‘You could go further up to the settlement but there isn’t enough accommodation at the store and the nearest tavern is Widow Shoozie’s. That’s no fit place for a lady and I forbid you to go there. It’s frequented by seamen and peltry traders. The seamen are bad enough but the peltry traders lead loose and vicious lives and corrupt all who come in contact with them.’
She had assured him that she had no desire or intention of going anywhere near an establishment of such low repute.
‘I expect it will be filthy and bug ridden as well,’ she said, remembering the horrible place in which they had to spend the night on the way to Edinburgh. ‘You have no need to worry, Papa. I would much prefer the comforts of a planter’s mansion house.’
He had explained that it was the custom for planters on these isolated situations to offer hospitality to anyone who happened to be in the vicinity. It could be a lonely life cut off by long distances from neighbours and news and they were only too delighted to see and talk to anyone.
This particular planter was not a customer of her father’s, but they had met some years previously.
‘I’ve sent him a letter so you’ll be expected,’ her father said.
But she had not expected the grandness of the house that sat up on the hill from the wharf at which they landed. Even the driveway up to it was impressive with its level and gleaming white surface made of crushed oyster shells. Sheep grazed on the velvety lawn in front of the house which was made of red brick and had carved white wooden pillars and white shutters and doors. The sheer size and spaciousness of everything compared with the flats and houses in Glasgow took Annabella’s breath away, but she quickly recovered and swept into the hallway with head held high and fan briskly flicking.
Never in her life had she seen such chandeliers and furnishings and ornaments and richly liveried servants. Not even in Mr Glassford’s house had there been such splendour.
Later, in the privacy of the bedroom allocated to them, she enthused about everything to Mr Blackadder.
‘I’m struck all of a heap, sir. Are you not impressed? Have you ever seen such magnificence? Everything is such an uncommon size.’
‘Uh-huh. Weel, it’s a big country. They’ve got room to spread themselves, I suppose.’
She danced round the high-ceilinged room with arms spread out.
‘It feels good to have room to spread oneself. Oh, it feels prodigiously good.’
‘That’s enough of your wicked frivolity.’ He mopped his face. ‘It must be the devil gives you your energy, mistress. It’s hot enough to melt a candle. It’s not natural to be so frisky in such heat.’
‘It surely must agree with me, Mr Blackadder, for I feel wondrously well.’
‘Uh-huh, aye. You’ll feel quite at home in hell no doubt.’
She laughed and flopped into a chair, energetically fanning herself.
‘I cannot wait to set off for Williamsburg. It’s uncommonly kind of our host to put his carriage and servants at our disposal.’
‘Aye, Mr Burleigh seems a civil enough man. We could never have found our way to Williamsburg without his help. He tells me he plans to visit the town in the autumn so no doubt we’ll have the chance to return his hospitality then.’
‘I shall cook a splendid meal for him and Mistress Burleigh. Betsy is not nearly proficient enough for such an important occasion.’
‘Uh-huh. Aye. He says he may be able to help me with a church. One of the ministers in the town is old and ailing and not expected to last much longer. I could assist the poor man, he says, with a view to eventually taking over his flock.’
‘Then we have nothing to worry about. Did I not tell you everything would go prodigiously well, Mr Blackadder?’
Mr Blackadder did not look at all convinced.
‘Uh-huh. Aye. We’ll see. We’re no’ there yet.’
But she was already there in her imagination. Conversing, dancing, flirting with all sorts of wondrously charming, elegant and interesting people. Still fanning herself and smiling dreamily, she closed her eyes and saw it all.
21
‘SLOWLY, slowly, my dear. Yes, that’s better. That’s better.’ Kitty Harding fluttered around Regina who was curtsying with gown spread wide and head lowered. ‘Now keep your arms stretched out like that. Such pretty arms. Such pretty arms. Don’t move for a second, or two, then, taking plenty of time, gracefully rise again. Oh, oh, the way you slowly raised your head, that was much better, much better. Any gentleman meeting your eyes flashing up like that, like glittering emeralds, my dear, would be devastated. I do declare he would be quite, quite devastated.’
Seeing Regina in the ball gown reminded Kitty of when she was young and had attended balls. She had never been as beautiful as Regina, of course. But there had been a big-eyed fragility about her that some beaus had found quite appealing. She didn’t think Robert had ever admired her, though, not in the way the other young men had. It was not his fault. She had just not been the type of woman he wanted or needed. But her father and his father had arranged the match. Her father had been most generous in the matter of her dowry and he had also helped Robert’s father with a substantial loan and saved him having to face some sort of distressing business crisis, she couldn’t remember exactly what.
She hadn’t wanted to marry Robert any more than he had wanted to marry her, but after the knot had been tied, love had blossomed and multiplied and grown inside her until she could not contain it and it burst forth and showered over him in a thousand affectionate words and acts. He tried to respond at first. She remembered the times he tried to respond. It was because of those precious moments in the early years of their marriage, and because she still loved him, that she forgave his every unkind word or deed now.
Perhaps if she had been more robust, perhaps if she had been able to give him a son, their relationship and their lives together might have been different. But she had developed terrible fatigues and breathless attacks and so many aches and pains and distresses of one kind and another. She had been a terrible trial to poor Robert.
‘I don’t want to meet men,’ Regina said. ‘I just want to stay here alone with you.’
Tears shimmered Kitty’s gaze.
‘Oh, oh, how sweet, how sweet. Dear, dear Regina. But life must be lived and we must have balls and attend balls and you must meet presentable gentlemen. Gentlemen of quality and substance, one of whom you must marry. You must marry. I cannot be so selfish as to keep you to myself for ever and ruin your own sweet life.’
‘But I don’t want to marry. Nor do I need to. I have a little money of my own.’
Mistress Kitty sent tinkles of laughter this way and that.
‘A little money. A little money. My dear, what good is a little money? You need a man of wealth and property who can give you a beautiful home and beautiful things. Every woman needs to get married. It isn’t good for a woman to remain single. Not good at all.’
Regina was not so sure. She had been making full use of the library at Forest Hall and she had learned a thing or two in the process. For instance, a single woman might own her own property, contract debts, sue and be sued in court, and run her own business. But a married woman, so far as the law was concerned, existed only in her husband. He had the use of all her real property and absolute possession of all her personal property, even the clothes on her back, and he could bequeath them to somebody else in his will. He was entitled to beat her for any faults. He had complete power over any children of the marriage and could also give directions in his will as to who was to care for them after his death. A wife’s duty was submission to whatever a husband commanded.
It was far better and safer to be single, as far as Regina could see. So long as you had money, of course.
‘What’s the use of being married if it only means being ill-used and miserable?’ she said.
‘My dear, why should you be ill-used or miserable?’ she said.
‘You are.’
Colour mounted quickly in Mi
stress Harding’s face making her look feverish. She felt hurt and distressed, not for her own sake but for Robert’s. Robert tried so hard. Regina did not understand and she did not like Robert. She did not seem to like men in general, but Robert she detested in particular. She was a strange, unhappy child and in fact she and Robert had much in common in their natures.
‘No, no, my dear Regina. Mr Harding teases me a little in company but he really is a most chivalrous gentleman when we are alone. It is only his gruff manner in public that you see. But that is not the whole man, not the whole man. Robert is a very complex character. You do not understand, my dear. You do not understand.’
Regina believed she understood very well. Robert Harding despised his wife. If she had produced a son he might have forgiven her silly ways, but she had not and he had dismissed her as useless. They no longer even shared the same room. Often he upbraided her in Regina’s hearing, if not exactly in her presence. Only the other day she had been sitting outside in the garden. The window of the sitting-room had been open and she had heard him raging at Mistress Kitty for not managing the house slaves in an efficient manner and not seeing that the meals were properly cooked and served on time. Mistress Kitty had been reduced to tears when he had threatened to have the slaves whipped. She could never abide violence of any kind.
Regina had gone into the room and asked if she could be given the authority to organise the house slaves in future and take a more active part in the running of the house so that she could be of more help to Mistress Kitty. She refrained from saying that doing nothing all day but listen to Mistress Kitty’s chatter was nearly driving her mad. And if her lessons in proper social behaviour were only aimed at ensnaring a husband, this did nothing to make her feel any easier.
Harding had agreed to her suggestion but in his usual abrupt manner.
‘Yes, it’s time you did something useful for your keep. From now on I hold you responsible for the running of this house.’
She had suspected that because she was young and for most of the time of silent disposition, the slaves might take this as weakness. In order to dispel any such ideas right from the start, she ordered them to line up in the hall and told them in no uncertain manner that if they did their work well they would be treated well. If they did not, they would be whipped immediately and without mercy. However, her icy manner and her glittering eye convinced them more than any words could that she was someone to be feared.
But what made them really hate her was the way she cut down on the house slaves and sent most of the them to work in the fields under the whips of Negro foremen and the white overseer and, of course, Harding. House slaves were considered much superior to field slaves and the work in the house much lighter and safer. To be degraded to the fields was both humiliating and frightening.
‘It’s ridiculous having so many slaves in the house,’ Regina told Harding. ‘Just look at them in the dining-room. All they do is get in each other’s way. Two or three properly trained men or women serving table would be far more efficient.
He shrugged.
‘The house is your province. I have given you the authority. Do whatever you wish.’
So from about thirty house slaves, Regina chose only ten. For the kitchen, she chose Callie Mae, Flementina, Minda and Infant. Jenny was to attend to the bedrooms. For a personal servant for Harding, Old Abe. For serving at table, Joseph, Westminster and Melie Anne. For cleaning the floors and windows and emptying the chamberpots, Big Kate.
After dismissing the others, she lined the ten up and told them what she expected of them.
‘Instead of thirty of you, there are now ten. That means you will have to work at least three times as hard as you did before. And work at least three times more efficiently. If you do not, you will be punished and sent to work in the fields. Someone else will be brought in to replace you.’ She detailed to each of them their special jobs, but told them that they had also to do whatever extra duties were required. ‘There’s a spinning wheel and a loom in the kitchen. Let them never be idle. All of you women must see to that. Melie Anne, you see that the downstairs rooms are kept dusted and polished. Each man is a general factotum. A man of all work,’ she explained when they looked puzzled.
Next she found a bale of calico and a quantity of coarse linen and persuaded Mistress Kitty to get down to the job of making dresses for the women slaves and shirts for the men.
‘We must teach them to cut and sew the clothes themselves eventually. Meantime, we have no choice but to see that they are decently covered.’
‘But, Regina dear, dear Regina,’ Kitty fluttered, ‘the niggers don’t feel the cold, even in winter, even in winter.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of their feelings,’ Regina said. ‘We will cut and sew the clothes together and drink mint juleps and talk while we work. It will be a pleasant diversion.’
So they had basket chairs set out on one of the patches of grass in front of the house that had been cut short and a table put between them to hold their drinks and one of the slaves worked a shoo-fly while they sat sewing. Mistress Kitty sat slumped almost double, making her look like a tiny, deformed old woman. Regina looked straight-backed and graceful with a wide brimmed straw hat shading her creamy skin. She kept a small, polite smile on her face as if she was listening and appreciating Mistress Kitty’s incessant talk, but all the time her mind was far away on her own imaginary plantation where there would only be peace and silence.
Sometimes during the day they sat in the drawing-room where trees near the window filtered in the sun, making stripes of light and shade, amber and earth brown. The room now gleamed with polish. The mahogany of the desk vied with the wall panelling in tawny lustre. The brass firedogs and the brass face of the tall clock glittered like gold. The silver candelabra dangling from the ceiling and the other decorating the desk shone like looking-glass.
On top of the desk too was a sweet-smelling bouquet of roses.
At all times Regina discouraged gossip or laughing with the slaves. The slave women used to tell Mistress Kitty all sorts of nonsense as well as their troubles. And more than once, since Regina’s arrival, Mistress Kitty had gone to the quarters to administer medicine to a sick Negro child.
But idle chatter didn’t get rooms cleaned, food cooked properly or meals served on time. Since Regina began seeing to things, she firmly discouraged this useless gossiping. If she came into a room where Mistress Kitty was chattering and laughing with a servant, she said a polite ‘excuse me’ to Mistress Kitty, then dismissed the servant. Or, if the latter was supposed to be doing some job in the room, she gave her a sharp command to get on with it before guiding Mistress Kitty firmly away.
She could feel the slaves’ dislike of her harden but she did not care. To her they were alien creatures with their black skin and tight frizzy hair and as much savages as the Indians or forest people. Only the Negroes were more dangerous than the Indians because they were not only all around but inside the house. She kept a pistol and a knife under her pillow at night and always had a dagger secreted about her person during the day.
But, so far, the coldness of a look or the sharpness of a word had been enough. She had not needed to call in the help of the overseer with his whip. She still had plenty of time to spend with Mistress Kitty, of course. She helped her dress, kept her wig in good shape and made sure she was comfortably settled in bed for her afternoon nap. Every morning after she had given the slaves their orders and organised what was to be cooked for meals, she strolled with Mistress Kitty around the outside of the house or down the path past the clearing in front of the barns and stables or past the quarters and through the wooded area to the tobacco fields. But usually that was too far and too exhausting for the older woman. Mistress Kitty never tired of showering her with clothes and other gifts and continued with great enthusiasm to coach her in the social graces. Then one day she announced, as if presenting her with the most exciting gift of all:
‘Regina, Regina, now I can tell you.
Everything is arranged. Everything is arranged and you are coming with us.’
‘To the store?’ Regina’s eyes brightened. It would be good to see Gav again. Not a day had passed that she had not thought of him with some anxiety.
‘No, no, heaven forbid, heaven forbid,’ Kitty cried out. ‘I would not be so happy at the thought of that journey. No, no, my dear. It is the Public Time, the Public Time.’
Regina looked puzzled and her voice acquired its stiff, guarded tone.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Twice a year there are the Public Times when all the planters and everybody, absolutely everybody, goes to Williamsburg. The gentlemen attend the Assembly in the Capital Building. I believe they vote and discuss the country’s affairs. But, more important, my dear, more important are all the balls and entertainments. Such balls and entertainments you never did see. I do declare, there is even a theatre, a theatre!’
Regina felt disappointed. She would rather have visited the store and been reunited with Gav.
‘I was hoping,’ she said, ‘to have seen my brother.’
‘You shall, you shall, Regina. But after our Williamsburg visit, my dear. You can arrange to accompany Mr Harding. He will be going to the store on business. But first you must have a gay time at all the balls in Williamsburg. Oh, oh, I will be so proud of you, my dear.’
All her married life she had suffered such an acute sense of failure. Sometimes the pain of her own inadequacy was almost unendurable. Nothing she ever attempted turned out right. Over the years, humiliation had heaped upon humiliation. And it was all her own fault. She did all sorts of foolish little things like forgetting to put the sugar in Robert’s favourite pudding in her anxiety to please him and cook it herself and get it exactly right. Or she took ill and collapsed while she and Robert were entertaining guests and caused distress and embarrassment to everyone.
The last straw, of course, had been when she ruined their lovemaking by taking one of her breathless turns while he was on top of her. Her chest had felt as if it was caving in and the pain had been frightful. Nevertheless, she would have endured the pain in silence, would have died of it, rather than have let Robert know and cause him any embarrassment. But a choking, breathless attack had taken complete possession of her. Robert withdrew immediately. Then he dutifully did what he could to help. He had always conscientiously done his best for her but they had never shared a bed again.
The Tobacco Lords Trilogy Page 50