Now Face to Face (79 page)

A moth flirted with the flame of a freshly lighted candle. Klaus’s eyes fastened upon the tiny drama, trying to make sense of it. He felt as if he were going to choke. He couldn’t breathe properly. Odell had buried a collar? When? Why? How could he be so stupid?

“Damn me, Klaus, but this pineapple is the sweetest thing I have tasted all the year,” said Bolling.

“Are you not going to eat yours?” Custis leaned over to spear the slice from Klaus’s hand.

They moved on to talk about the bills passed this assembly: a bill to improve the breeding of horses, a bill to prevent swine from going at large within the village, a bill for the better government of convicts imported. Custis fanned at moths with his napkin to save them from the candle flame. Klaus told them the news he’d picked up on his voyage, that the Spanish claimed English buccaneers still attacked their ships, and all English ships in the Caribbean were warned to beware any Spanish; that the maroons in the island of Jamaica were said to be joined by fresh slaves every day. It was said a rebellion of all slaves was greatly feared by the planters there. All the while, the knot inside Klaus grew larger and larger, and his voice seemed to come from some dim, distant place, but the other two noticed nothing.

“The act to improve tobacco will be impossible to enforce. There are not enough sheriffs or justices to ride the plantations and see that people follow the law. I tell you, we’ll have to limit the importation of slaves. That will slow down the growing of tobacco,” said Custis.

“Those in London won’t want it,” said Bolling.

They began to argue. Klaus excused himself and walked outside. He gulped in air, unable to fill his lungs. The heavy fragrance of magnolias stung his nostrils, made his head hurt. He gulped air like a man drowning. Odell had never mentioned a collar. Why bury it? Why not throw it in the river?

That hour on the creek had become something he no longer thought of, with Odell dying, with the body of another boy being buried, with Lady Devane going. It had been easier than he would have thought to let the memory slip away. At this moment, he felt as if he had seen a ghost of the boy come into being before him—a duppy, as the slaves called such things.

Shall I regret my impulse of kindness? he thought. Was I, in my turn, a fool? Did the boy live or die? God help me, I must think. There is no manner in which I can be connected to any action of Odell’s. Or can I?

And Carter’s son pursues Beth?

“The night is not cold. Why do you shiver, Klaus?”

It was his uncle, whom Klaus had not heard come up behind him.

“These gardens are beautiful, are they not? Smell those magnolias. You were upset about the boy. I saw it at once. I cannot make it leave my thoughts, either. The wantonness of something like that. I’ve been thinking, Klaus; you were fond of Smith, knew him as well as any man. Was there any reason he might have for killing—not that I say he did kill—the boy.”

“It is—” Klaus groped a moment in the enormous void of his uncle’s question. “It is inconceivable to me.”

“To all of us…. When do you intend to call upon Beth Perry?”

“As soon as I may.”

“Good. This charge of smuggling, Klaus, it is no jest. We’re both going to have to testify before General Court.”

General Court was made up of the Council and the Governor. It was the highest court in the colony.

“She gave them the barrel, the tobacco, as evidence. I’ve had the brand destroyed, and another made with different lettering, so they will not be able to prove anything. We may have to pay a fine. If we do, I’m taking it all from your part. You ought to have noticed that a barrel was dropped. Spotswood vows he will talk personally with the new Governor, vows he will have us watched, but I think these empty threats. Still, she’s made it damned uncomfortable for me.”

They talked about the voyage, Klaus giving Bolling a precise accounting of what had been done.

“Good, good,” said Bolling. “Go and see Beth Perry as soon as you can.”

A dog barked as Klaus crossed the college yard; otherwise the night was quiet around him. At the creek was the rowboat his crew had left out near the storehouse. He rowed toward his sloop. Pale, flickering light shone aboard. He called up to the man on watch, who caught the rope to secure the rowboat. Closing the door of his cabin, he lay upon his bed, pulling his blanket up over him in spite of the heat, shivering for a time, as if he had the ague. There was no manner in which he could be connected to Odell’s deed. There was no proof of Odell’s deed, only speculation. He must remember that. He would.

I
T WAS
late the next afternoon when Klaus sailed a borrowed dinghy to the broad stretch of river before Perry’s Grove. He waited for Beth in a chair in the parlor, at a window where he could see the horse chestnuts in the yard, and beyond them the river.

It was a long time before Beth came down the stairs, longer than she should have taken given word that a suitor waited whom she desired. Is it Carter’s son? wondered Klaus. Or the collar? I must remember there is no way to connect me with the collar.

Finally there she was; did those cool eyes of hers look guarded, or was he imagining it? Something is wrong, he thought. There was warmth in that glance when I left.

He took her hand, kissed it, held it a moment to his cheek.

“I’ve missed you. You’re all I’ve thought of,” he said.

She took back her hand. “How was your voyage, Klaus?”

“Good. Everything went well, sold well.”

“The tobacco?”

He didn’t answer.

“It is said you smuggle tobacco. Lady Devane said so.” She glanced at him and then away.

“No,” he said. Why all the fuss? Many smuggled tobacco. At times, smuggling was the only way to make a gain. It was not looked upon as a crime, more as a fact of life those in England did not understand. “There is an old quarrel between my uncle and Lady Devane. She tries to injure him. What of you? What of your suit against your father in General Court?”

“It is to be settled this fall, I hope.”

“He’s gone to England, I heard.”

A shadow passed over her face. “Yes.”

He waited. There was no sign from her, of any kind. She might never have held out her hand to him, told him to change her fortune, might never have walked with him in the woods and allowed kisses.

“Tell me what you’ve been doing.”

“So much. There is so much to do. I had not realized all that must be done on an estate as large as this. I stay busy from morning until night.”

There was zest in her face. So she liked the running of her father’s properties. Liked being the one in charge.

“The evening will be beautiful. Later, we’ll walk in it, and I will show you some of the stars I steer my sloop by.”

“No, thank you. I go to bed very early these days.”

He was refused, and without an offer of refreshment. No offer that he stay. She was a stranger. He had not left a stranger.

“Is it the collar?”

She looked surprised. She didn’t understand; he could see that at once. It was something else, then. He should not have spoken.

He bowed to her.

“I will call in the morning.”

“I won’t be here. I’m riding over early to another plantation.”

“In the afternoon, then.”

“Perhaps. I’m so very glad you came by to see me. Good evening.”

Outside, he walked over to William Byrd’s plantation. Byrd was in England. The house was large, pleasant. It was said Byrd wished to build a grander one, like houses in England. Why not? His father had acquired much land. Byrd was one of the young kings here. Klaus pushed open a gate and walked toward a garden house on the riverbank. The sky above was as blue as Beth’s eyes, the grass and leaves a fresh green. Birds twittered and sang among the trees. Wisteria and honeysuckle bloomed all about the roof of the garden house, and hummingbirds fought by the dozen over each blossom.

Klaus walked among the gravestones by the church built close to the house, stopping at a stone column with the names of Beth’s brother and mother upon it. There was a fine view of the river from here.

Something had happened. She no longer esteemed him as she had before he left. What was it? The collar, the smuggling, Carter’s son? Was it the simple fact that she liked the running of her father’s property, found power, satisfaction enough in that? What an irony that would be. He considered all the things he might do—fall to his knees, declare his love, ask for her hand in marriage, beg it. Continue to court her, waiting for some small change. Something in the coolness of those eyes warned him.

He had abandoned the widow for her.

If I am wise, thought Klaus, I will pay a visit to my widow tomorrow. She will be angry, more than angry, but I will endure it, see if I can win her over again.

And then there were always other widows. He looked back at the garden house, thought of the hummingbirds all fighting over the same blossom when there were others free. Beth Perry is no longer mine. Why? What happened?

A widow’s third, versus an heiress’s whole. For a moment, he had envisioned taking his place among the kings here. Now he would have to be content with less. The widow’s third would have to do. His sons would be the kings, not he.

Barbara came into his mind—that kiss on the roof of the Governor’s mansion, the passion of her, a passion he had forgone, choosing something else: the satisfaction of deflowering so great an heiress, of knowing that he became master of all that was hers. Barbara. The boy. Odell. The collar. Beth. Life was a strange thing. To have come so close to having all, and now to be so far away.

Chapter Forty-seven

J
ULY BECAME
A
UGUST
…. G
RAIN WAS READY, RIPE IN THE FIELDS
for harvest…. We have ploughed, we have sowed, we have reaped, we have mowed, we have brought home every load…. The Lord’s bounty would be celebrated with harvest festivals—roasts and meat pies to eat, mead and ale to drink, the songs of good harvest to sing…. At Hampton Court, in the garden, the sight of Barbara and the King’s granddaughters was before the old Duchess’s eyes. Bounty. She was there as a guest, because Barbara requested it. Barbara could have asked for the stars, it seemed. The rumor was that the King was going to ask her to be a lady-in-waiting to his granddaughters. Triumph, thought the Duchess, watching Barbara charm all those about her.

W
ALPOLE AND
Townshend had stepped up their investigation. The technique was frightening: a knock on the door, and there was a King’s messenger demanding one’s presence at the Cockpit, where Walpole, like a hound, chased any scent. Everyone was suspect—land-ladies, shopkeepers, physicians, anyone, everyone who might be Jacobite, who might be a link. Yet there were no arrests, not one, though the rumors about the Bishop of Rochester did not decrease. And the troops did not leave Hyde Park.

A
UGUST
. W
ALPOLE
sat in his favorite garden, near the river, tapping his fingers slowly upon the back of the bench upon which he sat. Rochester, he thought, I cannot take hold of you.

No one questioned admitted to anything, much less gave any hint concerning the head of the plot. No one released led them anywhere. They dealt with flotsam, with riffraff, no one solid, no one important. After two months of questioning, he was little further along than he’d been in May, and he’d lost the excitement of May, when the King had been eager to allow him anything. He had codes broken, by God, but nothing to link code names with their English counterparts, other than his instincts, and certain references—like those to the spotted dog—that left little doubt who the person was, but were not, unfortunately, proof.