Leon Uris (17 page)

Matthew Fancy was short remembered outside of Inverness. He left no landmark legal decisions, no righteous speeches, no promising sermons. He was just beginning to do what he wanted and too soon died, doing it.

When all the accounts were settled, it was learned that Fancy had given every penny of his earnings to help former slaves. He left a pregnant wife and a great deal of debt.

Horace Kerr paid off the Fancys’ mortgage and pensioned Laveda with a touch of magnanimity, including some shipyard stock, which would see her through her days in comfort.

Matthew Fancy never really left Inverness. His ghost dwelled in one of the closets in the long corridor and the memory of him infected Horace Kerr’s days.

During her husband’s tenure at Inverness, Laveda played a role nearly as major as his own. While assisting Daisy in the day-to-day
running of the home, Laveda also became the nanny to the first two Kerr heirs, Emily and Upton. Twelve years passed until Daisy became pregnant a third time.

During the years that the Kerrs had their children, Laveda had four miscarriages and no children. A recurring disaster seemed to strike her at the beginning of her second trimester and she’d miscarry.

The best white doctor, Daisy’s own, examined Laveda but could only speculate on her problem. There was something in Laveda’s internal makeup that would not allow the womb to hold the fetus in place to full term.

Daisy had gone into her fourth month without problem when Laveda confided she was pregnant again and desperate to save this child.

A month later, Matthew Fancy died.

When Matthew was set down in the Negro cemetery in Skerryton, Laveda was brought back to Inverness, where she could be given bedrest and constant attention.

This fit into Horace Kerr’s scheme of things. He certainly owed that much to the late Matthew Fancy. Moreover, Horace was constantly trying to convince God that he was truly sorry about slavery. Laveda was installed in the finest of the servants’ quarters, an apartment belonging to a departed chief butler.

Amanda Kerr was born first, followed in two months by the screaming, healthy Willow. Laveda was the nanny of one of them, the mother of the other, and wet nurse to both.

The girls played in the same playpen, napped in the same crib, and nursed from the same black breasts. In the germless isolation of Inverness, no special attention was paid, at first. After all, in the old days, many white owners’ children grew up with slaves as friends, until they were trained to consider them differently. In almost all cases, the friends came to learn that the black friend was there only to serve the white friend.

Daisy allowed Laveda a fairly free hand to run things, fearing that otherwise she might leave. Horace was a bit twisted about the
matter, but it was women’s business, so long as peace prevailed in his kingdom.

However, his concern soon deepened. He became disturbed when Willow spoke or acted as if she did not know her place or when he saw Amanda at home among the Negroes. The longer the situation went on, the worse it grew.

A growing number of awkward moments came when the girls needed to be separated on social occasions. They sensed and learned where the lines had been drawn, yet remained inseparable friends, believing most of the world was rather silly.

One day, a realization hit Horace like a bombshell. He was reading the paper on the veranda in his rocker, with the girls playing nearby. Horace blinked, shocked that Willow was so bright, actually better with words and keener with logic than Amanda. He observed Willow for several days and realized she was as intelligent as her late father.

How could this be? Wasn’t Matthew Fancy the exception . . . for
all
Negroes? It was not so, then. Fancy’s daughter was the brightest child he had ever seen. Good Lord, what could such a thing mean?

Separation, here and now, was in order. Horace came up with a splendid idea. Daisy was interviewing tutors so Amanda could begin her proper education.

At the same time he had a one-room school set up for the half-dozen Negro children on the estate. The two girls might fuss in the beginning over their separation, but it would soon become normal for Willow and Amanda to go to their own teachers.

Amanda was nearing seven when she was advised of this by her father. That night, she and Willow disappeared. Though desperate, Horace did not want to bring the authorities in too soon for fear it would trigger a scandal, but an all-night search proved fruitless.

The girls had run as far as their legs would carry them, then climbed up a tree and clung to each other.

By dawn’s light, bloodhounds were brought in, damned good
trackers, the heirs of sires and bitches who had run down a thousand runaway slaves.

Amanda and Willow were soon found, still on the manor grounds, two miles from the main house. The dogs clawed at the trunk of the tree where the girls were hidden, and yowled crazily. When the hounds were removed, the girls threatened to hurl themselves to the ground from thirty-five feet.

By late afternoon, hunger and fear had overtaken them and some firemen were able to snatch them and safely bring them down.

Amanda was placed in her apartment, doors and windows guarded. She locked herself in a closet and refused to come out. The door was broken down, she was dragged out, restrained, then force-fed.

As quickly as the food and water was put into her, she’d spit it out. By the third night, Amanda lay quite ill and listless, but her will was unbroken.

Amanda was only the second person ever to make Horace Kerr totally capitulate. Matthew Fancy had been the first. Horace allowed that the girls could be tutored together.

Amanda stood fast for her freedom, and was a clever and stubborn force when provoked. An armistice prevailed. Horace was having enough problems with his failing relationships with Emily and Upton.

Daring her father as she became a teenager, Amanda carved out a second life, studying art, music, and poetry away from Inverness in the small but thriving cultural salons of Baltimore and Washington. She was often in the company of writers and intellectuals, many tilting toward the “bohemian.”

A long time had passed since Amanda climbed that tree with Willow, but Horace Kerr was not blessed with a short memory. He yielded reluctantly to her whims, always aware that someday there had to be a showdown.

For the time being, his Pinkertons shadowed Amanda whenever she left the grounds. Amanda made a sport out of ducking them.

By sixteen, she was extremely composed, extremely beautiful, and extremely mature. She fit in well in her lively circles.

Back to the affairs of Inverness, the Baltimore Cotillion was coming up. Daisy prepared for the high social season and even flirted with the idea of having Amanda make her presentation in both Baltimore and Washington.

That would triple the juicy intrigue, but the idea bogged down when Amanda refused to select an escort. Amanda knew all the eligibles, but the only true desirables were far outside of the intrigues of Inverness.

Willow Fancy would also have a presentation, a small and limited black imitation-white cotillion in Skerryton. At least she and Amanda could prepare certain things together. They’d be lonely for each other on their big nights, but separation had now become a more common occurrence.

To swear eternal friendship, they pricked each other’s finger and sucked each other’s bloody fingertip.

Willow and Amanda were having a fitting in Amanda’s apartment. Their white silk gowns were near matching. Weren’t they the only sane ones in the world? The black and white of it had gotten them rocking with laughter as they stood before the long mirror while the dressmaker pinned them, when Horace entered behind a single knock.

“Get these fucking niggers out of my home!” The words were never spoken but his expression said everything.

Laveda left Inverness, forever. Willow was deeply scarred. Amanda was placed under lock and key again, and this time she felt compelled to eat and drink to keep herself alive and keen of mind.

The siege of Inverness wore on. Daisy became frantic that Amanda still had no escort. Horace quit his raving and became frighteningly calm. He sent out urgent word to his Washington office, which quickly found and hired the penniless son of a Scottish earl who earned his keep doing a royalty charade as a fill-in at secondary embassies and parties. Horace’s move was kept secret.
In fact, it would create quite a stir when Amanda appeared with such a “catch” on her arm.

The days ticked on. When Amanda did not appear at the first of the precotillion affairs, Daisy pleaded with Horace. Forty-eight hours before the debut, Amanda was brought to her father’s apartment.

He was icy.

“What is it you want, Amanda?”

“An apology to Laveda and Willow.”

“That has already been made, many days ago. What else?”

Ah now, those eyes of Amanda Kerr glared point-blank into the eyes of Horace Kerr.

“Go on,” he said.

Her voice shook, not from fear but with determination. “I want to be able to leave Inverness without being spied upon and be with friends of my own making.”

“I will grant that so long as you are escorted by a proper male who can defend you.”

“An escort of my own choosing, Father. If you don’t find him welcome in the house, I shall meet him at the gate.”

“And be home at a decent hour?”

“Yes.”

“You will keep out of trouble?”

“You will have to trust me, Father.”

“I’ll promise that,” he said, “in exchange for your promise to carry out your social responsibilities to Inverness and to the family.”

Horace felt the acid glow in his belly, stood, and clasped his hands behind him. Although his relationship with his other daughter and son had been extremely bad, he had never given in to them.

“Well?”

“I agree,” she answered.

“Due to the lateness of the hour and the urgency of the situation, I have brought in a neutral party of sufficient heritage to escort you to your presentation. Lord Dunsmore.”

She cracked a wee smile. “Yes, that’s fine, he’s harmless.”

“See your mother now, for she’s desperate.”

“Why did seeing Willow in my room trouble you so much, Father?”

“Certainly you know why. Maybe you don’t.”

Amanda wasn’t going to end it here. “No, I don’t,” she challenged.

“It just struck me hard seeing you and a black woman dressed in the same silk gowns. I’m a victim of my generation.”

“Generations,” Amanda said, “centuries.”

“I should never have taught Matthew Fancy how to play chess. I loathed the fact that he could pick up inconsistencies in clauses in contracts that had blown right past me and my lawyers. I did not love him. I did, however, give him a great deal of respect and I compensated him very well.”

“What price this confession, Father?”

“There is no one else I can speak to of these things but you. I thought surely, Matthew was a total anomaly, like a counting mule. Then I watched Willow grow up alongside you. It eroded my last defense of slavery. I have come to realize that there might be as many smart black people out there as smart white people. I see a fearsome price to be paid. Yet I still harbor bigotry.”

“That must be difficult for you to say.”

“You are a great heiress, Amanda.”

Horace Kerr would always try to craft a bargain. Amanda felt a truce was in place, but one not built on bedrock. The difference of their “reasons” was going to come back time and again. Would he ever truly let her exist beyond Inverness?

Chesapeake Park and the splendors of the day seemed a long way off.

Amanda was drained from telling the story of the Fancys. Zach
seemed stunned, personally affected, as if he had been hit by something. He got down from the carriage and steadied the dandy horse for the trot up the hill. As he relit the lamps, Amanda saw that her Marine was sorely shaken.

Did he really understand about Willow? She believed he did. The loving side of him was what made her swirl.

Certainly no other boy had ever understood. They were all so damned condescending. Only now and again in her circle of artists and writers was there some sort of compassion.

“What’s disturbing you, Zach?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It is something.”

He shook his head.

“Is it Willow?”

“No, I think your friendship with her is beautiful.”

Her kerchief wiped his brow.

“Zach.”

“I have a problem with heights. It struck me strangely, tonight.”

“Did you ever have a black friend?”

“Maybe . . .”

He released the brakes and gave the reins a tug and hung on to his haunting secret.

“Will I see you in two weeks?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

It was a bittersweet end to the glories of the day. They knew they each had a penchant, for better or for worse, for looking into the other’s dark corners.

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