men in the colony--scandalized. Whenever you're ready to stamp out treachery and crush disloyal opposition, I'm on your side."

  Botetourt looked hard at him, taking him seriously at last, and Jay perceived that there was a shrewd politician behind the affable exterior. "How kind--but let's hope that not too much stamping and crushing will be required. I find that persuasion and negotiation are so much better--the effects last longer, don't you know. Major Wilkinson--good-bye! Mrs. Wilkinson--so good of you to come."

  Persuasion and negotiation, Jay thought as he passed out into the garden. Botetourt had fallen into a nest of vipers and he wanted to negotiate with them. Jay said to Delahaye: "I wonder how long it will take him to grasp the realities out here."

  "I think he understands already," Delahaye said. "He just doesn't believe in baring his teeth before he's ready to bite."

  Sure enough, next day the amiable new governor dissolved the general assembly.

  Matthew Murchman lived in a green-painted clapboard house next to the bookshop on Duke of Gloucester Street. He did business in the front parlor, surrounded by law books and papers. He was a small, nervous gray squirrel of a man, darting about the room to retrieve a paper from one pile and hide it in another.

  Jay signed the papers mortgaging the plantation. He was disappointed at the amount of the loan: only four hundred pounds sterling. "I was lucky to get so much," Murchman twittered. "With tobacco doing so badly I'm not sure the place could be sold for that."

  "Who is the lender?" Jay asked.

  "A syndicate, Captain Jamisson. That's how these things work nowadays. Are there any liabilities you would like me to settle immediately?"

  Jay had brought with him a sheaf of bills, all the debts he had run up since he had arrived in Virginia almost three months ago. He handed them over to Murchman, who glanced through them quickly and said: "About a hundred pounds here. I'll give you notes for all these before you leave town. And let me know if you buy anything while you're here."

  "I probably will," Jay said. "A Mr. Smythe is selling a carriage with a beautiful pair of gray horses. And I need two or three slaves."

  "I'll let it be known that you're in funds with me."

  Jay did not quite like the idea of borrowing so much money and leaving it all in the lawyer's hands. "Let me have a hundred pounds in gold," he said. "There's a card game at the Raleigh tonight."

  "Certainly, Captain Jamisson. It's your money!"

  There was not much left of the four hundred pounds when Jay arrived back at the plantation in his new equipage. He had lost at cards, he had bought four slave girls, and he had failed to beat down Mr. Smythe's price for the carriage and horses.

  However, he had cleared all his debts. He would simply get credit from local merchants as he had befo
re. His first tobacco crop would be ready for sale soon after Christmas, and he would pay his bills from the proceeds.

  He was apprehensive of what Lizzie might say about the carriage, but to his relief she hardly mentioned it. She obviously had something else on her mind that she was bursting to tell him.

  As always, she was most attractive when animated: her dark eyes flashed and her skin glowed pink. However, he no longer felt a surge of desire every time he saw her. Since she had become pregnant he had felt diffident. He imagined it was bad for the baby if the mother had sexual intercourse during pregnancy. But that was not his real reason. Lizzie's being a mother somehow put him off. He did not like the thought of mothers having sexual lusts. Anyway, it was rapidly becoming impracticable: the bulge she carried in front of her was getting too big.

  As soon as he had kissed her she said: "Bill Sowerby has left."

  "Really?" Jay was surprised. The man had gone without his wages. "Good thing we've got Lennox to take over."

  "I think Lennox drove him away. Apparently Sowerby had lost a lot of money to him at cards."

  That made sense. "Lennox is a good card player."

  "Lennox wants to be overseer here."

  They were standing on the front portico, and at that moment Lennox came around the side of the house. With his usual lack of grace he did not welcome Jay back. Instead he said: "There's a consignment of salt cod in barrels just arrived."

  "I ordered it," Lizzie said. "It's for the field hands."

  Jay was annoyed. "Why do you want to feed them fish?"

  "Colonel Thumson says they work better. He gives his slaves salt fish every day and meat once a week."

  "Colonel Thumson is richer than I am. Send the stuff back, Lennox."

  "They're going to have to work hard this winter, Jay," Lizzie protested. "We have to clear all the woodland in Pond Copse ready for planting with tobacco next spring."