Dawnlands, page 44
“The liberties of England?” Ned suggested quietly. “The rights of free men to govern themselves, and to worship as they please?”
The man laughed and clapped him on the back. “You go back to measuring your ells, my man. The king’s going to have a son, and that’ll be the end to free men governing themselves, or shopmen speaking to their betters!”
* * *
“What’s this?” Johnnie asked, who usually had a grand dinner sent round from the hotel, when he did not dine with one of the planters at an inn.
“English fare,” Ned said. “To remind us who we are.”
Johnnie laughed. “Am I allowed a rum punch?”
“I’ve got water,” Ned said. “I’m not taking sugar anymore.”
Johnnie sat and ate, one eye on his uncle, who moved quietly around their little galley kitchen, slicing fruits and bringing them to the table.
“You’ll eat pawpaw,” he said.
“It was grown by a free man,” Ned said. “And I bought it from him in the market at a fair price.”
Johnnie sighed. “Uncle Ned—what’s all this? Are you fasting because the king has finally got an heir? Surely, it was always possible?”
“It’s that,” Ned conceded. “I thought the country would rise against him or at the worst endure him till his death, and then there’d be a Protestant princess who respects the liberties of the people. I thought the Stuart tyranny would die out.”
“And sugar?” Johnnie asked.
“I’ve seen how the slaves are worked, worse than the beasts. I can’t abide it. It’s got a bitter taste to me now.”
“I swear to God, Uncle Ned, if you talk like this in public, you will be hanged, and I will be ruined.”
Ned nodded. “I won’t be talking like this. I’m going home,” he said simply.
“You’ve finished your collecting?”
“I’ve seen more than I can stand. I’m going home to fight for freedom in England.”
Johnnie pushed his plate away. “Another defeat will kill you.”
“I’d rather die than be spoiled here,” Ned said. “Mercy dries up here, like the sap in the cane. You said that you’d just open a store to get the cost of your passage and buy Rowan out. But it’s you that have been sold. You were always for a profit, but now you’re trading in men and women, like a cannibal. You’re part of it now. You’re one of them. Like she said—”
“She said? Who said? If you’ve been talking to my shopgirls—”
“They’re not shopgirls. They’re slaves. You’re driving slaves in your own shop. You’re paid in slavery profits, you’re sending slave goods back to England. You’re part of it.”
“You can’t be here and not be part of it!” Johnnie exclaimed. “I said I’d never be a slave driver, and I never will. But I have to work slaves in the shop! I can’t be the only business in Bridge paying wages! I’d be a fool. I’d go out of business.”
“It was Rowan that said you are a part of it,” Ned said damningly.
There was an aghast silence.
“Rowan? You’ve seen her? She’s alive?”
“She’s gone,” Ned lied without a moment’s hesitation. “She’s taken ship. Stowed away.”
“I can’t believe it! Where was she hiding all this time?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did you see her?”
“My second night here. After the dinner for the new governor.”
“You didn’t wake me?”
“The last trump wouldn’t have woke you. You were drunk as a lord that night. She came to see us both. To say good-bye.”
“You never told me? And she went away without seeing me?” He had a sudden thought. “She didn’t see me like that, drunk and celebrating the governor, did she?”
“No. She wouldn’t have minded the drink. It’s how you live when you’re sober that’s worse. There are sides in this world, Johnnie. She’s on the side of the imprisoned, the enslaved, the poor. And you’re on the other. The slave masters, the slave drivers, those that profit from cruelty.”
“Everyone profits from it!” Johnnie raged. “Me! The wharf! My ma! You!”
Ned was stubborn. “A lie—a vile lie. The slaves don’t profit, the poor don’t profit. I won’t. It is possible to eat and not taste blood. To wear clothes that are not hemmed with some poor woman’s sweat.”
“Well, I won’t,” Johnnie swore. “I won’t choose to be poor. Not for you. Not even for her. I can’t choose to be poor. It matters to me more than life itself, Ned. I watched my ma fight for every penny she earned, and I swore that I wouldn’t be poor like her, afraid of debt like her. I will do anything before I lose family money. And now I am making money, a fortune, day after day. I can’t turn my back on it.”
“And I’ll never side with the rich,” Ned said grimly. “I’ll never side with the rich and powerful against the poor and those struggling.”
There was a long silence between the two men.
“So, you’ll go home?” Johnnie asked. “There’s no place for you here. You’re either white and a slave driver; or black and a slave. There’s no in-between place. There’s no white man on the side of the slaves.”
“Not yet. But there will be. I know it. You’ll stay here?”
“Until I am rich enough.”
“You’ll never be rich enough.” Ned’s prediction was like a sorrowful curse. “That’s the thing about wealth and power. Once you’ve learned to want it—that’s all you learn. You don’t learn satisfaction, you just want more. There’s never enough. You’ll never be rich enough, Johnnie, and you’ll die in dissatisfaction.”
“And you’ll go home, and declare war against the Stuarts and tyranny? Get yourself half killed again on a lost cause?”
Ned laughed in genuine amusement. “Aye. If the call comes, I’ll answer it. Every time. And one day enough of us will answer, and we will win.”
Johnnie sighed at his uncle’s vision. “The call?”
“Liberty! Like always. Liberty!”
WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, SPRING 1688
Livia sent a note to Matthew’s new legal firm to ask him to call on her at the palace at his own convenience. In case he was so mistaken as to think she wanted him to consult his convenience, she added a postscript: “Six o’clock this evening.”
“Signora Madre?” He came into her private rooms and bowed over her hand. She rose up and drew his handsome face down and kissed him on the forehead and both cheeks.
“My son. Caro figlio!”
“You sent for me?”
“I did indeed, but let me look at you before we sit down.”
She took him by the hand and looked him up and down. He was wearing a good suit of sober black as a lawyer should. The bulky cuffs had buttons of jet, rather than gold, and his linen shirt was plain but of good quality. In his hand he had one of the new tricorn hats with a modest black plume. She was struck by the kindness of his brown eyes and his square handsome face.
“Will I do?” he asked.
“You’ll do very well,” she said. “Sit down. I have been thinking about a marriage for you.”
He flinched. “I have no plans for marriage.”
“No, why should you? As your guardian, it is I who make the plans.”
“Signora Madre, I don’t wish to marry.”
“You did,” she said unkindly.
“Since then, I have no wish.”
“You know that you must marry, you have a country house and land, you have a good and respected name—”
“I have a name of your invention,” he said quietly.
Livia completely ignored him. “You have an occupation that befits a gentleman. You have an income from your rents, you will have an inheritance from me, and you have already inherited a small sum from your stepfather, Sir James. Obviously, you must have a wife, and a son to come after you.”
“I don’t want to marry someone I don’t know.”
She shook her head. “I don’t require it of you. I have made arrangements with Hester Reekie’s mother.”
He hesitated. “Miss Reekie?”
“You don’t dislike her?”
“On the contrary.” He hesitated. “She’s a very… of course, she’s… Nobildonna, it wouldn’t be right. She would know that she’s not my first choice. She knew that I loved Mia and I had to give her up.”
She smiled at him. “Hester will inherit a considerable fortune from her parents and from her grandfather, the Alderman. She is an excellent choice. You can have no objection to her.”
“Of course, I have no objection to her! She is a friend, she is a dear—”
“Very well then.”
“But I have no desire to be married at all.”
“But given that you have to marry, as do we all, I hope you will agree that Hester is a young lady most likely to make an excellent wife.”
“Of course, I admire and respect her. But I don’t want to marry anyone yet.”
“My son, as your guardian, it is for me to decide when you marry and who.”
“I know you are my guardian,” he said carefully. “And I know this is your decision. But surely Miss Reekie is too young? Her parents would not order her.”
“My dear,” his mother said frankly, “she is half in love with you already. Her mother tells me that you seek her out, that you are happy companions, that you are friends.”
He looked aghast. “I have compromised her?”
“You have certainly shown a preference. And so has she. It would be awkward not to proceed.”
“Does she know of this?”
“Her mother will be telling her today. You and I will visit Hatton Garden tomorrow.”
He hesitated. “I will ask her if she has any objection, I will not go further than that.”
“Very romantic,” she commended him. “Toll-loll! Ask her yourself. And if either of you has the slightest of doubts, we, your parents and guardians, will listen to you.” She smiled. “Children used to obey their parents without question. But times have changed. No one is being forced into anything.”
“She will not be ordered?”
“Not at all.”
“You will not order me?”
“My son, I think only of your happiness.”
“You are a rather surprising parent, you know,” he told her with a ghost of a smile. “Last time I came to the palace, I was saving the queen from a rebellion, now you tell me I am to propose marriage. Do you think we might discuss these matters before they are off at a gallop?”
She laughed. “Sometimes, time is of the essence. And I am not a woman of patience.”
REEKIE WHARF, LONDON, SPRING 1688
The warehouse was closed and the wharf was quiet, the sun sinking low over the city. Alys had the new package of receipts from Johnnie’s sales in Barbados spread over the parlor table. She always kept a running tally in her head of the stock she had sent out to him. But now, she saw the fortune that Johnnie was making from reselling the goods. The most recent ship had brought in hogsheads of best sugar, and this package of notes of credit from Barbados planters to be redeemed at their London agents.
There was a knock at the kitchen door, and Alys heard Tabs, the cook, open the top half and then exclaim, “Well, I never! God bless us! What a fine sight!”
She rose to her feet, knowing at once that it must be Ned. Only Ned always came to the yard, as if the front door were for gentry visitors. “Is that you, Uncle Ned?” she asked, stepping over the parlor doorsill as he came into the hall with Tabs exclaiming behind him.
He was looking well, far stronger than when he had left, his face tanned and deeply grooved with lines, the pale scar of his wound puckered at his temple. He had gained weight in the months that he had been away, and he stood taller. His smile, still lopsided, was warm and untroubled. “Well, here’s the wharfinger, doing her business!” he exclaimed, taking in the account books spread on the table. “You look just as you did when I left you.”
“God bless you, Uncle. You’ve not brought Johnnie with you?”
“No, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but he is well and happy there, and he sent you his love and a little gift for you, and—which you will want more—receipts and an order for goods which he made me swear to give you at once.” Ned plunged into the pocket of his sea jacket and brought out a crumpled roll of papers.
“He’s not had the fever?”
“No, he’s taking Alinor’s tea.”
“And he’s happy? I can tell from the receipts that he’s doing well.”
“He’s settled in, he has friends. He likes the life there.”
She saw the shadow that went across his face. “So what’s wrong? He didn’t find Rowan, and neither did you?”
“She’s escaped,” Ned said. “I’m glad of it. She’s taken her own freedom. I’d have been glad to free her; but she’s a woman who can find her own path.”
“She wasn’t dead?”
“Not her.”
“And Johnnie doesn’t mind?”
“He did at first; but she’d never have worked in his shop. She’d never have commanded slaves, she’d never’ve married a man who was a slave driver.”
“Johnnie owns slaves now?” Alys could not keep the respect from her voice.
“He hires ’em. He tells me he’ll not buy his own. But I think it unavoidable.”
She saw the weariness in his face. “Here am I! Questioning you in the hall like a landlady. Take your bags upstairs to your old room, and come down and I’ll have some small ale for you and I’ll get dinner on. Or would you rather punch? Are you drinking rum now?”
“Nay,” he said. “I don’t take sugar. I won’t take coffee, or tobacco. I’ve seen how it’s grown, and I won’t benefit.”
She made a little gesture at the warehouse, at the parlor table and the account books. “We can’t help but benefit,” she said. “It’s how the world is. There is no profit in equality.”
He nodded. “I know that all wealth flows from one to another, but I’ll do what I can to keep my own hands clean.”
* * *
She waited until they had dined and were sitting on either side of the parlor fire. “Are you back to stay, Uncle Ned?”
“Only for a while. I think there’ll be a rising up against the king.”
“You don’t want to be part of that. Not at your age.”
He showed his lopsided smile. “Did St. Olave’s vicar read the king’s declaration last Sunday?”
“He did not! He defied the royal order. He said that the king wants Roman Catholics to rule the great offices of state, and he could not say from the pulpit that it was righteous. The bishop of London himself has said he will not preach the sermon written by the king—even if it costs him his mitre.”
“It’s against the law,” Ned told her. “Never mind about not righteous.”
She shrugged. “You know I don’t take an interest in such things.”
“The bishops are supporting their clergy, and they’ve told the king that it’s illegal to open the ruling of the kingdom to Roman Catholics. The law says clearly that only men in the Church of England can rule, from magistrates to members of parliament. The king’s decree is against the law. But not even the king can change the English law by decree.”
“Uncle Ned…”
“It’s tyranny,” he told her. “If he moves openly against the bishops—the bishops of the Church of England—the people will take arms against him.”
“Then surely he won’t do it?”
“Aye, we’ll see,” Ned said with his old smile. “Everything to play for.”
“It’s not play for me,” she said crossly. “It’s bad for business. London is in uproar. I can only open the wharf for half the day. There’s trouble in the streets all the time, the lumpers run off and the apprentices break into the papist chapels and throw down the icons.”
“So it’s starting,” Ned said in a voice almost of wonder. “People are starting to resist. God bless us, it’s starting again.” He smiled at his niece. “It’s extraordinary. Just when I think we have lost liberty for a generation… it always starts again.”
HATTON GARDEN, LONDON, SPRING 1688
“I do hope you will be home this afternoon for tea,” Julia said to Rob as he rose from the breakfast table. She glanced down the table to Hester. “Go to your room, Hester, I need to speak to your father.”
Hester got up as she was ordered, curtseyed to her mother, and went to her father to kiss his cheek. “See you later,” she whispered to him.
When the door had closed on her, Rob asked: “I can come home at four o’clock, but it will take me out of my way. I was visiting the Bridewell this afternoon. Do I need to be here?”
“You do!” she said smiling. “Guess why?”
“Not for the pleasure of the Nobildonna’s company,” he said. “I don’t mind Matthew, if he’s coming with the girls.”
“What d’you mean you don’t mind him?” she exclaimed. “You’ve encouraged him to run in and out of this house with the Venice girls, and Hester has stayed with him every summer since he had Fairmere Priory.”
“It’s called Foulmire.”
“That’s not what it says on the gates.”
He sighed. “No matter. My point is that I do not like the Nobildonna. I told you, Julia, that I did not want a friendship with her. As it happens, I do like Matthew. He was raised by my mother and my sister like a son, I have always thought of him as a child of our family.”
“I am glad you like him,” she said. “He has become a most promising young man.”
“I agree. But why do I have to come home for tea?”
“He will be the heir of the Nobildonna, who stands very high in royal favor.”
“I don’t know how much that will help him, if the king continues to quarrel with his parliament, his judges, and his church.”
“He has inherited considerable wealth from Sir James.”
“I thought much of it was entailed.”
“Avery House and an endowment! And he already has Fairmere Priory and all the lands.”
