A Place Called Freedom (1995)

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.

Unfortunately Botetourt was the very opposite of what Jay had hoped for. Virginia needed a tough, austere governor who would strike fear into the hearts of mutinous colonists, but Botetourt turned out to be a fat, friendly man with the air of a prosperous wine merchant welcoming his customers to a tasting.

Jay watched him greeting his guests in the long ballroom. The man had no idea what subversive plots might be hatching in the minds of the planters.

Bill Delahaye was there and shook hands with Jay. “What do you think of our new governor?”

“I’m not sure he realizes what he’s taken on,” Jay said.

Delahaye said: “He may be cleverer than he looks.”

“I hope so.”

“There’s a big card game tomorrow night, Jamisson—would you like me to introduce you?”

Jay had not spent an evening gambling since he had left London. “Certainly.”

In the supper room beyond the ballroom, wine and cakes were served. Delahaye introduced Jay to several other men. A stout, prosperous-looking man of about fifty said: “Jamisson? Of the Edinburgh Jamissons?” His tone was a little hostile.

The face had a vaguely familiar cast, although Jay was sure he had never met the man before. “The family seat is Castle Jamisson in Fife,” Jay replied.

“The castle that used to belong to William McClyde?”

“Indeed.” Jay realized the man reminded him of Robert: he had the same light eyes and determined mouth. “I’m afraid I didn’t hear your name.…”