The Light in the Darkness (27 page)

The look Jennifer fixed on her was so appealing that Catherine felt her resolve weakening. “I would like to, Jen, but—I can’t ride. I’m lame.”

“We’ll take the carriage,” Jennifer said promptly. “The roads are wide enough to accommodate a carriage between here and Williamsburg, are they not?”

“It isn’t wise to take a carriage this time of year,” Catherine objected. “It rains too frequently. The wheels are likely to become bogged down.”

“Then we’ll ride,” Jennifer decided. “Grey said you were injured when you were thrown from a horse. He also said you were perfectly capable of riding a horse, but that you were afraid to.”

Catherine’s eyes flashed with fury, just as Jennifer had known they would. “That’s not true! I’m not afraid of anything, and you know it.”

Jennifer tossed down the challenge lightly, knowing that Catherine would accept it. The Greysons were so predictably
proud. “Then prove it,” she said, “and ride to Williamsburg with me.”

If the truth were to be told, Grey’s assessment had been absolutely correct. Catherine was deathly afraid of horses. But her friendship with Jennifer had come to mean a great deal to her. And she realized, perhaps more so than Jennifer did, how angry Grey was likely to be when he found that his wife had followed him to Williamsburg. She could not leave Jennifer alone to face his wrath.

Thus it was that two tired and dusty women, along with a small entourage of three slaves, rode into the capital of Williamsburg four hours later. Jennifer glanced around with ever-growing interest. “It’s so big!” she marveled.

In truth, by English standards Williamsburg was a very small town. Its population was only about a thousand, including slaves, who composed almost half of the population. At public times twice a year, when the courts were in session, the town’s population temporarily doubled, so there were many vacant houses. Also, many of the planters kept a town house here for occasional use. Consequently, the town looked considerably larger than it actually was.

In the last century, Williamsburg, built on the high ground between the James and the York rivers, had been a tiny settlement known as Middle Plantation. However, when it became evident that Jamestown, located as it was on a swampy and ague-infested island, was an inappropriate and unhealthy place for the capital of the colony, the capital was moved to Middle Plantation and the town renamed in honor of the king.

The tiny procession rode slowly down the main street, which was a mile long. (After a rainstorm, the street became so muddy that some Virginians joked that it was also a mile deep.) At the west end of the street stood the main building of the College of William and Mary, which was a divinity school. Most of the planters’ sons were also educated here, although few remained in school long enough to obtain a
degree. Most simply got the minimal amount of education deemed necessary to be cultured gentlemen and then returned to their plantations. At the far end of the street stood the Capitol. Along both sides of the street were small clapboard houses, most painted a neat white, and larger brick houses—though none, Jennifer noted proudly, were as fine or as large as Greyhaven. Every house sat upon a fenced lot of at least one half acre, as required by the town law.

As they rode along toward the Capitol she became aware of the stench that seemed to rise from the street and permeate the air. Having lived in the country all her life, she had never considered how the refuse of a thousand people and their horses would smell. She wrinkled her nose, seeing—and smelling—large piles of manure everywhere. In a house just ahead of them a window opened and a mob-capped slave dumped the contents of a chamber pot onto the street.

Jennifer made a mental note not to walk under the windows in town.

Catherine saw her expression and smiled. “It is quite noisome, isn’t it? I never cared much for town. But at least the smell is bearable in the winter. You can just imagine how malodorous it is in July.”

Jennifer breathed a silent prayer of thanks that it was still January. Then her attention was arrested by a structure to her left. She reined in her horse and stared. “Catherine, look!”

To their left was a wide green dotted with grazing sheep. But it was not the bucolic beauty of the scene that caught her attention. Beyond the green loomed tall brick-and-iron gates, marking the entrance to the most striking home Jennifer had ever seen. It was even more spectacularly beautiful than Greyhaven. “Who lives there?” she demanded.

“That’s the governor’s mansion,” Catherine explained.

“It looks like a palace,” Jennifer breathed in awe.

“Some people call it that.” Unimpressed, for she had seen the two-and-a-half-story edifice a score of times,
Catherine sent her mount forward. Jennifer tore her attention away from the magnificent house and followed her.

They passed another green filled with bustling activity. Here people seemed to be engaged in the selling and buying of all sorts of commodities, from firewood to produce. She had never seen so many people in one place in her life.

As they rode on, she noted that there were shops and taverns interspersed with the houses that lined the street. No doubt Grey was staying at one of the myriad taverns. But which one? She voiced the question to Catherine.

Catherine shrugged. “I think he usually stays at the Raleigh, up toward the Capitol. Grey doesn’t tell me these things; I’ve assumed it from things he’s said. He likes to quote a motto he says is over the mantel in one of the rooms there—
‘Hilaritas sapientiae et bonae vitae proles.’ 
”

“What does that mean?” Jennifer inquired. Only recently literate in English, she naturally had no knowledge at all of Latin. Nor was an understanding of Latin required to be a lady. Needlepoint was a much more important accomplishment.

“ ‘Jollity, the offspring of wisdom and good living.’ ”

“Singularly inappropriate in Grey’s case,” Jennifer commented dryly.

As they rode down the main street, Jennifer continued to exclaim over the town. The main road was actually wide enough to accommodate two carriages side by side—a thing unheard of in her experience. Rarely had she seen a road wide enough for two horses to ride side by side. Williamsburg, she decided, was a remarkable town. She wished a little plaintively that Grey had brought her here voluntarily, then pushed the thought aside. She was here now. And she would make what she could of the opportunity.

Catherine reined in her mount in front of a long, story-and-a-half structure with white clapboard walls. “I gather you want to stay at the Raleigh?” she said, trying to conceal her relief that she would soon be off the back of her horse and safely on her own two feet again.

“No,” Jennifer said decisively. “I don’t want Grey to know I’m here yet.”

“I don’t understand. Why would you want to go to all the trouble of coming to Williamsburg and not let Grey know you’re here?”

“I’ll explain later,” Jennifer said firmly. She did not care to tell Catherine her plan until the time had come to implement it, for she knew perfectly well that Catherine would object. “Where is another respectable ordinary where we could stay? Would that one be acceptable?” She pointed across the street to another white-painted building. The sign read Wetherburn’s Tavern.

“I suppose so,” Catherine agreed. “Even though Henry Wetherburn died a few years ago, it’s well thought of—if not as fine as the Raleigh.” She turned her horse toward the other building and dismounted with ill-concealed gratitude.

When dusk fell over the town, Jennifer explained the details of her plan to Catherine, and the older woman was just as appalled as Jennifer had expected. “Have you gone mad?” she demanded. “I told you that you cannot simply walk into the Apollo Room. Don’t you think Grey will be infuriated when he sees you?”

“No,” Jennifer said calmly. “Because he won’t recognize me.” She gestured down at the clothes she wore.

Catherine stared at her, caught between disapproval and admiration for her friend’s courage and ingenuity. Jennifer had found a cache of old clothing from Grey’s youth in a clothespress at Greyhaven. Now she stood arrayed in a young man’s finery—dove gray knee breeches and bottle green coat and waistcoat. The waistcoat was embroidered with gold thread, and the coat was trimmed with braid. Her slender calves were encased in white stockings, and she wore a pair of old-fashioned, square-toed black shoes with silver buckles.

“How could he recognize me?” she asked reasonably.

Catherine studied her friend. The girl’s breasts, which she had bound with a long strip of linen, were hidden fairly well by the loose-fitting coat, as well as by the ruffles that covered her shirtfront. The breeches clung indecently to her hips, but that was concealed well enough by the long coat, which fell almost to her knees. Only the slender curve of her calves was obviously female. “From the neck down,” she admitted reluctantly, “you do look like a youth of sixteen or so. But Jennifer, what are you going to do about your hair? You can’t just pull it into a queue. No man wears his hair
that
long. And besides, Grey would recognize its color instantly.”

“I thought of that already,” Jennifer said. Turning, she caught up a mound of black hair from the bed and put it over her bound hair. “I found this bobwig.” Bobwigs were an informal wig that did not require powdering. Over the wig she placed a tricorne, then turned to Catherine expectantly. “Well?”

“I don’t think he’ll recognize you,” Catherine had to admit. “But what exactly are you going to do?”

Jennifer’s bright smile faded slightly. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “But if he
is
looking for a mistress, I plan to do everything I can to prevent his finding one.”

A few moments later, Jennifer stepped out of the tavern into the darkened town. Golden candlelight streamed from the windows of homes and ordinaries, and rowdy groups of men tramped down the street, carrying tin lant-horns punched with holes that cast wavering shadows. There was enough light to make her way easily over to the Raleigh. She concentrated on walking quickly and purposefully, like a man, rather than taking slow, tiny steps as Catherine had drilled into her for so many months.

Entering the Raleigh, she made her way to the Apollo Room, guided by the sound of male voices raised in cheerful discussion and the smell of Virginia tobacco. She entered the room and crossed to sit at a table in the dimly lit corner, where she took the opportunity to survey her surroundings.

The atmosphere in the room reminded her of her uncle’s
tavern, with its noisy tables of men and smoke-filled atmosphere, but it was clearly a much more prosperous ordinary. Its paneled walls were painted blue, and there was dentil crown molding along the ceiling. The unvarnished pine-planked floors were marred by the passage of many booted feet, and the sturdy oak tables had been scarred by dice boxes and innumerable tankards of ale. It was evident that this was a popular gathering place for men. Above the mantel she saw the gilded words Catherine had quoted,
Hilaritas sapientiae et bonae vitae proles.

She glanced around the crowded room, looking for Grey, and spotted him easily at a table in the center of the room. Despite Catherine’s assertion that he had no friends in Williamsburg, he was sitting with a crowd of men, all drinking from pewter tankards and engaged in boisterously vulgar conversation. At least, she thought in relief, he was not with a woman at this moment.

So relieved was she to see him alone that she allowed herself to indulge in the luxury of staring at him, admiring every detail of his handsome face. As though he felt her stare, he turned and looked in her direction. A tiny frown creased his forehead, an expression that suggested that she seemed familiar but that he was unable to place her. Jennifer looked away hastily. To complete her disguise, she took a foot-long clay pipe such as gentlemen smoked from her pocket, filled it with tobacco, and lit it from the candle on her table. The blue smoke curled in front of her face, obscuring her from his vision. Grey looked away, apparently concluding that he did not know the young boy staring at him from the dimly lit table.

The scent of the acrid smoke made her want to cough, although she was wise enough not to try to inhale through the pipe. She took the pipe from her mouth and held it, straining to hear the conversation at Grey’s table above the general babble of voices.

“Tom,” one of the men was saying to a redheaded young man who sat next to Grey, “don’t try to keep up with Grey here. He can drink you under the table.”

“I want another ale” the young man insisted. He did, Jennifer thought, look a trifle woozy. Obviously he did not need another tankard of ale.

“Now, Tom,” another man said, grinning jovially, “why don’t you have something a little more suited to your age? Apple juice, perhaps?”

“Ale,” the redheaded youth insisted.

“Young Mr. Jefferson here is studying law with George Wythe in town,” the first man explained to Grey. “He studies all day and thinks he should revel all night. He’ll have a devil of a head in the morning, though, if he keeps on this way.”

Grey grinned at the young man. “Let him have his ale,” he said. “You can’t tell these young pups anything; they have to learn from experience. Tomorrow, when he’s bent over the chamber pot all day, perhaps he’ll learn the wisdom of not overindulging. Or perhaps not. After all,” he added, quoting the motto over the fireplace, “ ‘jollity is the offspring of wisdom.’ Perhaps it’s the father of wisdom as well.”

“Well said, old fellow,” Thomas Jefferson said blearily.

“Let’s have another ale.”

Jennifer’s attention was jerked away from the men’s conversation by the approach of a serving wench. Clad in a mob cap and a homespun gown colored a bright yellow with the dye made from Queen Anne’s lace, the girl smiled down at Jennifer. “What’ll ye ’ave, lad?”

Jennifer stared at her, caught in a web of memories. It was as though she were staring at herself a year ago. The girl was unwashed, uneducated, and clad no better than a slave. And unlike Jennifer, she would never have the opportunity to wear silk gowns and to play the harpsichord, or to pursue whatever dreams she might have. She would be a tavern maid until she married, or until she died. As Jennifer should have been.