by Karleen Koen
She was silent. Parliament had fined Roger for being a director even though he was dead. She’d had to dismantle his great house, Devane House, in London, sell furniture and art, even the paving stones of the gardens, toward the fine Parliament had levied. She dug her fingers into the sand in which she sat, angry, her throat swelling with grief she did not speak. Grief over dreams. What might have been, but was not, would never be. Roger, his fine house, his dream—he had dreamed, too—little left now but the land upon which it rested.
“Parliament was in the process of deciding the final amount of each fine when I left.” She spoke slowly, carefully, not wishing the Governor to see her distress.
“It is not good for the kingdom when something like this happens. I heard the King’s mistress took enormous bribes of stock, yet lost little when everyone else did. I heard the same of the King’s ministers. People wanted to impeach them, I hear. I tell you, Lady Devane, the Pretender should have invaded last year. It was the perfect time. As an old soldier, I know these things.”
“Are you a Jacobite?” she asked him.
She was curious, intrigued. Jacobites were followers of James III, called the Pretender. They believed James was the rightful king, rather than George, the cousin from Hanover who was on the throne now. Her brother, Harry, had been a Jacobite; so had her father.
“My father always believed James II was betrayed by his own Parliament,” he replied. “I’m Scotch, Lady Devane. We Scotch keep a soft place in our hearts for the royal House of Stuart. No, I am not a Jacobite. The law says George of Hanover is King, and I follow the law. But you’ve a Jacobite on one of your quarters—”
“Quarter? What is that?”
As he explained, the Governor neatly gutted the trout, placed it in the skillet, and moved the skillet to the fire over which the rabbit was roasting.
“The land belonging to your grandmother spreads across the river. It is divided up into sections called quarters. This storm has shown that you must never take anything for granted out here, Lady Devane. I meant to speak of it to you sooner.” And now he was off on another track, lecturing her about the colony. Whenever she traveled it must be with extra provisions, an ax and a knife, and flint and steel and a blanket and a musket and other things, so that she could survive if there should be an accident and she was stranded, as they were now. The closest plantation was several hours’ walk away through forest and underbrush, and anyone who did not know the way would become lost.
“That is why I insisted upon coming with you.” He frowned at her. “This is not the world you are used to, Lady Devane.”
The world I am used to, Barbara thought, and in her mind she saw that world, moved like a doll among its inhabitants: the King, his son, the Prince of Wales, the Princess, the courtiers. What would the Frog say if he saw me now, she thought, in my crumpled gown, with my hair hanging in my eyes, my belongings spread out like a Gypsy’s camp?
The evening dusk was soft as a velvet mask on her cheek, a dusk made clean from the storm, like a slate wiped fresh to begin again. She was beginning again, too. Go on to Virginia and remove yourself for a time from this mess Roger has left you, her grandmother had said. Go and tell me the lay of the land, its gains, its losses. Tell me if I should sell this plantation back to the country bumpkins who formerly owned it.
“Show me how far we are from my grandmother’s plantation.”
“Your grandmother’s plantation. I am very glad you bring it up. The river narrows and curls back on itself another half day’s journey from here. Your grandmother’s plantation is in one of those curls, the first one.”
“And where are the Bollings?” It was a Bolling who had written her grandmother asking to buy the plantation back.
“Past you on the river, farther west. Your plantation is the last place on the river deep enough to take tobacco ships. It has value as a loading place; at its dock there is also a storehouse where tobacco from other plantations is stored.”
That would explain why Bolling wanted the plantation back, thought Barbara.
“I’ve been meaning to speak to you of Valentine Bolling—” he said.
“Valentine. What a promising name.”
“Do not be misled by it. Valentine Bolling is the only one left now, though he has a nephew by marriage. The niece is dead, but Bolling remains close to the nephew, Klaus Von Rothbach, Lady Devane…”
The Governor was staring at her in a concerned way.
“I’ve been wishing to speak to you of Valentine Bolling. He’s of a certain sort, here—older, having carved a place for himself from nothing, from forest and creek and swamp and Indians’ hunting grounds. Such men are not soft men. They cannot be.”
I’ve dismantled Roger’s house, a beloved house, a beautiful house, and sold it down to the last brick and stone to survive; I face a huge debt; I’ve buried both my dear brother and the only man I ever really loved, my husband. Your Bolling cannot frighten me, Governor, Barbara thought.
“You could sell the plantation back easily,” the Governor was saying. “I must say I think once you’ve seen it, you won’t want to stay. It is not what you’re used to. I’ve been thinking of that since you arrived. Once you’ve seen it, come right back to Williamsburg with me, or remain upon it a few weeks, if you must, and I’ll send my galley back for you; you have only to send word. From Williamsburg, I will find you a ship back to England.”
He had it all planned, did he? “The fish is burning,” she said.
He moved to pull the skillet from the hot ashes, burned his hand as he did so, cursed, begged her pardon. The smell of browned fish mingled with roasting meat. I’m starving, thought Barbara.
He was distressed, she could see it. What distressed him now? What other warnings, other advice, had he for her?
“I have no plates, Lady Devane.”
She smiled. “Once I was a wild girl who ran through the woods with my brother and a friend. I know how to eat with my hands, Governor.”
He speared fish into her hands, and she tossed the crumbling, hot pieces back and forth until they were cool enough to eat, shared them with Hyacinthe and Thérèse. Night had fallen, like a cloak, over them. Juice dribbled down her chin as she ate. No supper in a royal drawing room had ever tasted as good as this supper on a creek, she thought, remembering suppers as a girl, with Harry and Jane—those suppers, too, in the woods, with only a fire; those suppers, too, delicious and satisfying.
Her dogs whined and cried and did flips in the air as Hyacinthe threw them scraps.
“Where are the slaves, Governor?” asked Barbara.
“At the galley. They have their own fire, their own supper.”
Spotswood produced a bottle of wine from his baggage, opened it and presented it, with a flourish, to Barbara.
“To the storm,” she said. “To survival.”
One after the other they drank from it.
“You are a man after my grandmother’s heart,” said Barbara, “prepared for anything.” She saw that these words pleased him. “My grandmother dislikes disorder, will not have it.”
There was a rhythm and a sense of purpose to her grandmother’s life, comforting, like this fire. Order holds back chaos, thought Barbara, the way fire holds back dark.
The sky blazed with stars, like hundreds of diamonds sparkling and white, laid out on a black velvet gown. Everywhere were the sounds of night: crickets, frogs, water lapping, small rustles in the underbrush. There was a far-off howl, like a dog’s, but not a dog’s. Her pugs, in her lap now, lifted their heads. The short fur on the back of their necks rose.
“Wolves,” Spotswood said.
Thérèse, who was sitting near the fire with them, bare toes peeking out from her gown as she wiggled them in sand, looked up. She was French and had lived on a farm; stories of wolves, slavering monsters who ate children alive, were something she had ingested as regularly as black bread and sour wine.
“No danger,” said Spotswood. “It is only in winter that the
y might be hungry enough to attack.”
Thérèse made a face as if to say, See, what a barbarous place. Barbara smiled. Hyacinthe was playing with a turtle he had found along the bank. She called his name, patting the sand near her; he left his turtle, curled himself against her stretched-out leg like a small animal, and was instantly asleep, as she’d known he would be.
One of her dogs, the male one, named Harry after her brother, jumped from her lap and trotted away, but she did not call him. Thérèse was in the shelter now, rummaging through her portmanteau, an ancient, faded bag of leather, setting it to rights. Order out of chaos, thought Barbara. Doubtless she was also searching for a charm against wolves. Spotswood stretched out on the sand to smoke a long Dutch pipe of tobacco. Barbara heard her dog barking.
“Perhaps he has found the cow,” said Barbara. She’d rather not write to her grandmother that she’d lost the cow. The chickens lost would be bad enough.
“I sent two slaves off to search for your cow. They have not returned. They have more than likely run away. Some slaves try it over and over again. If they make it to the mountains, the Seneca—a fierce Indian tribe—find them and bring them back. If they can get to Carolina, to the south of us, they live there among the runaway indentured servants. I have asked the Board of Trade in England to limit the number of slaves allowed here, but they do nothing. We need another import duty to stop their coming. There are too many of them here…. If they were to all rise up…”
He did not finish. Barbara was silent, trying to put straight in her mind the sight of those silent rowers today, the sight of all the dark faces she had seen since her arrival, cooking, cleaning, weeding gardens, repairing fences, carrying water, with rebellion and fear, but she could not.
“What will happen to the slaves when you find them?”
“They’ll be whipped. The incorrigibles have their toes chopped off.” There was nothing apologetic in his voice. Barbara was silent, digesting his words.
The pug ran toward them with something dark and hairy in his mouth. Oh no, thought Barbara. The pug was shaking it back and forth, and it hung limply, obviously dead.
“What’s he caught?” Spotswood said, interested, rising to his feet. “I had no idea pugs could hunt. Here, boy. Here!”
Harry laid his trophy at Spotswood’s feet and sat back on his haunches, panting, pleased with himself. Spotswood bent down and picked up his own wig.
Barbara laughed and clapped her hands for the dog to come to her.
“Good dog!” she said to him. “Mighty hunter. Savage one.”
Spotswood pushed a stick into the ground near the fire and set the wig upon it to dry. It reminded Barbara of the rotted heads of traitors hanging above the city gate of Temple Bar in London. The heads that hung there now belonged to the nobles who had supported the Pretender’s invasion attempt in 1715—a frightening year, that, with the old Queen dead; a new, foreign King, disliked; and invasion.
“The Seneca rip off the crown and hair of the head of an enemy and wear it on a thong at their side,” Spotswood said. “The trophy is called a scalp. It looks rather like that wig. More dried blood and loose skin, of course.” He extended his arm. “Feel this.”
She rubbed two fingers over the soft sleeve of his coat. The coat was ornately embroidered with peak shells, purple and white.
“A buck’s skin, softened and dried over smoke by a Seneca Indian maiden. You insult a man here by calling him buckskin. It means he is an oaf, an ignorant, a man of the backwoods, half savage.”
I must send Grandmama a buckskin gown, all worked in these pieces of shell, she thought, and Tony a coat like this, and something for Jane’s children. Jane was her closest, her dearest friend. Tony was her cousin, the present Duke of Tamworth. He loved her. She sighed, and the Governor heard.
“You must be exhausted, Lady Devane, after this day we’ve had. Your maidservant has made a bed for you in the shelter. We’d best sleep, for we’ll make an early start in the morning. Good night.”
“Pleasant dreams, Governor.”
On the other side of the fire, he wrapped himself in a blanket and, with his back to her, lay down on the ground, as if it were a feather bed. She considered him. Yesterday, he’d worn a satin coat and white stockings, had silver buckles on his shoes; there had even been a black silk patch shaped like a quarter moon on his cheek. One must be ready for anything here, she thought.
There was a sound. A rustle. A slave in ragged breeches, on the other side of the fire, glanced at her and then quickly away, pointing to the fire. He was adding wood to it. That must be his task, thought Barbara, to add wood all the night. In another moment, he was gone. It seemed to her she heard music. She settled the dogs, sleeping themselves, against Hyacinthe, and walked along the bank of the creek until she saw the slaves’ fire. They were around it, and one of them held something to his mouth. It made a light, flutelike sound. She took a step forward, and the slaves stood, one after another. The music stopped.
“May I join you?” she said. “The music you make is so beautiful.”
They made a place for her among them. She sat down, bunching her skirts in about her knees. The slave played a short pipe, cut carefully from wood, hollowed out, holes for sound carved. It must be dear to him, she thought, to have survived the storm. A craftsman, she thought, a musician, here in Virginia’s wilds. There was something haunting and piercing about the tune he played. She looked up to the sky and its hundreds of bright, shining stars, little pinpoints of light in the darkness, order in the chaos.
Go, and catch a falling star, she thought; get with child a mandrake root. The lines were from Roger’s favorite poet. Tell me where all past years are, / Or who cleft the Devil’s foot. Tell me, God, she thought, where Roger went, or how to live without him.
The wind came through the trees, rubbing branches together, making them creak and moan and cry, like grieving women. The slave piped his sweet song. His friends listened gravely. There were twigs and sticks in their braids, and scars upon their faces, scars that looked as if they had been deliberately made. When? By whom? thought Barbara.
How beautiful this night, this fire, these men with their scarred faces and twisted hair were; so beautiful, hurt was almost eased. This place was tamed only in places. Savage, as Thérèse said, dangerous, barbarous. Good. It suited her heart.
Tobacco. Barbara thought of the Governor’s words this evening, of the words she’d heard from those who came to visit in Williamsburg. They’d been talking tobacco, too. It was this colony’s most important crop.
When I grow it, thought Barbara, it will have to be the best.
Chapter Two
IT WAS THE FOLLOWING NIGHT ON THE PLANTATION OF FIRST Curle, and six slaves gathered at the small kitchen building, settled back on their heels, and at long last, ate. They had been in the fields until past dark. Tobacco leaves were being harvested. It was nothing but labor for the slaves until the leaves were casked in the big barrels called hogsheads, until winter came and its cold gave them respite from the tobacco plant everyone grew here.
Light came from the kitchen’s fire, a glow they could see reflected through the kitchen’s opened door. The oldest of them by many years sat on the steps. With reverence, the other slaves called her Old Grandmother. She was cook, now that she was too old for the fields. She looked like something carved from petrified wood, all hollows, wrinkles, bone, her hair a thin, white, grizzled halo on her skull, her legs brittle twigs.
Squatting down before the others, his fingers dipping into their communal bowl of cornmeal and hog’s meat, one of the slaves told of the new mistress who had come to them this day. She was young. The slave, always a wit, pointed to the youngest slave among them, a girl. Not that young. He pointed to Old Grandmother. Not that old. She came with another woman—a servant—and a boy, a slave like them, but not like them either. The Governor’s galley slaves, who ate with the plantation slaves, agreed.
He has fine clothes, said the witty one, the te
ller of this story. Soft clothes. His voice in the darkness conveyed those clothes Hyacinthe wore, warm and whole, a master’s clothes on a boy like them. He described the shine of the buckles on the boy’s shoes, the sweep of the feather in his hat, the glow of the silver collar around his neck.
There were two dogs, also—such dogs! Never had he seen such dogs. Uglier than the overseer—a comment that was much enjoyed. The teller of tales went to the steps, where the glow from the kitchen’s fire made a backdrop for him, bulged out his eyes to show the way those dogs’ eyes bulged, curved out his arms to show the way their legs bowed out. He stooped over and held his hand over the step to show how small they were. And so worthless, so useless, they had not even smelled him when he’d peered in the window of the house earlier to see what there was to be seen.
“Overseer.”
The word dropped into their eating, their talking, like a stone into water, and they became mute. The only sounds now were the wind in the trees, and fingers scraping the wooden bowl.
Odell Smith, the head overseer of First Curle, walked up. He had been making the rounds, locking the basement, the corn house, the smokehouse, the barn, upset by this day, upset by the arrival of Barbara and her entourage.
“Finish eating,” he ordered them, roughly. “There’s work tomorrow. Much work. We have to get the leaves in the tobacco barns. You all know that. Sinsin, take the galley slaves with you to the slave house. A new mistress has come. Lady Devane she is called, from across the sea, from England, where the king of us all lives. You are to obey her as you did Master Bolling. That’s all.”
Scratching at his freckled hands, which burned always from sun, Odell walked to his own cabin, by the slave house, near the first of the two deep creeks that made this plantation worth what it was. This afternoon he had been summoned from the fields by a slave boy dressed as finely as he had ever seen a man dressed; he could hardly believe his eyes. Or his ears: The boy told him that his new mistress was here and wished to see him.