Fortunate Son (15 page)

“Perhaps. But I want you to tell me.”

Jemmy looked at Clowes, wondering if the man would believe him. “I simply told him the truth.”

“Which is…?”

A deep breath, then, “My father was the Earl of Anglesea.”

“But he's not now?”

“Nay. He's dead.”

“So you are now the Earl?”

“I should be. But my uncle claimed it. Then he sent me here.”

“So you're the rightful Earl?” Clowes's warm eyes studied Jemmy. “Are you?”

“Aye. I am.” Jemmy looked away, wondering about the point of these questions.

“All right.”

Jemmy looked back. “Ye believe me?”

“Can you prove it?”

Jemmy touched his chest. “I have a key from my mother. It has—”

“Let's see it.” Clowes held out his hand. Jemmy pulled the brass key from around his neck and handed it to him.

“The ‘B' is for Buckingham. My grandfather is the Duke. And—”

“Your grandfather is the Duke of Buckingham?” said Clowes. “My goodness!” Jemmy studied the man's face, weighing the sincerity. “A key ‘tis hardly proof,” Clowes concluded, handing it back. “‘Tis nothing more than a fairytale meant to stir men's ire if you have not the means nor intention to prove such a fanciful claim. ‘Tis best left unsaid.”

“But, I can't prove—”

The foreman raised his hand, stopping Jemmy. “Then perhaps you aren't an Earl a'toll?” Jemmy's face reddened. “You're not going to pummel me for saying so, are you?”

“No. Sir.”

“I'll tell you my mind, lad,” Clowes added with a wink. “If I was a betting man, I'd wager a heavy shilling, if not two, that someday I'll be hearing ‘bout you again, hearing that you are the Earl of Anglesea after all. That you'd proved it.”

Jemmy nodded slowly, staring blankly at a clump of moss a few feet in front of him. The man was right; someday he would have to do just that. He would have to go back to Ireland. He would have to face Richard. He would have to somehow make this right, prove who he was. He scratched his cheek, then muttered, “Ye will. Ye will, indeed, Mr. Clowes.”

“But in the meantime, if you're fighting again, I'll throw you in the blocks. Are you hearing me?”

“My hand to ye. No more fightin'.”

“That's right. There won't be. Is that how you came by your scar? Fighting?” He pointed at Jemmy's cheek.

“Nay. ‘Twas a spur.” Under his breath he added, “‘Twas a sort of fight, I suppose.”

The foreman flicked a few ants from his boot. “You must watch that temper of yours, James. ‘Tis yours, nobody else's. You're the only one to control it. Your temper is your sword—it can inflict harm and it can protect you, but if you do not respect it adequately, if you hold it too loosely in your grip, it will slip from your fingers, be taken from you, and used to take your very life.” They sat in silence for a moment before Clowes announced, “You'll learn fencing. That's what you'll do. Let those angry passions escape you.”

Jemmy glanced up. “I don't know how.”

“Of course you don't. That's why you'll learn. You'll come with me tomorrow to Sands Furnace. On our return we'll stop at Mr. Bird's slitting mill. He makes swords. He can instruct you in the art of the weapon. We'll arrange lessons for you.”

Jemmy nodded agreeably, but was confused. “Why do ye tell me not to fight, then want me trained in dueling?”

“Not dueling. Fencing. It teaches the mind…” he tapped Jemmy on the head, “as well as the heart…” he tapped Jemmy's chest, “as much as it teaches the body. Perhaps more so.”

“Aye. Sir.” Jemmy grinned, excited by the prospect but not certain how much to show.

“'Tis too cold. You go eat,” Clowes announced, standing. As they walked back toward the cabin, he asked, “So that I may be certain, James—what are your plans regarding your claim?”

“I'll keep it to myself.” Jemmy gave a slight smirk. “Till I'm ready to prove it. Ye have my word.”

“Good.” Clowes pat Jemmy's back. “Before you turn in this eve, go inquire of George.”

“Aye, Mr. Clowes. Good night, sir.”

“Good night, James. Hurry up before you get too chilled.”

Jemmy walked fast up the muddy lane toward the big house. He smiled, feeling more at peace than he could remember. He would keep his promise.

The music filling the small Richmond farm house poured from a harpsichord, swelling against the papered parlor walls, soaring around the corner, through the kitchen and up the straight staircase to the two bedrooms above. In the larger bedroom the sound engaged Hanna Johansson as she leaned over a bed, straightening the freshly washed linens. Her gauzy dress, cheese white, matched her skin, wrinkled in places yet beautiful, worn yet elegant, aged yet full of life. This bed would soon be too small for Pehr and Gunnar, she reasoned. Her mouth creased to a small smile as she pictured them—her riotous ten and eight-year-old boys. She retucked a strand of her graying, long blonde hair back into its bun. They were probably down at the pond gigging frogs. She left the room. In the front bedroom she retrieved more clean linens lying on the bed she shared with her husband, Bjorn. Turning back toward the door, she saw the little bed he had dragged into their room last night. It was Sonja's, their youngest at the age of five. Though Sonja was still afraid of the dark she had mastered the intricate subtleties of father-manipulation. Hanna started to move it back, then stopped. Why? A few passionless nights and Bjorn would return the bed himself.

Back in the children's room, she changed the last bed—Laura's. Laura was the gentle one, the one who comported her father's mild-boar temperament. She had his contrarian, melancholy nature melded with his inscrutable energy, his passion for all things. She would be leaving soon. Not this month and perhaps not this year, but soon she would be gone. Married. Perhaps moved away. Though they never spoke of it, they could feel it. It was as if to talk about Laura leaving the nest would only hasten the moment's arrival. So they silently found themselves holding their eldest tighter, longer. Watching her more. Absorbing these last months as if they were the last fall sunsets before the grey skies of the Chesapeake brought down the soft snows of winter. The music hit an ill-chorded bump, jarring Hanna alert. “Laura!” she shouted down the stairs. “He's not in the kitchen anymore!” After hearing the same yearning, lovesick tune of
Greensleeves
eight times over and again, Hanna had grown decidedly weary of it. Downstairs, the music stopped.

“Where'd he go, Mama?” The melody of Laura's soft voice rose through the floor slats.

Hanna moved to the casement window and leaned out, linens still in hand. “My mind he's with yar papa and Sonja, out in da drying barn.” She heard the stool scoot back from their old harpsichord. What would Bjorn say if those two decided to marry? Certainly he would give his blessing. He loved that young man. But it would no less break his heart.

Laura stepped into the dark barn, her golden hair carrying the radiance of the day into the cool shadows. “Papa? Is he out here?” Her blue dress glided across the packed dirt floor.

“Aya,” said Bjorn, a Swedish giant, “up there.” His fingers were thick, his arms the trunks of small elms, his bald head held by a neck the size of most men's thighs. He nodded up toward the drying loft. “Tying more sticks far me an'—”

“Can ya help me put this on?” Sonja interrupted, struggling to pull a burlap bag around her shoulders like a cape.

“Aya.” Laura knelt to the task. “What a beautiful cape ya have!”

“It isn't a cape. I'm a butterfly.”

“Of course! A butterfly,” said Laura. “And never a prettier one vas seen.” Overlooking their blonde hair and light eyes, Sonja and Laura would not have been easily paired as sisters. Sonja's face was oval, sleekly Scandinavian, whereas Laura's was round like her father's, almost English in breadth. Her small, freckled nose sat daintily over the seductive arc of her mouth, each lip drawn into a perpetual bow, two red ample curves. Yet, as pretty as her lips were, it was the perfectly straight white teeth behind them that set others in awe. She could not remember a time in her childhood when neighbors didn't come to see her teeth. “Smile Laura,” her mother had instructed when she was eight. Two biddies from the competing quilting group were there to discuss a “rule infraction.” Her mother wasn't smiling, but Laura had to. “Show them yar teeth,” her father had ordered on her eleventh birthday, buying seed at the Elkton mercantile, the one that burned that spring. All the men muttered in admiration and debated the cause of such an aberration of nature. How could a child that lived among them, who ate what they ate, who was no more healthy, no less dirty, no different from their own children, have such astonishing teeth? Her father bought her birthday candy after each showing. Everyone was amazed and Laura soaked in the attention. By the time Laura was fifteen, Hanna was firmly whispering, “Close yar mouth!” as Laura fondly offered unsolicited viewings to passing strangers. Her mother was afraid some might think her oldest a simpleton, brandishing her white teeth at everyone.

When she turned seventeen and left her schooling, the suitors began to appear. Though their arrival disconcerted her father, it was Laura who was disappointed as none seemed the least impressed with her teeth, always fawning over her more feminine attributes. Now, over a year later, she was accustomed to the parade of purveyors of masculine wares. And she never made a fuss of her teeth. The suitors came by the ox-load. Since spring there had been three seamen, two merchants, an old school teacher, a minister, a toothless blacksmith, six farmers, eight soldiers, a French convict, a Spanish pirate who was later killed by one of the soldiers, two captains, and even one of the sons of the Governor of Virginia—who left his linen card in the shaking hands of her mother while she whispered, “Laura, show him yar teeth!”—each suitor more enthusiastic than the prior one, each no less discouraged nor deterred by rumors that a transported convict, a servant, and Irishman of all things, had stolen young Miss Johansson's heart.

A shrill whistle erupted from the rafters, snapping Laura's attention. “I know ya're up there,” she cooed, scooting into the black depths of the barn. She peered expectantly into the loft half-filled with racked and withered tobacco leaves, the remnants of last season's harvest. “Little birdie, vere are ya?” she called, an impish smirk escaping. The short whistle repeated louder this time. She grimaced. “That's the verst attempt at a varbler I've ever
heard!” she cried. She glided quietly to the corner near the scythes. When Sonja giggled behind her, Laura glanced back to see her baby sister standing on the milling floor, eyes fixed on the loft above. Her father, also smiling, remained focused on winding a spool of hemp between his knees. The whistle came again, followed by a loud rustling immediately overhead. She spun and looked up only to see a figure leaping down to the ground directly behind her.

“Aurrrgghh!” growled the young man as he landed, arms stretched wide and menacing, dust swirling all around.

“Ah! My word!” she exclaimed, backing to the corner. The man, now kneeling on the floor, was doubled with laughter. “James Annesley!” she scolded. “Ya shouldn't scare me like that!” She stomped past him dismissively, her eyes cobalt fire.

James was still chuckling as he came to his feet and trotted after her. “Can ye ever forgive me my lady? Can ye?” His affected grin disclaimed all sincerity.

“Go away,” she chirped, running out of the barn. A fleeting look back assured her that he was following at a hormonal pace.

“Are ya helping me no more?” Bjorn asked haplessly.

James whirled to a stop. “Aye, Mr. Johansson. Quite right,” he said, looking first at Bjorn, then out the cavernous opening where Laura had disappeared, vanishing into the brilliance of the day. He slowly returned his gaze toward her father. “Shall I wind that for ye?”

Laura peered around the massive door, shading her eyes to see the men in the dimness. “Papa!” she scolded.

Bjorn frowned grudgingly. “Go on. Nothing here my old hands can't manage.” James held his breath as tight as his angst, his eyes shifting between Laura and her father. A multitude of proprieties and improprieties flashed through his mind as he sorted them, trying to pick the best for the circumstance. Bjorn's frown dissolved into a round smile, now forming its truer self. His eyes fixed on his impetuous daughter. “On with ya, son. Aya, on with ya. I want no trouble with dat one.”

Already moving, James blurted, “Thank ye, sir!” as he pivoted around the corner and was gone. Behind him he heard Bjorn's bass chortle filling the barn.

By the time they reached the ox-grass road that led to Palkin Spring, James had slowed his half-hearted run to keep from passing the prey of his pursuit. She was laughing uncontrollably, her hair having fallen from its combs now fluttered behind her, an enchanting golden pennant swirling in the air. He stayed close. Finally, she slowed, then collapsed against a birch, breathless.

“Ya're a rogue, James Annesley,” she panted. “To chase a lady such.”

He bowed handsomely. “No more a rogue than ye'd desire of me.”

“Ha!” She pushed him away.

He approached again, glancing quickly to confirm they were unobserved, then took her hands and eased her toward him. Where she had practiced keeping polite space—room enough for Mama to see daylight—she now let him in close, his waistcoat brushing her breasts. He willed himself not to look down.
Be a gentleman
, he admonished himself. He forced his eyes not to leer as they otherwise wished, down into the warmth of her cleavage which rose and fell against him with each of her easing breaths. He knew of its presence, her smell, her warmth, so close. He wouldn't look down. He let go of her hands and embraced her, encircling her small waist with his arms, his hands careful to stay north of the forbidden line, his eyes focused where they belonged and inhaled, filling himself again with her sugary smell.

As she had done so many times, she reached up and silently traced the three-inch scar on his right cheek, touching it, deciphering it, as if to construe its story, reveal its true origin. As if by her caress she could extirpate it from his past.

“I love ye,” he said, confidently and soft.

She withdrew her hand. “I know,” she replied, affecting the coquette, the brooding look that turned away.

“Ye're wicked.” He smirked softly, keeping a firm, almost carnal hold of her.

“Nay,” she whispered, her ocean-blue eyes meeting his directly. “It's just—”

“Aye? Just what?”

“I just don't know if I can love a man who can't visal a varbler. It was pitiful James!”

“Ah, ye're a mighty fine one t' be sayin' such! What about me? Eh? I've fallen for a lass who says ‘visal' for ‘whistle' and ‘varbler' for ‘warbler,' so I have!”

“What's it my concern if da Irish or da English, whatever ya are, can't speak with da tune of a Swede.”

He marveled, slowly shaking his head, befuddled, bemused, altogether in love. She was right—he loved to hear her talk. It was as if listening to a melodious, graceful song. She daunted him, mystified him. She was his world. He studied her eyes, those pools of glimmering blue, watching her gaze glide gradually down the length of his nose to where it stopped and lingered on the creases of his smile. He eased in and kissed her deeply.

They first saw each other at a Mayday celebration in Philadelphia eight years before. James was nineteen, a thin attempt at cutting a dashing image, and Laura was a radiant fourteen-year-old lass, as mischievous as she was charming, a devilish combination. Her family had come to town with a group of other Swedes from their community in Elkton, Maryland. Among their group were three stableboys, one of whom was known to George Brooke. After one stunned glimpse of Laura, James quickly made his request, George made the arrangements, and the stableboy made the introductions. Despite the brevity of their encounter—she was whisked away by her officious father—it was magical to James. He was spellbound. In that single moment his world transformed. Up became down, right was wrong, and nothing else mattered but her.

Within a week of meeting her—the one, the rapturous smell, the curves, that face, those teeth—James did the one thing he would most regret for the rest of his life: he ran away from the Drummond Iron Furnace. He had convinced himself that the loveliest girl he had ever seen was worth all risks, all chances, was beyond all disregarded sensibilities, all logic, all glaring impossibilities. Or so he told himself. In truth his decision to run had been founded on far less noble grounds. That May he had been at the Drummond Furnace six years and ten months. He was a collier at the charcoal hearths, running a crew of ten. In a mere two months the hell would end, his seven-year servitude would be over and he would regain his freedom. He would be an English citizen, a free man. Free to own land. Free to marry. Free to charge a wage. Free to have property. Free to have that property taxed by an English government an ocean away. Free to be a full subject of that Crown. Free to return to Ireland if he chose and if he were to afford such a passage. All he had to do was wait, to bide his time. For two months. But two things occurred first: he met the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and five days later his Methuselah master, the insufferable Colonel William Drummond, finally died.

That May night after the hearsay of Drummond's painful death was cheerfully bandied about, every indentee and slave alike wished to lift a pint or two in remembrance. By midnight, the Wolf and Hen Tavern in Coatesville was stuffed with swilling servants staggering about bellowing chanteys, two urinating just beyond the back door, many more comatose and sprawled on the tavern's ale-slick floor. Though James and George were also on the floor, they had somehow managed not only to remain conscious, but were sitting up against the far brick wall, each into their twelfth tankard of ale. It is precisely in such moments that the gods amuse themselves with mankind. Perhaps these lesser gods, these gods of fate and subterfuge, are weaker than might be expected. Success for them is only assured when a young man has just puked and is now swaggering in his ale-and-vomit-soaked-waistcoat, adrift in that sublime state of voluble courage and confused vision. It was no different for James, for it was precisely then that divine opportunity came into focus, like a golden chalice handed down through the thick clouds floating through his mind. This was his time, his moment. Now. With Drummond dead, James saw himself free to pursue both his Swedish passion and the shiny promised spoils of an ocean adventure (as spiritedly described by George who was no less drifting). It was the convergence of promise where his dreams collided hard, muddling him, unmercifully beguiling him. Though in later years he would be loathe to admit it, he was the one who decided that morning would be too late. No, he and George should go now. They rose and stumbled from the Wolf and Hen, supporting each other as they lurched into the cool Pennsylvania night. Swearing at the moon, they went away, all along screeching a grievous rendition of
Rule Britannia
at the top of their voices.