The Tobacco Lords Trilogy

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  She felt sorry for him. Sorry that his life was such a desert. Sorry that he had no passionate woman to share his bed. Sorry that he had no beautiful wife to show off to his friends. Sorry that he had no son to carry on his name. She wept for him in the night under the covers of the giant four-poster bed in which her tiny, curled up body was hardly visible, even during the day.

  Now she pitied him all the more because she had the comfort of Regina and his life was still barren. Sometimes, timidly, like a mouse darting into her conscious mind, she thought of Regina giving pleasure and comfort to Robert to make up for her own inability. She suspected that that was why she had wanted Regina to come to Forest Hall in the first place. But the thought made her feel guilty and every time it crept into her mind, she clasped her hands tightly together and closed her eyes and prayed that God would forgive her for such wicked thoughts. As if she had not been enough trouble to Robert without putting temptation in his way and encouraging him to commit adultery, a sin for which he could be made to suffer terrible punishments and indignities at the hands of the minister of the church. And what of poor Regina? The child trusted her and was fond of her too. How kind she had been and how conscientiously she had worked since coming to Forest Hall. Now she must do her best for Regina in return. She would be the belle of the ball and both she and Robert would be so proud of her.

  They began packing right away and Regina had never seen Mistress Kitty so excited. Her small, sickly face was blotchy with colour, her eyes shone and she chattered so much that Regina had to stop her.

  ‘If you don’t calm down I won’t go.’

  ‘But you must, you must, Regina. You are like a daughter to me, a daughter.’

  Sometimes Regina suspected the woman was half-mad.

  ‘If you don’t calm down, you will be taking one of your seizures. Then neither of us will be able to go.’

  ‘Of course, of course, you are quite right, my dear. Quite right.’

  After that she had at least tried to take the business of packing and preparing for their visit to Williamsburg at a slower, quieter pace.

  Regina embarked on the preparations and the journey with mixed feelings. Her natural inclination was to shrink into herself and have nothing to do with people and new experiences. At the same time she was curious to see the town and discover what kind of grand houses there were there and what treasures the shops held. Maybe she would not need to send to Glasgow for furnishings for the house that she and Gav would one day own. Perhaps in Williamsburg she would find everything they would need.

  She had to admit also to some secret satisfaction at the thought of entering a ballroom, dressed in as grand a fashion, if not more grand, than any lady who might be there. It was a lot better than shivering outside in the street, shoeless and stockingless, watching ladies being carried in their sedan chairs to the balls as she’d often done in Glasgow.

  Glasgow seemed very far away now, in time as well as distance. Only occasionally she thought of the huddle of streets with the Cross and the Tolbooth at its centre. The town meant nothing to her but suffering and deprivation. Yet thinking of it helped to harden her resolve to see that she and Gav had a good life here in Virginia.

  Bitterness came to twist her mouth. She would have a good life all right. She would go from strength to strength, and she would get wealthier and wealthier and more and more powerful. Nothing and nobody was going to stop her.

  22

  ANNABELLA was both charmed and dismayed by her first sight of Williamsburg. The coach emerged from the forest of tall straight pines and turned the corner past what she later learned was the Capital Building, and there was the long Duke of Gloucester Street, the main thoroughfare of Williamsburg. It certainly was attractive with its trees on either side and pretty white or red brick houses. In front of each house stretched a green lawn and a multicoloured display of roses and neat box hedges and paling fences. The air was heady with perfume, despite the thick dust rising from the sandy road and the hogs and cattle straying about.

  What dismayed her was the quietness of the place. There were attractive-looking shops and taverns, but no people as far as she could see except one or two liveried black servants ambling along.

  Her anxieties were soon settled, however, when her host and hostess, Lord and Lady Butler, assured her that the town would be a seething mass of humanity at what they called the Public Time.

  ‘You will wish that it could be decently quiet like this again,’ Lady Butler said. ‘One does, you know. There is such a rabble at the Public Time. Of course, one finds the balls an elegant meeting place for one’s friends and acquaintances. And one sees the latest fashions in gowns. There people know how to behave. But outside and elsewhere …’ She twitched with distaste. ‘One has to contend with such noise, such crush, such rabble.’

  Annabella had not met Lady Butler before but her father had introduced her to Lord Butler during one of his visits to Glasgow and they had given him hospitality during his stay. He was a fat, jolly looking man with scarlet cheeks, a white powdered wig tied at the back, and much frilly lace on his shirt. His wife was richly dressed in a gown of purple and gold brocade and Annabella got a glimpse of black silk stockings with a silver thread at the side. Much bejewelled with ruby rings and long ruby and gold earrings, she never smiled except out of politeness and to people she thought were important enough. She was too snobbish for Annabella’s taste but she was glad of the introductions Lord and Lady Butler gave and also of their help in the finding of a suitable house. It was small and modest compared with the Butler residence, but it was still far roomier than Annabella had ever been accustomed to, either in her father’s house or in Mr Blackadder’s house in the Briggait.

  To begin with the ceilings were much higher, and instead of dark panelled woodwork the walls were painted white. There was a longer lobby than they had had at home in Glasgow, and on one side a light oak stairway led up to two bedrooms. Downstairs was a decent sized living-room to the front and a smaller dining-room to the back. A back door led outside to a kitchen building which surprised Annabella greatly. She soon learned, however, that kitchens were always separate from houses.

  In the bedroom she shared with Mr Blackadder they put the furniture they had brought from Glasgow which made Mr Blackadder feel more at home. But, of course, they had to buy a bed and they had purchased a sturdy oak four-poster which, to please Mr Blackadder, she had draped with the same royal blue velvet curtains that had graced their bed in the Briggait.

  The extra rooms downstairs, however, meant spending a considerable sum on new furnishings and she was delighted with the comfort and cheerful appearance of the rooms. Although the living-room’s chintz-covered chairs and settee, with matching curtains were admittedly not luxurious, they were pretty and gay. The two windows looking onto Francis Street let in lots of sunshine and in between them hung a rather grand looking-glass with a gilt frame and an eagle with wide spread wings on top. Beneath the looking-glass sat a small mahogany table on which a vase of flowers added a glow of colour. Another little table, also bright with flowers, graced the centre of the room and on the wall opposite the door stood a beautiful Japanned highboy. The floor was of light oak and the rug, picking out the darker shades of the chintz, covered the floor in front of the redbrick fire. The fire basket had brass knobs topping the front legs, and a long brass poker, and brass and leather bellows lay on either side of it. A chest decorated with brass and containing logs stood nearby. Of course Nancy and Betsy complained of all the polishing the brass needed to keep it sparkling but it added such a lovely glow to the room, especially when the log fire burned bright and reflected in it.

  In the dining-room she had put the dresser from the kitchen in the Briggait and added an oval drop-leaf table, half a dozen Windsor chairs and a Windsor settee, all in a dark glossy wood. Annabella wanted to paint the wood white or some other pretty colour, but Mr Blackadder put his foot down and simply would not allow such a frivolity, in the same way as he absolute
ly forbade her to have a spinet.

  Lady Butler said there would be a ball at the Governor’s Palace and no doubt they would all be invited. Annabella was looking forward to the Public Time with great excitement. Her enthusiasm, however, was not shared by Mr Blackadder. He was tolerably content with his church and found Williamsburg a pleasant enough place to look at, but the climate made him irritable and had a generally debilitating effect on his constitution.

  It had been hot and thundery at first and the clay of the tobacco fields was baked hard and dry. There had been much lightning during the night. It kept flashing across the heavens, making the sky switch from black to bright blue. It was certainly most disconcerting. It kept Mr Blackadder off his sleep and made him weary next day. Nights were never quiet enough for him. Indeed, it had taken Annabella some time to get used to the clamour and feverish activity of nights in Virginia. Fireflies winged and winked like thousands of red eyes and the squeaking and chirping of crickets continuously attacked the senses. During his daily round of visiting, Mr Blackadder had plodded along the sandy streets trying to keep to the patches of shade. But he could not escape the dust stirred up by every horseman and carriage that passed and he soon developed a cough.

  He complained of the flies too and the mosquitoes and Annabella shared his horror of the ticks which attacked anyone who ventured into the long grass or sat on a tree stump. Nor did she like the cockroaches that plagued the house. The tortoise she had been advised to keep to live off the cockroaches was not particularly attractive either.

  Rain had come for a few days to change the town from a parched place of choking dust to an equally unpleasant one of dripping and steaming damp. The sweet smell of damp clung to everything. It sickened curtains and clothes in closets. It cast a cloud over the varnish of paintings. It brought green mould overnight to bloom wetly on the covers of books.

  But throughout all these unpleasantnesses and discomforts Annabella kept her spirits up by thoughts and plans and preparations for the Public Times. She was looking forward to giving hospitality to Mr and Mistress Burleigh and perhaps to entertain and be entertained by new friends she would meet.

  She said to Nancy:

  ‘Thank the Lord for the Public Times. Gracious Heavens, I could not abide this place without such a prospect. It does not contain more than a thousand souls and that includes the Negroes. In Glasgow there were nearly twenty thousand inhabitants. And think of the prodigious number of gentry among them. Why, here there are no more than ten or twelve gentlemen’s families constantly residing in the town besides some merchants and tradesmen.’

  ‘They’ve all bigger houses here though.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. That was something I was most gratified to note. Wouldn’t Mistress Halyburton and Griselle and Phemy be wondrously impressed. I must write and tell them.’

  Mr Blackadder sighed.

  ‘I wish I was travelling back with the letter.’

  His eyes were continuously red-rimmed, an irritation caused by the dust, and his cough was most troublesome, especially at night.

  ‘Uh-huh, aye, not that I would relish the journey, but to see Glasgow again would do my heart good.’

  ‘Do not be downhearted, sir,’ Annabella encouraged, hastening to pour him out a strengthening glass of whisky. ‘You will be uncommonly diverted during the Public Time and that is very soon now.’

  ‘Fairs and frivolities are the work of the devil and are no’ going to divert me from the path of righteousness.’

  ‘Of course not, Mr Blackadder, of course not. What I meant was that you would have so many more souls to save then.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Aye. We’ll see.’

  ‘And your church will be full to overflowing.’

  But even this prospect did not do much to lighten Mr Blackadder’s load of depression.

  ‘Damn the heat,’ Annabella thought.

  ‘I can sympathise with your indisposition, Mr Blackadder,’ she said. ‘This heat is a hateful calamity and one we were not led to expect.’

  ‘Uh-huh. It doesn’t seem to have indisposed you that much.’

  ‘I was somewhat discommoded at first but I have acclimatised myself wondrously well I must admit. But it is nearly autumn already. Soon it will be winter. The heat cannot last much longer. And you must admit, the Virginian skies are always the most beautiful blue.’

  Mr Blackadder sighed and she felt a pang of concern for his drooping, bleary-eyed figure. He had never been a cheerful man but he had always had a measure of caustic wit and wiry physical strength. She kept shooing him off to bed early and she and Nancy concocted various potions for him, for he absolutely refused to take the ones they obtained from the apothecary’s shop.

  Fortunately Mungo was of sturdy constitution and played about the house and garden with happy unconcern. As a baby he had possessed her blonde hair, but already at three years it had darkened considerably and his skin, once a delicate pink, was now quite brown with the sun. Sometimes she thought she saw a look of his real father about his eyes, especially when the child was angry or in a tantrum. But she scarcely remembered what Harding looked like now and seldom gave him a thought.

  It had crossed her mind, of course, that he was somewhere in Virginia. But knowing what a vast country it was, and how far away some of the plantations were, she believed the chances of bumping into him were very remote indeed.

  Even if his plantation did happen to be within travelling distance of Williamsburg, she doubted if he would be the type of person to appreciate the gay social life. He was the kind of coarse brute who would shun the elegant Public Time, she was sure.

  Any thoughts of such an unpleasant nature were soon completely banished from her mind, however, when the Public Time began and coaches started to arrive by the dozen and clatter down Duke of Gloucester Street and all the other streets. Not to mention innumerable horsemen and people on foot. There was little room for the sedan chairs and they were fearfully squeezed and jostled. Dust rose in great clouds from the busy, noisy scene and it became more and more crowded.

  Annabella could scarcely believe her eyes and ears and Mr Blackadder was nearly demented.

  ‘I’ve had to fight my way through a mob of planters,’ he gasped on his arrival home, dusty and dishevelled and in obvious distress. ‘Fight my way through, mistress. They’re crowded in front of that Raleigh Tavern bidding for slaves and acting like common rowdies for all their lace cuffs and brocade waistcoats and silver buttons. The devil choke ye all, I told them. May ye all rot in the pit of hell where ye belong.’

  ‘Gracious heavens, Mr Blackadder, do not shout at such a pitch. You will frighten Mungo. Let me straighten your wig. It is not like you to get into such a monstrous state. Nancy, run quickly and bring Mr Blackadder a dram. Sit down, sir, and quieten yourself, I implore you.’

  But no one seemed able to be quiet any more.

  Outside in the jammed streets, drivers of carriages roared curses at their horses and each other. Street peddlers shouted their wares and covered the market square with stalls. Youths had noisy sport chasing greased pigs, or cudgelling, or yelling themselves hoarse at cock fights where steel spurs slashed through feathers and flesh. Men roared with excitement and bet large sums of money on dog fights and bull baiting.

  Annabella had been subject to some harassment herself when she had been out. Wishing to make a purchase at one of the shops and venturing on foot being impossible for the rough crowds, she had taken a sedan chair. Even then, however, she had been badly shaken and tumbled about and had not only to shout at the chairmen but lean from the chair and sharply strike some ruffians with her fan to make a decent path for herself.

  However, she was looking forward to her first ball that evening. Mr Blackadder had refused to attend, but Lord and Lady Butler were calling for her in their carriage and taking her. Lady Butler and herself had already discussed over dainty teacups and cookies what gowns and petticoats and jewellery they would wear. Also they had chosen the fans and snuffboxes they were t
o carry.

  The coach was fancifully carved and gilded and drawn by six horses wearing shining, silver mounted harness. It was driven by bewigged black servants wearing scarlet livery. Although it was roomy inside, the dresses worn by Annabella and Lady Butler filled the carriage to overflowing.

  The night was alive with lanterns and when they arrived at their destination servants made a path for them, holding up lanterns fastened to poles. Annabella had not felt so gay and happy and excited for years. She swished into the ballroom with every bit as much dignity as Lady Butler and with much more panache.

  A footman called out as they entered:

  ‘My Lord and Lady Butler and Mistress Blackadder!’

  The room was a blaze of colour and a flutter of fans. Annabella tipped up her head and, blue eyes sparkling, stared around. She could see that already she had caught the admiring attention of several handsome gentlemen.

  Lord Butler, obviously proud of her, said:

  ‘Allow me to introduce you to some of my planter friends, my dear. I fear they will never forgive me if I do not.’

  He raised his hand and she accepted it.

  ‘I will be delighted to meet them, sir.’

  He led her to a nearby group who immediately ‘made a leg’. She curtsied very prettily and before she had time to draw breath one of the gallants captured her and led her away to step a dignified minuet.

  He was a very richly dressed gentleman, someone of wondrous importance, she felt sure, judging by the envious glances of the other women. She felt proud and happy. She was walking on air.