A Place Called Freedom (1995)

Today she was different again. She looked happier and she seemed almost friendly. “What’s the news?” she asked him at dinner.

“Trouble in Massachusetts,” he replied. “There’s a group of hotheads called the Sons of Liberty—they’ve even had the nerve to send money to that damned fellow John Wilkes in London.”

“I’m surprised they even know who he is.”

“They think he stands for freedom. Meanwhile, the customs commissioners are afraid to set foot in Boston. They’ve taken refuge aboard HMS Romney.”

“It sounds as if the colonists are ready to rebel.”

Jay shook his head. “They just need a dose of the medicine we gave the coal heavers—a taste of rifle fire and a few good hangings.”

Lizzie shuddered and asked no more questions.

They finished the meal in silence. While Jay was lighting his pipe, Lennox came in.

Jay could see that he had been drinking, as well as doing business, in Fredericksburg. “Is all well, Lennox?”

“Not exactly,” Lennox said in his habitual insolent tone.

Lizzie said impatienüy: “What’s happened?”

Lennox answered without looking at her. “Our tobacco has been burned, that’s what’s happened.”

“Burned!” said Jay.

“How?” said Lizzie.

“By the inspector. Burned as trash. Not merchantable.”

Jay had a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. He swallowed and said: “I didn’t know they could do that.”

Lizzie said: “What was wrong with it?”

Lennox looked uncharacteristically flustered. For a moment he said nothing.

“Come on, out with it,” Lizzie said angrily.

“They say it’s cowpen,” Lennox said at last.

“I knew it!” Lizzie said.

Jay had no idea what they were talking about. “What do you mean, ‘cowpen’? What’s that?”

Lizzie said coldly: “It means cattle have been penned on the land where the crop was grown. When land is overmanured the tobacco acquires a strong, unpleasant flavor.”

Jay said angrily: “Who are these inspectors who have the right to burn my crop?”

“They’re appointed by the House of Burgesses,” Lizzie told him.

“It’s outrageous!”

“They have to maintain the quality of Virginia tobacco.”

“I’ll go to law over this.”

Lizzie said: “Jay, instead of going to law, why don’t you just run your plantation properly? You can grow perfectly good tobacco here if only you take care.”

“I don’t need a woman to tell me how to manage my affairs!” he shouted.

Lizzie looked at Lennox. “You don’t need a fool to do it, either,” she said.

A terrible thought struck Jay. “How much of our crop was grown this way?”

Lennox said nothing.

“Well?” Jay persisted.

Lizzie said: “All of it.”

Then Jay understood that he was ruined.

The plantation was mortgaged, he was in debt up to his ears, and the entire tobacco crop was valueless.

Suddenly he found he could hardly breathe. His throat seemed constricted. He opened his mouth like a fish but he could get no air.

At last he drew breath, like a drowning man coming to the surface for the last time.

“God help me,” he said, and he buried his face in his hands.

That night he knocked on Lizzie’s bedroom door.

She was sitting by the fire in her nightdress, thinking about Mack. She was ecstatically happy. She loved him and he loved her. But what were they going to do? She stared into the flames. She tried to be practical, but all the time her mind drifted into remembering how they had made love here on the rug in front of the cheval glass. She wanted to do it again.

The knock startled her. She jumped out of her chair and stared at the locked door.

The handle rattled but she had locked the door every night since she had caught Jay with Felia. Jay’s voice came: “Lizzie—open this door!”

She said nothing.

“I’m going to Williamsburg early in the morning to try to borrow more money,” he said. “I want to see you before I go.”

Still she said nothing.

“I know you’re in there, now open up!” He sounded a little drunk.

A moment later there was a thud as if he had thrown his shoulder against the door. She knew that would not achieve anything: the hinges were brass and the bolt was heavy.

She heard his footsteps recede, but she guessed he had not yet given up, and she was right. Three or four minutes later he came back and said: “If you don’t open the door I’m going to break it down.”

There was a bang as something crashed into the door. Lizzie guessed he had fetched an ax. Another crash split the woodwork and she saw the blade come through.

Lizzie began to feel scared. She wished Mack were nearby, but he was down in the slave quarters, sleeping on a hard bunk. She had to take care of herself.

Feeling shaky, she went to her bedside table and picked up her pistols.

Jay continued to attack the door, his ax smashing into the woodwork with a series of deafening crashes, splintering the timber and causing the walls of the wood-frame house to tremble. Lizzie checked the loading of the pistols. With an unsteady hand she poured a little gunpowder into the priming pan of each. She released the safety catches on the flintlocks and cocked them both.

I don’t care now, she thought fatalistically. What will be, will be.