Devil Water (59 page)

“So I see,” said Byrd furiously.

Evelyn gave Jenny an ironic smile, not devoid of sympathy. “You’ll know what you came to find out sooner than we thought,” she whispered, “since we are going directly to Berkeley.”

The Captain shouted his orders, the ship proceeded the mile and a half upriver to Harrison’s Landing, which was as bustling as West-over’s had been deserted. A huge warehouse stood by the long wharf. It was filled with hogsheads of pickled beef, naval stores, and last year’s leftover tobacco crop ready-packed for loading. Nearby there was a half-built sloop in its cradle; the Negroes swarmed over it hammering away under the direction of a white indentured shipwright. In the several little shops behind the warehouse, Negro coopers and blacksmiths plied their trade, while a burly overseer in a cocked hat and a silver-buttoned coat walked to and fro across the landing. He had a pistol stuck in his belt and he brandished a stout cane while bawling out oaths, admonitions, and threats. The overseer’s bellowings grew louder after he hailed the
Randolph
and hurried all the available slaves to catch the towline and help maneuver the ship alongside the wharf.

The sailors put out a gangplank and the overseer came aboard, his purplish moon face glistening, his jaws working on a quid of tobacco. “Welcome, Cap’n Randolph, welcome!” he said officiously. “We wasn’t expecting you, though Mr. Harrison’ll be mighty glad to see you! What’ve ye brought us?”

“A flock of Byrds,” said the Captain, with a chuckle. “Bound for Westover, but we couldn’t land.” He turned to William Byrd, who had been standing by in annoyed silence.

“I doubt that you know Matt Corby, sir? Mr. Harrison’s chief overseer -- has come here since you were last home.”

“How d’e do, sir,” said Corby, squinting at the elegant Mr. Byrd without must interest. A folderol English coxcomb, this long absent owner of Westover seemed to be, and’d have plenty of trouble getting his plantation in order, by what that shiftless John Fell said.

Matthew Corby had contempt for badly run plantations. Twenty years ago he had been ‘prenticed to his father, a London butcher in Smithfield. But there were many other sons, and Matt hadn’t cared for the butchering trade. So he bound himself for five years to go out to Virginia, and had long ago worked off his indenture. Gradually he had developed a talent for overseeing. By constant vigilance, the frequent use of the lash and other necessary punishments such as the branks and the salt rub, he got more work out of the Berkeley slaves and bond servants than any other overseer on the James. Or maybe in the whole of Tidewater. Corby was inclined to think so. He knew his worth, and Mr. Harrison greatly relied on him too, not being himself a gentleman for vigorous measures.

“Things seem lively at Berkeley,” said the Captain, eying the busy landing. “I see you’ve another sloop a-building.”

“Aye,” said Corby, squirting a long stream of tobacco juice over the rail. “Can’t complain. Good season so far. I keep the black buggers sweating away, and we’ve a fine stand o’ ‘bacca plants already. The manor house is finished since ye was last here, Cap’n.”

“Indeed,” said Byrd interrupting with a frown. He was not accustomed to being ignored, while it was impossible not to feel envy at all this evidence of his neighbor’s prosperity. “So there is a new ‘manor house’? Are we to be permitted to visit it, or shall we stand here in the sun indefinitely?”

“Oh, to be sure. To be sure,” said Corby airily. “Just step up the hill to the manor, Mr. Harrison’s always glad of company.” He turned his back on Byrd to ask Captain Randolph whether he had any nails for sale in the cargo.

“Insolent dog,” said Byrd beneath his breath, glaring at Corby, who was completely insensitive, and had never concerned himself with the fine points of Virginia hospitality.

Byrd collected his womenfolk -- Evelyn, Maria, Wilhelmina, and Jenny. They silently stepped across the gangplank, traversed the landing, and trailed up the dusty road away from the river.

“My head feels so queer,” said Wilhelmina, clinging to Mrs. Byrd’s hand. “Wobbly, and the road goes up and down like the ship.”

“Yes, dear,” Maria murmured. She had a headache, and the sun had grown fiercely hot. She was, moreover, almost certain that she was with child.

Evelyn said, smiling at her little sister, “You had to find your sea-legs on the ship, Mina -- remember? Now you must lose them again!”

William Byrd and Jenny said nothing.

They came to a low wooden house much like Westover; here the Harrisons had been living when Byrd was last home so briefly, five years ago. Beyond it, and set farther back from the river there was now a new mansion, an imposing three-story structure entirely made of rosy bricks. Above and on either side the central doorway there were nine tall windows across the front, with twenty-four glittering panes in each. Beneath a classical pedimented roof there ran an elaborately carved cornice, painted white. The cornice was unfinished on the east side, some fifty of the bracket-like modillions were missing. As the Byrd party drew nearer, Byrd saw that the great brick walls were laid in Flemish bond, each header glazed dark and sparkling like a sapphire.

“ ‘Tis vastly handsome,” said Evelyn astonished, staring at the mansion.

“And how did Ben Harrison get it
done!”
muttered her father. “ ‘Tis a bit like the work of Gibbs himself. How’d that lad find such building here? That is what I want to know!”

“You’ll soon find out,” Evelyn answered. “Isn’t that Mr. Harrison in the doorway?”

From then on there was no lack of hospitality. Jenny and Maria particularly, being unused to it, were overwhelmed by their welcome; by the Harrisons’ eager cries of astonishment and delight, by the flood of questions, and the tumultuous scurryings of house-slaves bearing punch, tea, rolls, cake, dark red slices of ham, syllabubs; and dishes of thick yellow ice cream, as soon as the kitchen boy had finished churning the freezer.

Jenny had no appetite, yet she could not resist the ice cream, which was flavored with coffee and rum. She nibbled at it and sat quietly at the big polished mahogany table watching the Harrisons, whose speech she found rather hard to understand. It was not quite like any English she had heard. It was slower, thicker, and the ends of words trailed off. And the Negroes talked much the same way.

Benjamin Harrison the Fourth was a tall, heavy young man of twenty-six. He wore his own chestnut hair clubbed back, and a simple snuff-brown suit with a plain ruffled shirt. He also wore riding boots, since he was in and out of the saddle all day long, and detested walking. He was in fact languid by nature, though horse racing and cockfights could excite him. Otherwise he liked nothing better than to sprawl in the coolness of his beautiful new rooms playing cards and drinking punch with whatever company turned up at Berkeley. Yet he had many responsibilities as a planter, which he did not evade, and he was thoroughly aware of his position as owner of one of the largest plantations in Virginia -- and of his position as husband to Anne Carter.

This young woman was short and would have been pretty except that her body was swollen, her face puffed by pregnancy, though she carried herself proudly with the elegant condescension of a princess, because she, and all of Virginia, so regarded her. She was the daughter of the redoubtable “King” Robert Carter of Corotoman on the Rappahannock; he who was President of the Council, owner of nearly a half-million acres of land and a thousand slaves, a potentate feared and respected by the entire Colony.

The third member of the Harrison family was Ben Harrison’s mother. Betsy Harrison was cousin by marriage to William Byrd and they had known each other all their lives. She was tall, stout, and her hair was as white as her widow’s cap, though she was only forty-nine. She had been widowed for sixteen years, and had made shift herself to run the plantation, send Ben, her only son, to the College of William and Mary, and at his majority turn over his inheritance undiminished. She had been gratified by his marriage to the heiress Anne Carter, but had refused to be awed by it. She herself had been a Burwell, a more aristocratic name than plain Carter. She adored her son, and found it galling to play second fiddle both in his affections and in the management of the household which had once been all her own.

The friction between mother and daughter-in-law was obvious to Evelyn, who was amused by it. Evelyn had relinquished for herself any further active emotional roles in life, but she had no intention of moping, and she remembered enough of Virginia to know that one must amuse one’s self with the smallest of dramas. There
was
however a drama of considerable moment which concerned Jenny. It would be better not to broach the subject in front of her father, and Evelyn intended to wait until she could get Mrs. Harrison alone, though her plan failed.

When they had finished eating Mrs. Byrd craved permission to lie down. Wilhelmina trotted out to the kitchen-house, where the servants received her warmly. The others crossed the spacious hall to the Great South Parlor. This room was handsomely paneled, it had a marble fireplace, it had cornices and archways to the other parlor. The Turkey rug and walnut furniture had recently come from England on one of Harrison’s own ships.

The company all sat down, and William Byrd said to Ben, whom he had known since his birth, “I fear I haven’t properly congratulated you on this very fine house you’ve built yourself. Has it been finished long?”

“It’s not finished yet,” Ben drawled, stretching his legs and unbuttoning his vest. “Oh, we moved in last month, but the capstones aren’t on the chimneys -- nor all the what-you-call’ems carved un-dah the outside cornice. By the way, sir -- ‘twas that damned fellow you made me buy, that jailbird -- he built a lot of the house. It was
his
idea to make a pedimented roof, and the carved cornice -- seems he’d been a mastah-buildah once.”

“My dear Ben!” cried Byrd, half laughing. “I haven’t a notion what you’re talking about. I vow, Cousin Betsy,” he added with a ponderous wink at the elder lady, “your young sprig here has had a drop too much!
Me
make you buy a jailbird, indeed! Why, I wouldn’t wish one of those convicts to my worst enemy.”

Jenny sat frozen, her eyes fixed on Evelyn, whose poise fled for a moment. Evelyn flushed, then said quickly to Ben, “It wasn’t Father who wrote to Madam Harrison. It was I. Don’t you remember?”

“You,
my dear?” said Byrd, turning to her in amazement. “What is this coil?”

“I’ll explain later, Father,” said Evelyn recovering her assurance. “It was for -- for Lady Betty Lee, in a way.”

“For Lady Betty?” asked Byrd, momentarily distracted. “Lady Betty Lee is sister to the Earl of Lichfield,” he explained to the Harrisons. “She’s a great friend of Evelyn’s -- and of Miss Radcliffe’s, to whom she has been as a mother.”

The Virginia ladies were impressed, though not unduly. England and its peerage was an enchanting concept, like a fairy tale. It was the motherland, and one was proud of it. But except as the remote source of credit, luxuries, and fashions, England had no immediacy to these Tidewater aristocrats.

“I told Ben not to buy that villain,” said Anne Harrison, reverting to the previous subject. “But Madam Harrison
insisted.
Now Ben’s out fifty pounds!”

“Why?”
cried Jenny suddenly jumping to her feet, and glaring from one Harrison to the other. “Why is Mr. Harrison out fifty pounds? It seems to me that Robert Wilson has done excellent work for you here!”

With the exception of Evelyn, who felt inclined to cheer, the entire company gaped at Jenny’s flushed defiance. This angry outburst from the silent retiring girl was as startling as the appearance of a two-headed calf in the parlor.

“Well -- damme -- well-a-day . . .” said Ben uncrossing his legs, and taking his first real look at Jenny. “I’m not saying the rogue’s not a good buildah, miss. Still he’s done what they all do -- that white trash -- he’s run off.”

“Run off,” she repeated, her face crumpling. “You mean run away . . . Rob wouldn’t do that.”

“He
has
done it.” Ben spoke more gently than he would have had not Jenny been so remarkably pretty. “ ‘Twas a month ago. I’d made Corby give the fellow a lot of liberty, I admit. I had him take the fellow’s chains off. I trusted the rogue, liked his face -- the moah fool I. Then one day Corby gave him a floggin’ -- thirty lashes I believe -- because he wouldn’t hurry the cornice, get it done for Eastah. The next day he was gone.”

“My husband’s had the rogue posted at the Charles City Courthouse,” Anne interjected plaintively. “And even in Williamsburg, offered a reward beyond the usual -- but theah’s no word of him. Most vexin’. We wished to hold a house-warmin’, but I dislike to when the house isn’t quite finished.”

“So!” cried Jenny, her eyes gone hard. “Amongst all your other slaves is there none able to finish your house?” She stared directly at Ben, who was embarrassed.

“Not propahly,” he said. “But we’ll have to make do. Wilson trained one of my people as his ‘prentice, a big buck Nigra named Nero, and -- ”

“You admit, sir,” Jenny interrupted fiercely, “that this Wilson was invaluable to you. In the six months you had him you’ve plainly got more than his price out of him. Was it then wise to permit your overseer to give him a brutal flogging?” She confronted the discomfited planter, her chin lifted, and her arms akimbo, in the age-old posture of scornful challenge.

“Reahlly!” drawled Anne Harrison, lifting her eyebrows. “Is this a sample of English uppah class manners?”

Evelyn emitted an unmistakable giggle, while her father, who had been silenced by astonishment at Jenny’s behavior, for which nothing had prepared him, said, “Miss Radcliffe! It is hardly meet that you should tell Mr. Harrison how to run his plantation, nor do I understand your need to champion an escaped convict.”

“A murderah too, he was!” said Anne. “It said so on the bill of sale. ‘Transported for murder.’ I vow I’d not an easy moment while he was heah!”

“Nonsense!” said Madam Harrison tartly. “That’s not the way you acted -- drawin’ plans with him, consultin’ with him at all hours, praisin’ him to his face for his skill and strength -- oh I heard you, my deah.”