Now Face to Face (4 page)

There was a shout from near the galley, and a slave in the creek held up a line. At its end was a wiggling, silvery fish.

“More supper,” Spotswood said to her.

“Delightful.”

The sky had begun to streak itself with evening. A wind rustled the trees, like a woman running fingers through her hair, and a few leaves, still green with summer even on the first day of September, floated down and settled on the bank, on her. She held out her hand to capture one, a game she and Jane had always played as girls. It was a sign of good fortune to catch a leaf. As one floated into her hand, she closed her fingers around it carefully and smiled to herself. It was a dazzling smile, another legacy from her grandfather.

Spotswood, watching her, blinked. With her hair down and dried into unruly curls, with those large eyes the color of sky, with that smile showing small, pearly teeth, she was the loveliest woman he had ever seen. Valentine Bolling might even be moved. Certainly, Bolling’s nephew, Klaus, a man with an eye for a pretty woman, would be. Good. Anything to make her arrival at First Curle easier. He had not prepared her properly for First Curle. He must do so.

Suddenly, he realized she was staring back, head lowered, brows drawn together, expression haughty, challenging him as if he were some footman who’d transgressed, and he was at once aware of the gap between them, he an old soldier for her grandfather and she a countess, granddaughter of a great duke. He’d forgotten it when they’d been under the galley, but now she reminded him. To think he’d thought of her as fragile. Perhaps someone ought to warn Bolling.

He made much ado of producing from his baggage an iron skillet with little iron legs on it, like a trivet.

“This iron is from a mine in the northern part of the colony.” He tapped the skillet. “I brought the miners over myself. This colony depends overmuch on tobacco. Not that anyone will listen to my theories. Everyone continues to plant as much tobacco as possible, and the price is down again. I think the South Sea Bubble is touching us here, the way a rock thrown into water makes ripples that expand outward. You had it all of last year. Now it comes to us.”

Barbara shivered. It was as if a ghost had walked over her grave.

“We hear such stories; are things still bad back in England?”

“Yes.”

Families ruined, fortunes in shreds because of the fall of South Sea Company stock, a dizzying, terrifying fall that seemed to have no end. Everyone affected—every company, every banking house. For a time of months, there had seemed no bottom to the fall of the price of everything in all of England: land, carriages, cattle, corn, other stock. Her brother, Harry, had killed himself over his losses. And her husband, Roger, had died trying to deal with his obligations as a director in the company. He’d lost everything, leaving her not only without him, but without an estate. South Sea. She hated the words.

“I hear they are fining the directors in the South Sea Company. To my mind, they ought to hang them,” said the Governor, beginning to scale the trout.

She was silent. Parliament had fined Roger for being a director even though he was dead. She’d had to dismantle his great house, Devane House, in London, sell furniture and art, even the paving stones of the gardens, toward the fine Parliament had levied. She dug her fingers into the sand in which she sat, angry, her throat swelling with grief she did not speak. Grief over dreams. What might have been, but was not, would never be. Roger, his fine house, his dream—he had dreamed, too—little left now but the land upon which it rested.

“Parliament was in the process of deciding the final amount of each fine when I left.” She spoke slowly, carefully, not wishing the Governor to see her distress.

“It is not good for the kingdom when something like this happens. I heard the King’s mistress took enormous bribes of stock, yet lost little when everyone else did. I heard the same of the King’s ministers. People wanted to impeach them, I hear. I tell you, Lady Devane, the Pretender should have invaded last year. It was the perfect time. As an old soldier, I know these things.”

“Are you a Jacobite?” she asked him.

She was curious, intrigued. Jacobites were followers of James III, called the Pretender. They believed James was the rightful king, rather than George, the cousin from Hanover who was on the throne now. Her brother, Harry, had been a Jacobite; so had her father.

“My father always believed James II was betrayed by his own Parliament,” he replied. “I’m Scotch, Lady Devane. We Scotch keep a soft place in our hearts for the royal House of Stuart. No, I am not a Jacobite. The law says George of Hanover is King, and I follow the law. But you’ve a Jacobite on one of your quarters—”

“Quarter? What is that?”

As he explained, the Governor neatly gutted the trout, placed it in the skillet, and moved the skillet to the fire over which the rabbit was roasting.

“The land belonging to your grandmother spreads across the river. It is divided up into sections called quarters. This storm has shown that you must never take anything for granted out here, Lady Devane. I meant to speak of it to you sooner.” And now he was off on another track, lecturing her about the colony. Whenever she traveled it must be with extra provisions, an ax and a knife, and flint and steel and a blanket and a musket and other things, so that she could survive if there should be an accident and she was stranded, as they were now. The closest plantation was several hours’ walk away through forest and underbrush, and anyone who did not know the way would become lost.

“That is why I insisted upon coming with you.” He frowned at her. “This is not the world you are used to, Lady Devane.”

The world I am used to, Barbara thought, and in her mind she saw that world, moved like a doll among its inhabitants: the King, his son, the Prince of Wales, the Princess, the courtiers. What would the Frog say if he saw me now, she thought, in my crumpled gown, with my hair hanging in my eyes, my belongings spread out like a Gypsy’s camp?

The evening dusk was soft as a velvet mask on her cheek, a dusk made clean from the storm, like a slate wiped fresh to begin again. She was beginning again, too. Go on to Virginia and remove yourself for a time from this mess Roger has left you, her grandmother had said. Go and tell me the lay of the land, its gains, its losses. Tell me if I should sell this plantation back to the country bumpkins who formerly owned it.

“Show me how far we are from my grandmother’s plantation.”

“Your grandmother’s plantation. I am very glad you bring it up. The river narrows and curls back on itself another half day’s journey from here. Your grandmother’s plantation is in one of those curls, the first one.”

“And where are the Bollings?” It was a Bolling who had written her grandmother asking to buy the plantation back.

“Past you on the river, farther west. Your plantation is the last place on the river deep enough to take tobacco ships. It has value as a loading place; at its dock there is also a storehouse where tobacco from other plantations is stored.”

That would explain why Bolling wanted the plantation back, thought Barbara.

“I’ve been meaning to speak to you of Valentine Bolling—” he said.

“Valentine. What a promising name.”

“Do not be misled by it. Valentine Bolling is the only one left now, though he has a nephew by marriage. The niece is dead, but Bolling remains close to the nephew, Klaus Von Rothbach, Lady Devane…”

The Governor was staring at her in a concerned way.

“I’ve been wishing to speak to you of Valentine Bolling. He’s of a certain sort, here—older, having carved a place for himself from nothing, from forest and creek and swamp and Indians’ hunting grounds. Such men are not soft men. They cannot be.”

I’ve dismantled Roger’s house, a beloved house, a beautiful house, and sold it down to the last brick and stone to survive; I face a huge debt; I’ve buried both my dear brother and the only man I ever really loved, my husband. Your Bolling cannot frighten me, Governor, Barbara thought.

“You could sell the plantation back easily,” the Governor was saying. “I must say I think once you’ve seen it, you won’t want to stay. It is not what you’re used to. I’ve been thinking of that since you arrived. Once you’ve seen it, come right back to Williamsburg with me, or remain upon it a few weeks, if you must, and I’ll send my galley back for you; you have only to send word. From Williamsburg, I will find you a ship back to England.”

He had it all planned, did he? “The fish is burning,” she said.

He moved to pull the skillet from the hot ashes, burned his hand as he did so, cursed, begged her pardon. The smell of browned fish mingled with roasting meat. I’m starving, thought Barbara.

He was distressed, she could see it. What distressed him now? What other warnings, other advice, had he for her?

“I have no plates, Lady Devane.”

She smiled. “Once I was a wild girl who ran through the woods with my brother and a friend. I know how to eat with my hands, Governor.”

He speared fish into her hands, and she tossed the crumbling, hot pieces back and forth until they were cool enough to eat, shared them with Hyacinthe and Thérèse. Night had fallen, like a cloak, over them. Juice dribbled down her chin as she ate. No supper in a royal drawing room had ever tasted as good as this supper on a creek, she thought, remembering suppers as a girl, with Harry and Jane—those suppers, too, in the woods, with only a fire; those suppers, too, delicious and satisfying.

Her dogs whined and cried and did flips in the air as Hyacinthe threw them scraps.

“Where are the slaves, Governor?” asked Barbara.

“At the galley. They have their own fire, their own supper.”

Spotswood produced a bottle of wine from his baggage, opened it and presented it, with a flourish, to Barbara.

“To the storm,” she said. “To survival.”

One after the other they drank from it.

“You are a man after my grandmother’s heart,” said Barbara, “prepared for anything.” She saw that these words pleased him. “My grandmother dislikes disorder, will not have it.”

There was a rhythm and a sense of purpose to her grandmother’s life, comforting, like this fire. Order holds back chaos, thought Barbara, the way fire holds back dark.

The sky blazed with stars, like hundreds of diamonds sparkling and white, laid out on a black velvet gown. Everywhere were the sounds of night: crickets, frogs, water lapping, small rustles in the underbrush. There was a far-off howl, like a dog’s, but not a dog’s. Her pugs, in her lap now, lifted their heads. The short fur on the back of their necks rose.

“Wolves,” Spotswood said.

Thérèse, who was sitting near the fire with them, bare toes peeking out from her gown as she wiggled them in sand, looked up. She was French and had lived on a farm; stories of wolves, slavering monsters who ate children alive, were something she had ingested as regularly as black bread and sour wine.

“No danger,” said Spotswood. “It is only in winter that they might be hungry enough to attack.”

Thérèse made a face as if to say, See, what a barbarous place. Barbara smiled. Hyacinthe was playing with a turtle he had found along the bank. She called his name, patting the sand near her; he left his turtle, curled himself against her stretched-out leg like a small animal, and was instantly asleep, as she’d known he would be.

One of her dogs, the male one, named Harry after her brother, jumped from her lap and trotted away, but she did not call him. Thérèse was in the shelter now, rummaging through her portmanteau, an ancient, faded bag of leather, setting it to rights. Order out of chaos, thought Barbara. Doubtless she was also searching for a charm against wolves. Spotswood stretched out on the sand to smoke a long Dutch pipe of tobacco. Barbara heard her dog barking.

“Perhaps he has found the cow,” said Barbara. She’d rather not write to her grandmother that she’d lost the cow. The chickens lost would be bad enough.

“I sent two slaves off to search for your cow. They have not returned. They have more than likely run away. Some slaves try it over and over again. If they make it to the mountains, the Seneca—a fierce Indian tribe—find them and bring them back. If they can get to Carolina, to the south of us, they live there among the runaway indentured servants. I have asked the Board of Trade in England to limit the number of slaves allowed here, but they do nothing. We need another import duty to stop their coming. There are too many of them here…. If they were to all rise up…”

He did not finish. Barbara was silent, trying to put straight in her mind the sight of those silent rowers today, the sight of all the dark faces she had seen since her arrival, cooking, cleaning, weeding gardens, repairing fences, carrying water, with rebellion and fear, but she could not.

“What will happen to the slaves when you find them?”

“They’ll be whipped. The incorrigibles have their toes chopped off.” There was nothing apologetic in his voice. Barbara was silent, digesting his words.

The pug ran toward them with something dark and hairy in his mouth. Oh no, thought Barbara. The pug was shaking it back and forth, and it hung limply, obviously dead.

“What’s he caught?” Spotswood said, interested, rising to his feet. “I had no idea pugs could hunt. Here, boy. Here!”

Harry laid his trophy at Spotswood’s feet and sat back on his haunches, panting, pleased with himself. Spotswood bent down and picked up his own wig.