The Tobacco Lords Trilogy

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  If only he had, she thought. Her life seemed in ruins and she hardly knew how to start picking up the pieces. For the first time she listened not only attentively but desperately when, after breakfast, her father gave his usual reading from the Bible. And she prayed fervently to herself that the bleeding would start soon and she would be spared not only the inconvenience of being pregnant but the monstrous punishment of carrying such a man’s child.

  But no reading and no prayers brought any comfort. She found herself living two lives, one outward and one inward. Outwardly she appeared her usual pert and vivacious self, if at times somewhat absent-minded. Inwardly she felt distracted. Her mind struggled this way and that like a penned animal fighting for escape and only succeeding in injuring itself. She paid no attention to time passing and when it was the evening before her wedding and friends came for the ceremony of feet-washing, she laughed and frolicked with the rest as if nothing was amiss.

  First of all she had Nancy bring a pail of soapy water. Then a wedding ring was borrowed from one of the married women and Annabella flung it into the pail.

  Then, amidst much squealing and laughing and splashing all the unmarried girls fell upon the pail and tried to find the ring. For whoever found the ring first would be the next among them to be married.

  After that she removed her slippers and stockings, hitched up her skirts and placed her feet in the water. It was the task of unmarried girls to wash the bride’s feet and afterwards stain them and her hands with henna. It was the custom too for the bride’s attendants to paint her eyebrows with shiny silver antimony.

  Even after they had all gone and she was left alone, Annabella could not really believe her fate. The candles had been snuffed out and she lay in the hole-in-the-wall bed watching the firelight crouch and leap like witches and devils dancing. Shadows swelled and shrunk around the room making the porcelain figures on the mantelpiece join in the macabre dance. Even when she closed her eyes she could still see red red blurs glimmering and the figures dancing.

  Occasionally in the strange, hazy world between waking and sleeping a thought pierced her like an arrow: tomorrow night she would be married to the minister.

  But when eventually she drifted into sleep, it was to dream of a tall man with his hair tied back from a craggy broken-nosed face. A man with massive shoulders and muscles like balls of iron. A man with a deep snarling voice.

  ‘Come back, you little fool. Come back!’

  She awoke with a start and sat up violently trembling. But there was no one there.

  Sunshine made a yellow haze of the room. Then Nancy entered, hair untidy, violet eyes still heavy with sleep. Yawning, she said, ‘Come on, mistress. It’s your wedding day. You’d better not keep Mr Blackadder waiting.’

  8

  IT was a calm night with only a gentle breeze blowing and the ship slid over the water leaving a wake of white froth. On such a night the ship seemed to swell up and grow bigger. It was in full bloom now and looked a beautiful and mysterious sight with its sails puffed out yet perfectly still. But Gav knew by now how quickly weather could change on such a long sea voyage and that a calm often came before a storm.

  He and Regina had arranged to meet on deck, watch the sunset together and perhaps talk of plans for their future in Virginia. Regina told him she did not sleep well and often came on deck to watch the sunset or sunrise.

  The last shades of day were lingering on distant waves when Gav noticed the strangeness of the sky. On a dark blue lowering expanse floated light yellow clouds tinged with various colours of the evening. A strong tint began reflecting on the ship’s shrouds and rigging until it was a golden ship gliding over golden water.

  ‘I don’t like that,’ Gav said, glancing anxiously around. Now even the calm sea looked ominous. A sea-bird shrieked as it passed.

  Regina shrugged.

  ‘It means we’re going to have another storm, I suppose. We’ll be lucky if we ever reach Virginia.’

  ‘Don’t say things like that.’

  She pointed down at the water.

  ‘The swell’s starting already.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Mr Gudgeon yet?’ Gav tried to change the subject.

  ‘Oh, yes. I spoke to him all right and he took his revenge for me laughing so heartily at him when he fell. I could tell by his ugly face when he refused my request.’

  Gav could not hide his disappointment. He had been depending on spending the rest of the voyage with Regina in the comparative comfort of her cabin. He missed her terribly and also, as Jemmy had warned, the foc’stle was little better than the steerage as far as comfort was concerned.

  ‘He said, “The steerage is the place for tramps like him,” ’ Regina went on. ‘I nearly laughed again and told him that he was a fool and had been fooled all along because you were with the crew in the foc’stle. You’d spent no more than a night or two in steerage.’

  ‘You didn’t tell him, did you?’ Gav’s freckled face screwed up with concern.

  ‘No, don’t worry. Your secret’s still safe.’ Then, her voice losing some of its sarcasm, she added: ‘Pity about sharing the cabin though.’

  As they stood talking in the half darkness with the golden shadows tinting the ship, it began to pitch and roll and waves grew like mountains and reared high on either side.

  ‘I’m fed up with this.’ Gav tried to sound gruff.

  ‘Well, it was your idea to come to Virginia, not mine.’

  ‘I couldn’t turn down the job when Maister Ramsay offered it to me. It was either that or spend my life begging with Quin. And you had to get as far away as possible from Mistress Ramsay.’

  ‘Stop complaining then. We can’t do anything about the weather.’

  He swallowed with difficulty, then nodded.

  ‘It’ll be all right when we get to Virginia. Maister Ramsay said the weather was fine and warm there.’

  Regina rolled her eyes.

  ‘Must you believe everything he tells you?’

  ‘Och, you’re just suspicious of everybody. Why should Maister Ramsay lie to me?’

  ‘To persuade you to go as a slave to the plantations of course.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere as a slave. An indentured servant’s different.’

  ‘How is it different?’

  Gav wished Regina wouldn’t keep worrying him. He was troubled enough without her sharpening the edge of his anxiety.

  ‘I’ve to get my clothes and my food.’

  ‘They’ll have to feed their slaves, I suppose.’

  ‘I know!’ he said suddenly brightening. ‘My indenture papers are only for five years. That means I’ll be free when I’m sixteen. And all indentured servants get fifty acres of land when they’re free.’

  Regina’s mouth twisted.

  ‘If you live that long.’

  Gav stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket and tried to look as if he didn’t care. Eventually he said:

  ‘I’m going back to the foc’stle.’

  Regina shrugged and looked away as if it wasn’t any interest to her where he went. Hurt and near to tears, he walked as best he could along the rolling deck. Loneliness slid around him like a snake, cold and frightening. It separated him from his surroundings so that he was unaware of where he was going or who was there. He groped through the shadows for the foc’stle scuttle.

  ‘One of the crew now, are you?’

  Mr Gudgeon’s voice alerted him and he gazed up at the man’s red face with its snout-like nose and tiny eyes.

  ‘I don’t think they mind me being with them.’

  ‘If you’re crew, you’re not supposed to think. You’re just supposed to work.’

  Gav stared down at his feet, not knowing what else to say or do.

  ‘Well, get working then,’ said Mr Gudgeon.

  Nervously Gav looked up again.

  ‘I don’t understand, sir.’

  ‘You don’t know what to do, eh?’

  ‘No, sir.’

 
‘Well, I’ll tell you. Get up the shrouds and out on the yardarm.’

  Gav’s eyes widened with fear. He had often watched with bated breath as seaman clambered up the cobwebs of ropes stretching from each side of the ship high into the masts. He had marvelled at their courage and dexterity when they performed the apparently impossible feat, especially in stormy weather, when they climbed out onto the yardarms. The idea of himself attempting such dizzying heights brought paralysing terror. He could neither move nor utter a sound.

  Mr Gudgeon rasped louder.

  ‘Up the shrouds with you, I said.’

  Still Gav could not move. Mr Gudgeon’s face darkened from red to purple and he grabbed the little boy by the ear and propelled him across the deck.

  ‘Up!’ he roared.

  He leapt onto the shrouds himself and dragged Gav with him. Then he balanced on the top of the bulwark with one hand clutching the ropes and one hand jerking and pushing the child.

  ‘Up, I said. Up with you. Higher, damn you. Higher!’

  As Gav clung desperately to the ropes, the ship heaved from side to side and there was nothing but sea beneath him and the sea and the yellow horizon kept swinging about and swooping up and making him feel sick.

  Then, unexpectedly, Mr Gudgeon gave a different kind of cry, making Gav twist his eyes round. To his horror, he saw a shadowy Regina batter at Mr Gudgeon’s legs with a belaying pin making him lose his balance on the slippery bulwark. Swinging out with the pitching of the ship, he still managed to cling to the rigging with one hand until a wave like a black mouth rushed up and swallowed him.

  ‘Man overboard!’ Gav shouted. ‘Man overboard!’

  ‘Come down and be quiet, you fool,’ Regina commanded.

  He climbed down, refusing her proffered hand.

  ‘We can’t just let him drown.’

  Pushing her aside he ran, stumbling from side to side and clutching at whatever he could, until he reached aft where the bosun was talking to the helmsman.

  ‘Man overboard!’ he shouted again and the cry was immediately taken up by the bosun until it echoed like a chorus all over the ship.

  A boat was quickly got out and four men began rowing in the direction that Gav indicated. The sea was so high that nothing could be seen of the mate. The boat kept disappearing too but eventually Captain Kilfuddy, looking through his spying glass, shouted:

  ‘I see him. He’s still struggling to swim. They’re pulling towards him. He’s going down … No, wait, I think they’ve got him. Aye, they’re hauling him up.’

  It took another half-hour in the gathering dark and swelling sea before the boat struggled alongside and hoisted Mr Gudgeon aboard.

  Regina came and stood beside Gav and the rest of the crew. She waited silently and with apparent unconcern.

  Gav said,

  ‘He looks dead.’

  The captain had produced a knife and said:

  ‘Tie up the arm.’

  ‘What’s going to happen?’ Gav asked Jemmy Ducks.

  ‘He’s got to be bleeded, Gav. And if that don’t work, they tries rubbing and other things.’

  Captain Kilfuddy hesitated, knife poised.

  ‘You got to be gey careful,’ he explained, ‘no’ to hack into an artery instead o’ a vein.’

  At last he made an incision. No blood came however. As a result friction was applied. After some considerable time, when that failed, the application of salt was tried and strong volatiles.

  Gav watched with confused emotion. He wanted the man to recover so that Regina would not be guilty of causing his death. Yet, at the same time, he feared his return to consciousness and hoped he would die so that Regina would be safe.

  Two hours passed without the smallest symptom of returning animation, then suddenly blood spouted from the arm for a few seconds and as suddenly stopped. Ten minutes after that the limbs became stiff and the colour of the skin changed.

  Regina turned away saying:

  ‘If he wasn’t dead before, he’s dead now.’

  Gav followed her in silence. Regina glanced at his face, sickly white beneath its dusting of freckles.

  ‘Why are you looking so miserable? You didn’t like him any more than I did.’

  ‘You killed him,’ Gav whispered incredulously.

  ‘It was either you or him. You would have fallen off the rigging and drowned if you’d gone any further.’

  ‘I might not have.’

  ‘You were terrified.’

  Gav bristled.

  ‘But I kept on climbing. You would have felt frightened too if you’d been up there.’

  ‘Anyway, you don’t need to worry about Bully Gudgeon any more. Now you can move into my cabin.’

  He could not deny he was glad of that.

  ‘I suppose,’ he conceded uncertainly, ‘if you thought you were saving my life, it wasn’t really murder.’

  ‘It’s only a word,’ she said, looking away.

  The poop lanterns sent light lurching up one side of the darkness then the other as Regina groped for his hand and led him into the cabin. She had left a lantern lit inside but its candle had burned low and was barely a pinprick in the gloom.

  ‘The berth’s broad enough for both of us,’ she said. ‘The floor’s wet with water coming in the window. But they’ve put the deadlights up now.’

  ‘What’s the deadlights?’ Gav asked faintly.

  ‘Wooden shutters they nail over the windows to keep the sea out when there’s going to be a bad storm.’

  ‘I don’t mind the storm so much now that I’m with you,’ Gav said, climbing into the berth beside her. Huddled close to his sister with her arm protectively across him, he felt almost happy. It was like how it used to be when mammy was alive.

  They didn’t speak any more but lay for long sleepless hours in the blackness of the berth listening to the wind moaning and howling in a hysteria of anger that creaked the ship over on one side then hurled it over to the other.

  Eventually Gav said:

  ‘This is the worst one yet, and the longest. It must be near morning now.’ The words were no sooner out of his mouth, when there was a terrific crash outside on the deck. ‘What was that?’

  He could feel Regina’s heart pounding against his back but her voice sounded calm.

  ‘One of the masts gone perhaps.’

  ‘Should we get up?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To look. Or … or to be ready in case they’re going to abandon ship.’

  Regina gave a mirthless laugh.

  ‘If this ship breaks up, I can’t see what chance the longboat would have. But probably it’s time we were up anyway, so we’ll take a look if you like. Hold on tightly though.’

  Carefully they climbed from the berth and after a long time and many painful attempts, they reached the cabin door and Regina managed to open it. Immediately a gust of wind sprayed them with salt water and through it they saw the ship rearing up until it seemed she might reach the perpendicular. Sails that had bellied and cracked were now ripped to shreds and the topmasts were bent like willows.

  Regina struggled to shut the cabin door again but wasn’t strong enough. At last, between them, they managed it.

  Then they waited, hand in hand, in the darkness of the cabin.

  9

  CAPTAIN KILFUDDY creaked open the door, peeling away a slice of darkness.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Master Chisholm. I thought we’d lost you. You look gey pale, the pair of you.’

  Gav and Regina blinked in the bright light of day and Gav asked:

  ‘Are we going to be shipwrecked?’

  ‘Och, not a bit of it. It was just a merry wind and it’s all but finished now.’

  Gav stepped cautiously out of the cabin. Some of the crew were busy cleaning up the deck. Others were bending new sails although there was still quite a strong wind and the sea was rolling and frothing about.

  He and Regina were glad to be on deck for a breath of fresh air.

  ‘
Look!’ Gav pointed excitedly at a whale heaving its massive body out of the water. ‘It’s bigger than the ship. What a giant.’

  In a minute the whale disappeared again but by the time Gav and Regina reached the bulwarks, porpoises were joyfully playing and chasing each other about, rolling, diving and leaping from the water.

  Jemmy Ducks came hopping and limping over beside Gav and Regina.

  ‘It’ll be land-ho soon, shipmates. I sees the signs, smells them too.’

  ‘What signs?’ asked Gav.

  Jemmy sniffed loudly and deeply, making his face pinch in and his ears stick out.

  ‘Pine trees. Sometimes I smells them from as much as sixty leagues off shore.’

  Gav sniffed again and again.

  ‘I can’t smell anything but salty air.’

  ‘You’ve just not learned how, Gav. This is your first voyage but many’s a hard gale I’ve weathered. Many’s the time I’ve been glad of the signs. Damn my eyes, there’s some more.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Them bits of flotsam. Them logs and branches. Them plants. And look, Gav, the sea’s not deep blue any more. That sea’s offshore green.’

  Gav began bouncing about with excitement. There were land birds skimming the crests of the waves now.

  ‘Land-ho! Land-ho!’ he shouted in great joy.

  ‘No, no.’ Jemmy shook his head, making his pigtail jerk to and fro. ‘Don’t be heaving-to yet, shipmate. I tells you, we’ve maybe two or three days sailing before us. It depends on wind and weather. Them winds are devils. Many’s the time we’ve been in sight of the Chesapeake and them winds have blown us verra near back to Glasgow.’

  ‘Once I’m on land, I’ll never, never go to sea again.’

  ‘Them’s the verra words I’ve said myself. Never again, I says. But I did haul up my anchor, Gav. And you will too.’

  Gav couldn’t imagine it. He longed to set foot on solid earth once more and hoped he would never feel the pitching and tossing of a ship again as long as he lived, although at the moment it was entrancing to watch the porpoises playing and the giant whales spouting.