Now Face to Face (56 page)

B
ARBARA STOOD STARING DOWN AT THE SEEDLINGS, SLENDER,
rich green, that had moved up out of the earth, the hay around each plant haloing it like a necklace. Kneeling, her skirts belling out around her, she touched the closest seedling, her fingertip gentle upon the stalk, searching for the small bumps that would be leaves. But it was too soon. First Curle’s pride and joy, she thought, Grandmama’s sort. Thrive while I’m gone.

“And what are you doing?”

It was Blackstone, tall, his heavy head cocked to one side, watching her from across the seedling bed. He knew these were their children; she and Blackstone had been going to see these plants each day, discussing the individual plants at night: Had they grown? Which were taller? Which looked stronger? When would be the best time to move them?

“I’m saying good-bye.”

“Not good-bye; never good-bye. Only ‘fare thee well for a time.’ They will fare well. They’re the handsomest seedlings I’ve seen in many a year.”

Yes, her grandmother’s sort stood an inch above the others.

“We should have planted only Digges seed,” he said.

She stood up, dusted off her hands. “See how these do over the summer—they still have to endure the summer, you know—”

Blackstone smiled at her tone, as if she’d been raising tobacco all her life.

“—and perhaps next year we will.”

She would not see them moved into the fields Blackstone was so carefully preparing. The business of spring in Virginia was to have the field dirt hoed as loose, as easy as river sand; once the rains of April and May began, the seedlings were moved to fields to finish their growth, growing under blue skies toward the sun—but not too tall. I’ll pinch them back, Kano and I will, said Blackstone, Kano has a feel for tobacco, as I have. Thus strength would move into their leaves, those precious leaves that when dry made tobacco.

“Walk with me back to the house,” said Barbara.

“Sinsin says the rain will come early this year. He says already the places where his toes were feel it. It’s hard when the rains come too early. The first spring I was here there was a storm of hail not two days after we got the last seedling planted. I don’t think half Jordan’s crop survived.”

Once the rains began, every man and his slave was out in them, moving seedlings to fields, each field dotted with row after row of small dirt hills, made by the slaves pulling soft dirt up around one leg, pulling out the leg, and tamping down the top of the hill made. Tobacco hills. Each would be crowned with a seedling planted in the rain, the better for it to thrive—unless, as Blackstone said, a storm of hail came, or a flood, or there might be a terrible, unimaginable storm, the kind called a hurricane. There had been one of those in 1713, said Colonel Perry, ruining the tobacco for that year and a year to come.

“In two springs, I predict we’ll have the marsh drained. Will you come and see the field we make for your grandmother’s sort?”

“Yes.”

Her mind was moving over the plantation, seeing the fields, the two creeks, the path through the woods to the slave house, seeing her plans for it all. She had worked hard this winter to plan First Curle’s destiny, talking with other planters, with the Governor, who was unhappy with her. You do me no service with this matter of the slaves, he’d said to her, as if she were a child who had been disobedient without him there to watch over her. That work was now ready to lay before her grandmother in rough maps, inked drawings, page after page of her thoughts and others’ conversations in an account book.

“Have you enough coins, do you think?” she asked Blackstone.

A prison ship roamed the York River, she’d heard. Blackstone and Colonel Perry were going to find it and begin the purchase of indentured men to take the place of slaves.

“There is credit if you need it in Williamsburg.” She said this though she knew he knew it. It had all been said before, planned out carefully. She couldn’t help herself. Time was so short now. “John Randolph holds notes I’ve signed, which will give you more funds if need be. Then, once I’m in England, I’ll arrange a proper line of credit for you.”

They walked by the kitchen to the house. In the yard sat her trunks and boxes. This afternoon, the slaves would bring them to the second creek.

“With your permission, Lady Devane, there are things I must do before tonight.”

“Yes, go on.”

She knew she’d done nothing these last days but quiz him on what he would do in her absence, as if he were a boy who could not follow instructions. First Curle would thrive under him. She knew it.

Two geese came rushing at Barbara from around the corner of the picket fence.

“Shoo!”

She stamped her feet, waved her skirts. The geese stopped, but stood as close to her as they dared, honking at her, their long necks thrusting out like snakes ready to strike. They were bad-tempered, awful, Tamworth’s fattest, gifts from her grandmother.

“Harry! Rescue me!”

From the house, the dog came bounding out. The hatred between him and the geese had been immediate. It had reminded Barbara of the rivalry between Annie and Perryman at Tamworth.

He began to chase them, and the geese, furious, hissing, wings flapping, disappeared around the corner of the fence again.

“My hero,” Barbara said to him. “Come, say good-bye with me.”

They walked through the field and woods toward the slave house, stepping up into it. Barbara moved from one narrow bed to another, her skirts shushing against the wood floors, in her mind the man who slept in each. Jack Christmas, Moody, Sinsin, Kano—in her account book were drawings of them. Some of the slaves would leave First Curle and go and settle the land she had patented. Cuffy’s gone, Colonel Perry had said. His personal servant, Cuffy, had been the first slave he’d freed. I offered him wages to continue to serve me, but he left without a good-bye. All these years he has served me, and I never knew what was in his heart, Barbara.

In the hall of the house, Blackstone stood watching Thérèse, who was kneeling before a trunk, frowning, as she packed. She looked up and saw him. They stared at each other, a long look, much in it.

“When?” he said, a muscle working in his jaw, which his beard hid. His heart was beating like a boy’s.

“In another hour.”

B
ARBARA WALKED
through the woods. Upon the trees and shrubs, leaf and flower buds were fat, fecund, deliciously close to opening—or else open, daringly there, petals soft as velvet, leaves rich, lushly yellow-green, as if half the sun were in them. Birds sang and fluttered from tree to tree above. At night, the frogs were a chorus drowning out sleep. The river, to her right now, was fat and rolling with melted snow from the mountains far to the west. When you come back, Blackstone said, we’ll journey to the mountains. I hear they rise to the sky in shades of purple.

A fish jumped out of the river, The sun glimmered on its scales. Another fish leaped from the water, and another. It was their spring journey. All about her was birth, promise, striving.

She couldn’t sleep nights, instead slipped out and sailed her dinghy at all hours. Come home, Wart had written. There is an adventure happening. Avenge Roger, Carlyle had written. Tony is married, wrote her mother. I miss you, said her grandmother. This work she had done for First Curle seemed a preliminary for Devane Square. Devane Square was on her mind always now: what she might do with it.

There was the grave. Barbara stood under the trees that sheltered it, the oak limbs as thick as her waist. He is not dead, said Thérèse. She had such faith. Faith is all there is, said Colonel Perry. Clear faith belonged to Thérèse and Colonel Perry. Barbara couldn’t have it, wavered, faltered, felt anger, questioned.

If you come back, Hyacinthe, she said silently, every justice in every county knows of you. There are coins in Williamsburg to pay for your journey to England. Thérèse had refused to pack Hyacinthe’s clothes. She was leaving them here. He will need them, she said, when he returns.

Harry, farther on down the path at the river’s edge, barked. Yes, Barbara thought, walking away from the grave, time to move on, to leave this. But it was hard, like burying Roger, something she did not want to do; and when she did not want to do something, all the King’s men and all the King’s horses could not convince her otherwise. She was no wiser in that than when she’d left England.

God is with Hyacinthe, Colonel Perry had said. Believe that, know that. When the sun sets, and darkness comes, the light has not died; it only waits a time in the darkness for its new day to be born.

I don’t understand, she’d said.

In the hurt is good, he had answered. Keep your mind upon the good, upon the fact that there is a greater purpose, and we are but servants to it. Is there greater good in your quarrel with Beth? she’d flashed. She could not help it. He might be a saint, but she was not.

Yes, he’d answered. I know there is.

There was her saint now, talking with planters here at the second creek, planters seeing to their hogsheads, talking with the tobacco ship’s captain about charges for freight, deciding whether or not they would send their hogsheads on this ship, or another, which might charge less.

In the river was the ship, its sails folded, masts rising pointed to the sky. Tomorrow her hogsheads and those of neighbors would be loaded upon it. And she and Thérèse would board it to return to England. Home. She was going home. She saw Colonel Bolling and frowned.

Stepping carefully across the small, floating bridge at the narrow, marshy head of the creek—Colonel Perry’s design, one of the ways in which he kept his mind from his daughter these months—Barbara joined the men. They took off their hats at the sight of her.

“And to what do I owe this honor?” she said to Bolling.

The men around her shifted from one foot to the other. No one knows what to think of you, said Margaret Cox. No one knows what you will do.

“I haven’t come to see you. I’ve come to see about sending my hogsheads. You’ll allow me that, I believe.”

“I must by law, mustn’t I?”

“Did you get your other barrels loaded, Colonel Bolling?” The mischief in her preened. “Did your nephew Klaus hoist his anchor and sail?”

“I did; he did; no thanks to you. I am surprised you allow me here at all. I am surprised that you didn’t insist that I settle with the tobacco captain by letter, or by rowing out from my land to his ship.”

“I considered it, but I thought you’d take me to county court.”

“And indeed I would. I’ve as much right here as any man who has hogsheads in the rolling house.”

“Well, then.”

“Well, then.”

They stared at each other, he glaring, unrepentant, she not glaring, but certainly unrepentant.

“You bewitched Edward Perry into running your storehouse for you. Bewitched him into freeing his slaves. Little wonder his daughter has filed suit against him in county court. I’d do the same. The colony is well rid of you, madam.”

“Be certain you don’t linger here too long.”

“I have as much right as the next man. I may want to buy something from the storehouse.”

“Coins only, Colonel Bolling. No credit will be extended to you.”

He swore, but Barbara walked away, going back to the planters, shaking hands with each of them, asking about their families, telling them that she’d put some of the clothing her grandmother had sent into the storehouse, and that they might find something for their wives or themselves there. One of them gave her a letter. She took it, promising it would get to its destination in England.

One of the slaves was standing knee-deep in the river, pulling out a basket in which Barbara could see fish gleaming, like silver caught. A paradise of shad and sturgeon and trout and pike and eels and perch and crab was in these rivers and creeks, the colonials had bragged when first she’d come. Dip your hand in and see, they had said. The slave let the basket slide back into the water. When first she’d come here, that late August when she’d been ill with fever in Williamsburg, the colonials had come to visit her, had chattered to her of their colony, bragging of its beauties. In her fever, she had imagined they were mettlesome horses prancing before her. She wished she might present this basket of shining fish to the King to show him the abundance of his colonial paradise.

She was going home tomorrow.

I
N HIS
bed, Blackstone put his head against the flesh of Thérèse’s bare shoulder. “I was going to make you weep for me in this time we have, Frenchwoman”—his face was against her shoulder—“make you beg for mercy and know that you cannot do without me….”

Thérèse cupped her hand against the side of his face, feeling the softness of his beard. He would let it grow long and ragged again when she was gone; she knew he would. She wrapped a bare leg over him, tracing with her toe the length from buttock to knee, a length she liked, reveled in. I adore your legs, she said to him often in French, refusing to translate. She put her hand to the thick hair curling at his neck. His neck was strong, solidly made to hold the heavy head. Often, she’d kissed the back of his neck. This piece of your flesh, she thought, now it’s mine, forever, I brand it now with my lips, that and the long length of your thighs. When you die, send me your thigh bone, Blackstone, and I will put it in a place of honor in my house.