A Place Called Freedom (1995)

“I know.”

That surprised her. “How?”

“Robert is here.”

“Why?”

Jay told her the story and explained that Robert was now the owner of both the plantation and High Glen.

“I was afraid the two of them were planning something like that,” she said bitterly.

“I’m ruined,” he said. “I was thinking of killing myself.”

Her eyes widened. “Then Robert didn’t tell you what was in your father’s will.”

Suddenly Jay saw a gleam of hope. “Did he leave me something?”

“Not you, no. Your child.”

Jay’s heart sank again. “The child was stillborn.”

“A quarter of the estate goes to any grandchildren of your father born within a year of his death. If there are no grandchildren after a year, Robert gets everything.”

“A quarter? That’s a fortune!”

“All you have to do is make Lizzie pregnant again.”

Jay managed a grin. “Well, I know how to do that, anyway.”

“Don’t be so sure. She’s run away with that coal miner.”

“What?”

“She left, with McAsh.”

“Good God! She’s left me? And gone off with a convict?” It was deeply humiliating. Jay looked away. “I’ll never live this down. Good God.”

“That child is with them, Peg Knapp. They took a wagon and six of your horses and enough supplies to start several farms.”

“Damned thieves!” He felt outraged and helpless. “Couldn’t you stop them?”

“I tried the sheriff—but Lizzie had been clever. She gave out a story that she was taking gifts to a cousin in North Carolina. The neighbors told the sheriff I was just a cantankerous mother-in-law trying to stir up trouble.”

“They all hate me because I’m loyal to the king.” The seesaw of hope and despair became too much for Jay and he sank into lethargy. “It’s no good,” he said. “Fate is against me.”

“Don’t give up yet!”

Mandy, the barmaid, interrupted to ask Alicia what she would like. She ordered tea. Mandy smiled coquettishly at Jay.

“I could have a child with another woman,” he said as Mandy went away.

Alicia looked scornfully at the barmaid’s wiggling rear and said: “No good. The grandchild has to be legitimate.”

“Could I divorce Lizzie?”

“No. It requires an act of Parliament and a fortune in money, and anyway we don’t have the time. While Lizzie is alive it has to be her.”

“I’ve no idea where she’s gone.”

“I do.”

Jay stared at his mother. Her cleverness never ceased to amaze him. “How do you know?”

“I followed them.”

He shook his head in incredulous admiration. “How did you do that?”

“It wasn’t difficult. I kept asking people if they had seen a four-horse wagon with a man, a woman and a child. There’s not so much traffic that people forget.”

“Where did they go?”

“They came south to Richmond. There they took a road called Three Notch Trail and headed west, toward the mountains. I turned east and came here. If you leave this morning you’ll be only three days behind them.”

Jay thought about it. He hated the idea of chasing after a runaway wife: it made him look such a fool. But it was his only chance of inheriting. And a quarter of Father’s estate was a huge fortune.

What would he do when he caught up with her? “What if Lizzie won’t come back?” he said.

His mother’s face set in grim lines of determination. “There is one other possibility, of course,” she said. She looked at Mandy then turned her cool gaze back on Jay. “You could make another woman pregnant, and marry her, and inherit—if Lizzie suddenly died.”

He stared at his mother for a long moment.

She went on: “They’re headed for the wilderness, beyond the law. Anything can happen out there: there are no sheriffs, no coroners. Sudden death is normal and no one questions it.”

Jay swallowed dryly and reached for his drink. His mother put her hand on the glass to prevent him. “No more,” she said. “You have to get started.”

Reluctantly he withdrew his hand.

“Take Lennox with you,” she advised. “If worse comes to worst, and you can’t persuade or force Lizzie to come back with you—he will know how to manage it.”

Jay nodded. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

37

THE ANCIENT BUFFALO-HUNTING TRACK KNOWN AS Three Notch Trail went due west for mile after mile across the rolling Virginia landscape. It ran parallel to the James River, as Lizzie could see from Mack’s map. The road crossed an endless series of ridges and valleys formed by the hundreds of creeks that trickled south into the James. At first they passed many large estates like the ones around Fredericksburg, but as they went farther west the houses and fields became smaller and the tracts of undeveloped woodland larger.

Lizzie was happy. She was scared and anxious and guilty, but she could not help smiling. She was out of doors, on a horse, beside the man she loved, beginning a great adventure. In her mind she worried about what might happen, but her heart sang.