Devil Water

by Anya Seton

  EVELYN BYRD.

  Jenny folded up the letter and sat with it in her hand. Dimly from far away she heard the music, also she heard the hiss of rain against the old leaded windows. The tapestries bellied out, the room grew very cold, and still she sat on. Until Charles burst in and shouted in the furious voice of one who has been needlessly alarmed, “My God! What are you doing here? I’ve searched all over. You naughty girl, I thought something had happened to you!”

  “It has, dearest Papa,” said Jenny. She stood up and gave him a look compounded of a mature gentleness and quiet inflexibility so unlike her that he was shocked.

  “What do you mean?” he said. “I don’t understand you -- what’s that letter, is it from a man? Give it to me!”

  “Of course,” she said. “You will have to read it. It’s from Evelyn Byrd.”

  “That little Colonial school friend of yours? What can she say of any moment!”

  Jenny silently handed him the letter, he held it near the candle and read it contemptuously. “What nonsense!” he said, throwing the letter on a table. “As though you’d go off to the wilderness, as a kind of upper servant! The woman must be mad!”

  Jenny lifted her chin, and gave her father the same maternal composed look. “I am going, Papa,” she said. “I regret very much to give you pain, but I am going to Virginia.”

  “You can’t!” he cried. “I won’t permit it! Holy Mother, what’s got into you? It can’t be that you’re following that Wilson -- a transported convict -- it can’t be that!” Charles suddenly collapsed upon the other chair, staring at her with something like fright.

  “He’s a transported convict because of me, Papa,” said Jenny. “You don’t know the story. I didn’t really remember it until tonight. Hush,” she added as Charles made a violent movement. “I’ll tell you what happened.” She put her hand on his shoulder, and in clear dispassionate sentences she told him of her abduction on last May 29, and of what Rob had rescued her from.

  He sat for some moments silenced and appalled, then he said, “Aye, it’s horrible, horrible. And I see we’ve cause to be grateful to the fellow. I’ll send him a gift -- write to his master recommending leniency. I’ll even let you write to him, if you want.”

  Jenny shook her head. “It’s no use, Papa. Nothing that you say can sway me. I am going to Virginia. And after a while you won’t mind it. You have your wife, your child, and another one coming. There’s no place for me here, you know that in your heart. I’ve been drifting, aimless, in the shadows -- now I am awake. Look at me and you’ll see that’s true!”

  He raised his head and looked at her swiftly. What he saw exploded his baffled dismay into anger. He jumped up from the chair and shouted, “I won’t let you go! I won’t! You cannot disobey me! I’m your father! Come with me, you wretched ungrateful child, come to Father Brown. He’ll tell you what your duty is!” He grabbed her by the wrist, and pulled her after him. She made no protest. Her expression of pitying inflexibility did not alter.

  Charles suffered much through the next day of bustle and hurried plans, during which Lord Winton departed on his nag after remarking that he would greatly enjoy an adventure to Virginia himself. There was nobody on Charles’s side at all. Father Brown said sadly, “I believe you should let the child go, my son. It is better for everyone, and I have seen that for you both there’s danger in your feelings for the girl. Each soul must choose its own path, and she has obviously chosen hers. I think that if you tried to keep her here by force you might kill her.”

  Lady Newburgh did not try to hide her relief. Her pleasure at Jenny’s departure was so great that she furnished all the traveling expenses and offered McDermott as escort to London, also one of the undermaids as a chaperon. She even presented Jenny with a draft on her London agent for three hundred pounds, so that no one might think her niggardly or lacking in duty towards her stepdaughter.

  On the next morning but one after the receipt of Evelyn’s letter, Jenny set out with Charles in Lady Newburgh’s coach, bound for the auberge in Paris where a post chaise could be hired for the journey to Calais.

  Lady Newburgh had not begrudged Charles this last half hour alone with Jenny, she had been so much relieved that he had not insisted on going all the way to Calais with his daughter -- a plan Jenny herself had vetoed as too painful for both of them. Jenny had consistently shown herself logical, calm, and efficient, yet as the coach drew away from the chateau steps -- where the Countess, the young Earl of Derwentwater, the three little girls, and Father Brown all stood waving goodbye -- she turned to her father, put her head on his shoulder, and began to cry.

  Her traveling hood had fallen back and he stroked her soft bright hair. “Ah, darling, don’t go,” he said brokenly. “You see you don’t want to leave me. And I’ve need of you. Great need.”

  “No, Papa,” she said, wiping her eyes. “You have not. You’ll be happier without me, because my lady will be, and you have many distractions.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” he said reluctantly. “ ‘Tis too much to say I need you -- but if there ever came a time when I did --” He put his hand under her chin and raised her face, looking deep into her eyes. “Jenny, promise that you’d come to me!”

  “I don’t know --” she faltered. “I don’t know what the future’ll hold for me, Papa -- ”

  “I’d not summon you on a whim. I scarcely know what I mean, Jenny. I’d not insist upon your coming to me, even if -- when -- King James and all of us are re-established in England, but if I ever summon you in the name of my martyred brother -- then will you promise to come?”

  His gray eyes, so like her own, were brilliant with tears, and she felt a shiver of fear. Her arms raised to throw themselves around his neck, her tongue ached to promise whatever he wanted -- yet she could not.

  “I -- I will promise to -- to try,” she whispered.

  He turned away from her with a long sigh of disappointment. “There is a vow you have already taken,” he said coldly. “Your oath of allegiance to King James, I trust you mean to respect that!”

  “Yes,” she said after a moment. “I’ll respect my oath. In all the ways that I can, I wish to please you, dearest Papa.”

  “Then do not see that fellow, Wilson!” he burst out. “Don’t let foolish stubborn fancy lead you into shame and disaster. For this I’ll pray night and day. Since you’ve rendered me powerless, otherwise.”

  “I’ll not let foolish fancy lead me,” she said quietly. “Trust me, Papa -- I’m no longer a child.”

  “No,” he said with a kind of groan. “You’re not. Jenny, you don’t wear the Radcliffe ring I gave you in the cellar, the night of my flight from England. What’s become of it?”

  “Lady Betty has it, in safekeeping. She was afraid the crest would be recognized. I will wear it from now on, I promise.”

  “Good,” he said, taking her hand. “I trust your word, darling. The ring will remind you of your pride of birth and lineage, it’ll keep you from demeaning yourself, and you must retain the name of Radcliffe -- that’s one advantage of going to Virginia,” he added bitterly.

  “I’ll do as you say, Papa. Oh, the coach is stopping--” They looked at each other in startled anguish.

  McDermott threw open the coach door, and stiffened to dour silence as he saw the two locked in a close embrace like lovers, and both weeping. He waited beside the coach until Jenny stepped out. She turned once and waved, her tear-stained face as white as tallow. Then she walked with slow, resolute steps into the auberge to wait for the post chaise to be ready.

  PART FOUR: 1726

  FIFTEEN

  On April 20 the stout ship Randolph sailed swiftly up the James River, borne by the tide and a brisk southeasterly wind. It was warm and -- except for the creaks of the rigging -- very quiet. The newly risen sun already glared white off the broad waters.

  The Byrd party were strung along the rail of the poopdeck watching the flat wooded shores flow by. Mr. and Mrs. Byrd stood close together, Byr
d’s ten-year-old Wilhelmina beside them. Evelyn and Jenny were across the deck, both silent with their thoughts.

  William Byrd was as elegantly dressed in a powdered wig, brocaded waistcoat, and silver-gilt buckles as he had been in London. One must be careful not to let down standards upon return to the Colonies. He had impressed this on his family. Maria Byrd, his plump, docile young wife wore her wedding dress of green-sprigged buff taffeta, and her best lace cap on her mousy hair; she stood pressed against her husband, staring with affrighted eyes at the flat sandy banks fringed by the distant darkness of virgin forest. She watched in vain for roofs, for a church tower, a smoking chimney, any sign of a village. “Doesn’t anyone live here, Will?” she whispered.

  “Very few right here,” he said smiling. “The back country to the south is largely unexplored, but upriver there are dwellings, and see ahead, there is Jamestown!”

  “Where?” cried little Wilhelmina eagerly. Byrd had whiled away the eight-week voyage by improving his daughter’s knowledge of Virginia. Wilhelmina knew the history of Jamestown, and was disappointed to see nothing except trees and the stump of a church among half-burned ruins. “Is that all?” she asked.

  “I told you the town was abandoned long ago,” said Byrd. “And that the capital is inland at Williamsburg, which you won’t see today.” He looked north towards Burwell’s Landing, where a brig and a sloop were unloading cargo for Williamsburg. “We’ll proceed up the river to Westover,” he added.

  “Oh dear,” said the child. “How long? I’m so weary of this old ship, I feel as if I’d been on her a year. I can’t even seem to remember what England was like -- it’s so far away.”

  This remark affected her hearers painfully. Maria gave a stifled moan and gazed at the empty ruins of Jamestown. Byrd set his lips and gave way to gloom. A multitude of problems awaited him here.

  The probable state of his long unseen plantation was one problem, and the condition of the precious tobacco, so precious that it was used for currency. Moreover, he had doubts as to the honesty of John Fell, his head overseer. The security of his absentee seat on the Council and its reception of himself were other problems. He knew that he had enemies among the Councilors -- enemies who called him anglophiliac snob, and who thought that while enjoying the pleasures of London he had skimped his duties to his native Virginia. And in London not one of his early hopes had been realized, though he so dearly loved the city that he had put off from year to year this inevitable moment of return. He had never got his appointment as Governor of either Virginia or Maryland, neither had he settled all his debts nor found the highborn heiress whom he had wanted. Though Maria was a good wife, restful -- after the turbulent Lucy, and then the debauched years of widowerhood.

  He glanced fondly at Maria, saw that she was weeping, and knew that she was thinking of their baby girl, Anne, who had been left behind in the care of Maria’s sister.

  The ship neared Green Spring Plantation, where Byrd had so often visited the Ludwells. Byrd saw it through lackluster eyes, the entertainment he had once enjoyed there seemed sparse, dreary, provincial. It would not be so at Westover, he thought, trying to comfort himself. In the ship’s hold there were amenities. He had brought over a thousand books packed in black walnut presses; also there was furniture, silver, damask -- and the portraits. If he could no longer rejoice in the company of the great men he had known he could at least have visual reminders of them. There was Kneller’s portrait of Sir Robert Southwell -- dear old Sir Robert, who had first launched him in London, who had proposed him to the Royal Society. Then there was the portrait of Charles Boyle, the Earl of Orrery; a warm and merry man was Orrery, godfather to little Anne, and the friend Byrd knew that he would miss the most. There were also portraits of Lord Oxford, Lord Halifax, and the Duke of Argyle -- these were not exactly friends, but they were acquaintances, and their elegant representations would grace Westover.

  One portrait he had wished to leave behind. It was of Sir Wilfred Lawson, Sr., the dead father of the Wilfred Lawson Byrd detested. He had seen no reason for hauling a likeness of any member of the Lawson family across the Atlantic, but Evelyn had insisted. She said that she wished to have a reminder at hand of how much gratitude she owed to the good offices of her dear papa. A perfectly filial speech, yet it had a curious undertone and made Byrd uncomfortable.

  Behind him, Byrd now heard Evelyn give a low mocking laugh, as she said something to Jenny Radcliffe. Radcliffe was apparently the girl’s real name, though nobody had mentioned this until they were well out at sea. Then Evelyn in her detached imperious way had unfolded an extraordinary tale of a forced marriage in Northumberland, of a father’s Jacobitism and death sentence, of escape from Newgate, and exile. Byrd’s first indignation at having such a young woman foisted onto his household was, however, soon over. The Whig ministry had consistently ignored Byrd, in fact Sir Robert Walpole had pointedly passed him over in favor of Hugh Drysdale, who was no doubt at this moment lording it in the Governor’s Palace at Williamsburg. Jacobitism did not seem as outrageous to Byrd as it had, particularly since Lord Orrery had Jacobite leanings. And then there was consolation in the thought that Jenny was granddaughter to an earl, great-granddaughter to a king. Besides, she was vastly pretty.

  One night last week he had drunk too much wine with the Captain, and on finding Jenny alone had “tried to play the fool with her,” as he later penitently noted in his secret diary. The girl had cooled him off with a blank astonishment which was humiliating. Her presence at Westover might lead to other embarrassments of all kinds. Still, if Evelyn wanted Jenny’s company, there was nothing to do about it.

  Byrd frowned abstractedly towards the north shore, as the ship veered to starboard and began the tortuous passage around the point on the narrowing river. There never seemed to be anything to do about Evelyn’s whims. One of the greatest disappointments in London had been her disdainful treatment of two eligible suitors. Yet she was still only eighteen, and much as she troubled him at times, he would have greatly missed her had she stayed in England. I’ll find her a worthy husband here, he thought -- a Carter perhaps, or a Ludwell if there are any free and suitable ones. The choice was limited. Plantation society was limited in so many ways. It would be hard to adjust to a world without coffeehouse gossip, and daily gazettes, without balls, opera and masquerades, without the company of famous wits, and peers, and sophisticated ladies who appreciated his own sprightly literary efforts.

  Byrd sighed deeply. He was fifty-two years old, and this morning, on his home river, he felt the weight of every year. “We should be there in another couple of hours, if the wind and tide hold with us,” he said to Maria. “I wish to write a letter.”

  “To send home?” she asked, her anxious blue eyes clouded.

  “To England,” he said with a tinge of reproof. “To assure Lord Orrery of our safe arrival. There may be some ships in port that will take it.”

  “Yes, Will,” said Maria. She dabbed at the perspiration on her upper lip, and said faintly, “ ‘Tis growing so warm, I believe I’ll lie down.”

  The Byrds left the deck. Wilhelmina squatted on a step and began to play with her wax doll. The two young girls leaned their elbows on the rail and stared at the shore. “What’s that house?” said Jenny pointing to a rooftop in the trees to their left.

  “Brandon, I think,” said Evelyn. “Remember, I haven’t been here in nine years.”

  “Are you glad to be in Virginia?” asked Jenny after a moment. “Do you think you can forget England and -- and the people there?”

  “All but one,” said Evelyn calmly. “I shall forget the others.”

  “You mean Sir Wilfred?” Jenny whispered. “Eve, you never mention him, I didn’t think you could --” She stopped before adding “be in love with a married man.”

  Evelyn read her thoughts. “I told you I’d never change,” she said. “Look, Jenny!” The older girl drew a pearl-studded locket from inside her bosom and opened it. “Have you wondered what’s i
nside?”

  Jenny nodded and gazed with astonishment at a tiny miniature of a smiling plain young man, in a white tie-wig. “Sir Wilfred?” said Jenny. “How did you get this?”

  “He gave it to me,” said Evelyn, shutting the locket. “We still love each other.”

  “You’ve seen him!”

  “Now and again.” Evelyn’s beautiful eyes grew somber. “But I found it too miserable. That’s why I was willing to come home with poor old Father. I didn’t wish to become Wilfred’s mistress, which would certainly have happened if I’d stayed.”

  “Oh,” said Jenny, having found nothing else to say. The girls were silent again. Jenny sniffed the salt air and smelled the intermingling scent of pine trees. The latter evoked something poignant and long ago -- the grove of pines at the turn of the way to the peel tower; it evoked Rob’s face as he had met her the day she came to Tosson with Alec.

  The ship’s great rudder creaked beneath them as the steersman veered his course again to follow the river around another bend. The monotony of the densely wooded shore to the north was broken by the shadow of a house and a lawn.

  “Weyanoke,” said Evelyn. “We’re getting nearer.”

  Jenny inhaled sharply. “Evie, I’m frightened. I don’t want to get there. I don’t really want to find out what’s happened to him. I’m afraid to.”

  “You’ve come an extremely long way to decide that,” said Evelyn dryly. “Courage, my dear.”

  “But suppose something terrible’s happened to Rob, I mean worse than slavery even, which is as terrible as could be. Eve, it’s nearly five months since you had that letter from Mrs. Harrison! Suppose he never went to Berkeley!”

  “Jenny dear, I’ll suppose anything you like if it comforts you, though I shouldn’t think it would. Oh, look yonder at that fishing boat! The Negroes have caught a shad; I trust it’s a Westover boat and that we’ll have shad for dinner. ‘Tis a tasty fish.”