The Tobacco Lords Trilogy

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  No doubt Harding would be wasting quite a bit of money at the market in Williamsburg. At markets and fairs there was always plenty of cockfighting and bull-baiting and nigger-fighting to bet money on. Not to mention the games of cards and box and dice in the taverns.

  3

  WHEN the time came to go, it was decided that it would be more comfortable travelling on horseback. To travel in any sort of carriage was an ordeal. On some of the rough paths through the forest, even in open country, a carriage could be literally jolted to pieces or sucked deep into a swamp or crashed onto its side in a pothole. But Westminster was instructed to follow them with the wagon.

  Setting out, Regina clopped at a leisurely pace behind Harding. She was dressed in a bottle-green riding-jacket shaped like a man’s coat with large gold buttons and gold facings. The long buttoned waistcoat was green and the full petticoat yellow. She also wore leather gloves and a large, feather-fringed tricorne hat. Harding’s muscular jackbooted legs gripped the sides of his horse from under a voluminous triple-caped riding-cloak. She twisted round towards the house before entering the forest, almost expecting to see Mistress Kitty as usual propped in a chair at her bedroom window like a lost soul in a haunted place. But there was no one there.

  It was a golden autumn day and Regina took what pleasure she could in breathing in the leafy air. Falling leaves swooped and twirled and sparkled in the sun, and rustled and crackled under the horses’ hooves. An earthy, mouldy smell clung thickly in her nostrils. Yet at the same time, a keen frosty tang sharpened other perfumes and enlivened the senses. Sounds vied with each other too, like an orchestra rich in unexpected changes of rhythm. Birds trilled, squawked, chirruped. Larger animals creaked cautiously through the undergrowth. Hogs rooted and grunted. Flights of wild pigeons clapped like thunder overhead, darkening the sky and snapping the limbs of trees when they landed. Dusk was beginning to settle and crickets chirped tirelessly. Fireflies began their rapid winking.

  She was glad when Harding said, ‘There’s a clearing ahead. There will be a house where we can seek shelter for the night.’

  When they reached the edge of the clearing, Harding hailed in a loud voice:

  ‘Hallo-o-o-o-o! The house!’

  Then, as they slowly followed the wagon track winding among the stumps and half-burned log-piles, he repeated the call several times.

  The cabin squatted in the shadow of mighty elm, hickory, ash and chestnut trees. Its walls consisted of hewn logs notched into one another at the corners. The cracks between them were stuffed with moss, sticks, straw and clay. It had a clapboard roof and a log chimney. Some hogs snorted together at one side of the door and at the other on a plank shelf were a basswood basin, a gourd of soft soap and another basin for drinking water from the wooden pail that sat below. A bare patch among the weeds showed where the soapy water had been thrown. A man stood at the front of the cabin and a woman was shading her eyes in the doorway trying to make out if she knew the visitors.

  Harding dismounted and said,

  ‘Harding’s the name.’ Then with a jerk of his head in Regina’s direction, ‘Mistress Chisholm. We seek shelter for the night. My slave can sleep beneath the wagon.’

  The man scratched his beard, yellow-stained with tobacco.

  ‘Dan’l Howell. And tha’s m’old woman, Martha.’

  The ‘old woman’ was no more than thirty but already she had lost her freshness, and hair that had once been glossy and golden now straggled in greasy strands around her face. Her skin had a parched look, and lines like wagon tracks criss-crossed it. A cluster of bare-bottom children dressed only in torn linen shirts appeared, clinging in timid confusion to her tattered homespun skirts. Brushing them off like flies, she stepped aside to allow Harding and Regina to enter the cabin. It was dark inside and the air was thick with the smell of wood-smoke from the fire and carrion from the fresh pelts drying on the wall. A spinning wheel, a table made of split slab supported by legs set in holes, and a few three-legged stools made in the same way, were the only articles of furniture. Two forks attached to a joist held a rifle and shot pouch. There was an iron kettle, a frying pan, a few pewter spoons and steel knives, some wooden trenchers and mugs, and that was all.

  The poverty and discomfort of the place and the cold earthen floor reminded Regina of the home she had once shared with her mother and Gav in Tannery Wynd in Glasgow. Although at least there they had had what in Glasgow was known as a hole-in-the-wall bed. It had wooden shutters to keep out draughts and, huddled in it with her mother and Gav, with her mother’s plaid tucked over them, they had been tolerably warm and comfortable.

  Here there was no sign of a bed of any sort.

  ‘You’ll be awantin’ supper. Cain’ offer you much,’ Martha said, already attacking the fire with a poke and thumping the frying pan on top of the embers.

  ‘I will pay you well,’ Harding said.

  Daniel Howell spat on the earthen floor.

  ‘We ain’t askin’ yo’ to be payin’.’

  Martha put pork to sizzle in the pan.

  ‘But we ain’t refusin’ either,’ she said.

  As well as pork they had Indian corn that Martha had beaten in a hand mortar and then baked in the hearth as a hoecake. The food was washed down with home-made cider and, although nothing in comparison with what Regina had become used to at Forest Hall, the meal at least satisfied her hunger. But despite the food inside her, and the log fire crackling, she felt depressed and bitterly cold.

  The cabin’s one window had no glass or shutters and blasts of icy air sent shivers down her back. Cold breezes also beat in through loopholes cut to enable the settlers to shoot at attacking Indians. For a time a candle had been lit but it soon blew out and Martha did not light it again, explaining that there was no point in wasting the candles that she had taken so much time and trouble to make. The sensible thing to do was to sleep when it got dark and get up in God’s own light.

  This they did, all lying down like a flock of sheep on the floor in front of the fire.

  Regina was disgusted. She lay listening to the squeaking of the rats in the rafters fighting to be heard against the howling and creaking of the wind in the trees outside. Again she was reminded of her life in Glasgow and there was nothing she hated more than to be reminded of the horrors of that. The sound of the rats, the hardness of the floor, the bitter cold dragged her unwilling mind back to the time when Gav and she had slept on stairways with the beggar, Quin. In those days she had wakened in the morning almost too frozen to move and was forced to drag her stiff limbs about the streets begging filthy scraps to eat.

  Never again would she allow herself to suffer such deprivation. She felt herself shaking as much with fear as with cold. Edging closer to Harding’s mountainous back, she touched it to make sure that he was still there, that her life in Forest Hall wasn’t just a dream.

  Oh, the luxury of her four-poster bed there, the thick carpets, the glass windows, the elegant furniture, the crystal chandeliers and silver candelabra. Lying awake and shivering in the backwoods cabin, she experienced a sudden need to empty her bladder but willed herself to ignore it. She could not face rising in the fire-tinged dark and going outside to squat in the howling blackness of the forest. At Forest Hall there were chamber pots that fitted out of sight in commodes and the slaves emptied the pots every day. Still thinking about Forest Hall, she drifted in and out of restless sleep until daylight came to sweep away the dark.

  Martha was up first and splashing water outside the open door. Soon she had ham and eggs sizzling in the frying pan and the smell of it cut through the less pleasant odours of animal pelts and human bodies. Regina felt stiff and aching and Harding had to help her up. She brushed down her clothes as best she could before going out to splash her face with water from the bucket and dab herself dry with her handkerchief. Her face was always pale and made a startling contrast to her ruby-coloured hair and emerald eyes, but today she was even paler than usual. Strain pulled at her eyes and m
outh, giving her a hard, tense look. She could eat no breakfast, accepting only a few sips of milk, but she said a polite ‘Thank you. Goodbye,’ before taking leave of Martha and Daniel Howell.

  On their way again, they passed a string of pack-horses and peltry traders laden with brass kettles, rum, red lead for Indian face-paint, axes, gunpowder, lace hats for chiefs and small mirrors for young bucks to hang around their necks on rawhide lanyards.

  Regina noticed that some of the traders had only one eye. Others had mutilated ears and noses and she was reminded that Daniel Howell had part of an ear missing.

  She remarked on this to Harding and he said,

  There is a lot of rowdyism and fighting between backwoods people.’

  ‘But how can they become so mutilated?’

  ‘It’s the custom to mutilate the loser in a fight by biting off his ear or nose or gouging out his eye. Sometimes they go as far as castration.’

  ‘Barbarous,’ Regina said. ‘But then, most men are.’

  Harding gave one of his abrupt humourless laughs then they clopped along in silence for a while with the wagon trundling along some distance behind. Westminster was singing quietly to himself:

  ‘I’ve got a mother in de heaven

  Outshines de sun,

  I’ve got a father in de heaven

  Outshines de sun,

  I’ve got a sister in de heaven

  Outshines de sun,

  When we get to heaven, we will

  Outshine de sun,

  Way beyond the moon.’

  Eventually Regina asked:

  ‘What causes so much fighting? Do they become inflamed with drink?’

  Harding shrugged.

  ‘I’ve known fights to start over quite trivial matters. One has called the other a thick-skull, or a buckskin, or a Scotchman. Or one has mislaid the other’s hat, or knocked an apple out of his hand, or offered him a dram without wiping the mouth of the bottle.’

  ‘Fools,’ Regina said.

  The only other person they saw on their journey was a woman wearing nothing but a short gown, crouched on the log step of a cabin, smoking a pipe and viewing the nearby creek through a cloud of mosquitoes.

  As they rode through the tall pine woods that led into Williamsburg, the sun spangled the branches and sent arrows of golden light shooting across their line of vision. Somewhere in the distance, Regina could hear the tinkle of a bell and despite the sunshine her body turned to ice.

  ‘Is there something wrong?’ Harding asked, noticing her pale stiff face.

  She managed to shake her head. It would be a church bell or the handbell of a schoolmaster summoning the children to their lessons. The thought of children made her keenly aware of her pregnancy again. That was what was upsetting her. Being with child made one oversensitive and disturbed both physically and mentally.

  Closing her eyes she allowed the horse to lead her along and tried not to listen to the faint, haunting chimes of the bell.

  The coffle snaked slowly across the green, a black shadow on the landscape of white faces and multicoloured clothes. The line of men and women all spancelled together hobbled towards the auction platform. Some clutched a small assortment of belongings wrapped in a handkerchief or ragged piece of cloth. Others carried limp bundles on their heads. A few of the men had a bundle tied to a stick and slung over one shoulder. Others had no belongings at all, or just a small treasure like a broken comb, a cracked teacup or a scrap of coloured cloth small enough to hold in one hand. Several of the women nursed babies in their arms. Children, some hardly old enough to walk, trailed along, big-eyed with fear, or blank-faced with fatigue and confusion.

  The coffle was herded to one side of the wooden platform, where the slaves stood in a tangled knot as if being as close together as possible afforded some comfort and protection. But a crowd of white people, mostly men, began separating them out and ordering them to strip off. Harding moved forward too and Regina, following him, said,

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  She felt agitated. The slaves she was in the habit of seeing were those belonging to Forest Hall and, even then, it was mostly just the few who worked in the house. They were well-fed and healthy-looking. Even the field slaves at Forest Hall did not have the frightened, vulnerable look of these pathetic creatures. Or, if they had, she’d never noticed it. But what shocked her more than anything was the way they were forced to strip off and allow the white men to handle and finger them.

  ‘It’s no use buying a pig in a poke,’ Harding said. ‘We’ve got to see what we’re bidding for.’

  In horror she watched a loose-mouthed, red-necked farmer fondle the small breasts of a girl of about twelve. Then the man’s horny fingers began probing between the girl’s legs. All the time a little boy was clinging to her arm.

  The girl and boy were obviously brother and sister, and they reminded Regina of herself and Gav at that age. There was something about the girl’s stiff silence and the boy’s mop of curls.

  Memories too of the time she had been molested and raped rampaged back. Pushed and jostled in the eager, busy crowd, she felt sick and panic-stricken. All around her, white hands were sliding over black skin, were cupping testicles, or breasts, were spreading buttocks. Voices crowded in on her too.

  ‘Shuck down your britches … Shuck off that dress … This looks a prime buck … well muscled … heavy-hung … Here’s a prime wench … well titted out … Run catch that stick, boy …’

  Suddenly the auctioneer was banging his gavel on the table up on the platform and the sale was ready to begin.

  ‘Bring on the youngest saplings first,’ he shouted.

  Another white man grabbed one of the children and hauled her onto the platform. She was a little girl of about three, dressed only in a ragged shirt that barely reached her buttocks. The man jerked it off, leaving her naked. The auctioneer shouted.

  ‘Rosabell, out of Sally by Tom. Fair percentage of human blood from dam who is octoroon. What am I bid, gentlemen?’

  Harding made no bid for the child who was sold eventually to a giant of a man with one eye and a beard like a prickly bush. When the brother and sister climbed onto the platform, Regina said,

  ‘I want them.’

  Harding stared round in surprise.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I need servants young enough to train for house duties.’

  The auctioneer was saying,

  ‘Lunesta and Little Sam. Can be sold together or separately. Both out of Violet, sired by Joseph. Royal Hausa, and some human blood from sire.’

  ‘There’s plenty running about the quarters,’ Harding said.

  ‘I want those two.’

  ‘All right, buy them yourself.’

  His voice was like a blow on the face. She winced but replied coolly, ‘I don’t know how to bid.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Then you’re not going to get them.’

  The bidding had started and she glanced around, face stiff, heart palpitating with distress. Eventually she signalled by raising her hand but a man a few yards away brandished a newspaper at the auctioneer and the price immediately jumped. She raised her hand again. This time a man twirled his cane and the price took another brisk leap upwards. She continued to signal, terrified by the price but determined not to be beaten.

  Eventually the auctioneer’s hammer came down.

  ‘Sold to the lady with the red hair.’

  Then the sale went on.

  ‘Angelina, prime dam, with six-month-old sucker called Lizzie …’

  She waited until Harding had purchased his slaves then she strolled with him back to the Raleigh Tavern where they were staying the night. She passed the printer’s house, the storehouse, the milliner’s shop and the silversmith’s, without noticing any of them. She was not even aware of the scent of roses from the gardens of the houses or the singing sound of the trees. She was not only feeling emotionally distressed, she was suffering physically as well. Waves of sickness a
nd nausea kept rising inside her and it took all her energy and will-power to fight them down. She wished there was someone who cared about her and to whom she could turn for advice and help but there was no one.

  Mistress Kitty had been kind and generous and the memory of her affection and generosity came back like a pain. She hated Harding but she had never hated Mistress Kitty. As far as she was aware she had never uttered one unkind word to the older woman. She realised that Mistress Kitty had always had an affection for her and this she had secretly treasured. The only other people in her life who had ever shown any feeling for her were her mother and Gav. Her mother had long ago disappeared and Gav had gone out of her life too. His love had been stolen by somebody else. Mistress Kitty’s love had been like a solitary flame in the wilderness of her life. She had not wanted it extinguished.

  She could eat no supper in the Raleigh Tavern that night and Harding eyed her curiously but said nothing.

  The next day they set off for home. Harding had purchased several slaves, both men and women, and of course there were the two children that Regina had bought. All of them were packed into the wagon, and Harding and Regina rode ahead of it.

  It was good to see Forest Hall again because it now indeed meant ‘home’ to her. She didn’t care that it had no formal garden or lawn like some plantation mansions. She liked its strange wild look and the unexpected luminosity of it that glimmered from among the trees.

  Westminster drove the wagon along the path that wound round the right-hand side of the house, then round the back to the left and down past the storehouses to the barns and stables. The storehouses and office and overseer’s house ran down the left edge of the path and faced onto it. But the barns and stables were some way over on the right and backed onto the woods. They faced the rear of the big house, or what could be seen of it from that distance through the trees and stumps and long grass.

  Westminster stopped the wagon at the stables, unloaded the slaves and left Matthew, the stable boy, to attend to the horses and wagon while he led the new slaves further along the path through the woods at the back of the stables until they came to the quarters.