A Place Called Freedom (1995)

by Ken Follett

  The sheriff lay on the floor and looked under the bed while his assistant opened the wardrobe. Lizzie sat on the bed. With a hasty gesture she picked up a corner of the bedspread and tugged it. Mack glimpsed a small, dirty foot for a split second before it was covered up.

  Peg was in the bed.

  She was so thin that she hardly made a bulge in the piled-up covers.

  The sheriff opened a blanket chest and the other man looked behind a screen. There were not many places to check. Would they pull the covers off the bed?

  The same thought must have gone through Lizzie’s mind, for she said, “Now, if you’re done, I’m going back to sleep,” and she got into bed.

  Barton looked hard at Lizzie and the bed. Did he have the nerve to demand that Lizzie get out again? But he did not really think the master and mistress of the house were concealing the murderess—he was searching the place only to be comfortable about eliminating the possibility. After a moment’s hesitation he said: “Thank you, Mrs. Jamisson. We’re sorry to have disturbed your rest. We’ll carry on and search the slave quarters.”

  Mack felt weak with relief. He held the door for them, hiding his jubilation.

  “Good luck,” Lizzie said. “And, Sheriff—when you’ve finished your work, bring your men back here to the house and have some breakfast!”

  34

  LIZZIE STAYED IN HER ROOM WHILE THE MEN AND dogs searched the plantation. She and Peg talked in low voices, and Peg told her the story of her life. Lizzie was horrified and shaken. Peg was just a girl, thin and pretty and cheeky. Lizzie’s dead baby had been a girl.

  They exchanged dreams. Lizzie revealed that she wanted to live out of doors and wear men’s clothing and spend all day on horseback with a gun. Peg took a folded and worn sheet of paper from inside her chemise. It was a hand-colored picture showing a father, a mother and a child standing outside a pretty cottage in the country. “I always wanted to be the little girl in the picture,” she said. “But now sometimes I want to be the mother.”

  At the usual time Sarah, the cook, came to the room with Lizzie’s breakfast on a tray. Peg hid under the bedclothes at her knock, but the woman walked in and said to Lizzie: “I know all about Peggy, so don’t you worry.”

  Peg came out again and Lizzie said bemusedly: “Who doesn’t know?”

  “Mr. Jamisson and Mr. Lennox.”

  Lizzie shared her breakfast with Peg. The child shoveled down grilled ham and scrambled eggs as if she had not eaten for a month.

  The search party left as she was finishing. Lizzie and Peg went to the window and watched the men cross the lawn and make their way down to the river. They were disappointed and subdued, walking with slumped shoulders, and the dogs, picking up the mood, trailed obediently behind.

  They watched the men out of sight, then Lizzie sighed with relief and said: “You’re safe.”

  They hugged happily. Peg was painfully bony, and Lizzie felt a surge of maternal feeling for the poor child.

  Peg said: “I’m always safe with Mack.”

  “You’ll have to stay in this room until we’re sure Jay and Lennox are out of the way.”

  “Aren’t you worried that Mr. Jamisson will come in?” Peg asked.

  “No, he never comes in here.”

  Peg looked puzzled but she did not ask any more questions. Instead she said: “When I’m older I’m going to marry Mack.”

  Lizzie had the strangest feeling that she was being warned off.

  Mack sat in the old nursery—where he could be sure he would not be disturbed—going through his survival kit. He had a stolen ball of twine and six hooks, made for him by the blacksmith Cass, so that he could catch fish. He had a tin cup and plate of the kind given to slaves. There was a tinder box so he could light fires and an iron pan to cook his food. He had an ax and a heavy knife he had purloined while the slaves were felling trees and making barrels.

  At the bottom of the bag, wrapped in a scrap of linen, was a key to the gun room. His last act before leaving would be to steal a rifle and ammunition.

  Also in the canvas bag were his copy of Robinson Crusoe and the iron collar he had brought from Scotland. He picked up the collar, remembering how he had broken it in the smithy the night he had escaped from Heugh. He recalled how he had danced a jig of freedom in the moonlight. More than a year later he still was not free. But he had not given up.

  Peg’s return had removed the last obstacle preventing him running away from Mockjack Hall. She had moved into the slave quarters and slept in a hut of single girls. They would all keep her secret. They would always protect one of their own. It was not the first time a fugitive had been hidden in the quarters: any runaway could get a bowl of hominy and a hard bed for the night at every plantation in Virginia.

  During the day she roamed the woods, keeping out of sight until darkness fell. Then she returned to the quarters to eat with the hands. Mack knew this could not go on for long. Soon boredom would make her careless and she would be caught. But she would not have to live that way for many days.

  Mack’s skin tingled with anticipation. Cora was married, Peg was saved, and the map had shown him where he had to go. Freedom was his heart’s desire. As soon as they chose, he and Peg could simply walk away from the plantation at the end of the day’s work. By dawn they could be thirty miles away. They would hide during the hours of daylight then go on at night. Like all runaways, they would beg food at the slave quarters of the nearest plantation every morning and evening.

  Unlike most runaways, Mack would not try to get a job as soon as he had gone a hundred miles. That was how they were always caught. He was going farther away. His destination was the wilderness beyond the mountains. There he would be free.

  But Peg had been back a week, and he was still at Mockjack Hall.

  He stared at his map and his fishhooks and his tinder box. He was a step away from freedom, but he could not take that step.

  He had fallen in love with Lizzie, and he could not bear to leave her.

  Lizzie stood naked in front of the cheval glass in her bedroom, looking at her body.

  She had told Jay she was back to normal after the pregnancy, but the truth was that she would never be quite the same. Her breasts had gone back to their previous size, but they were not as firm, and they seemed to hang a little lower on her chest. Her tummy would never return to normal, she now realized: the slight bulge and the slackness of the skin were with her forever. She had faint silvery lines where her skin had stretched. They had faded, but not completely, and she had a feeling they would always be there. Down below, the place where the baby came out was also different. It had once been so tight that she could hardly get her finger in. That, too, had stretched.

  She wondered if this was why Jay no longer wanted her. He had not seen her naked body since the birth but perhaps he knew what it was like, or guessed, and found it disgusting. Felia, his slave girl, had obviously never had a baby. Her body was still perfect. Jay would make her pregnant, sooner or later. But then he might drop her the way he had dropped Lizzie, and take up with yet another woman. Was that how he wanted to live his life? Were all men like that? Lizzie wished she could ask her mother.

  She was being treated as something used up, no good anymore, like a worn pair of shoes or a cracked plate. That made her angry. The baby who had grown inside her and made her belly bulge and stretched her vagina was Jay’s child. He had no right to reject her afterward. She sighed. It was pointless to get angry with him. She had chosen him and she had been a fool.

  She wondered if anyone would ever find this body attractive again. She missed the feeling of a man’s hands running over her flesh as if he could never get enough. She wanted someone to kiss her tenderly and squeeze her breasts and press his fingers into her. She could not bear the thought that it would never happen again.

  She took a deep breath, pulling in her stomach and sticking out her chest. There—that was almost how she had looked before the pregnancy. She weighed her breasts, then
touched the hair between her legs, and toyed with the button of desire.

  The door opened.

  Mack had to repair a broken tile in the fireplace in Lizzie’s room. He had said to Mildred: “Is Mrs. Jamisson up yet?”

  Mildred had replied: “Just gone over to the stables.” She must have thought he said Mister Jamisson.

  All of that went through his mind in a split second. Then he thought of nothing but Lizzie.

  She was achingly beautiful. As she stood in front of the mirror he could see her body from both sides. Her back was to him, and his hands itched to stroke the curve of her hips. In the mirror he could see the swell of her round breasts and the soft pink nipples. The hair at her groin matched the wild dark curls of her head.

  He stood there speechless. He knew he should mutter an apology and get out fast, but his feet seemed clamped to the floor.

  She turned to him. Her face was troubled, and he wondered why. Unclothed, she seemed vulnerable, almost afraid.

  At last he found his voice. “Oh, but you’re beautiful,” he whispered.

  Her face changed, as if a question had been answered.

  “Close the door,” she said.

  He pushed the door behind him and crossed the room in three strides. A moment later she was in his arms. He crushed her naked body to him, feeling her soft breasts against his chest. He kissed her lips and her mouth opened to him immediately. His tongue found hers and he gloried in the wetness and hunger of her kiss. As he got hard she pulled his hips to her and rubbed herself against him.

  He broke away, panting, afraid he would come right away. She tugged at his waistcoat and his shirt, trying to get beneath the clothes to his skin. He threw the waistcoat aside and pulled the shirt over his head. She bent her head and put her mouth to his nipple. Her lips closed over it in a kiss, then she licked it with the tip of her tongue, and finally she bit it lightly with her neat front teeth. The pain was exquisite and he gasped with pleasure.

  “Now do it to me,” she said. She arched her back, offering her breast to his mouth. He lifted her breast in his hand and kissed the nipple. It was hard with desire. He savored the moment.

  “Not so gently,” she whispered.

  He sucked fiercely, then bit her as she had bitten him. He heard her sharp intake of breath. He was afraid of hurting her soft body but she said: “Harder, I want it to hurt,” and he bit down. “Yes,” she said, and she pulled his head to her so that his face squashed her breast.

  He stopped because he was afraid he would draw blood. When he straightened up she bent to his waist, tugged on the string that held up his breeches, and pulled them down. His penis sprang free. She took it in both hands and rubbed it against her soft cheeks and kissed it. The pleasure was overwhelming and once again Mack broke away from her, not wanting it to end too soon.

  He looked at the bed.

  “Not there,” Lizzie said. “Here.” She lay back on the rug in front of the mirror.

  He knelt between her legs, feasting his eyes.

  “Now, quickly,” she said.

  He lay on top of her, resting his weight on his elbows, and she guided him inside. He gazed at her lovely face. Her cheeks were flushed and her mouth was slightly open, showing moist lips and small teeth. Her eyes were wide, staring at him as he moved above her. “Mack,” she moaned. “Oh, Mack.” Her body moved with his and her fingers dug hard into the muscles of his back.

  He kissed her and moved gently, but once again she wanted more. She took his lower lip between her teeth and bit down. He tasted blood. “Go faster!” she said frantically, and her desperation took him over and he moved faster, pushing inside her almost brutally, and she said: “Yes, like that!” She closed her eyes, giving herself up to the sensation, and then she cried out. He put his hand over her mouth to quiet her, and she bit his finger hard. She pulled his hips to hers as hard as she could and twisted beneath him, her cries muffled by his hand, her hips rising to his again and again until at last she stopped and sank back, exhausted.

  He kissed her eyes and her nose and her chin, still moving gently inside her. When her breathing eased and she opened her eyes she said: “Look in the mirror.”

  He looked up at the cheval glass and saw another Mack on top of another Lizzie, their bodies joined at the hip. He watched his penis move in and out of her body. “It looks nice,” she whispered.

  He looked at her. How dark her eyes were, almost black. “Do you love me?” he said.

  “Oh, Mack, how could you ask?” Tears came to her eyes. “Of course I do. I love you, I love you.”

  And then, at last, he came.

  When the first of the tobacco crop was at last ready for sale, Lennox took four hogsheads into Fredericksburg on a flatboat. Jay waited impatiently for him to come back. He was eager to know what price the tobacco would fetch.

  He would not get cash for it: that was not the way the market worked. Lennox would take the tobacco to a public warehouse where the official inspector would issue a certificate saying it was “merchantable.” Such certificates, known as tobacco notes, were used as money throughout Virginia. In time the last holder of the note would redeem it by handing it to a ship’s captain in exchange for money or, more likely, goods imported from Britain. The captain would then take the note to the public warehouse and exchange it for tobacco.

  Meanwhile Jay would use the note to pay his most pressing debts. The smithy had been quiet for a month because they had no iron to make tools and horseshoes.

  Fortunately Lizzie had not noticed that they were broke. After the baby was born dead she had lived in a daze for three months. Then, when she caught him with Felia, she had become furiously silent.

  Today she was different again. She looked happier and she seemed almost friendly. “What’s the news?” she asked him at dinner.

  “Trouble in Massachusetts,” he replied. “There’s a group of hotheads called the Sons of Liberty—they’ve even had the nerve to send money to that damned fellow John Wilkes in London.”

  “I’m surprised they even know who he is.”

  “They think he stands for freedom. Meanwhile, the customs commissioners are afraid to set foot in Boston. They’ve taken refuge aboard HMS Romney.”

  “It sounds as if the colonists are ready to rebel.”

  Jay shook his head. “They just need a dose of the medicine we gave the coal heavers—a taste of rifle fire and a few good hangings.”

  Lizzie shuddered and asked no more questions.

  They finished the meal in silence. While Jay was lighting his pipe, Lennox came in.

  Jay could see that he had been drinking, as well as doing business, in Fredericksburg. “Is all well, Lennox?”

  “Not exactly,” Lennox said in his habitual insolent tone.

  Lizzie said impatienüy: “What’s happened?”

  Lennox answered without looking at her. “Our tobacco has been burned, that’s what’s happened.”

  “Burned!” said Jay.

  “How?” said Lizzie.

  “By the inspector. Burned as trash. Not merchantable.”

  Jay had a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. He swallowed and said: “I didn’t know they could do that.”

  Lizzie said: “What was wrong with it?”

  Lennox looked uncharacteristically flustered. For a moment he said nothing.

  “Come on, out with it,” Lizzie said angrily.

  “They say it’s cowpen,” Lennox said at last.

  “I knew it!” Lizzie said.

  Jay had no idea what they were talking about. “What do you mean, ‘cowpen’? What’s that?”

  Lizzie said coldly: “It means cattle have been penned on the land where the crop was grown. When land is overmanured the tobacco acquires a strong, unpleasant flavor.”

  Jay said angrily: “Who are these inspectors who have the right to burn my crop?”

  “They’re appointed by the House of Burgesses,” Lizzie told him.

  “It’s outrageous!”
r />   “They have to maintain the quality of Virginia tobacco.”

  “I’ll go to law over this.”

  Lizzie said: “Jay, instead of going to law, why don’t you just run your plantation properly? You can grow perfectly good tobacco here if only you take care.”

  “I don’t need a woman to tell me how to manage my affairs!” he shouted.

  Lizzie looked at Lennox. “You don’t need a fool to do it, either,” she said.

  A terrible thought struck Jay. “How much of our crop was grown this way?”

  Lennox said nothing.

  “Well?” Jay persisted.

  Lizzie said: “All of it.”

  Then Jay understood that he was ruined.

  The plantation was mortgaged, he was in debt up to his ears, and the entire tobacco crop was valueless.

  Suddenly he found he could hardly breathe. His throat seemed constricted. He opened his mouth like a fish but he could get no air.

  At last he drew breath, like a drowning man coming to the surface for the last time.

  “God help me,” he said, and he buried his face in his hands.

  That night he knocked on Lizzie’s bedroom door.

  She was sitting by the fire in her nightdress, thinking about Mack. She was ecstatically happy. She loved him and he loved her. But what were they going to do? She stared into the flames. She tried to be practical, but all the time her mind drifted into remembering how they had made love here on the rug in front of the cheval glass. She wanted to do it again.

  The knock startled her. She jumped out of her chair and stared at the locked door.

  The handle rattled but she had locked the door every night since she had caught Jay with Felia. Jay’s voice came: “Lizzie—open this door!”

  She said nothing.

  “I’m going to Williamsburg early in the morning to try to borrow more money,” he said. “I want to see you before I go.”

  Still she said nothing.

  “I know you’re in there, now open up!” He sounded a little drunk.