Becoming Americans (23 page)

      "You smell of rot," Richard said.

      The man reared back his head, and slammed it into Richard's face. As Richard swung his fist up blindly, stunned by the blow, Edward was up and over, knocking the table and Richard to the floor as he grabbed the man by the throat, then with one hard blow, knocked the man unconscious to the ground.

      Edward Harper spoke to the senseless loser. "Thanks for the suit."

      The tavern owner rushed over and set the table on its feet.

      "Is this one causing trouble, again?" he asked with concern, looking from the noseless gambler to the fancy gentleman.

      "I'd tell him to carry his business elsewhere, but you gentlemen know how it is, hard times and all." He lifted the man's head and poured the mug of beer across it. He dragged the body towards the door. "It's why I have a bad back, it is."

      Richard and Edward sat down and resumed their conversation. Edward went on talking about the situation up-country, but Richard could only think of his suit. He'd never had such finery. Although the suit that his uncle had sent him over with was good, it didn't near the costliness of this. Anne had altered the old one over the years, and patched with care the place he'd torn in a fight at James Thornton's funeral, but he'd never be able to have another suit like this. He rejected that thought. Of course, he would. Easy come, easy go.

      "Enough of that," Richard said. "Tell me of your family. You married?"

      "Yes. I was," Edward said. "But not for long. My wife bore me three sons. All dead before a year. She, with the last."

      Richard winced. His wife and children were his life. They were why he lived. His work and schemes were for them. Without them….

      "I'm sorry."

      "I'll remarry, soon enough," Edward said. "I'm like my father. I need a woman, too, but it's not easy to find good women in this country. I've an Indian servant girl to keep me warm at night, and I have variety from a wench I bought from Bridewell Hospital two years ago. And there's my new African girl—who still refuses to speak. Still, I need a wife and children. There's too much work and servants and slaves to manage for a man alone."

      "You remember Anne," Richard began.

      "I'll not soon forget your wedding!"

      "Nor will the county," Richard said abashedly.

      "We have four sons who live—the second boy, Joseph, came with me. One daughter. We've only lost two, so far. One of each." It pained him still to remember the babies who had died, but he and Anne were lucky to have lost so few. He knew that, and he silently swallowed those sad memories in the face of his friend's more common fate.

      Edward counted on his fingers. "So, you let her rest for two years?" He laughed.

      "I discovered peach brandy and honeyed water in '68. I had a hangover in '69." Richard loved to repeat this explanation for why Anne carried no children those two years of their married life.

      "I believe you, you old sot!" Edward laughed again and downed his rum punch.

      "Well, it's the truth," Richard said, open-eyed with innocence. "And I'll happily give you a demonstration of how I've developed my talent for drink! But not tonight. I've a day ahead of me tomorrow."

      "This day's not over for you, yet," said Edward.

      "Oh? Yes, I must be going…."

      "The suit. Shall I take it now, then?"

      "Edward, my friend, you wouldn't…." But Richard knew he would.

      "I'll accompany you to where you sleep tonight. I'll want the suit for wearing in the morning." Edward was grinning again.

      They stepped out into the clean air. The night was cold and cloudless. No chance for rain. That was getting troublesome. There'd been no rain for weeks and Richard was concerned about this year's crop already.

      "The house of William Drummond." Edward was pointing to a house on the Back Street that was visible through the budding orchard behind the State House.

      "Drummond?" Richard looked to see the house, to see if anyone was moving. Drummond had been Governor of Carolina.

      "They've named the great lake on our border after him. Lake Drummond, in the midst of the great swamp."

      "I know that," Edward said. "That's why I pointed out the house." He spoke into his cloak, preserving warmth.

      "You should see that water, Edward. Dark…black, almost. Stained by the trees that surround it and grow in it. But sweet, the water is. Used as a physick by our doctors and the Indians. Stays fresh for a year when I cask it. The perfect thing for a rum punch."

      "Black water with your rum? It's a wonder that you just missed two years breeding if it's anything like the Black Drink Opeechcot gave us," Edward said.

      "I wonder what happened to him," the men said in unison. They stopped, gripped the other's little finger with their own, said, "bow" and "arrow," then walked on in silence, remembering their youth.

      The evening's drink had taken its toll, and the two men were stumbling against each other and drifting to the side before they reached the boat.

      "It was kind of you to see me home," Richard said. He bowed low to his friend, then stepped aboard the shallop.

      "I'll wait," Edward said.

      "My father wouldn't like it if you came aboard," Richard minced. He found himself amusing when he was a little tippled.

      "The suit," Edward said.

      "Bastard." Richard grumbled and climbed into the tent. He emerged with a mink pelt thrown over each shoulder for warmth, holding the new suit in his hands. He threw the suit to Edward.

      "I hope the rightful owner sees you in it," Richard said, and went back into the tent.

      "You'll see it worn with style tomorrow," Edward turned back towards the town.

      Richard burrowed into the bed of pelts. George stirred and sat up.

      "Who is it!"

      "Go back to sleep, George. I don't want to talk."

      Richard settled in amongst the furs. He was glad Uncle John never saw the suit. He'd never know Richard lost it in a wager. Rash. Uncle John would call him rash. He had before. Anne's father had called him rash. So had Edward's father, Francis Harper, called him rash. But he wasn't rash, that was stupid. The rash died quickly in Virginia. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, simply, was the way that Richard saw it. He lived his life that way, and it had worked, so far. Coming to Virginia. Plotting for a young, seasoned, wealthy bride. Seating on unwanted land. Taking risks paid off for him, usually. Except for the suit.

      It must have been the misstep with his left foot this afternoon when he first saw Uncle John!

      Ripples from the current rocked this shallop. Richard thought of Joseph lying in a soft bed. He remembered Anne and their children at home, as he rocked with the boat.

      He re-arranged the pelts beneath his head and wondered why he'd forgotten to speak of his daughters to Uncle John. Maybe, because this was a man's rough country, and Richard was proud of his healthy sons. Sons who would prove themselves, and would build on the wealth and reputation he intended to bequeath. Maybe, it was because his daughters were too special to him: touched him in a tender place he hadn't known existed until they came. The death of Mary, last year, had been a blow that still opened up a hole when he lingered on the thought. The boy they lost had been born dead—bless its tortured soul. At the time, Richard was determined to find the witch who'd cursed his seed. But Anne had calmed him and denied the existence of a curse. It was the stars, she revealed, because the child had been conceived on a night the northeast sky was bombarded with stars that raced through the heavens. She'd heard of many strange results of the stars that night. Anne had always been like the older, wiser one in their marriage.

      Uncle John was only partly right about Anne, though. She'd mended his clothes, but she'd not mended his ways. Uncle John thought that men's ways could be changed. Richard had seen no evidence of it in his life.

      Uncle John was impressed with Richard's new life—as Richard had described it. What would he ask young Joseph? What would Joseph innocently give away? The boy couldn't speak directly of the early years.

      Of when a hundred people or more had crowded into John Biggs's house on his daughter's wedding day.

      Richard could remember his, otherwise, modest father-in-law retelling the story to visitors over the years. His father-in-law displayed a merciful nature in not recalling the ending of that day's celebrations.

      Pigs, chicken, geese, and even a steer had been slaughtered for the wedding feast. Tables were scattered abut the near garden and down between two fingers of the clear, dark-amber creek.

      Grandfather Ware had sent his cook to help the new Sarah Biggs prepare the meal. Sarah Hodges, when widowed, was almost immediately wed to Anne's father. Grandmother Ware's receipt was used for the punch:

      "Three jugs of beer.

      "Three jugs of brandy.

      "Three pounds of sugar.

      "Some nutmegs and cinnamon.

      "Mix well together and when the sugar is melted, drink."

      But, Edward and the Birkenhead boy—who gave Anne and Richard a handsome pewter charger—doubled the brandy portion in the second batch of punch, resulting in near-riotous imbibers.

      Richard didn't remember the incident, but he was reported to have given very harsh words to Mister Ware for that man's own consumption, and for transmission to Richard's Uncle John.

      The Birkenhead girl fell into the creek.

      Mister Ware turned an ankle.

      Edward would always bear the scar he earned in a knife fight with a local youth, that night.

      Anne had been so beautiful that the memory of her made Richard sit up amidst the furs, and squeeze his eyes to hold onto the vision before he lay back and nestled underneath the pelts.

Anne was awakened by the emptiness in her bed, but then remembered Richard had taken Joseph and gone off to James Town with the pelts. She turned to reach for the baby—stirring with his pre-dawn hunger—but she rose, instead, to place dry wood on the embers, then returned to bed to hold the baby, Richard, to her breast.

      Anne embraced these early hours with a nursing child. These minutes were to warm her heart and plan her day. Today was soap-day, but she'd planned for that way earlier in the week. She knew she'd need busy-work for today that would be successful and rewarding. She knew she'd be lonely for her husband and for Joseph, and she knew that she'd be worrying about her father. Loneliness was part of woman's work; men were bound to tend their traps or hunt, or to go for militia drills, or to just get drunk. But no more would she worry about the loose women of James Town. Richard had sworn to her "never again" and anyway, Joseph was with his father.

      She lay the sleeping child on the bed beside her and peered through the morning glow to her other sleeping children.

      John, the oldest, was snoring in the loft he shared this night with her third son, Edward. Edward had insisted on taking the absent Joseph's place. Edy, her cherished daughter, lay by the bed, clutching at the corn-husk doll she'd not let go of since baby-sister Mary died the year before.

      A knot tightened in Anne's stomach as she recalled the tortuous and prolonged death of her daughter, named by her for the mother she'd never known. The knot rose to her throat when she thought of the possibilities the Court might present to her father on this day in James Town.

      John Biggs lost some friends, and some doors of influence had been closed to him on the day he entered Norfolk Courthouse and failed to remove his hat. It was open declaration of his total conversion. A Quaker doffed his hat to no one but God; considered all his equal—men
and
women—whom general society ranked above or below themselves according to birth, of course, or to wealth. Anne had heard that there were Quakers who
refused
to own slaves! She found that thought troublesome and tiresome. Why
would
her father and these Dissenters go to such lengths and efforts to be controversial and extreme! They were most ostentatious in their dress. Both their men and women were creating a separate fashion of plainness. Their clothes were of the same cut as others, following the general lines of King Charles's thigh-length coats and broadbrimmed hats, but they were devoid of color, ribbons, feathers or unnecessary buttons. The dull grays and browns stood out in any crowd. The Friends insistence on returning to the "thee"s and "thou"s of her grandparent's childhood was, again, almost insulting. The increased courtliness and manners of recent decades—including the general usage of the plural "you"—were some of the
few
improvements introduced by those of her father's age. Most of that generation was a wild lot, though, and Grandfather Ware still complained that they didn't seem to get much better as they aged.

      She wasn't one of them. She never had been. Richard was. All of his friends were. She wasn't, and her children weren't. Already she could sense an attitude in her older boys that was more like her own. They were serious children who looked forward to—and expected—a future of hard work that would be fulfilling and rewarding. They were level-headed. John could cipher and was helping her to teach the younger ones. He and Joseph made their own traps, and had nine pelts of their own in the pile that would be sold today.