A Place Called Freedom (1995)

“I’m Hamish Drome. That castle should have been mine.”

Jay was startled. Drome was the family name of Robert’s mother, Olive. “So you’re the long-lost relative who went to Virginia!”

“And you must be the son of George and Olive.”

“No, that’s my half-brother, Robert. Olive died and my father remarried. I’m the younger son.”

“Ah. And Robert has pushed you out of the nest, just as his mother did me.”

There was an insolent undertone to Drome’s remarks, but Jay was intrigued by what the man was implying. He recalled the drunken revelations made by Peter McKay at the wedding. “I’ve heard it said that Olive forged the will.”

“Aye—and she murdered Uncle William, too.”

“What?”

“No question. William wasn’t sick. He was a hypochondriac, he just loved to think he was ill. He should have lived to a ripe old age. But six weeks after Olive arrived he had changed his will and died. Evil woman.”

“Ha.” Jay felt a strange kind of satisfaction. The sacrosanct Olive, whose portrait hung in the place of honor in the hall of Jamisson Castle, was a murderess who should have been hanged. Jay had always resented the way she was spoken of in reverent tones, and now he welcomed gleefully the news that she had been a blackhearted villain. “Didn’t you get anything?” he asked Drome.

“Not an acre. I came out here with six dozen pairs of Shetland wool stockings, and now I’m the biggest haberdasher in Virginia. But I never wrote home. I was afraid Olive would somehow take this from me too.”

“But how could she?”

“I don’t know. Just superstition, perhaps. I’m glad to hear she’s dead. But it seems the son is like her.”

“I always thought of him as being like my father. He’s insatiably greedy, whoever he takes after.”

“If I were you I wouldn’t let him know my address.”

“He’s going to inherit all of my father’s business enterprises—I can’t imagine he’ll want my little plantation too.”

“Don’t be too sure,” Drome said; but Jay thought he was being overdramatic.

Jay did not get Governor Botetourt to himself until the end of the party, when the guests were leaving by the garden entrance. He took the governor’s sleeve and said in a low voice: “I want you to know that I’m completely loyal to you and to the Crown.”

“Splendid, splendid,” Botetourt said loudly. “So good of you to say so.”

“I’ve rccently arrived here, and I’ve been scandalized by the attitudes of the most prominent men in the colony—scandalized. Whenever you’re ready to stamp out treachery and crush disloyal opposition, I’m on your side.”

Botetourt looked hard at him, taking him seriously at last, and Jay perceived that there was a shrewd politician behind the affable exterior. “How kind—but let’s hope that not too much stamping and crushing will be required. I find that persuasion and negotiation are so much better—the effects last longer, don’t you know. Major Wilkinson—good-bye! Mrs. Wilkinson—so good of you to come.”

Persuasion and negotiation, Jay thought as he passed out into the garden. Botetourt had fallen into a nest of vipers and he wanted to negotiate with them. Jay said to Delahaye: “I wonder how long it will take him to grasp the realities out here.”

“I think he understands already,” Delahaye said. “He just doesn’t believe in baring his teeth before he’s ready to bite.”

Sure enough, next day the amiable new governor dissolved the general assembly.

Matthew Murchman lived in a green-painted clapboard house next to the bookshop on Duke of Gloucester Street. He did business in the front parlor, surrounded by law books and papers. He was a small, nervous gray squirrel of a man, darting about the room to retrieve a paper from one pile and hide it in another.

Jay signed the papers mortgaging the plantation. He was disappointed at the amount of the loan: only four hundred pounds sterling. “I was lucky to get so much,” Murchman twittered. “With tobacco doing so badly I’m not sure the place could be sold for that.”

“Who is the lender?” Jay asked.

“A syndicate, Captain Jamisson. That’s how these things work nowadays. Are there any liabilities you would like me to settle immediately?”

Jay had brought with him a sheaf of bills, all the debts he had run up since he had arrived in Virginia almost three months ago. He handed them over to Murchman, who glanced through them quickly and said: “About a hundred pounds here. I’ll give you notes for all these before you leave town. And let me know if you buy anything while you’re here.”

“I probably will,” Jay said. “A Mr. Smythe is selling a carriage with a beautiful pair of gray horses. And I need two or three slaves.”

“I’ll let it be known that you’re in funds with me.”

Jay did not quite like the idea of borrowing so much money and leaving it all in the lawyer’s hands. “Let me have a hundred pounds in gold,” he said. “There’s a card game at the Raleigh tonight.”

“Certainly, Captain Jamisson. It’s your money!”