The Summer Country

by Lauren Willig

  “Eighteen sixteen?” Emily paused with her teacup halfway to her lips.

  “What a year that was,” said Mrs. Poole reminiscently. “Who knew when we sat down to supper that we would be fearing for our lives before the sun was down?”

  “It must have been someone else you’re thinking of,” said Emily, looking to Mrs. Davenant. “My grandparents were married sooner than that, I think.”

  “You’re confused again, Bertha,” said Mrs. Davenant with grim satisfaction. “Fenty was married from Antigua.”

  “I know that,” said Mrs. Poole comfortably. “Did I say otherwise? It was in the midst of the troubles that he left. That’s a time none of us will easily forget, eh, Mary Anne? We lost most of our crop. The house was spared, but, heavens, I’ll never forget the stench of that sugar burning and my Horace running out with his uniform only half on. That our own people could do that to us! Base ingratitude, that’s what I say.”

  “Not everyone’s people,” said Mrs. Davenant with a tight smile. “There’s no call to bring up unpleasant memories, Bertha. It’s all over and done with long ago.”

  Ignoring her, Mrs. Poole turned to Emily. “The trials! We were all on tenterhooks until they discovered the ringleaders. There was a renegade named Busy or Barney or . . .”

  “Bussa,” corrected Mrs. Davenant.

  “But some said he was only a scapegoat and the real culprit was a white man. Can you imagine that? Of course, one never knows what to expect from a Redleg, but—”

  “More cake, Bertha?” said Mrs. Davenant loudly, and all but shoved a fairy cake into Mrs. Poole’s mouth.

  Emily set her teacup down. “You don’t mean my grandfather, surely?”

  Mrs. Davenant looked quellingly at Mrs. Poole. “I understand that Mr. Fenty was a pillar of Bristol society and a credit to the island that bore him.”

  It would have been more convincing if she hadn’t looked as though she were chewing a mouthful of nettles as she said it.

  “What a story it made, though!” said Mrs. Poole. “Because who would arrange for a rising on the very eve of his wedding unless the wedding was planned as a distraction to divert people from the rising? And then away on the wedding journey right after . . .”

  “Really, Bertha. Trying to untangle your thoughts is like trying to make sense of my work basket after the cat’s been at it. Did you hear the rumor that the militia planned the whole rising that they might have the sport of quelling it?”

  Mrs. Poole rose like a fish to the fly. “Really?”

  “No.” Mrs. Davenant snorted, and Emily had to bite her lip to hide her grin. “But you would have believed it, wouldn’t you?”

  Mrs. Poole drew herself up, bows quivering. “It’s not at all the same. No offense to your grandfather, my dear,” she added to Emily. “So very long ago, after all . . .”

  “Very,” agreed Emily, nodding reassuringly to Mrs. Davenant. “More tea?”

  Mrs. Poole was clearly muddled in her thinking, Emily decided, as she went through the familiar motions of pouring and portioning out sugar.

  The rising might have happened in 1816, but her grandparents’ marriage had to have been at least two years earlier, in 1814. Her mother, she knew, had been born in 1815, Uncle Archibald in 1817. It was impossible to imagine her grandmother, with her plain, dark dresses and uncompromising white caps, anticipating the marriage, even for such a charming rogue as her grandfather might have been. Emily had no doubt it was another wedding Mrs. Poole was thinking of, just as she’d confused a rising with a hurricane.

  As for her grandfather being involved in a slave rising . . . She just couldn’t see it, not at all. Her mother, yes. Her mother would have reveled in organizing secret meetings and striking back against a corrupt system. Her grandfather, no. It was impossible to imagine him as a latter-day Robin Hood. He wasn’t nearly civic-minded enough, and a green jerkin would have made him look bilious.

  Her grandfather. What would he think of all this? Emily was beginning to feel that he had left her woefully unprepared, that he ought to have left her, at least, a manuscript or a journal detailing the events of his departure from Barbados rather than a locket with a miniature of her mother and a deed to a plantation, both of which were very well in their way but told her nothing of what she was meant to do.

  Get on with it. That’s what her grandfather would tell her to do. Never mind the events of forty years past.

  It was the present that mattered, and, in the present, Peverills was still lying fallow and untended.

  When Mrs. Poole finally took her leave, and Mrs. Davenant made to rise, Emily seized the opportunity to say, “May I trouble you for a moment? I had wondered whether we might discuss the arrangements for a lease.”

  Mrs. Davenant took her time getting to her feet, shaking the creases out of the rich stuff of her skirt. “A lease.”

  “The southwest corner,” said Emily, hoping she had it right. “We had discussed . . .”

  “Yes, yes, I know. Heavens, child, what put that in your head now?”

  It wasn’t precisely the response Emily had been expecting. “We’ve been here for some time, and—”

  Mrs. Davenant cut her off. “There’ll be time enough for that once you know which piece of land I mean! I wouldn’t want you to make a poor decision out of ignorance.”

  “I should think an ignorant decision would be very much in your favor,” said Emily, surprised into honesty.

  Mrs. Davenant gave a bark of a laugh and rose from the chair, walking briskly toward the stair. “You’re too wide-awake for that. We’ll find time to come to terms soon enough. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have accounts to see to. Go write a letter, take a turn about the garden. I’m sure you can find something to occupy you.”

  “The ledgers, perhaps?” Emily called after her. Mrs. Davenant stopped, standing very still. “You promised me I might look at the old ledgers from Peverills.”

  “They’re about somewhere,” said Mrs. Davenant vaguely. Emily thought of Mrs. Davenant’s study, every paper in its place, the ledgers neatly stacked by date. “I’ll hunt them up for you when I have time. This is our busiest season, with the cane being harvested and boiled. There’s no time for trivia.”

  But there was time, thought Emily, to entertain guests every day. There was time for George to spend an hour each morning riding with her.

  “I don’t mind finding them myself,” said Emily. “I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.”

  “No one goes in my book room without me. If you want occupation, go for a walk.” Mrs. Davenant stalked off toward the stairs in a rustle of horsehair. “Where’s that useless grandson of mine? Make him show you the rose arbor.”

  The last thing Emily wanted was a romantic stroll in the rose arbor with George Davenant.

  Not that there was anything wrong with George. He was quite pleasant, really. But then, so was blancmange, and she had no desire to marry it. She suspected George had as little desire to marry her, but she had little faith in his resolve. His will was subject to his grandmother’s. If Mrs. Davenant told him to propose, he would.

  George claimed that his grandmother had arranged his father’s marriage to round out the corner of their lands. If she was willing to sacrifice a son for the sake of a field, Mrs. Davenant would hardly balk at bartering a mere grandson for Peverills.

  And what was it about Peverills that Mrs. Davenant didn’t want her to see? She had given her a glimpse of a ledger—and then taken it away again. Her rides with George had taken her within sight of Peverills but no farther.

  That first day, the day Dr. Braithwaite had taken them to see Peverills—what was it that had sent George riding out to intercept them? Curiosity about strangers? Or something more?

  The next morning, Emily sent a note to George, making her excuses. Mrs. Davenant might question her, but George wouldn’t, especially if she made vague references to wishing to rest. She lurked in her room until such time as one could reasonably expect the other
s to have left, and then donned her habit and made for the stables.

  If her groom Jonah thought it was odd that she wanted to ride out without Mr. Davenant, he didn’t say.

  “We’re riding to Peverills,” Emily told him, in a tone that brooked no disagreements, and so they did, past the Old Mill, through a field that might once have held cane but now held only weeds, to the great ruined house at the heart of the plantation.

  They passed collections of small houses with untended gardens; a mill and a boiling house from which the scent of sugar had long since gone; stables where no horses whinnied. It was, in a way, worse than the great house itself. That, at least, was an honest ruin, destroyed by fire. These other buildings had been left to rot as they would.

  What had happened to all the people who had once worked here? It seemed so strange that everything had just been left, untouched, like Sleeping Beauty’s castle in a circle of thorns.

  There was no lady in this tower, just a child’s doll lying facedown, warped with wind and weather. She knew what it was; she had seen it before. But it still gave Emily a moment’s shock, and she had to still the impulse to swing down from her mount and go to the abandoned baby.

  Not a baby. Painted wood, she reminded herself. The plaything of a child nearly half a century ago.

  Emily turned to Jonah. “Aren’t there meant to be other houses on the property? Mr. Davenant said the bookkeeper’s house was still standing.”

  “Time to be getting back,” Jonah suggested, “before the sun gets hotter.”

  “But we’ve only just got here.” Emily looked at him curiously. “Where is the bookkeeper’s house?”

  “Emily!” Hoofbeats broke the silence, sending bits of gravel flying up as George, face flushed, galloped up the drive to her. “If you meant to ride, why didn’t you tell me?”

  She couldn’t very well say that it was because she hadn’t wanted him to come with her. “Did you see me in the spyglass?”

  “My grandmother did.” At Emily’s look of indignation, he added, “She was concerned about you. You don’t know the country.”

  “I have a groom,” said Emily, indicating Jonah. “And I should think I could visit my own house if I want to!”

  “Yes, but—” George glanced sideways at the groom and then said stiffly, “I apologize if I intruded.”

  It was impossible to be angry with George, especially when one knew he was only following instructions. “Oh, don’t be like that. You make me feel like a tartar. It was ill done to take out my bad temper on you.”

  “Is something the matter?”

  A day ago, she would have found his concern touching, would have welcomed his friendship. Now—Emily didn’t know what to think of him. She didn’t know whether to be annoyed at Adam for the new constraint she felt in George’s company or thankful to him for alerting her to a danger she hadn’t realized was there.

  “If there is anything I might do . . .” George said diffidently.

  She couldn’t very well tell him she was alarmed at the prospect of being tied to him in holy matrimony. Instead, she looked out at the ruins of Peverills, the jagged outline of the roof, the empty windows, the fields that stretched on and on, withered and dry. “Why did your grandfather sell Peverills?”

  “Ah,” said George. He toyed with the brim of his hat. “He didn’t.”

  “I saw the deed,” said Emily, beginning to be annoyed. “It was all quite properly conveyed.”

  “I didn’t mean to question your grandfather’s title,” said George. “What I meant was that it wasn’t my grandfather’s to sell. He didn’t own Peverills.”

  “But I thought . . . your grandmother said . . .” What had they said really? That Peverills had belonged to the Davenant family? “What about those portraits in the great room with the pictures of Peverills and Beckles?”

  “Ah yes. Those. I suppose you might say that was wishful thinking on my grandfather’s part. Or flattery on the part of the painter. My grandfather, he was the younger brother.”

  This was not at all what she had been led to believe.

  “Then Peverills . . .” Emily looked inquisitively at George.

  “Peverills belonged to my uncle Charles. He was the one who held it—and he was the one who sold it.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Christ Church, Barbados

  Autumn 1812

  Robert Davenant and Mary Anne Beckles were married on a rainy afternoon in October.

  The groom wore his militia uniform. The bride wore all her diamonds, cramming them onto her fingers and into her hair, as if to shout to society what they might have had and what they had lost. Beneath the blaze of jewels and the shimmer of silver-spangled gauze over silk, one could scarcely see the bride herself on her uncle’s arm.

  Standing up in front by his brother, Charles knew the gossips were watching him, searching for signs that he minded his brother snatching the heiress out from under his nose, and could imagine what they would say, that he was putting up a good front.

  But it wasn’t a front, not at all. As the colonel placed Mary Anne’s hand in Robert’s, Charles wanted to pump every man in the room by the hand, clap his brother on the back, hug his new sister. This was going to be the making of Robert, he was sure. Mary Anne was freed of the threat that hung over her, and Charles . . .

  He didn’t dare look at the back of the room, to where Jenny stood with the other upper servants. To do so, he knew, would be to betray himself. The sight of her made him light like a Roman candle, blazing with joy.

  They met sometimes in the Old Mill, at other times in the unused overseer’s house at Peverills. Charles would need, he knew, to hire a proper overseer to take Robert’s place now that Robert was gone to Beckles, but in the meantime the overseer’s house sat empty, a perfect place for a tryst. Robert and Mary Anne’s courtship had afforded plentiful opportunities; as the courting couple strolled in the gardens at Peverills, Mary Anne had sent her maid away, leaving her free to steal an hour here, an hour there.

  Charles longed to bring Jenny gifts, to write her poetry, but anything he gave might be discovered. So he gathered flowers from the fields, bringing her posies of hibiscus and peacock flowers, frangipani and bird-of-paradise. But never oleander. He remembered her distaste for it as he remembered everything she told him, every preference she voiced or, more commonly, indicated with only the slightest gesture.

  They walked together, well away from the house and the fields, choosing those rare bits of wilderness where they knew they might not be seen—might being the heart of it. He found himself rediscovering the forgotten haunts of his childhood, the caves and gullies in which he had played, so beautiful in memory, even more beautiful now, like another Eden in which they were the only man and the only woman.

  But they weren’t. There was, inevitably, the moment of parting, when Jenny would disappear again behind her mistress and Charles return to his books.

  Charles began to daydream of a world where they might walk together openly. And why not? Once Mary Anne was safely married, once they came back from their wedding trip, why wouldn’t Mary Anne be willing to part with her old servant? She would be a married woman, in charge of her own household.

  “And what will you do then?” Jenny mocked, when Charles shared his thoughts one afternoon as they lay together in the overseer’s house, in a proper bed for once. It was a risk, but Mary Anne was riding with Robert and would, they knew, be some time. “Will you buy me a house in Bridgetown and a pianoforte to play?”

  “Would you like a house in Bridgetown?” Charles asked seriously. “I would find a way to buy you one if that was what you wanted, although I would much liefer keep you at Peverills with me.”

  Jenny raised herself up on one arm, looking down into his face. “As your housekeeper?”

  “If you want to call it that.” Charles looked up at her, into her eyes, knowing he sounded a fool, but not wanting to lie to her, even by omission. Very quietly, he said, “There are no laws p
rohibiting our marriage.”

  Jenny lay back down, resting her head on his chest. “Only because no one has attempted it.”

  She was right, he knew. It might not be explicitly prohibited by law, but that was only because everyone had, so far, obeyed the unspoken rules. What minister would marry them? And if one did, what would the council do in response? He would find himself embroiled in a prolonged legal wrangle, and Charles was lawyer enough to know the toll that would take, not just on him and Jenny, but on everyone connected to them.

  “Fair enough,” admitted Charles with a sigh. He stroked her dark hair, the texture and length of it familiar beneath his fingers. “We wouldn’t be the first to live together as man and wife without benefit of clergy. When George Ricketts was governor, when I was a child, he had a colored mistress who lived with him at Pilgrim and acted in almost all ways as his wife.”

  Jenny stirred against his chest. “Almost all?”

  “She wasn’t permitted to preside at his table.” There had been a scandal, he recalled. The governor’s mistress had overstepped her place. Ricketts had been reprimanded, perhaps recalled. Perhaps it hadn’t been the best example. Charles shifted, settling Jenny more firmly into the crook of his arm. “But I’m not the governor of Barbados. I’m just a private citizen, free to love as I please.”

  “Don’t you mean free to live as you please?” The words were casual but he could feel the tension in her body as she lifted her head to look at him.

  “No,” said Charles. “Love.”

  Jenny sat up abruptly, driving an elbow into his chest in her haste. “You needn’t make me any pretty vows.”

  “Ouch,” said Charles. “You needn’t pummel me into honesty. If I were making you pretty vows, I would do it in rhyme, at least. But this—this is true. Or hadn’t you realized that by now?”