by Karleen Koen
Those of us given the gifts of charm and beauty, Bab, said her grandmother in her mind, shaking a finger at a fourteen-year-old girl who didn’t yet know she possessed them, nor what they meant, those of us given them use them kindly, discreetly, with honesty, for otherwise the hurt to others is too great. And one day the hurt will turn around and bite.
“Strumpet,” said Bolling.
Barbara cocked her head to one side, moved the fan, smiled dazzlingly. “Yes.”
He snorted and walked away.
Late in the afternoon, Klaus walked into the parlor, the dark-haired woman of Williamsburg with him. Barbara felt pride and anger flare out like a peacock’s tail. I could take you easily, she thought. Look into their eyes, Richelieu had said. He was her first lover other than Roger, and he had coached her in the art of seduction. Once they trust you, hurt them. They struggle then to escape, but can’t. The hurt paralyzes them, makes you the puppetmaster, them the puppet.
Among her admirers had been an earl, the son of a duke, and a duke, as well as handsome young men in King James’s Jacobite court. Two men had fought a duel over her.
Why bother over a sloop captain? she thought. I’ll leave it be.
She watched as he went around the chamber greeting people. Finally he came over to her.
Well, she thought, what do you have to say for yourself?
“You’re as beautiful as ever.”
“Why have you not called on me? I expected you to do so.” She was direct, no flirting, no seductiveness.
He did not answer. She watched a blush come to his face, recede. There was that saying of her grandmother’s: Nothing changes and everything changes. Something had changed: He no longer desired her. Well.
He might at least have had the courtesy to come and tell her so; but the thought of Charles came into her mind, and how she had used him so as not to love Roger—and had loved Roger anyway. Playing Richelieu’s game, without the coldness, but playing, anyway. Leave it alone, she thought, her pride smarting. There was never love between us, only desire.
“I heard about your servant,” he was saying. “I offer my condolences.”
“I accept them.”
“I can bring you another slave. You have only to ask it. The slave markets of Cartagena are filled with young boys—”
“Compliments of the season, Captain.”
She went into another parlor, saw Margaret Cox’s grandsons. Anger was rolling through her, that Klaus thought Hyacinthe could be replaced like a lost dog. To these people, he was a dog. I am dangerous, she thought. I’d best watch myself awhile.
“Someone has hurt my feelings,” she said to the Coxes. James and Brazure and Bowler Cox were half in love with her. They came to call upon her only as a trio, as if it took all three of them to have the courage to visit her. “Let me sit with you awhile.”
As they stood, one of them tipped over his plate of food upon himself; another stammered out something incoherent; the third was unable to speak at all. She settled between them, at her ease, amused by their clumsiness—and touched, too. The girl in her said, This is real, this is genuine, this is good. Enjoy their innocence. Find yours, again.
After a time, Colonel Perry came into the room. Barbara saw him look from one to another, until finally he found her, and onto his face came a smile. She felt her angry heart grow more peaceful. Here, now, was true love, kind, steadfast, safe. There was Roger’s grace, Roger’s courtesy, matured to something so fine she did not know how to put words to it. Really, her grandmother must meet him.
“Brazure, Bowler, James, do you take care of her?” he said, walking over to them.
The three young men stood again, one of them knocking into another as they did so, making Barbara laugh.
“I have to show Lady Devane my seedbeds,” he said to the Cox lads. “Does your grandmother have her seedbeds covered? If not, go and tell her I think we’ll have snow today. Well,” he said to Barbara, as he walked her away, she leaning on his arm, “I have been a good host, talking with each and every one of my guests; I have been a good burgess, listening to complaints and frets; and now I intend to please myself by talking only with you. Have you enjoyed your day? Did you like the juggler? You’re still in black. For New Year’s, will you wear a gown of color, for my sake?”
Today Roger had been dead a year. Her period of mourning was over. Where is my wild grief for you, Roger, the grief I brought over with me? Has it simmered down to this wistfulness for what might have been but was not to be? Was not to be. The words no longer break my heart. Does the hurt for Hyacinthe overlie my feeling for you? Or do I hurt so much for him, as not to notice how I still hurt for you? Do I love you less, or is this what Grandmama means by time healing all? Am I healing? There is greater purpose to all than we know, Colonel Perry said. Believe that and life becomes, even in despair, a thing of adventure.
They were walking through the parlor. Klaus was still there, a crowd of women around him as he told fortunes, looking into palms. It’s a slave trick I learned in Jamaica, he had told Barbara. People find it amusing. He had opened her palm last fall before he sailed away. I see a man who finds you very beautiful, he’d said.
“Did you have Blackstone order the slaves to sprinkle cornstalk ash among the dirt in which you planted the seedlings? Did he cover the beds with hay and cornhusks?” Colonel Perry was asking.
They were outside, he stopping to tie her cloak under her chin as if she were a child, pulling the hood over her hair carefully, his face concentrated. Near the riverbank, a large tree had fallen over; he had planted ivy and vines that Major Custis gave him to grow up and around it, making it green, making it handsome, even in its death. He had had a seat carved into it, so that he might sit and watch the river. My mind becomes one with my God, he said, as I watch the flow of the river. I find peace.
“Someone hurt me today,” she heard herself saying. “Or perhaps, I hurt myself. Pride, you know; I am very prideful.”
He listened, saying nothing, brought her hands up, kissed her knuckles. Where, her grandmother would demand, where are you hurt? Come here, my Bab, and we will kiss it and make it well. There was nothing disrespectful in Colonel Perry’s kiss, only tenderness, which she felt like something warm all about her. I like you so, she thought. Did I like Klaus? I don’t know.
A Christmas tune from home went through her head: “Well-a-day, well-a-day, Christmas too soon goes away.” So had the hurt, somehow.
“Look”—she raised her face, and the purity of her profile was beautiful to see—“it’s begun to snow.”
“I must go and tell the others, so that they can make their way home.”
“May we sit just a moment? The snow feels like kisses on my face.”
IN THE house, Beth turned away from the window, from the sight of her father and Barbara sitting on the bench like lovers.
“You haven’t told my fortune,” she said to Klaus.
He looked down into her outstretched hand and said something about her marrying into King Carter’s family. His mind was on Barbara, on what he’d felt at seeing her again: mingled desire and guilt and regard. The mixed feelings were a tumult in him.
“I don’t like my fortune, Captain Von Rothbach. Give me another one.”
Surprised, Klaus met Beth’s eyes.
“Change it,” she said. “Only you can.”
He said nothing, uncertain of what was in her voice—or certain, but not quite able to believe, yet.
“Change it.”
“You will marry—”
“A foreigner, I think, and live happily ever after.”
She took her hand from his coolly, walked from one guest to the next, telling them that snow had begun. It was what her father should have done. Many of them would need to go home, so that they would not be stranded.
“Shall we go?”
Klaus looked down into the eyes of his Williamsburg widow, blinking, almost as if he did not understand what she said. In a way, he didn’t. His mi
nd was still reeling from the stroke of fortune that had just opened up Beth Perry’s arms to him. His future had become, suddenly and without warning, a widow’s third against an heiress’s whole.
The tumult subsided. Ambition—opportunity—covered it over.
Chapter Nineteen
BLACKSTONE WAS IN THE YARD, PLAYING HIS BAGPIPES. RANGED out behind him were all the slaves on First Curle, some holding candles, some pounding drums, some waving rattles. The sound of seeds in the rattles was like rain hissing. The drums, the rattles were exquisite things, carefully made from wood and stretched skin, or hollowed-out gourds or branches. Carving, feathers, beads, and shells decorated them.
They believe the drumbeat summons forth your heart, Blackstone had told her. The sound of the rattle summons forth spirit.
The sight was beautiful. Barbara opened the door wider. Blackstone broke off his playing and, as she stood in the opening of the doorway, he said, half laughing, “Wassail”—an old word, as old as England, meaning “wholeness to you,” “health to you.” It was a New Year’s blessing.
Up the steps, moving past her, he said to Thérèse, on the stairway in her nightgown, “I am firstfoot in this house this night. I bring you your luck in the coming year. See the color of my hair, Mademoiselle Fuseau? It means good luck for you. Now, if my hair were dark, you should not allow me in, for I’d bring bad fortune, but since it isn’t, here I am. Come along, ladies, I have the wassail prepared. You must drink a cup of it with the slaves and me.”
“It is the middle of the night,” said Barbara.
“Of course it is. When else can a new year begin?”
He began to play his bagpipes again, marching into one of the parlors and around the table and out into the hall again. Barbara and Thérèse pulled on boots and followed him outside, snow caking on the bottoms of their cloaks as they walked. The Christmas Day storm had shaken snow like white sugar over everything, knocking down trees and blocking the horse paths between plantations. Yesterday, the slaves had worked to clear paths to First Curle so that Barbara might receive any New Year’s company visiting once the sun rose. She had seen no one in several days; the weather had made travel impossible.
Crowded into Blackstone’s cabin, they drank wassail. The spiced ale, into which Blackstone had mixed rum, was strong; with three cups in her, Barbara began to sing, softly, the words of a melody Blackstone played every once in a while, a haunting melody. A melody of my home, he said to them, written before you English ever ruled us. It’s a tune of the mountains in which I was reared. My mother sang it.
“‘Morning has broken, like the first morning,’” Barbara sang, her voice husky and sweet. “‘Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird. Praise for the singing. Praise for the morning. Praise for them springing fresh from the Word.’”
Blackstone closed his eyes to the sound of her voice, moved by the fact of Thérèse sitting close enough to touch, moved by the presence of all these people in his small cabin, moved by the good fortune that had come his way in the last months. You flirt, accused Thérèse, and her Frenchwoman’s heart was cold. Yes—how could a man help it?—but with no motive save to pay tribute. Lady Devane was beautiful in her heart. He was a felon; his time had been given away as punishment for his loyalty to King James. She was not obliged to pay him a penny for the time he served. Jordan Bolling had paid him nothing. But she had said, I’ll give you the same as Smith received for his duties of overseer. Then, when your time is over, you’ll have something upon which to build. Hope had come into his life, like the first bird, like the first morning. The wassail and song brought tears to his eyes; so did the hope.
“New Year’s gifts,” said Barbara. “I have to give out New Year’s gifts. Come, stand up. Pipe us outside and over to the house, Blackstone.” She laughed. “I don’t think I can walk in a straight line.”
No one could, and it was wonderful: following her zigzag, the laughter in the night at themselves, the candles glowing, bobbing up and down with the movements of those who held them, the sound of drum and rattle and bagpipe. Once in the house, Barbara led everyone into her parlor and gave gifts: a cone of sugar to each slave, blankets for all, coats, gowns, shoes, clothing she’d taken from the storehouse. For Thérèse, there was a shawl woven by the French Huguenots who lived beyond the falls, the wool of it a rich red color, warm and vivid. Thérèse began to weep as Barbara draped it across her shouldres.
“What is it, Thérèse?”
“It is so beautiful. I miss Hyacinthe. He should be here.”
Yes, thought Barbara. John Custis had sent a small tree, a silver maple, up with the Governor. The note attached read, “Green on one side, silver upon the other. I am sorry about your boy. Plant this so he may see it as he moves toward you to return. The sun will catch the silver in the leaves and make them glint, and the glint will guide him home.”
Still weeping, Thérèse crawled into Blackstone’s lap.
“It’s the wassail,” Blackstone said looking at Barbara, who smiled to see such a large man look so sheepish.
“Hyacinthe was like my child,” Thérèse was saying into Blackstone’s chest. “I cannot bear it. I made him something for the New Year. I was so certain he would be back with us.”
Thérèse’s weeping changed the mood. The slaves were standing, going to Barbara, thanking her, grave in their courtesy and drunkenness. After they were gone, Barbara sat on the floor, her arms around her knees, staring at the fire for a long time, until she realized that Thérèse was no longer weeping. She had fallen asleep in Blackstone’s lap, and he, eyes closed, gently rocked her back and forth. So, she thought, they’re lovers.
Then Blackstone was standing, going up the stairs to put Thérèse in bed, coming down them again, nodding good night to Barbara. Alone, she walked around the parlor, touching this and that, the ornate carving upon the frame of one of the paintings she’d brought with her from England, a pewter dish in the cupboard, the threaded thickness of the embroidery upon the French chairs.
Upstairs, she pulled a gown over her nightgown and found wool stockings. Harry followed her back down the stairs.
“We’ll welcome the dawn, mighty hunter,” she whispered to him. “Wassail, my Harry dog.”
She walked to the river, then turned to follow a path along its bank to the second creek. In the distance, in a sky still more shadow than light, was smoke spiraling up from a chimney, the one in the slaves’ house. This was a day of rest for the slaves. They were cooking the game they were not supposed to hunt—a law they and Barbara ignored—as well as two small pigs she’d given them. The meat was roasting outside in a pit they’d dug yesterday. She could smell snow and pine tree and roasting pig, delicious, wonderful, the river a dull, snow-iced murmur to her other side.
The sky was the color of a shell streaked with rose. The sun fell in patches before her as she walked back toward the house. Smoke was spiraling from the kitchen-house chimney. Curious, she went to see who was there. Blackstone smiled at her as she stepped up into the kitchen.
“Your cheeks are as scarlet as plums,” he said. “Have you slept at all? Neither have I. I’ve been making an oatcake of Scotland. There is more wassail made, for your guests this day.”
Pots hung from an iron bar in the fireplace—a cavern of a fireplace, the width of the kitchen house. Barbara leaned over and smelled the wassail. Any guest who drank much of this today would have to spend the night. Along small ledges at the back of the fireplace, built to put food upon so that it would stay warm, she saw thin cakes piled like so many Shrove Tuesday pancakes.
“I hear a bridle jangling. First guest of the New Year for you, Lady Devane.”
This early it could only be Colonel Perry. He wouldn’t mind her cloak and boots and hair hanging down about her shoulders. She stepped outside and was startled to see Colonel Bolling atop his horse at her picket fence, and with him Klaus Von Rothbach. She could not imagine why they were here but instinctively she didn’t like it.
; “We have news,” Bolling called when she was close enough to hear.
She had heard that a solitary tobacco ship or two was beginning to show in the rivers. Were there letters from home? she wondered—the best of New Year’s gifts—and she lifted her skirt to run, sudden, vivid joy in her heart, joy which must have showed upon her face because Bolling said, quickly, stopping her mid-step, “It’s about your servant boy.”
“LADY DEVANE, this way, please…”
Barbara could not move, unable to believe that this was how the day ended. A musty smell tickled her nose—hay for the cattle and horses; it was an undertone to another smell, one of death, something rotting, decayed. In spite of a lantern lighted, the barn was almost as dark as the January night outside the door. Her breath came out in little white clouds of puff. Cold, it was so cold. Beside her, cloaked, gloved, booted as she was, Thérèse made a sound, like a sob pushed back.
Under the wavering light of the lantern held by the owner of this plantation lay a blanket-covered mound. Hyacinthe, they said. The body of a boy had been found down the river, caught in a tangle of brush, preserved a little by the cold. A miracle that the body had been seen at all. Or so Colonel Bolling, in his official position as one of the justices of the county, had come to tell her.
Someone took hold of her elbow. Colonel Perry. Yes, she must do what she must do. Grandmama, she said in a quick prayer, send me your strength. I do not think I can stand this.
It took tremendous effort to lift her foot, to make the first step of the fifteen or so paces to where the body lay under the blanket, but she did it, Thérèse beside her, maidservant, friend, Hyacinthe’s other mother.
As the planter pulled back the blanket, Barbara’s heart gave a mighty lurch. It will jump out of my chest, she thought, as a hundred images, a hundred memories of Hyacinthe jostled one into another in her mind. She looked down, thinking, as she’d done the dawn she killed the stag, I will never forget this. It will mark me all my days.