A Place Called Freedom (1995)

32

AFTER HER BABY GIRL WAS BORN DEAD, LIZZIE LIVED in a world of gray colors, silent people, rain and mist. She let the household staff do as they pleased, realizing vaguely after a while that Mack had taken charge of them. She no longer patrolled the plantation every day: she left the tobacco fields to Lennox. Sometimes she visited Mrs. Thumson or Suzy Delahaye, for they were willing to talk about the baby as long as she liked; but she did not go to parties or balls. Every Sunday she attended church in Fredericksburg, and after the service she spent an hour or two in the graveyard, standing and looking at the tiny tombstone, thinking about what might have been.

She was quite sure it was all her fault. She had continued to ride horses until she was four or five months pregnant; she had not rested as much as people said she should; and she had ridden ten miles in the buggy, urging Mack to go faster and faster, on the night the baby was stillborn.

She was angry with Jay for being away from home that night; with Dr. Finch for refusing to come out for a slave girl; and with Mack for doing her bidding and driving fast. But most of all she was angry with herself. She loathed and despised herself for being an inadequate mother-to-be, for her impulsiveness and impatience and inability to listen to advice. If I were not like this, she thought, if I were a normal person, sensible and reasonable and cautious, I would have a little baby girl now.

She could not talk to Jay about it. At first he had been angry. He had railed at Lizzie, vowed to shoot Dr. Finch and threatened to have Mack flogged; but his rage had evaporated when he learned the baby had been a girl, and now he acted as if Lizzie had never been pregnant.

For a while she talked to Mack. The birth had brought them very close. He had wrapped her in his cloak and held her knees and tenderly handled the poor baby. At first he was a great comfort to her, but after a few weeks she sensed him becoming impatient. It was not his baby, she thought, and he could not truly share her grief. Nobody could. So she withdrew into herself.

One day three months after the birth she went to the nursery wing, still gleaming with fresh paint, and sat alone. She imagined a little girl there in a cradle, gurgling happily or crying to be fed, dressed in pretty white frocks and tiny knitted boots, suckling at her nipple or being bathed in a bowl. The vision was so intense that tears filled her eyes and rolled down her face, although she made no sound.

Mack came in while she was like that. Some debris had fallen down the chimney during a storm and he knelt at the fireplace and began to clear it up. He did not comment on her tears.

“I’m so unhappy,” she said.

He did not pause in his work. “This will not do you any good,” he replied in a hard voice.

“I expected more sympathy from you,” she said miserably.

“You can’t spend your life sitting in the nursery crying. Everyone dies sooner or later. The rest have to live on.”

“I don’t really want to. What have I got to live for?”

“Don’t be so damned pathetic, Lizzie—it’s not your nature.”

She was shocked. No one had spoken unkindly to her since the stillbirth. What right did Mack have to make her even more unhappy? “You ought not to talk to me like that,” she said.

He surprised her by rounding on her. Dropping his brush, he grabbed her by both her arms and pulled her up out of her chair. “Don’t tell me about my rights,” he said.

He was so angry she was afraid he would do violence to her. “Leave me alone!”

“Too many people are leaving you alone,” he said, but he put her down.

“What am I supposed to do?” she said.

“Anything you like. Get a ship back home and go and live with your mother in Aberdeen. Have a love affair with Colonel Thumson. Run away to the frontier with some ne’er-do-well.” He paused and looked hard at her. “Or—make up your mind to be a wife to Jay, and have another baby.”

That surprised her. “I thought …”

“What did you think?”

“Nothing.” She had known for some time that he was at least half in love with her. After the failed party for the field hands he had touched her tenderly and stroked her in a way that could only be loving. He had kissed the hot tears on her face. There was more than mere pity in his embrace.

And there was more in her response than the need for sympathy. She had clung to his hard body and savored the touch of his lips on her skin, and that was not just because she felt sorry for herself.

But all those feelings had faded since the baby. Her heart was empty. She had no passions, just regrets.

She felt ashamed and embarrassed to have had such desires. The lascivious wife who tried to seduce the bonny young footman was a stock character in comic novels.

Mack was not just a bonny footman, of course. She had gradually come to realize that he was the most remarkable man she had ever met. He was arrogant and opinionated too, she knew. His idea of his own importance was ludicrously inflated, and it led him into mischief. But she could not help admiring the way he stood up to tyrannical authority, from the Scottish coal field to the plantations of Virginia. And when he got into trouble it was often because he stuck up for someone else.

But Jay was her husband. He was weak and foolish, and he had lied to her, but she had married him and she had to be faithful to him.

Mack was still staring at her. She wondered what was going through his mind. She thought he was referring to himself when he said “run away to the frontier with some ne’er-do-well.”

Mack reached out tentatively and stroked her cheek. Lizzie closed her eyes. If her mother could see this she would know exactly what to say. You married Jay and you promised to be loyal to him. Are you a woman or a child? A woman keeps her word when it’s difficult, not just when it’s easy. That’s what promising is all about.

And here she was letting another man stroke her cheek. She opened her eyes and looked at Mack for a long moment. There was yearning in his green eyes. She hardened her heart. A sudden impulse seized her and she slapped his face as hard as she could.

It was like slapping a rock. He did not move. But his expression changed. She had not hurt his face but she had wounded his heart. He looked so shocked and dismayed that she felt an overpowering urge to apologize and embrace him. She resisted it with all her might. In a shaky voice she said: “Don’t you dare touch me!”

He said nothing, but stared at her, horrified and wounded. She could not look at his hurt expression any longer, so she stood up and walked out of the room.

* * *

He had said, “Make up your mind to be a wife to Jay, and have another baby.” She thought hard about that for a day. The idea of having Jay in her bed had become unpleasant to her, but it was her duty as a wife. If she refused that duty she did not deserve a husband.

That afternoon she took a bath. This was a complicated business involving a tin tub in the bedroom and five or six strong girls running upstairs from the kitchen with pitchers of hot water. When that was done she put on fresh clothing before going downstairs for supper.

It was a cold winter’s evening and the fire roared in the hearth. Lizzie drank some wine and tried to chatter gaily to Jay the way she used to before they were married. He did not respond. However, that was to be expected, she thought, when she had been poor company for so long.

After the meal was over she said: “It’s been three months since the baby. I’m all right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“My body is back to normal.” She was not going to give him the details. Her breasts had stopped leaking milk a few days after the stillbirth. She had bled a little every day for much longer, but that too had ended. “I mean, my tummy will never be quite as flat again, but … in other ways I’ve healed.”

He still did not understand. “Why are you telling me this?”

Trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice she said: “We can make love again, that’s what I’m saying.”

He grunted and lit his pipe.

It was not the reaction a woman might have hoped for.

“Will you come to my room tonight?” she persisted.

He looked annoyed. “It’s the man that’s supposed to make these suggestions,” he said irritably.

She stood up. “I just wanted you to know that I’m ready,” she said. Feeling hurt, she went up to her room.

Mildred came up to help her undress. As she took off her petticoats she said, in a voice as casual as she could manage: “Has Mr. Jamisson gone to bed?”

“No, I don’t believe he has.”

“Is he still downstairs?”

“I think he went out.”

Lizzie looked at the maid’s pretty face. There was something puzzling in her expression. “Mildred, are you hiding something from me?”

Mildred was young—about eighteen—and she had no talent for deceit. She averted her eyes. “No, Mrs. Jamisson.”

Lizzie was sure she was lying. But why?

Mildred began to brush Lizzie’s hair. Lizzie thought about where Jay had gone. He often went out after supper. Sometimes he said he was going to a card game or a cockfight; sometimes he said nothing at all. She assumed vaguely he was going to drink rum in taverns with other men. But if that were all there was to it, Mildred would say so. Now Lizzie thought of an alternative.

Did her husband have another woman?

A week later he still had not come to her room.

She became obsessed with the idea that he was having an affair. The only person she could think of was Suzy Delahaye. She was young and pretty, and her husband was always going away—like many Virginians he was obsessed with horse races and would travel two days to see one. Was Jay sneaking out of the house after supper and riding over to the Delahaye place and getting into bed with Suzy?

She told herself she was being fanciful, but the thought would not go away.

On the seventh night she looked out of her bedroom window and saw the flicker of a candle lamp moving across the dark lawn.

She decided to follow.

It was cold and dark, but she did not delay to dress. She picked up a shawl and drew it around her shoulders as she ran down the stairs.

She slipped out of the house. The two deerhounds, who slept on the porch, looked up at her curiously. “Come, Roy, come, Rex!” she said. She ran across the grass, following the spark of the lantern, with the dogs at her heels. Soon the light disappeared into the woods, but by then she was close enough to discern that Jay—if it was he—had taken the path that led to the tobacco sheds and the overseer’s quarters.

Perhaps Lennox had a horse saddled ready for Jay to ride to the Delahaye place. Lennox was deep in this somehow, Lizzie felt: that man was involved whenever Jay went wrong.

She did not see the lantern again, but she found the cottages easily. There were two. Lennox occupied one. The other had been Sowerby’s and was now vacant.

But there was someone inside it.

The windows were shuttered against the cold, but light shone through the cracks.

Lizzie paused, hoping that her heart would slow down, but it was fear, not exertion, that made it beat so fast. She was scared of what she would see inside. The idea of Jay taking Suzy Delahaye in his arms the way he had embraced Lizzie, and kissing her with the lips Lizzie had kissed, made her sick with rage. She even thought about turning back. But not knowing would be the worst of all.

She tried the door. It was not locked. She opened it and went inside.

The house had two rooms. The kitchen, at the front, was empty, but she could hear a low voice coming from the bedroom at the back. Were they in bed already? She tiptoed to the door, grasped the handle, took a deep breath, and flung it open.

Suzy Delahaye was not in the room.

Jay was. He lay on the bed in his shirt and breeches, barefoot and coatless.

At the end of the bed stood a slave.

Lizzie did not know the girl’s name: she was one of the four Jay had bought in Williamsburg. She was about Lizzie’s age, slim and very beautiful, with soft brown eyes. She was completely naked, and Lizzie could see her proud brown-tipped breasts and the tightly curled black hair at her groin.

As Lizzie stared, the girl threw her a look that Lizzie would never forget: a haughty, contemptuous, triumphant look. You may be the mistress of the house, the look said, but he comes to my bed every night, not yours.

Jay’s voice came to her as if from a great distance: “Lizzie, oh my God!”

She turned her face to him and saw him flinch at her look. But his fear gave her no satisfaction: she had known for a long time that he was weak.

She found her voice. “Go to hell, Jay,” she said quietly, and she turned and left the room.

She went to her room, got her keys from the drawer, then went down to the gun room.

Her Griffin rifles were in the rack with Jay’s guns, but she left them and picked up a pair of pocket pistols in a leather case. Checking the contents of the case she found a full powder horn, plenty of linen wadding, and some spare flints, but no balls. She searched the room but there was no shot, just a small stack of lead ingots. She took one of the ingots and a bullet mold—a small tool like a pair of pincers—then she left the room, relocking the door.

In the kitchen, Sarah and Mildred stared at her with big frightened eyes as she walked in carrying the pistol case under her arm. Without speaking she went to the cupboard and took out a stout knife and a small, heavy iron saucepan with a spout. Then she went to her bedroom and locked the door.

She built up the fire until it blazed so hot she could not stay near it for more than a few seconds. Then she put the lead ingot in the pan and the pan on the fire.

She remembered Jay coming home from Williamsburg with four young girl slaves. She had asked why he had not bought men, and he said girls were cheaper and more obedient. At the time she had thought no more about it: she had been more concerned about the extravagance of his new carriage. Now, bitterly, she understood.

There was a knock at the door and Jay’s voice said: “Lizzie?” The handle was turned and the door tried. Finding it locked he said: “Lizzie—will you let me in?”

She ignored him. At the moment he was cowed and guilty. Later he would find a way to convince himself he had done nothing wrong, and then he would become angry, but for the moment he was harmless.

He knocked and called for a minute or so then gave up and went away.

When the lead was melted she took the pan off the fire. Moving quickly, she poured a little lead into the mold through a nozzle. Inside the head of the tool was a spherical cavity that now filled with molten lead. She plunged the mold into the bowl of water on her wash-stand, to cool and harden the lead. When she squeezed together the arms of the tool, the head came open and a neat round bullet fell out. She picked it up. It was perfect except for a little tail formed by the lead that had remained in the nozzle. She trimmed the tail with the kitchen knife.

She carried on making shot until all the lead was used up. Then she loaded both pistols and placed them beside her bed. She checked the lock on the door.

Then she went to bed.