Becoming Americans (44 page)

      "She is named Sarah, too. Sarah Blair. She drinks to excess and is older than I. Such an embarrassment for the Commissary."

      Blair was, possibly, the most important man in the colony—including the governor, since Blair had been personally responsible for the removal of more than one.

      For Sarah Alice, the Harrison connection had been a blessing with little responsibility. It had culminated in her introduction to Major Dorsey, a man she immediately loved and wanted. There was no dowry to purchase Major Dorsey, but the relationship was heartily encouraged by the Harrisons, who were anxious to be freed of the responsibility of her. The couple had announced their betrothal at the Green Spring reception honoring the arrival of Governor Spotswood the previous week. The good-byes she was making now and over the next few weeks would be, certainly, tearful, but her joy at having found Major Dorsey was hard to conceal. And she was going home to England! To Scotland, at least.

      "See, Stephen, the Capitol! Don't you love the name, Joseph? Like in ancient Rome, Colonel Harrison said. It's built like two of the old James Town State Houses, one behind the other, and connected by a piazza with a meeting room upstairs. It's built like that for a reason. The Burgesses have one side; the King's Governor and Council have the other one. And there's a room atop the connecting piazza where the two sides can get together to thrash things out. Isn't it rational and beautiful?"

      She waved her fan for emphasis as she repeated the story for these visiting relatives. It was a role she was used to. The Harrisons often used her to show visitors about town.

      "We'll meet John at Taylor's Coffee House," she went on, then interrupted herself. "Look at that building! It's the biggest store in Williamsburgh. It belongs to my brother's-in-law, Commissary Blair and Philip Ludwell, of Green Springs."

      "Your Mister Blair must be the busiest man in Virginia," Stephen said.

      "Joseph!" Sarah Alice jerked the fan from her lap and grasped it with both hands. She saw her fallen face patch stuck to her dress, and removed one hand to fold the fabric and conceal the spot. The child's eyes followed her movements.

      Joseph spoke seriously to his son.

      "The Reverend Blair may well be the busiest man in Virginia, Son. We are most fortunate to have him in the colony, and to have this family connection to him."

      "Indeed!" Sarah Alice said, somewhat mollified. "Here. You'll meet John here for late morning tea, then proceed to our lodgings."

      The driver had stopped before a frame building of some depth. It looked much like the other buildings in the city, some constructed of wood, some of brick. Joseph had described the city to his boy as they sailed up from Deep Creek.

      "Don't expect it to look like Norfolk Town," he'd said.

      Governor Nicholson had planned the city and, despite some changes in his plan—most notably, the idea that the streets would form a huge monogram of the monarchs initials, W and M, overlain— many things remained the same. The lots were of one-half acre; the houses had to be set back six feet from the street; buildings had to be at least twenty-by-thirty feet in size; they had to stand ten feet at roof's edge; had to be built within twenty-four months of the lot's purchase; and had to be fenced within six months of occupancy.

      When Stephen jumped down from the carriage, he ran to stand at a corner of the building to line-sight the other buildings of the street, hoping one would be out of line.

      "The uniformity contributes to the overall balance of the plan," Sarah Alice said to him, resorting to her travel monologue. She repeated a line she'd overheard and seized as her own. "The Greeks and Romans emphasized balance and symmetry."

      "What are Greeks and Romans?" Stephen asked his father as his aunt's carriage rattled off.

      But they had entered the coffeehouse, and John Williams was rushing to them from his table near a side window. Stephen looked from his uncle to his father and then to the other men about the room. Uncle John must be very hot on this summer day, he thought.

      Stephen's uncle's dress was more old-fashioned than that of the undignified younger men. Some of them wore coats without waistcoats, unbuttoned and open from the neck down, full linen shirts hanging over the waistbands of their breeches. Their coats, like his Uncle John's, were pleated at the sides and stuck out, falling to the knees or a little below. There was no collar, the sleeves extended nearly to the wrists, and then were turned back. The cuffs were split halfway to the elbow, and held by buttons. All buttonholes were embroidered with silver and gold thread, or bound with kid or velvet. Uncle John wore a waistcoat. It fell to several inches higher than his coat. It was richly embroidered down the front and around the skirts; embroidery of running vines, interspersed with flowers. The pattern appeared around the pocket flaps and buttonholes. The buttons were enameled. Everyone's pockets were higher than on his father's old coat.

      Joseph Williams wore no waistcoat, but he was wearing a coat, at least. Some of the men wore merely their fine linen shirts with breeches. Some wore high-tongued, high-heeled shoes with buckles and the usual, squared toe. Two men sat in a corner, smoking on yard-long clay pipes, wearing banyans—a long loose robe that most people wore at night, but which some, bolder men wore about town in the sweltering days of summer.

      Stephen stared at the fancy men. The two in banyans wore no hot wigs or perukes, but had turbans covering their shaved heads. His father had done that once. Lice and other critters loved dirty wigs and hair. Another man entered, still wearing the leather spatterdashes that buckled down the side, fit close to the leg, and covered his shoes

      "You've a Ramillies wig!" Joseph said.

      The wig was plaited in a queue, and tied with ribbon at top and bottom.

      "It's cooler," John said as he embraced his brother. He placed a hand on his nephew's shoulder.

      "He looks like his mother, Joseph," John said of Stephen.

      "He acts like his mother's mother!" Joseph replied.

      Both men laughed aloud—a thing they rarely did—and Stephen wondered what had been said that was so funny.

      Before Joseph could fill the silence that followed, John added, "Catherine is about to be of an age where there can remain no trace of hope for more children. Can a man have bigger failure in his life, Brother, than to leave no issue?"

      "Is William not well?" Joseph asked.

      "He is well, for now. But so weak of nature. We spoil him."

      The talk turned to their plan for the next few weeks, as the boy looked out the wavy glass windows. There were almost no trees. It was like being on the ocean; the building were boats, but the ocean was all dirt. James had told him there weren't any trees left, but seeing all that dirt made Stephen thirsty.

      John and Joseph were leaving the next day for Middlesex County and Aunt Mary's plantation. She was weakening daily, and this would be Joseph's last visit with his great aunt, Mary Williams. How different she was from the Mary Williams, his wife.

      "The Williams name is already a known name in Virginia," John boasted.

      "And the Biggses," Joseph added.

      "The Wares are remembered kindly in Middlesex and Gloucester," John said, thinking of his mother.

      "We're a large, scattered family now, John," the younger brother said. "I think back, sometimes, to when I came to James Town with Pa. That was so long ago. There was Governor Berkeley and King Charles…. Pa had been here since the Commonwealth, and Grandpa since Charles the First! We've been here a long time, John. I don't feel like Sarah Alice is going home. Virginia is home."

      "And Carolina?" John asked, smirking. "Is Carolina home?"

      "I'd prefer England," Joseph said, in understated disgust.

      "Or, even, Scotland, I think you would add," John said.

      "Indeed!"

      "We are lucky, though, to still have ties in Bristol," John reminded his brother.

      "Our cousin, Edward. You've spoken of him. I know him not, but for that one transaction."

      "You shall, Brother. Cousin Edward is become burdened with tobacco. Since Queen Anne's War has stopped all trade with France and Spain, Flanders and the Baltic, piles of Virginia tobacco sit warehoused in England. But tar! The need is for tar! So far, Joseph, you've dealt in just the Indies trade, but now…now England has decided—is forced—to become independent of Sweden for its naval stores, and you are there! Even I, with Catherine's land. I could make my own fortune, and Aunt Mary's will be damned!"

      The dying Mary Williams had made her last will and testament. John was a witness, but was not named as a beneficiary. Her son Thomas had finally drunk himself to death two years earlier, and the estate would be going to an unknown nephew in England, just as it had come to her from an unknown uncle. For all these years John and Catherine Williams had worked for the aunt, hoping and expecting to be rewarded at her death. John finally realized that he'd already received his rewards. Those rewards had been in high wage, in living arrangements, and in status. With the job of manager, John had assumed status as a relative of the vestryman, John Williams. But John's social standing was only temporary, he found out. He was just another paid worker, and Catherine was, in fact, only the wife of a nephew-by-marriage. His son, William, was of no consequence to the old woman.

      John had swallowed his bitterness, but was still determined to have his own fortune. He regretted having sold his acreage at Deep Creek to Joseph, but dared not admit it. He regretted the foolish debt that had necessitated the sale. He would still succeed.

      "Tar to England? I sent some there years ago, but there was no profit," Joseph began.

      "There is now, Brother," John said, and the talk turned to business details.

      Stephen looked out the window, only half-listening to the men. He liked the smell of tar, but he liked the smell of the swamp, most of all. This place was too dry, even though he could smell the rivers and the creeks off in the distance.

      Stephen hadn't wanted to come on this trip to see Williamsburgh. He just wanted to be alone with his father for a while. But, ever since they'd stepped off the boat, his father had been talking to other people. And tonight there'd be a crowd, he'd heard his uncle say.

      The plan had been to stay for Reverend Blair's sermon the next Sunday, but Aunt Mary's condition was deteriorating, Uncle John said, and Aunt Sarah Alice's fiancé was called back to England, immediately. Major Dorsey had presented his report on the militia to Governor Spotswood, but was needed, now, for the war.

      Tomorrow, Stephen was going to be left alone with Aunt Sarah Alice for a carriage ride down to Hampton. The Harrison's boat was taking her to join Captain Dorsey in Bath Town, Carolina. Stephen didn't want to be alone with her for that long. She smelled too strongly sweet, and she looked at him strangely. He knew he didn't like her, and that she probably didn't like him, either.

      Sarah Alice sat by a sunny window, that afternoon, making tiny stitches in her bedclothes. She was sick about missing the church services she'd planned as her final appearance. The next day, she'd be riding to Hampton with that child. At Hampton, her Uncle Thomas Biggs had a boat that would take the boy to Deep Creek. Sarah Alice would sail directly from Hampton to Carolina and the village on Matencomack Creek in Chowan County, just across from the Scuppernong River home of her mother. After a short visit there, she and her mother would take the nearby overland road to Bath, accompanied by her favorite brother, Edward, and his wife. It was exhausting, just in thought, but it would be worth it. In Bath, they would all join Richard and his wife and daughters. Her handsome Major Dorsey would come to Bath when he'd completed his assignment in Charles Town. From there, the two would sail to England with a cargo of foul-smelling tar. There'd be no protection of a convoy, such as ships sailing from the Chesapeake had, but no matter. She'd be safe with Major Dorsey.

      Stephen ate dinner that night in the cooking room with two Harrison girls. They were just little children and had no interest in him, so he listened through the door to the adults and watched the cook kneading tomorrow's bread. There were so many servants, here; so many slaves. He wondered who these people were, to have so much. Even Stephen had been served from a pewter charger.

      He heard two men by the opened door finishing a conversation as they returned from the outhouse.

      "Blair fancies himself a Richelieu," one said.

      "Got rid of Governor Nicholson, right enough. That, after getting him here in the first place! King maker, he is," the other one finished.

      Stephen had no idea what the men were saying, but he knew that they weren't friends of his Aunt Sarah Alice's Commissary Blair. He was suddenly curious as to what adults talked about in a city. At home they talked about things he usually understood. When the girls were taken away to bed, he stood by the door to the dining room, out of the candlelight, listening in the dark.

      "And ignorant Old Fewox actually took the tea and ate it!" he heard his father saying. The other men in the room laughed.

      "He's such an embarrassment for our mother. Her grandparents were the Wares, Mister Harrison. I'm sure you knew them. Our Aunt—Mary Williams— says Colonel Harrison knew them," John rushed.