by Jana Petken
“By the time the niggers had reached the intersection of Barrow Road, most of the white folks had gathered to stop him, my grandfather and father included. There were a few shots fired, but not many were injured.
“Turner’s men started marching up a long lane that led to a plantation, but when they got there, they came under attack from folks inside the house. The slaves on that plantation were loyal to their master, and they attacked Turner’s band. He was then on the run, heading southwards.
“You know, Mercy, the sad thing is that he was responsible later for hundreds of slaves being executed, whether they’d been involved or not. I guess everyone was just so damn angry, and revenge dulled the pain and grief. It wasn’t right, and my granddaddy wasn’t right for whipping every male nigger on our land, but that’s what he did. That’s the cold truth.
“Turner was finally caught after months of searching by militias who’d come from as far as Richmond. He’d been hiding in a hole that he’d dug before the revolt, not far from where he came from. Maybe he knew it would end badly.”
“How did he die?”
“He was hanged by the neck. He confessed to everything he’d done before they killed him. My granddaddy and father watched his execution. They told Hendry and me the story as soon as we were old enough to understand the difference between whites and niggers.
“I’m not saying that everything we believe in is right, but there have been slaves in Virginia for more than a hundred and fifty years. Like I said, mine live in wooden houses, not holes. They have three meals a day. They sing, dance, and laugh. You’ll see that they have their own structured community on my land. There’s a few of them who raised me, and I love them like family. Tell me, what do you think would happen to them if they were free?”
“I think they would learn to read and write and become doctors or teachers just as easily as a white person. What do you think would happen?” she threw back at him.
“There would be chaos and killings. Half of them would starve or wander until they fell down and died in some backwater swamp. They’d be like tamed animals going back into the wild, unable to adapt.”
“Mercy – Mercy, open your eyes.”
Mercy snapped her eyes open, and Jacob’s face and voice faded. She would see him in four days, and then he would ask her the most important question of her life. She was going to be his wife. She was sure of it.
“Stone Plantation is just around this next bend in the road,” Belle said. “Are you ready to see your new home?”
Chapter Forty
Margaret Mallory sat in the lobby belonging to one of the many small Norfolk boarding houses. She already hated the dirty streets of what, to her, was a small town compared to her Liverpool. She couldn’t abide the dust, the noise, the filthy sailors who got drunk every day and night, falling down in the street. She detested the strange half-door entrances into saloons, where men were so loud and women had no class. She missed her opulent surroundings with maids and cooks and good shops to buy the new wardrobe of clothes and hats that she so desperately wanted and needed.
Her intention to live in a quiet house on the outskirts of Norfolk had been discarded. Her desire for a small but elegant country house had grown to fever pitch, so much so that she’d employed a Mr Coutts to take her this very morning to look at some properties that were on the plantation belt, not too far from the affluent city of Portsmouth.
Her impatience to leave the boarding house matched her bad temper, and Eddie bore the brunt of it. He sat at another table, and as she watched him devour some bread and cheese, she almost wished she’d left him behind. Her anger towards him had grown in the last month, ever since his refusal to share her bed on the ship, which had come as a bloody shock to her. Sex was the main reason she had bought his passage and had him in her employ, for Christ’s sake!
She continued to stare at him, hating his newfound insolence. The cheeky git had her in a awkward position. He’d made sure that she wanted him enough to get him on the ship and away from the law, and then he’d given her his terms – cheeky bastard!
“I’m not having sex with you again,” he’d told her. “I’ll have sex with women my own age from now on, and if you don’t like it, you can bugger off. And another thing: if you want me to be at your disposal like a dog, I’ll be wanting to be well paid for my trouble. I can get a job anywhere in America. I don’t need to put up with you or your high-and-mighty ways. This is a land of opportunity we’re going to, and there will many opportunities for the likes of me. So do you want me to work for you or not?” he demanded, without giving her the chance to give him the ear bending he deserved.
She had never particularly liked Myrtle’s company. Myrtle’s deadpan eyes held the same expression regardless of gentle conversation or heated discussion. But Margaret was beginning to miss her almost as much as Eddie’s body. If only she didn’t need the jumped-up git, she kept thinking, looking at his gob full of food.
Eddie’s official title, Margaret told him, would be that of overseer, but he would also be expected to fetch and carry whatever she needed. She needed him this morning. Mr Coutts would be here any minute. By the way he looked at her, she believed he quite fancied her. She didn’t want Eddie around and didn’t want him to know how much she was spending on a house either. No, she decided, Eddie wouldn’t be privy to any intimate details of any kind. She’d pay him what he wanted, but he would be her dog from now on, nothing more.
“Eddie, come over here!” she shouted across the empty dining room.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. Getting up, he strode cockily towards her.
Margaret liked the new title to fit in with the Americans: ma’am had a nice ring to it. It was much nicer than Mrs Mallory or madam. And it made her sound more like a lady.
“I want you to go to the slave auction today. There’s one on this morning. I want four of them niggers by this afternoon.”
“But what if you don’t find a house? Where are you going to keep four niggers?” Eddie asked.
“I’ll get a house; don’t you worry about that. And I’ll make sure it’s mine to move into by the end of the day. I have it on good authority that this is what will happen if I want it to happen, so you just leave that to me. The houses I’m going to see are all empty, and that’s all you need to know.
“Bring them niggers here, but not before five o’clock. If you have to tie them to trees outside town until then, do it. I’ll be all sorted by five. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you, but it all seems a bit quick to me,” Eddie said, scratching his head.
“Shut it. I know what I’m doing. I’ve been told the paperwork is done quickly here. I’ll worry about furnishings tomorrow. I’m not staying another night in this filthy place,” she told him haughtily.
“Well, if you’re sure. And what type of niggers are you looking for?”
“How the bloody hell do I know? I’ve never bought one before. Just get a selection. Two women and two men, and make sure none of the men come with a woman they’re fond of. I don’t want them fucking; I want them working. Now have you got it all in your head?”
“I haven’t got any money,” Eddie told her.
Margaret went into her bag and brought out a large pile of dollar notes that she’d bought the day before. She would use the gold to buy the house, which was quite acceptable, Mr Coutts had told her.
“Here. Get the cheapest ones you can, but make sure one of the men is to my liking. I want plenty of muscle. And make sure he doesn’t look like an ape. I might want to fuck him, seeing as how you’re no longer giving me any.”
Eddie tried to hide his laughter, but she didn’t miss a trick.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, ma’am. Nothing at all.”
Eddie took the carriage, also purchased the previous day, and rode towards the market after getting directions from the owner of the guest house. He’d thought long and hard about his future life in America. He could turn his hand to alm
ost anything and was young enough to make a good life for himself. He’d had his fill of du Pont. He couldn’t stop thinking of her as du Pont. She’d always be du Pont to him – big, fat, ugly du Pont!
He was glad he’d finally told her that there would be no more sex with her. His stomach had held enough bile and vomit hidden behind forced erections and false sweet words. She’d made him want to puke for years, ever since she’d taken him to her room when he was sixteen. He hated the smell of her body, the feel of her crinkly skin and floppy tits and cunt. He hated kissing her hard, thin lined lips, but he’d been desperate for the money and position, and he’d finally gotten both.
He smiled to himself. She would pay him handsomely. He’d stick it out with her until he’d had his fill. He could have thrown her overboard on the ship and had thought about it, but she was an asset, for she could open doors, get him introductions, and pay for his lifestyle. As much as he wished it were so, money wasn’t the most important commodity here, it seemed. You had to be in with the right crowd, and that’s where the old bitch would come in handy.
Somehow he’d have to get her to sign this new house she was getting over to him. It wouldn’t happen overnight, of course, but he would work on her. If all else failed, he’d take it from her – at the end of one of these American rifle barrels.
In the meantime, he’d pilfer a bit here and there and get his own bank account. Du Pont thought he was stupid – a body without a brain, she’d often told him – but he wasn’t just a body. He was clever and cunning. He laughed. He’d already gotten one over on her. Parker would never be seen again. He’d paid the two carriage drivers to bury her on the road to London after they killed her. The couple who lived in the Knightsbridge house would stay there in comfort until they passed away. Du Pont never had found out that they were his parents. No one knew about that little gem of a secret, not even Sam.
So who was stupid? Was it him or fucking du Pont?
Chapter Forty-One
Jacob, Hendry, and Isaac rode with the wind at their backs towards Elizabeth’s family plantation, situated far to the west of Portsmouth. The journey was long, but Jacob’s mind was not on the scenery, his satisfaction at being home, or the highly successful trip that was now behind him. Instead, he thought only about the following hours, when dreams would be shattered for some and he would be forever branded as a rogue without a decent gentlemanly bone in his body.
He was well aware that in voicing his decision to call off his wedding to one of Virginia’s finest daughters, along with truthful declarations of love for an unknown Englishwoman called Mercy Carver, fate would shape a sharp, twisted turn in a path that had been mapped out for years. He also believed that his new path would be filled with widespread condemnation from a genteel society in which being a gentleman was even more important than the amount of wealth one possessed.
Jacob had thought about telling Mercy that he was engaged. He would have put her mind at ease with the promise to break all ties with his betrothed, but that would not have been the gentlemanly thing to do. Elizabeth deserved better, for she was the victim of this cruel act. Therefore, he’d decided that she should be told that it was over before he promised himself to another woman.
He felt a tiredness sweep over him: a deflated morale, an ache for Mercy, and a dread for what was to come. He wanted to go home, as did Hendry and Isaac. Isaac had been distant and pensive of late. Their once forthright and honest conversations had been forced ever since the last days on the ship. He suspected that he would lose Isaac’s friendship altogether in the next few weeks, for Isaac was making it quite clear that he was no longer happy in the South.
Snow was just beginning to fall. Jacob lifted his face to the freezing white flakes that were beginning to settle on his hat. He loved winter and its gentle pace. Warm nights reading around the fire and having little activity in the fields were always welcome during this season. They were the complete opposite to his gruelling summers, when there was no respite from work or time to enjoy the beautiful, hazy summer days of his youth.
He remembered those days with fondness: he and Hendry swimming in a lake, followed by picnics, tree climbing, and apple picking that often turned into an apple fight and a few black eyes. Now, especially now, he yearned for those days again.
His homecoming had been a bittersweet affair. The ship had been unloaded and was undergoing repairs. Everything had gone smoothly and without any of the usual delays caused by the Norfolk port authority, whose unorganised bureaucratic systems were not up to par with their English counterparts. Jacob had been chomping at the bit to leave Norfolk but had been delayed an extra day because of events that were both troubling and dangerous to his beloved South.
It was the custom for him to meet up with other plantation owners at this time of the year when ships came back from their Atlantic trading voyages and Christmas was just around the corner. This social gathering was going to be even more enjoyable, Jacob had believed, for Hendry would be with him, welcomed home by many who had not seen him in years.
When Jacob, Hendry, and Isaac walked into this particular meeting, however, there was an atmosphere of quiet contemplation, even anger from some, and serious concern on the faces that greeted them. The meeting had taken place in the new Stewart’s Hotel, recently refurbished and packed with leading politicians and slave owners. Mayor William W. Lamb, first elected in 1858 and just newly re-elected this year, was also in attendance.
Jacob liked William Lamb. He was a fair man and possessed innovative ideas on how to expand and better the road and rail routes into Norfolk to facilitate agricultural movement to and from the dockyard. Politically, he espoused extreme points of view, but Jacob had voted for him twice now, as had everyone who had any say in Norfolk’s expanding financial vision.
Jacob immediately noticed the dreariness in the hotel dining room and guessed this was because of unspoken words that lay waiting to be released from tongues that had held aggressive and hateful rhetoric for far too long. Greetings were without the usual regaling of Christmas festivities just beginning. Instead, quick greetings were followed by talk of war, secession, and defiance towards the newly elected Republican government in Washington.
Isaac, being a Northerner and Bostonian, had remained tight-lipped and on his best behaviour when talk of the national election reached a frenzied tirade of outbursts and expletives bordering on treason. Jacob had been grateful for Isaac’s self-control, for he knew that Isaac was and always would be loyal to the North, Lincoln, and the North’s point of view regarding slavery and states’ rights.
All the Northern candidates had presented a danger to the South, everyone present had agreed, but no one had been more feared by the Southern states than the winner, Abraham Lincoln. The news of Lincoln’s victory on November 6 had not come as a shock to the new arrivals. Hendry, Jacob, and Isaac had spoken often on this subject whilst at sea, and all three fully expected him to achieve a landslide victory. But Lincoln threatened to destroy the South with his outlandish policies on slavery. He would demolish an entire economy and kill morale. He was the South’s worst nightmare, and now that nightmare had become a reality.
Mayor Lamb had made it quite clear that he would do everything in his power to obstruct and form a resistance against the North from passing any more laws that threatened the South’s way of life and, more importantly, livelihood.
As Jacob listened, he’d shuddered with foreboding. Lincoln’s popularity in the slave-free Northern states would make men take up arms and invade the South, should Lincoln demand it. In addition to that dismal assessment, the talk of dissension and a new confederacy in the making by some of the Southern states, unwilling to engage in any talk of reducing or, God forbid, rejecting slavery, was growing.
Jacob had pondered the future. He realised that in his ten-week absence across the Atlantic, the political landscape and mellow Virginian political opinions had changed at an alarming rate. The South had lost its voice. It had very little support in
Congress, with no powerful advocate. His assessment was, therefore, that without dialogue and diplomacy, violence and war would become a necessity in order to keep what legally belonged to the Southern states.
Jacob’s horse stumbled on a small rock and jolted his thoughts back to Coulter Plantation, just coming into sight on the horizon. Elizabeth would be expecting him to show up at some point. She kept abreast of his journeys and seemed to have a very reliable spy who somehow always knew of his exact movements. It wouldn’t surprise him to see her wearing her battle dress – an extravagant gown with jewellery befitting a princess – just in case he was to arrive unannounced, which was exactly what he was going to do.
Isaac rode slightly behind Jacob and Hendry and was consumed with his own thoughts. At the meeting yesterday, he had come to realise that he’d spent enough time in the South. He was fond of the Stone family. He loved the open Virginia countryside and his voyages to Europe, but trouble between the North and South was coming. The chasm between the two cultures could not be crossed through political dialogue, not this time. There were those whose anger and disdain were becoming increasingly blatant. God forbid this hatred from spreading to violence, he thought, but after what he’d seen and heard in Norfolk, his initial reaction was one of fear. War would tear the country apart, and it was on the horizon, waiting to rise up and burn the country he loved.
His loyalty was unquestionable. He was a Northerner. He hated slavery and all it stood for. He was intelligent enough to know that life was a whole lot easier to navigate when he remained silent on the slave issue. But every time he sat with these grand plantation owners overseeing the niggers’ back-breaking work, shackled bodies, and whiplash scarring, as though slaves were born and bred for the sole purpose of serving white masters, he cringed with shame.
