As in her splendid adult debut, Waltzing in Ragtime, Eileen Charbonneau has written a rich and powerful historical novel of a family torn apart both by loss and by reunion.
In 1815 the Windover Plantation sits in triumph on the banks of the James River in southern Virginia, a symbol for the wealth and power of the vast Randolph empire. But for ten years a pall has hung over this magnificent house, cast the day young Ethan Randolph went down on the merchant ship Ida Lee.
When Judith Mercer, a beautiful young Quaker woman, comes to Windover with a strange and damaged young man, the reunion is anything but joyful. The Randolph family cannot believe that this crippled, wraith-like creature, flogged to the brink of death as a prisoner of the British Navy, is their long-lost boy.
With Judith's help, Ethan begins to regain his health and his rightful place as heir to the Randolph fortune. But he also begins to fall in love with Judith, whose history is as traumatic as his own. And she is a Quaker--how can she ever love a slaveholder?
"Ms. Charbonneau has surpassed fiction and taken the step toward great American literature." - Literary Times
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Release date:
July 15, 1997
Publisher:
Tom Doherty Associates
Print pages:
416
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One night of peaceful sleep. Judith Mercer petitioned for it, silently waiting for the Divine Presence. It did not visit. A soft, formless drowsiness did. Then, as sleep descended, the nightmare came.
Black Africans, so crowded they could neither stand nor sit, shamed by their own filth until buckets hailed down fetid water from above. Some were shackled with iron collars, with arm and leg fetters secured by pins. Their feet were large, all out of proportion to thin, brittle-boned limbs, barely clothed. Their eyes, deep-set and glassy, held the essence of suffering.
Judith, a child again, stood in their midst. As she felt the panic rising in her throat, she remembered they were from God, no matter how dark and fearful their appearance. She raised her arms over their defeated heads.
"Brothers, sisters," she called them quietly in that voice her mother had said was her gift. "What can I do for you?"
"Remember," they said.
Judith woke, listened for her father's contented breathing, there in their small storage room on the orlop deck. As soon as she could no longer hear her heartbeat, she rose, placed her warm, dove gray cloak over her shoulders. She climbed flights of steep stairs until she could see the night sky.
Two bells announced the second half-hour of Midwatch. On the port side of the forecastle, Second Lieutenant Mitchell was the only officer on the watch. His fingers touching the brim of his hat confirmed to Judith the captain's promise that she would be free and safe anywhere on the HMF Standard, at any time. Mitchell's smile was as lopsided as his one-epaulet shoulders. All but a core remnant of her fear dissipated into the salt sea air. Judith crossed the deck to the starboard side.
None of the common sailors got more than four hours of sleep at a time on the Standard, their night-watch pattern so different from that of the pampered officers. Judith felt the practice was cruel, and based solely on that hallowed bane of government institution, "precedent." She resolved to write a letter to the British Admiralty on the subject before the Atlantic crossing was over.
Yet she could not feel sorry for the seamen as she walked among them tonight, under a hail of spring stars. Judith felt immensely glad to be going home at last, after the war had stranded her on the wrong side of the Atlantic. Wrong side. Was that the proper way for a Friend to see it? she wondered. Tonight she didn't care. She was an American Friend, going home at last.
She and her father had lived in London the first year, then extended their mission, visiting many Friends' Meetings throughout the British Isles, but she had always felt the honored stranger. Now, the pull of the sails toward her homeland was making her feel content and rested at one hour past midnight, and moments past a nightmare. No, not a nightmare. A revelation, whose meaning would come with the help of the Divine Presence.
Judith heard a sound she thought was the wind in the sails. Then the softness became laced with a rich baritone voice singing:
Sur le pont d'Avignon L'on y danse, l'on y danse, Sur le pont d'Avignon L'on y danse, tout en ronde
She turned the corner. There, in the shadow of the mizzenmast, she saw the singer. He was bent over yards of sail. His deft fingers pulled the needle with its coarse thread through the canvas to the rhythm of his sprightly song.
Judith was taught that singing was frivolous, ornamental. But this song had a practical purpose. Would that help absolve her of the distinct pleasure she received in hearing it?
The sailmender's needle slid through startled fingers.
His ragged clothing draped rather than fit his painfully thin frame. He pulled off a worn cap. A thick crop of hair blew into his bearded face. That face, with its gaunt shadows, suddenly put Judith in mind of the starving, sunken-eyed people of her dream. "Put thy cap on," she implored, crushing the ties of her cape as the sharp wind blew back her hood.
The sailor complied. Had she frightened him? "Forgive me," she said softly. "Judith is my name. Judith Mercer. My father and I are taking our passage to America aboard thy ship. We are of the Society of Friends. Thou needs not bow, remove thy hat, or use any titles or formality with us."
He tilted his head, curiosity seeming to overcome his fear. His eyes closed slowly, their long lashes meeting as he pondered. They were young eyes, Judith realized, when he opened them again. "'Thee, thou, thy.' For 'you, your.' Yes?"
"In the singular. We use a simplified American form of the old speech, the speech of our Friend forebears." Judith stepped closer. She looked down at even stitches and the leather thimbles over the sailor's long fingers. "Thy work is fine."
"Thank you."
"What was thy song about?" she asked.
"Dancing." He smiled, showing even teeth. The smile, the better angle, transformed him from a hollow-eyed skeleton to a young man who needed only more food, a good wash, and a new suit of clothes.
Judith sat beside him on the bench. "What is thy name?"
"Washington."
"Thou sings French like a native, Washington."
He gifted her with one of his transformational smiles. "Fayette taught me," he said.
"Ah, the cordial gentleman who is the surgeon's mate. He gave me the ginger root that has sustained my father over his seasickness."
"He is well now, your father?"
"Almost."
Washington nodded, picked up the dangling needle, and began drawing it through the canvas again. "And what sustains you?" he asked quietly.
"I have not been ill."
"But troubled out of your sleep?"
"Only by a dream."
He frowned. "Why did you not take an officer's cabin when you came aboard? Surely one was offered."
"My father and I are doing what little we can to deliver the Americans at Dartmoor Prison without delay."
"By sleeping in steerage?"
"It's a gesture of protest. Elizabeth Fry, an English Friend who is seeking prison reform, suggested it."
"For how long have the Americans been at Dartmoor?"
"Some since early in the war. Three years."
"You have seen them?"
"Yes. My father and I ministered to them."
"What does that mean?"
"We brought them food, clothes. We wrote their letters home. We will deliver them to their families in America. We talked to members of government about their treatment, about hastening their release."
"Why?"
"Because we're Friends. Quakers."
"And the prisoners are of your religion?"
"No, none are. We are forbidden to be in military service. But they are suffering as a result of injustice."
He looked up from his work with different smile. Not his radiant one. This was a small smile, the shared-secret smile of a child.
"That's good work. I will talk to them," he promised.
"To whom?" Judith asked, perplexed.
"The black people. The ones in your dream."
Judith sat back, startled speechless.
He went on sewing. "This frigate was a slaver, back before it was outfitted to fight Napoleon. I sleep in the hold, below you. They were packed in the ship back then, the slaves. When I was a child, the echoes of them, they frightened me, with their large feet, their eyes. But they would stroke my head when Fayette was on watch, and I was alone and afraid. Fayette, he is a man of reason, and calls them my revenants, 'the ones who come back.' In English they are ... ?"
"Ghosts."
"Yes. Just so. Ghosts." He shrugged. "I do not know why they came to you. But I will talk with them on it, yes?"
There was a comfort to watching his graceful plunges into the canvas, out again. Through her shock, Judith sensed that he knew this, and went on sewing steadily, for them both.
"Washington. How long has thou been aboard the Standard?"
A stitch faltered. "A long time."
"How long?"
He scratched the side of his head impatiently, then went back to the steady rhythm of his stitches. "I don't know."
"Where did thou live before, in America?" Judith tried.
"I don't remember."
"In America, Washington. The South."
"South?"
"Yes. I am from Pennsylvania. Thy speech is slower, rounder than mine, though phrased by the influence of Monsieur Fayette, I suspect."
She waited. He looked at her, intensely interested, as if they were talking about someone else. She persisted. "I have not seen thee on the forecastle before."
"I don't come up on the open decks except for now, Midwatch."
"But thou is not a holder, living below. Thou is a sheet anchor man, with thy sewing?"
"No. Fayette's the sheet anchor man, and the surgeon's chief assistant, and the yeoman's trusted mate. He used to be a topman, he was captain of the mizzenmast--up aloft there, next to the stars. His fingers can't climb now. Stiff, you understand? I help him with the sails, with the numbers in the yeoman's book."
"But how is thou listed?"
"Listed?" He looked as if the very notion was absurd. "As ship's revenant, perhaps. That is what you thought me to be, yes?"
"Friend Washington, thou teases me quite as mercilessly as Monsieur Fayette."
He shrugged his thin, graceful shoulders again. "I am his apprentice, after all," he said.
Judith fought back a smile at his evasion, and kept her voice serious. "When did thou join the crew?"
"Join?" His voice went hard. "I did not join."
"Impressed," she realized suddenly.
"That is what Fayette says. I was sick. Before that I don't remember, except for pictures."
"Pictures?"
He touched the side of his head at the temple. There was no secret smile. He did not look up at her at all, only at his work, which quickened a fraction. "There is the dancing one," he offered quietly, his voice small and pained. "Two women who smell like you, like roses. Above me. I am standing on their feet. We are laughing, laughing and dancing. I wonder, which one is my ..." The thread caught. "Is my--"
"Mother?" Judith prompted.
The needle jabbed an unthimbled finger. Three spots of bright red blood stained the canvas. Judith reached for his hand, pressed the puncture wound between her finger and thumb. She looked into eyes that were almost fathomless and bright with stubbornly unshed tears, bright with a pain which far outweighed that caused by the small wound.
"I am not stupid," he whispered fiercely. "Not lame-brained, simpleton, imbecile. I only don't remember!"
"Yes. My dear Washington. I understand."
"Pardon!" he whispered. "Fayette taught me better than this, how to speak with a lady. But you are as beautiful as the moon."
He was looking at her hair, Judith realized. The wind that had shoved her hood back had revealed what she had always held within her cap. She had not attended to her hair before coming aloft. Now it blew freely about her face, reminding Judith of that night, twenty years ago, when her childhood ended so abruptly. She'd torn at it until her scalp was bleeding, that night. By the end of the year her flaxen strands had gone as silver as a crone's. How could he find her beautiful?
Judith followed Washington's shifted glance to the licorice-scented man standing behind them. Without his charming smile, the surgeon's mate seemed older.
"Your father is well enough to be left unattended, Judith Mercer?"
"He sleeps soundly, yes." Her clear voice answered the Frenchman's implied accusation.
His hand took hold of the younger man's shoulder. "It grows colder. Time to go."
"I have not finished."
"Finish tomorrow."
The sailor freed himself of Judith's hand. She felt the pull of his drying blood between her fingers. She sensed the Frenchman's anger.
"Washington has been pleasant company for me, Fayette," she said.
"That is good to hear," he said stiffly before turning back to the young sailmender.
"Fayette, I have yet to search off the stern," Washington said.
"Neither did you finish mending the sail."
"But I worked with diligence. Did I not, Judith Mercer?" Washington pulled her into their controversy with a good-natured smile.
"I agree to the truth of what thee says," Judith affirmed.
"Mr. Carney is keeping watch there, off the stern. Would you join us, Judith? We watch the sea together, Fayette and I." He turned to the larger man. "Could we invite her, Fayette?"
The Frenchman sighed like an indulging parent. "It seems you already have, petit général."
Judith had suspected the possibility of warmth behind the man's cynical smile. Her American countryman made it flower.
Judith watched Fayette's large-boned form bend, then gently lift Washington, as if he were a child who had fallen asleep by the hearth. She caught sight of the cruel track of a scar that coursed up the sailmender's right leg and disappeared under the white duck of his trousers. His right foot was twisted inward, useless. Judith lifted the cloak's hoodover her hair, her shocked eyes. He couldn't walk. Washington was crippled. How could that be?
"Coming?" Fayette called in an indifferent tone, but daring her with his eyes.
Judith rose and followed the men.
The poop deck was virtually deserted. Judith watched Fayette nod curtly to a single red-coated marine guard. Between the lanterns stood the compact Mr. Carney. He gave Fayette a casual, palms-in salute, then smiled at Judith.
"Ah, and don't the three of ye look like a regular, strolling-of-a-Sabbath-afternoon family up here?" he exclaimed, pulling off his neckerchief and dusting a place for them on the signal-flag locker. Word had already traveled up two decks that she'd met young Washington, their ship's ghost, Judith realized.
"Have they come tonight, Mr. Carney?" Washington asked as Fayette placed him beside Judith.
"Feast your eyes over the side, lad. We've got our sign of a smooth voyage to America now, all right." The grizzled man turned to Judith. "That should quiet the few who are still grousing about a female aboard, Miss Mer--"
"Judith, Friend Carney," she reminded him.
"Judith." He nodded solemnly.
All their attention was soon absorbed by the sleek, moon illuminated bodies leaping and splashing behind the Standard.
"Spinners!" Washington cried out.
"Aye, lad, your favorite."
"What are they?" Judith asked, catching the ties of her cloak as she looked over the side. "Sharks?"
"Nay," Washington exhaled a more playful version of Fayette's disgusted snort. "Dolphins! Not fish, but breathers, like us, Judith. They click and whistle and sing like the whales."
"They are whales," Fayette said in his haughtiest tone. "Group?" he demanded.
"Cetaceans," Washington said happily, not taking his eyes from the flashing streaks.
"Family?"
"Delphinidae."
"Species?" Fayette persisted. Behind him, the old sheet-anchor man gave Judith a helpless shrug.
"Well?" Fayette demanded.
"Delphinus delphis," Washington answered effortlessly, still watchingthe moon-drenched surface of the Atlantic. "'Spinners.' too, because they sometimes spin on their side when they leap. Oh, look at that one, Judith--she's doing it to greet you!"
Judith sighted the dolphin he'd meant the instant the smaller calf at the animal's side imitated the same acrobatic movement. Delighted, Judith let out a skittering burst of laughter.
"A greeting dance, is it?" Fayette demanded. "You read the dolphins' minds now, do you?"
"And what if I do?" his pupil challenged. "Someday I will swim with them perhaps, yes?"
"Mais oui, soon after I throw you overboard, you pompous--"
Suddenly, Fayette's body stiffened with the sound of the shrill whistle. Judith turned to see the marine guard click his heels and salute.
"Merde," she heard the Frenchman growl low in his throat before she felt the sudden warm press at her back. Her cloak flared behind her. But there was no wind. She tried to turn, but Fayette took her arm fiercely. His voice was low, calm, desperate. "Please, Judith." She looked up into his startling green eyes. "Please," he said again, as she felt another hand's fingers press the small of her back. She was hiding Washington there, against her nightgown, she realized.
Carney joined Fayette and together they blocked her from the blur of red and white that was the approaching captain. Both men lifted their hands in formal salute.
"Frenchman!" Captain Willis shouted. "Where is he?"
"Who, Captain?"
"That face! I've sent three servants to scour the ledge around my windows! There! He's there, behind--" He pushed the men's shoulders apart to discover her. "Miss Mercer," he stammered. Judith stared at the captain of the HMF Standard in shock. He was hatless, and his nightshirt was yanked into misbuttoned trousers. He resembled a wild man, despite the jacket of his suit of office drawn hastily across his broad shoulders. Worse was the intemperate look he now struggled to control within his small eyes.
"Friend Willis." Judith forced herself to smile.
Carney stepped forward. "Mr. Lafayette and me, we were just bringing Miss Mercer up for a look at the dolphins, Captain," he said affably. "Sign of luck for the rest of our crossing! Could it be them you seen from your cabin's windows, sir?"
"Dolphins?" Captain Willis said, enraged. "I know the difference between dolphins and--"
"And what, sir?" Fayette asked, a predatory gleam in his eyes.
The captain met Fayette's look with unmasked hatred.
Judith felt Washington's fingers press her back in silent appeal. She found her voice.
"Friend Willis," she called, "I did not know the difference between these wondrous creatures and sharks, imagine! My companions have been explaining them to me. Friend Carney says--"
The captain moved closer. "Miss Mercer. Divine, chattering Miss Mercer." Judith smelled spirits and degeneration. "Perhaps you'd enjoy a closer look at our splashing camp followers? I understand you and your father are well versed in botany. Does your scientific inquiry extend to animals as well? Shall I call for my pistol and personally shoot a specimen for your further inspection?"
Washington's hold was compounded by his burning face at her back. Judith felt more than heard his low growl.
"Miss Mercer had just expressed her wish for me to bring some ginger root to her father, Captain," Fayette said evenly.
"Oh? Attending dear Papa with our French turncoat, are we?" The captain stumbled back. "A pity. Another time, perhaps?"
"No," Judith said. "No other time. I honor the wondrous sight of the dolphins living."
He waved his hands spasmodically in the air. "As you wish," he said in a high, almost giddy voice. "Everything aboard must be as you wish--the Admiralty has commanded it!"
He danced back on his toes, bumping into the approaching soldier. He turned on the man viciously. "Who in hell are you?" he demanded.
"Sergeant Meany of the Marine Guard, sir."
"Damn you stinking foot soldiers! Where's Mitchell? Where in hell's my first lieutenant?"
"Here, Captain."
Lieutenant Mitchell appeared, as if from the air itself. He had a heavy, ermine-collared dressing gown over his arm. "Captain, it's a cold watch, sir, and I thought you'd be needing--"
"Just so, just so." The captain gathered what was left of his dignity and stumbled away on his second-in-command's arm.
"It's a good thing the war's over," Judith heard the marine guard mutter in disgust, "I'd be hard put to follow that one's command."
He walked back to his post as Carney and Fayette freed Washington from the cover of her cloak. Without his warmth against her back, Judith shivered. She saw Fayette's gnarled fingers sweep through the man's hair before he pressed Washington's head to his chest in a quick, wrestling embrace.
"Mon dieu, those dolphins will be the death of you!" he said gruffly, pushing him away again.
"Nay, Fayette. They are life-giving, like this lady," Washington said.
Fayette yanked the young man into his arms. "Below. Now. Carney, bring her," he ordered abruptly, then finally looked at Judith. She watched him force his agitated breathing to calmness. "Would you wait for my return before you retire to your quarters?" he asked quietly.
"I will."
"Thank you."
Once Carney left her back on the forecastle, Judith sat. None of the Standard's crew approached, though she could hear their whispers swarm around her. She watched a cloud obscure the moon.
"You have made an indelible impression on my young friend, Quakeress."
Judith lifted her head. The Frenchman's cynical smile had returned. "No less than he has on me."
"Yes. He told me of your shared African slaves. He will intercede, and so help you find your peace."
"Intercede?"
"The Light, Judith Mercer. Is that not what you seek in each of your fellows?"
"It is."
"Are you troubled by the darkness of their skins? Is there no holy light in Africans?"
"What does thou know of our Society's philosophy?"
"Enough to admire your threat to corrupt social order, and your Pennsylvania Experiment, based on Reason."
"Reason?"
"Yes. Voltaire says--"
"Thou has read thy Voltaire, thy Rousseau, perhaps, Fayette. They bent Quaker philosophy to shape their own ends. Read our George Fox or William Penn. The Pennsylvania Experiment was based on personal enlightenment, not Reason."
"Is this true? Will you leave me only with what I despise, gentle lady? Your Society's retreat from government, and your intolerance?"
"Intolerance?" The sweet tenor of her voice would not give her passion away, Judith decided. She buried her fisted hands in the folds of her skirts. "We are a society based on tolerance."
"That is the shame of it. To be so tolerant of all others while subjecting your own community to so many precepts of speech, dress, behavior. This is disappointing in a people who started with such revolutionary zeal."
"Perhaps we should lop heads off, or overrun Europe with armies, instead of plodding so uneventfully toward the Light?"
His eyes boldly swept her trembling shoulders and hidden fists. Then he threw back his head and laughed. "This will be the best Atlantic crossing of my life, I think, Judith Mercer. We shall have a grand adventure, the three of us!"
Judith felt the anger melting from her heart like spring snow. "Fayette," she summoned. "That young sailor--he is the reason a French prisoner-of-war changed his allegiance and now serves aboard the Standard."
He turned away. His voice, when it finally came, was a hollow whisper. "What else could I do? He was a child, ten years ago. No one came for him. He had only me. So when the time for my release approached, I signed on."
"It was difficult," she whispered, touching his arm.
"Not so difficult."
"Can he not walk at all?"
He faced her, his cynical smile returning. "The surgeon wanted his leg. Perhaps it would have been best. It still pains him. But phantom limbs do, too, I'm told. If only I had known more about healing than killing then. The bandages, you see, they were too loosely placed and--" He swept his hand across his mouth abruptly. "No, he cannot walk at all."
"Why wasn't he discharged, sent home? He's an American. He--"
"He was discharged--D.D."
"What does that mean?"
"Discharged, dead."
There was no mirth now in the Frenchman's sharp green eyes. But when the shiver rode up Judith's arms, a measure of kindness, part of the kindness that hovered between him and Washington, broke through.
"Who is he, Fayette?" she whispered.
"That, my dear lady, is the puzzle locked inside him. Our puzzle, perhaps, now."
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