The Tobacco Lords Trilogy

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  Gav staggered to his feet.

  ‘I’m down in the hold,’ he told Regina. ‘I wish I could stay with you.’

  ‘Stop whining,’ Regina said. She had a cabin at the stern of the ship. It was small but at least she had not to crowd in with a lot of strangers.

  He flushed angrily.

  ‘I’m not whining. I only thought we should try and stay together because we’ve only got each other now.’

  He tried to walk away with some dignity but was soon toppled from his feet by the tilting deck and had to crawl as best he could towards the steerage hatch. Getting down the ladder was no easy feat either, but with desperate concentration he managed it.

  The steerage was a pit of gloom. After the hatches were battened down, the only light came from one lantern. The dark wooden beams absorbed the fitful yellow light and, screwing up his eyes, he could barely discern the huddled figures of the women and children. Coils of rope, spare sails, old junk and sea charts lay heaped around. He could hear the thick slimy water slopping to and fro in the bilges and every now and again rats’ eyes redly flickered. He lowered himself down on to a coil of rigging.

  Up on deck, Regina made her way along, with the help of anything steady she could lay her hands on, towards her cabin. It had been the first mate’s living space and she had paid him a deal of money for the use of it. He was a greedy man and a bully too, by all accounts, with his coarse, pocked face, red bull neck and a voice like the hull of a boat being scraped over sand.

  She felt nauseated, but by sheer will-power controlled the heaving of her stomach. Raindrops furiously pattered the deck, then mixed with hail and blasted in on gusts of wind, snatching her breath away.

  But despite the wind and the pitching and tossing of the ship, sailors were springing aloft to shouts from the mate and bosun to furl the royals and top gallant sail and haul up the mainsail. In no time, the little vessel was running before the wind, tearing through the water as if she’d never be able to stop.

  Regina did not relax until she had groped her way inside the cabin but, even lying on her berth, she had still to cling on grimly to prevent herself from being flung to the floor. She heard the order passed from the captain to the mate to batten down the hatches, and she wondered how Gav was faring. She knew that what he said was true. They should stick together and she resolved at the first opportunity to ask for Gav to be allowed up to share her accommodation. No doubt more money would accomplish the change. Money could do anything. Money had secured her escape from Glasgow and so saved her life and money would give her a fresh start in the new world.

  She felt confident and safe despite the discomforts of the ship and the uneasiness her first glimpse of the vessel’s figurehead had inspired. The gaudily painted sculpture, with its bright blue eyes and flowing yellow hair, bore an uncanny resemblance to Annabella Ramsay. No doubt she, being the owner’s daughter, was the ‘Glasgow Lass’ of the ship’s name and also had been the model for its figurehead.

  Regina had no wish to be reminded of Mistress Ramsay. Not that she bore the woman any grudge. Mistress Annabella had always been decent enough to her. Indeed, at Culloden she had saved her from an Englishman’s sword. No, it had been Mistress Annabella’s Frenchie she had hated and feared. She would see him killed again were it possible, her only regret being that she had to leave Glasgow to prevent Mistress Annabella finding her and taking revenge.

  Outside, the wind seemed to be abating but she could hear the seamen lustily singing:

  ‘Ooh! Haul away from the windy weather, boys,

  Haul away, boys, haul away!

  Ooh, haul away and pull together, boys,

  Haul away, boys, haul away!

  Ooh! Haul away for the merchant’s money, boys,

  Haul away, boys, haul away …’

  Lying clinging with all her might to the sides of her berth, for the ship was still rolling from side to side, she wondered how long the voyage would take. She had been told that a good fast run could make Chesapeake Bay in Virginia in four or five weeks but that the ship was very much at the mercy of the weather—especially the prevailing winds. Ships could be blown a hundred miles or more off course and the journey could take months. Many ships never reached their destination and were wrecked off some unknown rocky shore.

  Her heart palpitated at the thought. Her mouth went dry. For the first time the enormity of what she was doing pierced home. The insecurity of the ship, the uncertainty of her future in a strange land, obsessed her. Tales she had heard about women and children sold into slavery and about cannibals filtered back through a mind stiff with fear. She doubted if even money could save her from such horrors but it was the only protection she had. She longed to scramble from the berth and open her sea chest so that she could count yet again the coins that she possessed. She was always counting them, gazing at them, feeling them, listening to the sweet music of them clinking over her fingers like a golden waterfall that never quite succeeded in slaking her thirst.

  As soon as the motion of the ship became steadier, she did get up and creaked open the chest, but she was too nervous in case one of the officers or seamen should open the cabin door and discover her secret hoard. After only a few seconds she shut it again. As she looked out of the window, the sea and the horizon swooped high and plunged low and made her nausea return but she determined to overcome it and left the cabin for a breath of fresh air.

  Stepping out on deck, she was hailed by the captain who was standing on the poop with an eyeglass tucked under his arm. He was a large man with a plump belly straining over his breeches and out of his blue coat. He was throttled by a huge black stock and his white hair, topped with a three-cornered hat, was tied back in a black bow.

  ‘Found your sea-legs yet, Master Chisholm?’ he called.

  She went up to join him.

  ‘I feel better now that the storm has abated, sir.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Storm? Storm? Only a merry breeze, boy. Wait a wee. Wait a wee. Ready for your dinner, eh? Andra’s putting it on the cuddy table right now, I’ll wager.’

  ‘Andra?’

  ‘Andra Doone, oor cook.’

  Suddenly there was a cry of ‘Sail-ho!’

  Captain Kilfuddy raised his eyeglass.

  ‘Aye. Looks like a fine brig.’

  Swinging round Regina saw a ship come bowing and curvetting and plunging and rearing towards them.

  ‘Have the trumpet brought up, Mr Gudgeon!’ the captain called and the chief mate relayed the order in a louder, harsher tone. Soon the long speaking trumpet was brought up and the signal flags got ready in case they only managed to get near enough for a ‘bunting talk’. But Captain Kilfuddy said he hoped to board her. To his obvious disappointment, however, he was unable to do this. Although the other ship was skilfully steered within twenty yards of The Glasgow Lass, both vessels were making a fair wind and scudding along at eight knots an hour. All the two captains could do was shout to each other.

  ‘Whence come?’

  ‘Where bound for?’

  She was the ship Annie Cruthers of Glasgow bound for the West Indies.

  A wave of the hand and they were gone. Regina watched the vessel as it shrank away and finally faded from sight. Her uneasiness had returned with the talk of boarding. A terrible thought struck her. What if Mistress Annabella had been on that ship?

  But she strangled the thought at birth. Mistress Annabella had no idea where she was. Only the beggar, Quin, and Gav knew that she had left on board ship and dressed as a boy. Anyway, Maister Ramsay would never allow his precious daughter to stravaig away again. Not after her last adventure in the Highlands. Gav had told her that the man had been nearly demented with worry. Anyway, Mistress Annabella had gone to the Highlands under the protection of her precious Frenchie. She would never dare leave Glasgow on her own and on a long and perilous journey to Virginia, even if she wanted to.

  Regina was convinced of this. Yet, as four bells were rung, heralding six o’clock
and the evening meal, she went down to the cuddy absent-mindedly.

  She was remembering Culloden. She was standing on the verge of the moor helplessly watching as the defeated Highland army streamed away in all directions pursued by Cumberland’s troops. She had been hysterical with fear as one of the soldiers, his sword already dripping with blood, lunged towards her. Mistress Annabella’s pistol had dropped him in his tracks.

  ‘Up behind me!’ she’d shouted, forcing her snorting and squealing horse over bodies and between Highlanders and Englishmen, slashing at one another. ‘Regina, damn you. Mount behind me, I said.’

  Mistress Annabella had eventually reached down and grabbed her by the arm and hauled her up. She’d clung frantically round Annabella’s waist, pressed her face into her back, and cried out:

  ‘Oh, mistress, gallop away. Gallop away.’

  But her pleas had been ignored.

  ‘Where are the French? Can you see them?’

  ‘To the devil with the French, mistress,’ she had wept. ‘Let us away to Glasgow where we belong.’

  ‘I belong with my Frenchman. If he goes to the devil, girl, that’s where I go too!’

  Then she suddenly spurred the horse forward. She had seen, struggling across the river in the distance, what was left of her Frenchman’s company.

  Kicking the horse’s flanks, she shouted it on.

  The river was swollen with the recent heavy rain. It was like a raging torrent and it had already swallowed Highlanders and the pursuing English.

  Regina went icy cold remembering the terror of it and the way Mistress Annabella forced the horse, whinnying with fright, to flounder in. It had been a nightmare struggle and only by sheer force of will had they held on until the horse stumbled out on the opposite bank.

  Mistress Annabella was a wild and determined woman. But her merchant papa was a stubborn and powerful man. He was going to marry her off to the minister, she’d heard.

  Regina smiled grimly to herself. Pity the poor preacher!

  2

  ‘PAPA, how can you use me so cruelly?’ Annabella’s eyes strained wide in an effort to challenge the existence of tears. Yet they kept misting sight and spilling over. Ashamed, she tossed her head and flicked at them with her fingers.

  ‘You know I cannot thole the obnoxious man.’

  ‘The match is for your own good,’ Ramsay growled. ‘You need a settling influence. As God’s my witness, I’ve tried, Annabella. But you’re a wicked, wayward lassie. I’ve obviously failed you.’

  ‘No, no, Papa.’ Even though she was despondent her voice remained as light as thistledown.

  ‘Aye, so. It’s the truth and I don’t mind admitting it. But the minister’s a dedicated man of God. He’ll soon squash you down.’

  ‘Merciful heavens! Is that what you want for me, Papa? To be miserable and cast down?’

  ‘I want you to walk in the way of the Lord and you’ve never learned how to do that. For all the teaching you’ve had here. For all the readings I’ve given and all the times I’ve questioned you on your catechisms. Well, we’ll see what the minister can do now.’

  ‘That long-visaged melancholy idiot will do nothing but drive me mad.’

  Her father suddenly crashed a fist down on the oval table in the centre of the room at which they were both sitting.

  ‘Watch your tongue, mistress. It was a flogging offence in my day to speak ill of the minister and you could still be punished.’

  ‘Fiddlesticks!’ She bounced from her chair, ringlets and skirts flying. Restlessly she began pacing the room. She was wearing a dress the colour of autumn leaves, with a low-cut front that revealed the bulge of her breasts. Creamy lace frothed from the front and from the elbows. Her hair, smoothed back from her face and hanging in curls, sparkled like sunshine above the coppery-coloured dress. ‘Anyway, sir,’ she said, ‘there is no punishment more vile than being married to the Reverend Mr Blackadder.’

  Ramsay had the open Bible before him and looked as stern as any minister. But his enormous curly black wig, the three-cornered hat which he always wore in the house and the richness of his satin waistcoat stamped him for what he was—a wealthy tobacco merchant.

  He had just dined on broth and salt beef and a sup of ale followed by a reading from the good book for Annabella’s benefit. Normally he only gave a reading first thing in the morning and last thing at night but since Annabella’s recent sinful behaviour, he felt it necessary to attend even more conscientiously to her spiritual welfare. Now he said,

  ‘You’re wrong there, mistress. The Lord would guide me in many ways of chastisement and paths down which to guide you so you could rid yourself of your wicked pride and thrawnness. No more gold pieces for you, mistress. No more fine clothes and falderals like sedan chairs when you go out. No more of these creams and potions you plaster on your face.’

  Annabella stamped her foot but her voice betrayed concern as well as temper.

  ‘Do not vex me too much, sir. You know perfectly well that I am sorely tried at times for want of clothes and falderals, as you call them, that befit a lady of my position. As for creams and potions, if I painted my face as I have heard it said English ladies do, then you might have cause for complaint. But I do not. A little skin lubrication occasionally to protect myself from the ravages of a Scottish climate, that is all I have ever used. And the cream is made very cheaply by Nancy and myself.’

  ‘Aye, well you can do without her for a start.’

  ‘You cannot deprive me of a maid, sir.’

  ‘Oh?’ Ramsay raised a bushy brow. ‘Can I no’?’

  ‘It is unthinkable. We have not enough servants as it is. There is only Big John and Nancy and she complains enough about our lack of a washerwoman. You must employ more servants, not less.’

  He lowered his brows again and his voice acquired an acid tone.

  ‘I can do whatsoever I choose, mistress, and I choose to have less.’

  ‘But Papa. Who will do my hair and wash the floors and empty the chamberpots?’

  ‘You will. And everything else that needs done. Maybe you’ve been such easy prey to the devil because you’ve had too much time on your hands. And you’ve been too much exposed to temptation. That has got to be changed and if you’re going to remain in my care it behoves me to see to it. You’ll never put a step out of this house without a chaperon in future. Either myself or Letitia Halyburton will accompany you. And when you’re not attending to household duties, you will read this Bible and write out your catechisms. Evenings we’ll spend in readings and in prayer.’

  Annabella came back to the table and sat down. The table was in her bedroom where they ate and sat and entertained. It was a long, low-ceilinged room with white plastered walls, a bare wooden floor, and a hole-in-the-wall bed draped with curtains the colour of claret and a pink satin valance. When the bed drapes were closed they were flush with the walls, a warm splash of colour against the white that completely hid the set-in bed. Opposite the bed was the large open fire with an easy chair positioned on either side. Annabella’s own chair was covered in red silk velvet. The one her father sat in was bigger and more solid, like himself. It was patterned with large flowers in maroon and blue on a fawn background and had wings and rolled arms.

  The curtains at the window were the same purplish red as the bed-drapes but they gleamed lighter and warmer like a sunset in the reflection of the fire. The fire crackled, sending tongues of orange darting across the floor and ceiling, jerking them closer together. On the oval table in the centre of the room a candle had been lit to allow Ramsay to read the spidery print of the Bible. It made a gentler glow, its amber flame bowing and curtsying in the draught.

  Most Glasgow families dined and entertained in their main bedroom, even those who had a dining-room. A dining-room was never aired or used unless on very special occasions when guests came from afar, or if there wasn’t enough room in the main bedroom.

  ‘Oh Papa,’ Annabella sighed. She knew him well enough to real
ise that he would carry out his threats to the letter. He was a dour, determined man and many a long, weary, punishing hour she had spent with him in prayer in this shadowy room with its heavy-hanging ceiling beams. It was the thought of endless Bible readings, catechisms and prayers that settled the issue, not the indignity of menial work. If forced to she would have hitched up her skirts and washed the floors and to hell with him. But she needed to be allowed some freedom to enjoy life elsewhere to make up for the hardships of home. She couldn’t thole being a prisoner of prayer as well.

  She could manage the minister. It was monstrous and damnable to be married to such a man but at least she would not be a prisoner in his house. More than likely he would be drunk half the time and not know where she was or what she was doing.

  She made one more attempt to persuade her father, however.

  ‘Don’t you think I’ve been punished enough? I dearly loved Monsieur Lavelle and I saw him horribly killed before my eyes.’ Her chin tipped up but she looked away.

  ‘He died in my arms, Papa. I was mightily distressed.’

  It was no pretence. She still had nightmares about that terrible day during the time of the uprising when they had been hiding in a deserted house and Nancy had come running to warn of a party of dragoons approaching. Jean-Paul had been wounded in the leg but she had managed to help him through to the kitchen and secrete him in a cupboard. Then she’d hurried back to meet the dragoons at the door of the house. With her head in the air, she had raked them with a cool impudent stare.

  ‘Have you any food with you, gentlemen?’ she’d inquired. ‘I and my servant are prodigiously hungry. We have journeyed all the way from Glasgow to visit friends and this is what we find. A house empty of both people and sustenance. I have searched every cupboard and I’m damned if I can find a crumb.’

  One of the men had lumbered forward and she had drawn a pistol from her dress and warned him.

  ‘Careful, sir, do not make a mistake you will regret. For one thing, I am a Whig and a Hanoverian. For another my father is a wealthy merchant and a friend of the Provost of Glasgow and many other mightily influential gentlemen who could easily have you hanged.’