Mood Indigo

by Parris Afton Bonds

  Wainwright smiled congenially and drew forth a pipe from his frockcoat’s pocket. He was so short his eyes were on a level with her breasts, and he did not raise his gaze as he said, “It’s not against the law to beat a servant.”

  “But it’s twenty-one lashes for fornicating with one.” Susan crimsoned at the taboo word, and Polly gasped at Jane’s boldness in confronting the fox-faced man.

  “It’s the lazy wench’s word against mine,” Wainwright said. His furry hand almost caressed the pipe’s bowl.

  “No, it’s my word against yours.”

  He chuckled. “A Tory’s word?”

  She smiled contemptuously. “Williamsburg has not left the mother country’s ways that far behind. Its Tidewater gentry is still an elitist society and still stands in awe of nobility. If you don’t believe me, then wait. By the end of the month and the public session, I shall have the rest of the Executive Committee, for all its pretensions at egalitarianism, eating out of my hand, and you, sir, locked in the pillory for fornication!”

  Wainwright’s small, slanted eyes narrowed as he considered her statement. She was showing a bold front, while her insides quivered like quince jelly. Something in his crafty expression alarmed her, but it was too late to back down. “All right, Mrs. Gordon, the servant woman is yours,” he sighed in a nearly pious voice, like King Herod giving up Christ to the mob.

  She almost sighed herself, until he added, “But your threat shall cost you your lovely neck.” His small furry hand reached up to stroke her throat, and she jerked back. He merely smiled, baring small, pointed teeth. “I mean to expose you as the Tory spy I know you to be, Mrs. Gordon. And before you are hanged, I personally shall brand into the flesh of your forehead the letter T.”

  Her scalp prickled. And you, too, shall be marked. Dear God, let the old Hindu’s prediction be wrong.

  Jane’s own prediction was coming true. Every available inn, tavern, and private house in Williamsburg was packed to overflowing, and all who came for the public session that autumn watched and talked about and copied Jane Gordon.

  Out of perversity, she chose to wear the simplest fashions. Yet on her tall, slender build, with her erect, graceful carriage, the bombazine and moreen dresses were like silk and brocade gowns. If she wore a simple, inexpensive gorget collar, the women who paraded along the Duke of Gloucester soon sported one.

  A milkmaid hat tilted at a provocative angle over her classic brow caused the milliner’s shop the next day to be besieged with customers wanting just such a hat made. The milkmaid hat soon dislodged from fashion the calash bonnet that, with its cane ribs, was large enough to house the high coiffures.

  Her hollow cheeks caused a marked drop in the purchase of plumpers—cork balls stuffed in the cheek pockets that prevented stylish ladies from uttering more than six or seven words at a time. Her brilliant, even teeth brought back a rash of fans, despite the cool autumn weather, to be spread concealingly before the mouths of the many cursed with imperfect teeth.

  Even the general’s lady, Martha Custis Washington, was not so talked about, so stared after, when she arrived from Mount Vernon in the gilded and scrolled chariot with the diamond-cut glass, the coat of arms on the painted panels, and pulled by six magnificent cream-white horses. With her sister Nancy Bassett, Martha would stay in Williamsburg at the Six Chimney House, the house her first husband, the late Daniel Custis, kept for the round of festivities that occurred twice a year.

  Jane did not meet Martha Washington until the Executive Committee hosted the first ball of the new Virginia Commonwealth. The ball was the initial social function she and Ethan attended as man and wife.

  Given in the governor’s palace, which looked more like an English country estate with its fish pond and holly mazes patterned after London’s Hampton Court, the ball was attended by people as far away as Alexandria and Fredericksburg. All the guests came powdered and turned out in their best finery. And the two women—the general’s lady and the Quaker’s wife—were the main draw.

  Jane stood at the entrance to the marble-tiled hall at the side of Ethan, who was dressed all in black, as she had known he would be; thus as a foil to his black broadcloth she had worn a white dimity petticoat with a heavy corded gray overskirt shot through with silver threads and a matching gray fichu to discreetly cover her décolletage. Compared to the pearl-studded slippers and gold-buckled shoes and the yards of Alenḉon lace and rippling satins and silks of the other guests, both men and women, her manner of dress was understatedly elegant. A white velvet love ribbon encircled her throat and matched the ribbon looped through her unpowdered hair, setting off its ebony sheen. By the following week natural hair would be the fad.

  When the liveried footman took her pelisse, Ethan’s gaze slid boldly over her. It seemed to her the first time in the week they had been in Williamsburg that he bothered to cast more than a preoccupied glance at her. The strain between them colored their every moment together, so that she was relieved that his business kept him from the house so much.

  His eyes lingered on the rise of her full breasts—the flesh was the color of champagne against the white silk. “Thy love ribbon—for whom is thee wearing it?” he asked with a sardonic twist to his lips.

  “Why, for the gallant Leper.”

  His hard gaze flicked to hers in intense scrutiny. After a moment he said, “Then thee has converted to a colonial patriot?”

  She smiled brittlely. “Hardly.” She splayed her fan with a snap of her wrist. “I am merely intrigued by a man of such courage and do him honor.”

  “Far better the Leper,” he said derisively, “than thy Terence.” Before she could form a suitable retort, he took her elbow and led her past the two footmen stationed at the ballroom doorway.

  As she and Ethan passed among the guests, gentlemen swept bows, ladies curtseyed. She ignored the women’s glances of envy and the men’s coveting gazes. Ethan introduced her to men whom she recognized as leaders of the Virginia revolutionary movement. Who among them was the Leper or a member of his Colony?

  Tom Jefferson? He was lean and sandy-haired with a light, boyish voice that Bram said failed him in Assembly debates.

  Richard Henry Lee? Certainly a prime candidate, as the silver-tongued Cicero of Virginia. A tall, spare man with a profile that belonged on a Roman coin. He wore a neat black silk bandage round his crippled hand.

  Daniel Franks? A shy but handsome Jew. Competent, it seemed, if his conversation were any indication.

  Patrick Henry? Most likely a member of the Colony, but hardly the Leper, for he was too visible to carry on the essential underground work, especially if he dressed as flamboyantly as he did that evening—in a velvet coat as scarlet as sin.

  Bram hauled Ethan off to the supper room for refreshments—mainly from the long table, its centerpiece a silver fountain that cascaded with wine. Susan loyally remained with Jane, introducing her to those arriving guests she had not met. When the name of Martha Washington was announced, it seemed as if everyone in the room ceased to breathe as they waited for the confrontation between the general’s lady and the famous Tory beauty.

  Jane did not know what she had expected in Martha Washington, but it was not the short, middle-aged woman with the wise hazel eyes who greeted her so serenely. If the general’s lady was dumpy, plain, sharp-nosed, as the gossips described her, Jane never noticed. The woman’s graciousness settled like a magic net over the person in her presence.

  “At last I meet the Lennox lady,” Martha said after they were introduced. “The story of your marriage with Ethan Gordon is a most romantic one.”

  Jane curtseyed deeply. “As is yours with the general. I understand you have been married almost seventeen years.”

  Martha’s plump cheeks deepened in a melancholy smile. “Yes, but we have been apart for so long this last year. I depended so much on him for everything, and now the war has demanded an enormous adjustment of me.”

  At the mention of the war, the faces of those about the t
wo women lit in expectation. But Martha continued quietly, “Still, I am sure that it is just as difficult for you to adjust to a new place and different people.”

  “Ah, but she adjusted so well to her work as a common servant,” a feminine voice said.

  Smothered gasps and titters erupted at the calculated spite in the voice. A small frown puckered Martha Washington’s rice-powdered nose. Susan laid a warning hand on Jane’s arm.

  Jane drew herself up to her full regal height and faced the woman who joined the gathering, her doting husband in tow. She was not surprised that it was the sultry beauty she had seen in the carriage talking with Ethan and later at Bruton Parish Church. Margaret Peyton. The woman was dressed in a robin’s-egg blue satin gown with gold sequins clustered about the low-curved neckline. She waved a feathered fan as she openly assessed Jane with glittering green eyes that were set off by her white-powdered coiffure.

  Was this the woman who was taking Susan’s place in Ethan’s heart—who filled his arms when he was in Williamsburg? The thought annoyed Jane. But then, with a bony old husband like John Peyton, she could understand Margaret’s need to flout society’s mores, though she could not approve.

  Jane’s chin tilted imperiously as she said quietly, “You should know about the common quality, Mrs. Peyton.”

  Triumphant with her riposte, she sailed off with Susan. However, she later realized that it was Margaret who was ultimately victorious, for more than once she saw her engaged in intimate conversation with Ethan. “Join them and cut her throat,” Susan urged.

  Jane had to laugh. This gentle woman, this loyal friend, had a savage side after all—at least when it came to those for whom she cared. However, Jane chose to ignore her husband and his companions.

  When the guests entered the dining room with its three-trestled table set for fifty-five, Margaret somehow contrived to be seated next to Ethan. Her haughtily held head was inclined close to Ethan’s brilliant red hair in intimate conversation.

  A stream of lackeys passed about the table, setting tempting dishes of tarts and meat pies and hothouse fruits before the guests, so that Jane’s view of the two was often blocked. Despite the noise of cut glass clinking with pewter and porcelain, Margaret’s silvery laughter could be heard at that end of the table. Susan sent Jane a sympathetic glance that did little to soothe Jane’s irritation.

  When, later, Margaret’s clear voice asked for the pepper, Jane was using the caster. It was a childish thing to do, but too marvelous an opportunity to deny. A simple loosening of the hinged top before she restored the caster, along with the salt cellar, to the butler’s tray accomplished her purpose. A shame Margaret had not asked for the vinegar cruet.

  Moments later a shriek of distress, followed by a violent fit of sneezing, broke the table’s conversation. Innocently Jane glanced down the length of the table to see Margaret holding the now-empty caster and looking down at her ample bosom in dismay. Pepper flecked the pale-blue bodice. Immediately the surprised butler was dusting her bodice with a napkin, which only made the embarrassing situation worse.

  “Oh!” Margaret cried. Holding her skirts high, she dashed from the room.

  Innocently Jane turned her devastating smile on the gentleman to her left, Dickey Lee, whom she had maneuvered to be her dinner partner. The man possessed a savoir faire that reminded her of the Old World. Was he the Leper?

  “So you are Ethan’s Folly,” he said, his dark eyes laughing. He knew of her prank!

  “So you are Ethan’s friend,” she returned with a mischievous smile. “Odd that we have not met before.”

  Dickey Lee sipped at the sangaree, but his gaze held hers over the glass’s crystal rim. “I cannot blame him for the lack of introduction. If I were he, I, too, would keep you fast in the dungeons of my heart.”

  She almost made a lighthearted reply, then realized the man’s words were no flirtatious jest. He was sincere, and she honored his sincerity with the truth. “I am afraid you are wrong about Ethan. My Tory views disrupt his life, and for that I am sequestered at Mood Hill.”

  “But you are here now at the most conspicuous of places for a Tory, the governor’s palace—and at the most auspicious of times, the public session,” he pointed out gently.

  Dimples formed in the hollows of her cheekbones. “I was persuasive, Mr. Lee.”

  His dark eyes glinted with laughter. “I imagine you were, madam.”

  Margaret eventually rejoined the dinner guests. After the meal, when the guests adjourned to the ballroom, a solicitous Ethan offered Margaret his arm. Jane had accomplished nothing with her prank.

  Infuriated at being so easily ignored by her husband, she proceeded to dance every minuet and quadrille, never dancing with the same partner twice. Her eyes entranced. Her smile enslaved. Every man there was drawn to her— but one, her own husband.

  With those partners who were deep into their cups, she mentioned casually the legend of the Leper’s Colony. “Is it true? The Leper is a real person? Who could he be?” And no one knew. Oh, there were plenty of guesses. The saddle and harnessmaker. . . . No, 'tis the glover. . . . The butcher, most certainly.

  Once she glimpsed Uriah Wainwright with staunch patriot cronies of his, and her stomach churned with a sickening feeling. Branded. Marked! Quickly she looked to the nearest man—Daniel Franks, as it turned out—and asked pertly, “Will you not ask me to dance, sir?”

  “I was but waiting for the opportunity, madam,” he said with a quiet but intense gallantry. “You have danced with all but me.”

  “Not all,” she said pointedly.

  His gaze followed hers to the dice-scarred tables that had been set up in the smaller supper room. In addition to hazard, games of piquet were in progress. Margaret Peyton and her husband sat at the same table with Ethan. Margaret’s senile husband partnered the Widow Grundy, while Margaret’s eyes gleamed most provocatively above the tops of her cards at Ethan.

  “Ah, but his religion prevents him from dancing, does it not, Mrs. Gordon?” Daniel inquired tactfully.

  “But not from playing cards?”

  Daniel smiled shyly. “Well, you can’t deny a man everything.”

  “His piquet partner does not deny a man anything!” she quipped.

  Uncharacteristically, Daniel Franks threw back his head and laughed, causing both of them to miss a step. “You will certainly enliven Williamsburg this session, Mrs. Gordon.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Hair brushed out but still unpinned, Jane sat before the cherry-wood secretary in her Grecian-style robe of gauze and belladine and sorted through the pile of invitations that mounded on the silver platter. Having proven herself that month a formidable opponent in any battle of wits as well as mistress of mischievous gaiety, she was firmly established as the reigning queen of Williamsburg society.

  Invitations to private parties, marathon whist games, and teas poured in—hosted by aristocratic planters, wealthy businessmen, and legislators. No homes were closed to her. The elite merchants of Williamsburg, who were for the most part Scots of Tory leaning, had heard of Jane’s loyalist temperament and were only too happy to have the famed Tory beauty grace their homes. And the patriots welcomed the diversion from boredom she afforded.

  Even her critics grudgingly admired her for her obvious intelligence and the air of complete independence with which she seemed to move through the world.

  Jane found what she was looking for—a boxed gift along with an invitation to a whist party given by the Widow Grundy. It was the third such gathering of Tory women that Jane attended that month, and naturally most of the talk concerned the sorrowful situation their families were in—outcasts in a decidedly patriot city.

  But for Jane the parties were more. The Tory families had friends and relatives in the British-held Boston area, and she gleaned scraps of information about conditions there. Nothing so far about Terence, though she continued to hope.

  Her fingers fumbled as she opened the gift the Widow Grundy had sent. In the
long, narrow box was a quill pen, as Jane had expected. Quickly, her fingers twisted at the quill—and it came away from the plume. Inside the hollow quill she found the coiled strip of paper. Eagerly she withdrew it and read the minuscule writing. “Terence MacKenzie arrived in Quebec last fall. Since then his name has completely disappeared from the rosters. He now serves the loyalist cause as a spy.”

  Slowly Jane wadded the strip of paper. So Terence was a spy. She disliked the sound of the word. But then, wasn’t she one? In return for this information, was she not committed to passing along any political information she acquired at the various functions she attended—especially information regarding the Leper?

  The idea bothered her. The broad intellectual stimulation she was exposed to as a child made her mind open to all avenues of reasoning. Thus, she could too easily understand and sympathize with both England and the colonies.

  To get in touch with Terence she would, of course, correspond with other Tory sympathizers; yet she felt a niggling sense of guilt at deceiving her patriot friends. And what of her husband? She tried to tell herself that since his Quaker’s religion prevented him from being a staunch patriot, she need not feel any sense of betrayal.

  She was in the midst of resealing the quill to the plume when Ethan entered, his blue camblet coat’s long skirts flapping with his brusque stride. He tossed his tricorn on the japanned chest. His face was set in tense lines that had been there since the ball at the governor’s palace. Because of her prank or her flirtations?

  Though he had said nothing that night, she saw the displeasure in his eyes when he returned from his card game to find her dancing once more with Daniel Franks. Rebelliously, she had smiled up at the Burgess member, laughing at some story he related and replying some inanity that she couldn’t even remember.

  “Is business not going well?” she asked with a formal politeness, anything to put a distance between herself and the man who was her husband. She was thinking about him too often when alone at night in her bedroom.