When Nancy entered to check Lloyd’s bedding, Mrs. Dawson whispered to the maid, then turned back to explain with sparkling eyes how a bluebird sang from the window sill the day before. They exchanged more stories, Duncan of waking to a family of young turkeys sitting around his campfire one morning in the Catskills, and she of the amazing mating flights of the woodcocks that inhabited the river islands.
Duncan realized Nancy had returned, and was now extending a tray with a plate of cold chicken, cornbread, and a mound of butter beside a glass of milk. Ravenous as he was, he stared at the food for several long breaths before shaking his head. “I cannot.”
Mrs. Dawson took the tray from the woman and set it on the table at the end of the bed. “Because you are not hungry?”
“Because I am always hungry. Because I have more than twenty companions who will only eat thin gruel and dried fish today.”
“Your devotion to them is commendable, sir. But I can do nothing for the others.” She looked down into her hands as she spoke, and there was a new tightness in her voice. It was the first acknowledgment she had given of the slaves of Galilee. She took a deep breath and looked up. “Would you deny me the opportunity to show compassion for one just because I am prevented to do it for all?” She looked back at the unconscious man on the bed. “We must at least have one healthy physician, sir.”
“Duncan. Just Duncan.” He studied the woman, surprised at the familiarity that had grown so quickly between them. She seemed so strong yet strangely fragile. He had not meant to hurt her. “I would not betray my manners by eating alone.”
She smiled and pulled two chairs to the table, then sat and bit into a slice of cornbread.
“Speaking as a physician, madam, you look exhausted to the point of collapse,” he said after swallowing several bites. “I prescribe sleep. Surely your husband or one of your staff could sit with Dr. Lloyd.”
A melancholy smile lifted her face. “My husband was an inquisitive man, always seeking out modern techniques for farm management. So he traveled. London. Philadelphia. Charleston. He was invited to inspect sugar plantations in Jamaica. Nearly two years ago.”
Duncan lowered his fork. “Surely you made inquiries.”
“Six months after he left here, a portly man dressed like a Tudor prince arrived with a paper that said the plantation was now his, surrendered by my husband to settle gaming debts.” She stared out the window now. “A codicil stated that I was to be provided for, for as long as I lived. Of course I made inquiries. I had never known my husband to gamble, and he would have never risked the title of this plantation he loved so much. One man said my husband had died of the fever in Kingston. Another said he never made it to Jamaica. Lost at sea.”
“If his ship sank there would have been an inquest, with proofs required.”
“Only him. Lost overboard in a storm.”
“But these are matters for a court.”
“The Commodore is a confidant of the governor, even a member of Parliament. His papers are always crowded with seals and stamps.”
Duncan lowered his glass. “Are you saying that the man the brig awaits is the man who stole your plantation?”
She glanced back at the door, as if fearful of being overheard. “He is the owner. He provides for all of us.”
“Off the backs of slaves.”
She did not meet his eyes as she broke off a corner of the cornbread. “We always had field hands, but it was different then. In fair weather we would have meals with them on the lawn every Sunday. My husband would send doctors and pastors to minister to them. We never allowed a lash to be used.”
“Did you have Indian slaves? Scottish slaves?”
“Never a native. Not slaves at all, just indentured servants who were given land at the end of their service.” She looked down into her folded hands and spoke in a voice that grew smaller with each word. “I have nowhere else to go. He brings me lovely dresses and throws balls attended by every plantation owner on the river. He likes his sashes and medallions. Sometimes he calls himself Lord of the Chesapeake, a silly notion but no one would ever dare dispute him.” She grew silent for several breaths, then shrugged. “He wears me on his arm like another ornament.”
Duncan stared at the woman. The elegant Mrs. Dawson was herself a slave.
She had no more words. She did indeed seem about to collapse, as though the confession had used up the last of her strength.
He prepared a draft of the laudanum, which he left by the bed, then touched her shoulder in farewell. She did not look up.
Duncan was alone as he reached the downstairs hallway, and paused again at the extraordinary painting of the document he had noticed before venturing into the largest chamber at the front of the house. Flanking an ornate marble fireplace were shelves of books. Over the fireplace was a large portrait of King George. Over a vase of lilac blossoms on a side table was a painting of a bare-breasted Indian woman on her knees, extending a handful of tobacco to a richly dressed European. Two more paintings adorned an adjoining wall, one of a native in a pose of earnest Christian prayer, the second of a fierce warrior with two eagle feathers extending from the back of his head, one upright and the other jutting at an angle. The warrior was accurately adorned with tattoos and quillwork, dressed in loincloth and leggings. Behind him was a murky forest where the dim shapes of a wolf and a bear could be seen.
He walked along the edge of the room, marveling at how such opulence could exist so close to the squalor of the slave quarters. He brushed a bundle of peacock feathers extending from a crystal jar, then looked up and froze. His knees grew so weak he had to hold onto a chair for support.
On the wall before him was a life-sized portrait of the plump, lavishly dressed man who could only be the Commodore, the Lord of the Chesapeake. But Duncan knew him by another name. It was Lord Ramsey, Sarah’s ruthless and reviled father, who had vowed repeatedly to take Duncan’s life.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ramsey!” Webb spat the name like a curse. Duncan had just described what he had discovered in the manor house. “I know the bloated prig.”
Duncan felt bile rising up his throat. Seeing the portrait had been a waking nightmare. “He fashions himself as a commodore, and wears a fanciful uniform.”
Webb’s eyes flared. “He owns tobacco plantations in Virginia, indigo plantations in Georgia, and sugar plantations in the West Indies. Cajoled his friend the governor into granting him a commission in the Virginia navy, which at the time had maybe four dinghies and a scow in its fleet. He promised he would get ships seconded from His Majesty’s navy.” The militia officer looked back at the masts extending over the riverbank. “Is that the Ardent? That’s his brig, by God!”
“The brig that sank the committees’ boats, I warrant,” Duncan said. “Meaning he is one of the Krakens. Franklin reported it all started at the Admiralty.”
Alarm built on Webb’s countenance as the words sank in. “The marines. The maritime runners blown out of the water. The pieces fit together.”
“You’ve had dealings with Ramsey?”
“I have sat in the House of Burgesses listening as he lectured us about our obligation to support the merchants and lenders in London and Glasgow, on whose backs all prosperity rests. He was insisting that the Burgesses should guarantee all debt incurred by the planters. I dismissed him as another arrogant, ill-informed member of the brocade-and-lace set. But later I began to glimpse how powerful he is behind the scenes. He works in the shadows. It is said he gained his plantations by acquiring the annual mortgages many owners use to pay plantation expenses before the crops come in, then bringing actions in court for immediate payment when no ready cash was to be had. I know for a fact that he bought the debt of several members of the Burgesses and allows them to remain in their homes at his pleasure, meaning they must do favors for him in the government. It is said he has loaned money to the governor himself. My God,” Webb said as he contemplated his own words. “It must be how he got the commission, and started his little Virginia navy.”