Devil Water

by Anya Seton

  So absorbed was she that when the curtains parted for the last scene in Newgate prison’s Condemned Hold and the highwayman began his farewell song, “Oh cruel, cruel, cruel, case! Must I suffer this disgrace?” Jenny thought only of the two girls who fought to claim Macheath, and she waited in suspense until she could be sure that Polly would win.

  It was during Macheath’s song that Jenny suddenly noted Rob’s unnatural quiet, and that he held himself stiff as a ramrod, while staring at the stage, his eyebrows drawn into the frown she dreaded.

  “What’s the matter?” she whispered.

  Rob jerked his chin towards the stage. “Yon’s nothing like Newgate’s ‘deathhole’! They’re making a mock of it!”

  Startled, Jenny gazed at the flimsy canvas walls painted to look like stone, with a barred window and a few fetters inked in. “It’s only a play,” she said dismayed. “I never thought, Rob -- I mean --it’s supposed to be funny.”

  “It’s not so funny when you’ve been there,” he said.

  “Papa too,” she said, speaking more from astonishment than anything else.

  “Aye,” he agreed, so loud that the woman in front shushed him angrily. “Your father too. And I don’t like reminders o’ the past.”

  “Shall we go?” she faltered, upset by his vehemence.

  He shook his head. “I paid plenty for these seats.”

  There was very little more to the play, though what there was Jenny neither saw nor heard, aware that Rob had gone into a black mood of the kind he had shown her but once or twice since their marriage. The play ended to the spirited tune, “Lumps of Pudding,” and the Wilsons silently filed out with the rest.

  This sad interruption to their gaiety was fortunately ended by the sudden appearance of William Byrd outside the theater. He had been with old Commissary Blair watching the play from a stage box, and he had noticed Jenny and Rob in the audience, also noticed their greatly improved appearance. He came up to them and bowed to Jenny. “How d’ye do?” he said smiling. “Having a good time in the capital? Wilson, I’ve not forgot your land grant. The Council sits again tomorrow, and I expect to put it through then -- there’s been so many.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Rob, his face clearing. He had found a lawyer, and sent in his application to the Council the day of their arrival in Williamsburg, then heard nothing further, and caution had kept him from showing his lump of mineral to anyone until the land was patented.

  “Come take a glass of punch at the Raleigh with me,” said Byrd, who had already had madeira served him in the box, and felt mellow.

  The Wilsons accepted gratefully, and Byrd, pleased at the admiring glances Jenny attracted, gave them supper at a table in the Apollo Room among the fashionable crowd of Councilors and Burgesses. Jenny was relieved to find that Evelyn had seemed well when Byrd left her, coughing less and eating better.

  It was also through Byrd’s kindness that the Wilsons went to the King’s Birthday Ball, which was held at the Capitol on Monday, October 30. The festivities had already lasted two days. The town was most beautifully illuminated -- a candle in each window. Cannon had been discharged and the colors displayed on every public building.

  The ball itself was very lavish. Governor Gooch might and did complain bitterly of the expense to himself, yet he knew the worth of such festivities in cementing the Colony’s loyalty.

  The Capitol was accordingly lit up in a dazzle, and garnished with greenery, and the throng -- which included Rob and Jenny -- made obeisance to the Royal Surrogates and were mightily impressed.

  This was a far more public ball than the one Jenny had gone to at the Governor’s Palace. The rooms were mobbed with guests of all degree, except of course petty tradesmen and servants. Jenny enjoyed herself thoroughly, for there were fiddlers and French horns playing in an anteroom, the myriad bayberry candles gave forth fragrance, and the tables in the cleared committee rooms were loaded with punch and wine and elaborate sweetmeats.

  It was only when they started drinking toasts to King George and the royal family that Jenny thought of the purpose of the ball. She stole a quick look at Rob. He was in high spirits, having this morning received his grant of five hundred acres near the Slate River. And now he had just encountered a Mr. Holman who was one of the Burgesses from Goochland. Rob and Holman were talking frontier conditions animatedly, though they paused and drank the toast as the Governor proposed it. “To our Glorious Sovereign, King George the Second of Great Britain! Long may he reign!” cried Governor Gooch.

  I can’t drink to that, Jenny thought, feeling both embarrassed and a trifle foolish. What difference did a long past and childish oath of allegiance to King James really make? And yet it did. King James still lived, and near him in Rome -- as Lady Betty wrote -- lived her father.

  Under cover of the cheers and huzzahs which greeted the toast, Jenny slipped behind the curtains of an embrasured window. There she could see Capitol Square and the Governor’s guard, who marched to and fro behind the cannon which boomed out a salvo after each toast. There were a great many toasts. To Her Majesty Queen Caroline. To Frederick, the Prince of Wales. To Augusta, the Princess of Wales. To William, the Duke of Cumberland, and so on down through several princesses. The Hanoverians seemed very well established, a most prolific lot, Jenny thought in a detached way, while the cannon boomed and the people cheered. She knew that her behavior would seem silly to Rob, that it would in fact annoy him, as did any reference, no matter how oblique, to her father.

  Rob, however, did not notice her disappearance until the toasts were well over, so interested was he in discussing with Mr. Holman methods of improving navigation on the upper James. Then Jenny beckoned to him, and he joined her in the window to watch the fireworks.

  On the morning of November 4, Rob and Jenny, still in bed, were talking of their departure. Besides their clothes they had bought sundries in Williamsburg, mostly drugs, the Peruvian bark which controlled fever, laudanum for toothache, a few spices and unguents -- all things they could cram into their saddlebags. The main supplies Rob would get at Shocco before they boarded their boat. Also, he would have to hire a stout lad to help him row and sail up the river against the current. Rob was eager to get home, and remarkably cheerful considering that he had finally had his lump of ore assayed, and found that it was copper pyrites. “Fool’s Gold,” he said ruefully. “But never mind. I’d not of known what to do wi’ a gold mine, and I do see how to develop an ironworks, if I can ever get some labor in for that new tract. Mr. Holman said he knew of several families we might persuade to settle near us. I’m to talk it over with him this afternoon.”

  “Good,” said Jenny absently. She was depressed this morning -- not at the prospect of being back at Snowdon, for she had had enough frivoling, and was as eager as Rob to be sure that all was well at their plantation. Her depression came from the discovery that she was not with child. Two days late, and she had so hoped -- though had not mentioned this to Rob.

  From the distance, Bruton church clock clanged out seven times.

  “Well -- ” Rob yawned, “we’d better get up! I’ve grown lazy as a lizard. Can’t get ahead that way -- now what!” he interrupted himself as there was a pounding on their door and the landlady’s urgent voice.

  “Mrs. Wilson! Mrs. Wilson! You’re wanted!”

  While she was bundling on a dressing gown and hurrying downstairs, Jenny had an intuition. It was no surprise to see Eugene standing on the landing, his eyeballs rolling anxiously, his underlip thrust out. “Oh, Miss Jenny!” he cried. “Please to hasten to the Marster’s. Theah’s trouble at Westovah!”

  “Miss Evelyn?” said Jenny.

  “Ah reckon so. She’m took bad -- or leastways that’s what Cap’n Randolph come to tell Marster. They’s waiting foh you.”

  Jenny and Rob dressed fast. In ten minutes they had followed Eugene down the street to the house where Byrd kept permanent chambers. William Byrd was in his parlor, wearing a flowered dressing-gown, a nightcap on his s
haven head, writing last-minute notes with violent stabs at the paper. Captain Edward Randolph was pacing a strip of Turkey carpet in his restless, rolling sea-gait.

  “What’s happened?’’ cried Jenny as they entered the sitting room.

  Byrd gestured to the Captain. “You explain, Ned. I must finish this letter to the Governor.”

  Randolph bowed to Jenny, nodded coldly towards Rob, and said, “I’ve got the Gooch anchored by Westover -- sailed in night before last. I’ve brought furniture Colonel Byrd ordered from London.

  It’s been a long voyage, since I ran foul of the edge of a hurricane in September and was blown -- ”

  “Yes, yes,” said Jenny. “What about Evelyn?”

  “Why, Miss Evelyn seems to be ill. Mrs. Byrd is so much concerned she begged me to summon the Colonel -- and you, ma’am, at once. She says Miss Evelyn particularly asked for you.”

  “How ill?” said Jenny.

  “I didn’t see her again before I left, but Mrs. Byrd said she’d had a kind of swoon, and then spat up a cupful of blood.”

  “Which signifies nothing!” said Byrd sharply. “‘Twill do her good like any blood-letting.”

  Even Randolph could distinguish fear under this remark, and he shook his head. “I hope you’re right, sir.”

  “Did you bring over any passenger from England?” asked Jenny, with a nervous glance at Byrd and speaking as casually as she could.

  “Passenger?” repeated the Captain, his weather-beaten face puzzled. “Why, I had a few, but they’d all shipped for Norfolk, and I landed them there.”

  “Any letters?” said Jenny, very low.

  “A sackful of letters directed all up and down the James, and some for here which I’ll leave at the Raleigh to be distributed.”

  “I mean letters for Evelyn.”

  “There might’ve been,” said the Captain. “There was a packet for Mrs. Byrd and the Colonel -- my quartermaster sorted them.” He was puzzled by her questions, and dismayed to find that she had all her former attraction for him. He had been angry at the way she had treated him eleven years ago -- leading him on then leaving him flat for this great lunkheaded jail-bait, and he’d relieved his hurt by marrying an English girl, Miss Grosvenor of Bristol, on the very next voyage back. A good wife, and no body, face, or hair of the kind to upset a man and make him jealous.

  As for Jenny, she hardly saw Randolph at all, except to note vaguely that a full set of china teeth made him look quite old, as did the deep crow’s-feet around his blue eyes. All her thoughts were of Evelyn, which Rob -- awkward as this delay might be -- quite understood. Nor was he ever a man to neglect the payment of a debt, and he knew how much he owed to Evelyn’s friendship.

  “You’ll be leaving at once, sir?” he asked Byrd, who nodded.

  “Yes. The coach must be at the door. Ned, will you deliver this to the Governor? It explains my absence at his supper tonight.”

  It was four o’clock and drizzling, when Jenny and William Byrd arrived at Westover in Byrd’s coach. Rob had stayed to finish up his business and would follow in a day or two. During the long drive up the James the occupants of the coach found little to say. They chatted a while about the King’s Birthday Ball; Byrd asked a few questions pertaining to life in Goochland, then he pulled a volume of Tillotson’s sermons from the door pocket, put on a pair of spectacles, and began to read.

  Only once did he break the silence. It was after the troublesome ferry passage across the Chickahominy, when Byrd said abruptly, “I don’t believe there’s cause for anxiety about Evelyn. You know how strong and brisk she’s always been. The instant I get home I’ll consult Radcliffe’s Dispensatory. Are you perchance any relation of Dr. John Radcliffe’s?”

  “I think he was a cousin of my father’s,” said Jenny politely. “Was he a good doctor?”

  “The best. I sent him a Negro boy once as a present, Juba. He gave the lad to the Duchess of Bolton -- Evie was two at the time. She used to play with Juba before he left here. It doesn’t seem like twenty-eight years.” Byrd picked up the book of sermons again, opened them with some violence, and began to read doggedly, while his hands trembled on the cover.

  Maria Byrd received them at Westover’s doorway. Her lace cap was awry, her mild eyes peaked with worry. “Evelyn’s no worse,” she announced. “At least I don’t think so. Yet she won’t eat and she just lies on her bed with such a strange expression, as though she were listening for something. Mr. Fontaine’s with her, though she didn’t seem to want him.”

  “I’ll go right up!” said Byrd. “Have you sent for a doctor? Not that there’s one of them worth a farthing in Virginia.”

  “I sent Tom for Dr. Tschiffeley, but he hasn’t come yet.”

  “Bah! That Swisser. I’ll soon find what’s the matter myself!”

  “Will -- ” said Maria putting a timid hand on her husband’s arm. “Evelyn wants to see Jenny at once. It’s the only thing she’s said.”

  “Very well,” said Byrd impatiently, “though I should think she’d be more eager to see her father. Come along, Jenny.”

  They mounted the mahogany staircase and turned right into Evelyn’s luxurious white-paneled bedroom. Evelyn lay on her four-poster, propped up with pillows, her head tilted towards the river windows. The minister sat beside her, reading from the Bible, in his mellow voice. He had now been married many years, there were two children in the rectory, and he had long since transmuted his love for Evelyn into the friendship she had desired. It was as a friend that he now stroked her hand while he read, an action under which she lay entirely passive.

  Since she did not seem to notice the entrance of her father and Jenny, they came around to the other side of the bed, and her hollow dark eyes slowly focused on them. Her pale lips parted in a faint faraway smile. “I’m sorry to tear you from the fleshpots of Williamsburg,” she said in a voice like the rustle of dry leaves. “Father, did you best old Commissary Blair as usual, and have you got the Governor in your pocket?”

  “My dear child!” said Byrd, relieved by this echo of her normal self. In the fortnight of his absence, she had wasted alarmingly. His eye lit on a mugful of milk by her bedside. “You haven’t drunk this!” he said. “I must supervise your diet, Evelyn!”

  She shrugged slightly, and gave him the remote little smile, tinged this time by pity. “I can’t drink it,” she said, “for then I cough and it comes up -- colored pink.”

  “There are remedies!” he cried. “Dr. Tschiffeley’s coming, and I myself will consult the Dispensatory. A clyster -- that’s it! A clysterful of camomile, and cream, and poppy oil. That’ll nourish you!”

  Evelyn shook her head. “Dear Father,” she said in the hoarse rustling voice, “I wish to be alone with Jenny. Please -- please go now.”

  Byrd frowned, the minister silently took him by the arm, and the two men went out shutting the door.

  Evelyn’s eyes closed, for a few minutes she lay drowsing while Jenny stood by the bed, quiet tears running down her cheeks. Then Evelyn stirred, she opened her eyes and spoke with more energy. “Under my pillow, Jenny. The letter. Read it!”

  Jenny drew out a heavy sheet of paper which had been sealed with black wax. It was addressed to “Mistress Evelyn Byrd, Westover-on-the-James, Virginia.” Inside was a woman’s handwriting.

  London, July 1737.

  Dear Madam:

  My husband, Sir Wilfred Lawson, died of smallpox on July 13 th. A private letter attached to his will requested that you be notified of his death whenever it might occur. This sad duty I have now accomplished.

  Faithfully yours,

  Elizabeth Lucy Lawson.

  “You needn’t cry, Jenny,” Evelyn said. “You should laugh as I do, that I didn’t think of this after my dream. How silly I was. But you see he did set sail on July thirteenth on a long, long voyage, and he is coming for me as he promised. I’ve simply to wait some more.”

  Through Jenny’s anguished mind ran all the things that she should say. The bracing,
reasonable ones. That this was a morbid coincidence, that Evelyn could get well if she tried. That she was still young, and that now that hope of marriage to Sir Wilfred was for ever ended she might find happiness with someone else. Jenny could say none of them.

  “Burn the letter, please,” Evelyn whispered.

  Jenny took the letter to the fire and threw it in. Evelyn lifted herself on her elbow to watch, and was seized by a paroxysm of coughing. When she dropped back exhausted on the pillows, her handkerchief was flecked with blood.

  Jenny went and knelt down beside the bed, she took Evelyn’s hand and laid her cheek against it. “Evie, darling --” she murmured.

  A tremor ran through Evelyn’s hand; she turned it so the hot dry palm caressed Jenny’s cheek. “You’ll stay with me, won’t you, until the end?” Evelyn whispered. “I’m a bit afraid sometimes.”

  “I’ll be here,” said Jenny.

  The days blurred after that, days and nights of nursing shared with Mrs. Byrd and the frightened servants. The Harrisons came every day: Ben, Anne -- who had grown softer since her mother-in-law had died -- and little Benjamin the Fourth, who was of an age to play with Byrd’s son.

  Dr. Tschiffeley came and went, having examined Evelyn and pronounced it “galloping consumption,” for which there was nothing to do. Byrd would not believe him. He continued to try new drugs and clysters, until Jenny went to him in his library one day and said, “Mr. Byrd, I beg of you not to torment Evelyn any more with remedies which won’t save her. I know you’re frantic -- but, you see, she wants to die.”

  “Why?” cried Byrd, raising an old and haggard face to Jenny. “Why should she? She has every luxury to make her happy, she was pleased with the new house, she’s devoted to me, my wife, and the children -- and as for marriage, there still are suitors.”

  Jenny hesitated, then made up her mind. “Evelyn wants to die, because Sir Wilfred Lawson is dead.”