“Good luck!”
Mack went out of town. Fredericksburg had been built just below the fall line of the Rappahannock River, at the limit of navigation. Oceangoing ships could come this far, but less than a mile away the river became rocky, and nothing but a flatboat could negotiate it. Mack walked to the point where the water was shallow enough to wade across.
He was full of excitement. Who had bought Cora? How was she living? And did she know what had become of Peg? If only he could locate the two of them, and fulfill his promise, he could make serious plans to escape. He had been suppressing his yearning for freedom while he asked after Cora and Peg, but Pepper’s talk of the wilderness beyond the mountains had brought it all back, and he longed to run away. He daydreamed about walking away from the plantation at nightfall, heading west, never again to work for an overseer with a whip.
He looked forward eagerly to seeing Cora. She probably would not be working today: perhaps she could walk out with him. They might go somewhere secluded. As he thought about kissing her, he suffered a pang of guilt. He had woken up this morning thinking about kissing Lizzie Jamisson, and now he was having the same thoughts about Cora. But he was foolish to feel guilty about Lizzie: she was another man’s wife, and there was no future for him with her. All the same his excitement was tinged with discomfort.
Falmouth was a smaller version of Fredericksburg: it had the same wharves, warehouses, taverns and painted wood-frame homes. Mack could probably have called at every residence in a couple of hours. But of course Cora might live out of town.
He went into the first tavern he came across and spoke to the proprietor. “I’m looking for a young woman called Cora Higgins.”
“Cora? She lives in the white house on the next corner, you’ll probably see three cats sleeping on the porch.”
Mack’s luck was in today. “Thank you!”
The man took a watch from his waistcoat pocket and glanced at it. “But she won’t be there now, she’ll be in church.”
“I’ve seen the church. I’ll go there.”
Cora had never been a churchgoer, but perhaps her owner forced her to go, Mack thought as he went outside. He crossed the street and walked two blocks to the little wooden church.
The service had ended and the congregation was coming out, all in their Sunday best, shaking hands and chattering.
Mack saw Cora right away.
He smiled broadly when he saw her. She certainly had been lucky. The starved, filthy woman he had left on the Rosebud might have been a different person. Cora was her old self: clear skin, glossy hair, rounded figure. She was as well dressed as ever, in a dark brown coat and a wool skirt, and she wore good boots. He was suddenly glad he had the new shirt and waistcoat Lizzie had given him.
Cora was talking animatedly to an old woman with a cane. She broke off her conversation as he approached her. “Mack!” she said delightedly. “This is a miracle!”
He opened his arms to embrace her but she held out a hand to shake, and he guessed she did not want to make an exhibition outside the church. He took her hand in both of his and said; “You look wonderful.” She smelled good, too: not the spicy, woody perfume she had favored in London, but a lighter, floral smell that was more ladylike.
“What happened to you?” she said, withdrawing her hand. “Who bought you?”
“I’m on the Jamisson plantation—and Lennox is the overseer.”
“Did he hit your face?”
Mack touched the sore place where Lennox had slashed him. “Yes, but I took his whip from him and broke it in half.”
She smiled. “That’s Mack—always in trouble.”
“It is. Have you any news of Peg?”
“She was taken off by the soul drivers, Bates and Makepiece.”
Mack’s heart sank. “Damn. It’s going to be hard to find her.”
“I always ask after her but I’ve never heard anything.”
“And who bought you? Somebody kind, by the look of you!”
As he spoke a plump, richly dressed man in his fifties came up. Cora said: “Here he is: Alexander Rowley, the tobacco broker.”
“He obviously treats you well!” Mack murmured.
Rowley shook hands with the old woman and said a word to her, then turned to Mack.
Cora said: “This is Malachi McAsh, an old friend of mine from London. Mack, this is Mr. Rowley—my husband.”
Mack stared, speechless.
Rowley put a proprietorial arm around Cora’s shoulders and at the same time shook Mack’s hand. “How do you do, McAsh?” he said, and without another word he swept Cora away.
Why not? Mack thought as he trudged along the road back to the Jamisson plantation. Cora had not known whether she would ever see him again. She had obviously been bought by Rowley and had made him fall in love with her. It must have been something of a scandal for a merchant to marry a convict woman, even in a little colonial town such as Falmouth. However, sexual attraction was more powerful than social rules in the end, and Mack could easily imagine how Rowley had been seduced. It may have been difficult to persuade people like the old lady with the cane to accept Cora as a respectable wife, but Cora had the nerve for anything, and she had obviously carried it off. Good for her. She would probably have Rowley’s babies.
He found excuses for her, but all the same he was disappointed. In a moment of panic she had made him promise to search for her; but she had forgotten him as soon as she got the chance of an easy life.
It was strange: he had had two lovers, Annie and Cora, and both had married someone else. Cora went to bed every night with a fat tobacco broker twice her age, and Annie was pregnant with Jimmy Lee’s child. He wondered if he would ever have a normal family life with a wife and children.
He gave himself a shake. He could have had that if he had really wanted it. But he had refused to settle down and accept what the world offered him. He wanted more.
He wanted to be free.
30
JAY WENT TO WILLIAMSBURG WITH HIGH HOPES.
He had been dismayed to learn of the sympathies of his neighbors—they were all liberal Whigs, not a conservative Tory among them—but he felt sure that in the colonial capital he would find men loyal to the king, men who would welcome him as a valuable ally and promote his political career.
Wilhamsburg was small but grand. The main street, Duke of Gloucester Street, was a mile long and a hundred feet broad. The Capitol was at one end and the College of William and Mary at the other—two stately brick buildings whose English-style architecture gave Jay a reassuring feeling of the might of the monarchy. There was a theater and several shops, with craftsmen making silver candlesticks and mahogany dining tables. In Purdie & Dixon’s printing office Jay bought the Virginia Gazette, a newspaper full of advertisements for runaway slaves.
The wealthy planters who made up the colony’s ruling elite resided on their estates, but they crowded into Williamsburg when the legislature was in session in the Capitol building, and consequently the town was full of inns with rooms to let. Jay moved into the Raleigh Tavern, a low white clapboard building with bedrooms in the attic.
He left his card and a note at the palace, but he had to wait three days for an appointment with the new governor, the baron de Botetourt. When finally he got his invitation it was not for a personal audience, as he had expected, but for a reception with fifty other guests. Clearly the governor had yet to realize that Jay was an important ally in a hostile environment.
The palace was at the end of a long drive that ran north from the midpoint of Duke of Gloucester Street. It was another English-looking brick building, with tall chimneys and dormer windows in the roof, like a country house. The imposing entrance hall was decorated with knives, pistols and muskets arranged in elaborate patterns, as if to emphasize the military might of the king.