He cocked his head. ‘Fifty years ago? Your father – he wasn’t a young man when he died, then?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’ Her low voice had taken on that note of warmth and animation that it always held when she spoke of her father. ‘He just seemed it. As for Mr Shelley, he came often, I believe, to Coombe House – where we lived. I never knew him, of course. His tragic death occurred some years before I was born. Father always spoke of him with great respect and affection, and wouldn’t hear a word against him, though there were always plenty to try.’ Beneath the calm she had the most absurd and disorientating feeling that she was talking utter nonsense, that there was no connection whatsoever between what was going on in her mind – in her heart? – and the words she spoke so crisply. Firmly she tried to focus her thoughts. ‘I was brought up on his poems.’
Her companion slanted a dark, questioning look at her face. ‘The dramas too? Strange fare for a small child, Miss Henderson.’
‘Yes. It was. As many, of course, were ready to point out. But then I suppose I was an odd child.’ Mattie could not prevent a small, caustic smile. ‘Just ask poor Cousin Constance.’
She thought she caught an answering flicker of amusement in his eyes but when he answered his tone was sober.
‘Didn’t such reading matter produce nightmares?’ he asked, and then with the smallest of smiles, ‘even for a child as odd as I grant you might have been?’
She would not rise to his bait. ‘Only occasionally.’ She turned from him, folded her hands about the book and let them rest peaceably in her lap. The scent of roses flooded the warm air about them, a perfume to drug and to drown the senses.
Determinedly she looked not at her companion but at the distant, diamond glitter of the river. Face and voice were obstinately schooled. Fluttering fans and palpitating hearts were for the likes of such as Sally Brittan. He must take her – or, her practical heart told her, more likely leave her – as she was. ‘My father was always there, you see. He knew so much – could explain so much – there seemed nothing that he could not explain –’
Johnny was watching her with frank interest. ‘You talk a lot about your father. You must have been very close?’
‘Yes.’
‘And – you had no other family? No brothers, or sisters?’
Mattie shook her head. ‘No. No mother either – she died when I was two and I don’t remember her at all. There was just Papa and me –’ she half smiled ‘– and a positive colony of cats and dogs. And many friends, who came and went as they pleased.’ She looked out for a moment, distracted, across the sunlit city to the green hills beyond. Then she took a small, brisk breath. ‘And you, Mr Sherwood? You have a family?’
He had half turned to face her. Disconcertingly, she found herself looking full into the lean, brown face; a situation she had been doing her level best to avoid. Even more disturbingly she found her hands, still clasped about the book, taken impetuously in his. Felt the strength, the callused skin of hands well-kept but most certainly used to wielding more than a silken handkerchief or a snuff box. ‘Yes, Miss Henderson.’ He emphasized the polite formality of the name with half-humorously lifted brows. ‘I have a family. I have a father and three brothers. And a sister-in-law, sent from the devil to plague us, who is a perfect Louisiana Belle, as was my mother, who was a Creole, and a beauty – of course – and who also, sadly, has been dead these many years. We too have dogs, and horses – Pleasant Hill’s Arabian strain is famous.’ The hands holding hers were firm, very steady, and confusingly were, like the clear dark eyes, somehow saying more than the voice.
She swallowed, with some difficulty. Struggled on. ‘Louisiana, Mr Sherwood? Is that where your home is?’
‘No, Miss Henderson. My home is in Georgia, as I’m sure I told you the other night. The most beautiful place in the world, about which I will tell you absolutely anythin’ you wish to know but –’ pausing at last for breath he lifted a finger ‘– not before we have finished our conversation about Mr Shelley.’
She eyed him cautiously. ‘We haven’t finished it?’
‘We most certainly have not, Miss Henderson. When a backwoods Sherwood is so struck by a piece of poetry that he takes it into his head to spend an uncomfortable journey from Bath to Bristol and back again in memorizin’ it, why that is such an unusual occurrence that it seems to me that the very least that a kindly person might do is to give him a chance to recite it!’ He was openly laughing now, the dark eyes as mischievous and challenging as a boy’s.
Suddenly light-hearted, she capitulated. ‘And I am that kindly person, Mr Sherwood?’ God forgive me, she found herself thinking, I have after all listened to Sally, and to Alice, and to all their sisters in flirtation, once too often!
The teasing gleam brightened. ‘Why, most certainly you are. I can think of no other to whom I would rather dedicate my new-found devotion to Mr Shelley. You’ll listen, Miss Henderson?’
‘I’ll listen, Mr Sherwood.’ Mattie knew, in that split second, the mistake she had made, the trap into which she had stepped like any empty-headed child, like any green girl who did not know her Shelley from a shopping list at Jolly’s. She could have recited the poem with him; it was one of her favourites. She did not. She sat fighting the colour that lifted relentlessly in her face at his effrontery.
‘The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever,
With a sweet emotion-’
He paused for a moment, watching her.
Colour high, she schooled her face and said nothing.
‘Nothin’ in the world is single,
All things by a law divine,
In one another’s bein’ mingle,
Why not I with thine?’
‘Mr Sherwood,’ she said with an attempt at severity that fell far short of its aim, ‘I really don’t think –’
‘See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another,
No sister flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea –’
He hesitated again. His eyes searched her face. His voice was very quiet.
‘What are all these kissin’s worth,
If thou kiss not me?’
‘I think,’ Mattie said, in the lamentable absence of any other inspiration, ‘that we should walk a little further.’
Wordless he stood, and extended a polite hand. She took it, stood, straightened her wide skirts.
‘I’ve offended you?’ he asked.
She lifted her face to look at him levelly. Shook her head. ‘No. I don’t think so. Not offended.’
‘What, then?’ He was watching her intently.
She hesitated. Then, ‘Confused,’ she said, with the honesty that was her bane and her pride. ‘You confuse me, Mr Sherwood.’
He fell into step beside her. ‘I can’t imagine why. It surely can’t be the only time, Miss Henderson, that a man has wanted to –’ he hesitated, sent her a look sly as a cat’s ‘– recite a poem to you?’
She had to laugh aloud. ‘Are you always so devious, Mr Sherwood?’
The sun was dipping westwards, rose-tinted now, and fiery. The light slanted, etching his dark profile against the brightness of the sky above her. Mattie was not small, yet she came only to his shoulder. He moved with ease, his hair, a little too long for fashion, curled thickly about his face and neck. He was, indisputably, a very handsome young man.
And what was such a young man doing reciting love poetry to too-tall, too-thin, and above all too-opinionated Mattie Henderson? Mattie had few illusions about herself; indeed what few she might have had had been well dispelled by Cousin Constance and her cronies over the past months. ‘My dear, what a shame it is that your shoulders are so very thin – ah, well, perhaps a shawl –’ and ‘Oh, Mattie, whatever are we to do with this hair?
So long and so heavy and so very straight. I declare it gives me a headache simply to look at it! The irons won’t even crimp it unless you consent to have it cut!’ And ‘Cousin, really, you must learn to be a little more –’ fluttered fingers, butterfly sighs ’ – appealing in company –’ What then was this contrary and unalluring creature doing leaning upon an ivy-clad stone wall beside this attentive and attractive young American that every girl in Bath – and every girl’s Mama – had set her cap at, gazing out over a city that was lit with the glory of a summer’s evening and that suddenly, and alarmingly, held some perilous enchantment far beyond its usual comfortable charm?
She turned. ‘Mr Sherwood –’
‘Johnny,’ he said, quietly. ‘My name is Johnny. And yours is Mattie, I know. May I call you Mattie, Miss Henderson?’
She was utterly taken aback. ‘I – why, yes, Mr Sherwood – Johnny – I see no reason why not –’
‘And would it bore you if I told you of Georgia, and of Pleasant Hill?’
A little more positively she shook her head, smiling. ‘Of course not. Far from it.’ Had he offered to recite the alphabet for her she would at that moment have accepted with pleasure, she realized. And indeed she listened almost without hearing as he talked in that slow and pleasant drawl, before the glamorous spell woven by the sheer sound of his voice wore off and it dawned upon her with a shock what he was actually saying. He spoke of the green splendour of Georgia’s countryside – the mountains to the north, the vast and verdant forests, the wide rivers and the rich, lush plantation lands, most of them cleared and planted within the last generation – of the growing, gracious towns and the houses with their oak-planted parklands, of the people with their fierce pride, their high temper, their ready laughter, their open-handed hospitality. He spoke of his childhood and his home, of his three older brothers, William, Robert and Russell, and of the plantation upon which they lived, Pleasant Hill, with its wide-porched house, its cotton fields and its people.
It was then that it hit her.
She turned to face him. ‘You – your family – you’re slave holders?’ She could not, for her life, keep the sudden horror from her voice.
He stiffened. Every line of his face hardened. When after a moment he spoke the warmth had gone, his address was formal. ‘Pleasant Hill is a working plantation like any other, Miss Henderson. We have to run it. We have a livin’ to make. How else would you expect us to do it?’
‘But – slavery! It’s – it’s an abomination!’
He looked at her in silence for what seemed a very long time; long enough for her to realize how great had been her lapse of manners, and to blush for it; long enough to realize that the fragile enchantment of the evening was gone. Long enough for the shadow of a wish to form: that she had, just once, kept a curb on her intemperate tongue. In defiance she dismissed the thought.
‘What do you know about it?’ he asked, at last, pleasantly enough.
The frankness of the question caught Mattie unawares. ‘I know – I know what any reasonable person surely knows, that it is utterly wrong to own a man or a woman as if he or she were a beast –’
‘Ah. An’ it’s as simple as that, is it?’ He leaned against the low wall, watching her. ‘It must be mighty reassurin’, Miss Henderson, to be so very certain of one’s ground. But then, of course, like any good little Abolitionist you will have read Mrs Beecher Stowe’s much admired book?’
‘Yes.’
‘And will have condemned – as any reasonable person surely must –’ the mimicry was harsh and deliberate ‘– the cruelty depicted therein; the tortures and the floggin’s, the tearin’ of babies from their mothers’ breasts?’ His quiet voice remained relentlessly pleasant.
Temper stirred. ‘Yes, of course. And you can make me sound as much of a sanctimonious fool as you wish – it does not change facts –’
‘But what are the facts, Miss Henderson? Do you know? Can you be so sure?’ The depth of his anger, the strength of his effort to control it were obvious in his still, clenched hands, his fierce eyes. His face was dark with it. ‘I can give you some facts, if you are ready to listen. The first is this: if the Union is dissolved and bloodshed should come to my homeland, which God forbid, though there seems no guarantee that He will – Mrs Beecher Stowe will bear a very great responsibility for it; I only hope she can square that with her fine, self-righteous Northern conscience! And the second: on Pleasant Hill we do not sell our people down the river. We do not flog them to death, nor rape and torture their women. We do not sell children from their mothers nor husbands from their wives unless some circumstance absolutely demands it. We do not abuse the loyalty of our “Uncle Toms”.’ The last two words were invested with a singular scorn. ‘Our folk live good, modest, Christian lives. They marry and beget children, for the most part in safety, in comfort and in peace – which is more than can be said for many in this world. Tell me, Miss Henderson –’ Mattie had opened her mouth to speak but he pressed remorselessly on ‘– would you say that there is no slavery in England?’
‘Most certainly I would!’
‘Then you’d be wrong. Have you seen your factory workers, enslaved to their industrial masters, your mineworkers in thrall to the coal barons, the little children worked to death in mills and up chimneys? The babies that die of want and disease in your slums, the girls forced to sell themselves to keep breath in their abused bodies? No child on Pleasant Hill is worked till he drops, Miss Henderson; no child is expected to work at all until he is old enough and strong enough to do so. Don’t talk to me of slavery, Miss Henderson. Not until you have seen how the great majority of your own people live!’
How many times had her enlightened father said much the same thing? And how many times, stubbornly, had she answered? ‘Two wrongs can never make a right, Mr Sherwood.’
‘And which, then, would you count the greater wrong?’ he challenged, quietly.
‘The institution of slavery can never be anything but abhorrent. I’m sorry, Mr Sherwood, but it seems to me that the owning of one soul by another can be nothing but degrading to both. I accept that what you say is true – that not every slave holder is wicked, or licentious, or weak – but the institution itself is constantly open to abuse. Surely you can’t deny that? These people have no rights, no law protects them. They are treated like animals –’
‘As are the men and women who pull trucks like beasts in your coal and tin mines!’ It had become a full-blooded, passionate quarrel, and there was nothing either could do to stop.
‘It is a different thing, Mr Sherwood!’
‘And still I beg to differ, Miss Henderson! Tell me of these people’s freedom, tell me what choices – what real choices – they have, these so-called free men? Are they able to choose where and when to work, or for whom? No. Can they choose, even, where to live? No – except in such choice as exists between one squalid slum and another. Might they be able to choose that their women and children should not work from dawn until beyond dusk? That their young be educated? That they should breathe clean and healthy air? No! Can they choose to be doctored for their ills, to be paid a livin’ wage for their labour, to refuse to be exploited by those set above them, to be certain of a safe and comfortable old age? No again, Miss Henderson! So I ask, where are these freedoms of which you are so certain and so proud?’
In the pause he took for breath, and before Mattie could speak, the melodic sound of the dinner gong reached them from the house.
They stood in hostile silence for a long moment. Then, ‘We should go back, I think,’ Mattie said, very coldly and very quietly, ’for Mrs Johnstone is extremely particular about the timing of her meals.’ With the blood still high in her cheeks, she turned and lifted her skirts a little, to walk back up the steps and the sloping paved paths to the lawn above. In equally chill silence he fell into step beside her, escorting her politely, opening gates, drawing away stray rose branches from the silk of her skirt.
Upon the lawn they found the
company awaiting them.
‘Mr Sherwood, Mattie, my dear –’ Mrs Johnstone trilled, her eyes sharp as blades upon Mattie, ‘– we wondered where ever you might have disappeared to! Anna, there, you see? I said Mr Sherwood would be back in time to take you in to dinner. Come, my dears, lead the way – I really don’t think we need to bother with too much formality, do you?’
‘I’m sorry, Ma’am.’ Johnny took his hostess’s hand and bowed above it. His back, to Mattie – all she could see of him – looked straight as a steel rod, and about as ungiving. ‘I fear I can’t stay. Family business, you see – as you know I have little time left – I sail for home in just a few weeks’ time, an’ there’s much to be done.’ His voice was still harsh with anger and he made little attempt to make the excuse believable.
‘How very vexing for us all,’ Mrs Johnstone said, casting a stony glance at Mattie’s calm face. ‘But, my dear, you will oblige us for our musical afternoon on Thursday, will you not? We spoke of it last week, if you remember – we are all so looking forward to hearing you sing again.’
Johnny agreed rather more gracefully that yes, indeed, he remembered and would be there. With reluctance Mrs Johnstone relinquished his hand. He nodded to the company, still unsmiling, murmured farewells, studiously avoiding Mattie’s eyes.
Mattie watched the tall, broad-shouldered figure cross the lawn and enter the house, aware of speculative glances, all interested, a few relatively friendly, others decidedly less so. She lifted her head, taking battle to the enemy. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, quietly, to Mrs Johnstone, painfully aware of the avid silence that cradled her words, ‘I fear I have offended Mr Sherwood.’
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