Empire (4 page)

“Nor did I, sir. If I have any influence, it is addressed to his more reasonable side.”

The older planter scrutinized Hugh for a moment. “I have heard that Mr. Granby, the son, has expressed a desire to move to his father’s property up-country, to Frederick, and to vacate his seat in the Assembly for his county.” He paused. “Have you ever contemplated a political career, sir?”

Hugh frowned, then laughed. “I can’t imagine a drearier prospect than a political career, Mr. Vishonn.”

“Well,” said Vishonn, “I must agree with you there. I’d lief mind my fortunes than sit in a stuffy chamber listening to lawyers joust over little matters. That is why I have stayed out of it.” The planter pursed his lips. “But I do believe the time is coming when, like it or not, a political career may become necessary.” He paused again. “Do think on it, Mr. Kenrick.”

Hugh did not think on it. That evening, in his room at the Raleigh Tavern, he took a sheet of paper and a pen and began making notes for an essay on the subject of a “life overture.” But he could not concentrate. He would think of a point and begin to develop it, when the image of Etáin would again break his train of thought — the image of a poised, confident, resolute girl with ribbons adorning her mob cap and hair, weaving for herself and her auditors a world of unsullied beauty as her fingers flitted with graceful, symmetric energy over the strings of a harp.

Until now, he had not thought this could happen again. He did not encourage it. Etáin had looked at him many times this evening, especially while she was playing, her glance telling him that her music was meant for him alone in the crowded ballroom. He had merely smiled at her, permitting himself no more than the expression of happiness for her that a patron or benefactor might feel for the successful debut of a protégée.

If he had no rivals, he would not have hesitated to ask for her hand in marriage. But he could neither forget his rival nor her words of years ago. He could only ponder: I lost one love to a lesser man, and endured it. Could I bear to lose another to a better man, or to an equal? He glanced at the notes he had made on the paper, and asked himself: Will a somber dirge haunt the overture of my own life?

Two days later, driven by a desire for a resolution, and by a desire to see Etáin again, he called on the McRaes at midafternoon tea. He found her and her mother minding the father’s store while Ian McRae was down on the waterfront on business. Madeline McRae said, “The
Galvin
from Liverpool has arrived, and Mr. McRae is expecting cargo on it.” She sensed the object of Hugh’s visit, and dismissed her daughter. “Go,
fille
,” she said to Etáin, “entertain Mr. Kenrick, but first bring me a cup of Bohea.”

In the parlor, Etáin seemed happy to see Hugh, and nervous. His calls always had a purpose, and their times alone together were rare and special. At the Governor’s Palace, surrounded by so many people and immersed in social protocol, she had been able to spend less than a minute with him. She said now, laughing, “Mr. Vishonn told my father at the Palace that had he a spare son, he would order him to court me, so he could some day welcome me as a daughter-in-law!”

Hugh smiled as he watched Etáin fix the tea. “Mr. Vishonn would not have said that, had he been sober. I would ascribe his remark to one too many glasses of the Governor’s sillery.”

“Hugh!” exclaimed Etáin. “It is not like you to tease!”

“I was not teasing
you
, Etáin. Mr. Vishonn often decants his soul in direct proportion to his helpings from the punchbowl. You see, he asked
me
that evening if I would think of standing for burgess.”

Etáin paused in her chore to study him. “That is an amusing thought —
you
, as a pompous burgess! He ought to have known better than to ask you that.”

“He does know better,” said Hugh. “However, it is an amusing property of wine that, depending on the volume of its consumption, it can either erase knowledge, or warp it with what appears to be true knowledge.”

“Well, then you shall have none here!” said Etáin. She paused, though, and asked, “Unless you would prefer it to tea?”

Hugh shook his head. “No, thank you. Tea will be fine.”

She finished preparing the tea, poured him a cup, and took a cup back out to her mother. When she returned, she sat down opposite Hugh and asked, as she fixed her own tea, “Have you so much idle time that you call today?”

“It is not an idle call I pay, Etáin,” said Hugh. He put down his cup and saucer on the tea table that stood between him and the girl. “I…am anxious to know if you are close to solving your riddle.”

The cup and saucer in Etáin’s hands froze in the air. After a moment,
she put them down, too, and said, with gentle regret, “No, Hugh, I have not.” She saw the look of resigned acceptance of her answer on his face. She studied him for a moment with undisguised fondness. “You should know that the day after we returned from Williamsburg, Jack called on us, and he took me for a stroll along Queen Anne Street. Of course, he knew about our going to the Palace. Everyone in Caxton knew. Mr. Barret is to write a little item about the concert for the
Courier
.” She paused. “Jack asked me the same question, Hugh.”

Hugh cocked his head in surprise. “Prompted, no doubt, by disquieting jealousies of his own.” He shook his head. “You see, Mrs. Vere came to town that day to find some cinnamon and oranges for the wine cake she knows I like, and saw the two of you, and, in the course of complaining about Mr. Rittles’s prices, let drop that little complaint, too.” He paused. “That is partly why I am here.”

Etáin’s expression of discomfort changed to one that was unconvincingly distant. “You both honor me with such worry, Mr. Kenrick. And I am presuming that you, as well, appreciate my dilemma…and know that I am not insensitive to your own…and to his…. ” She picked up her cup and saucer, took a sip of the tea, and rested the delicate porcelain on her lap.

Hugh knew that she was exerting a self-control that was not natural to her. He felt proud of her, and wished he could rise and embrace her. He saw in her eyes that she knew this, and would not protest if he did. But his impulse was arrested by the sight of her and the stature of the woman she was becoming. So he said, “Well, until you have solved it, I will press you no more for a decision.” He added, “Neither Jack nor I has a right to.”

Etáin nodded slowly, then said, “But, until now, neither you nor Jack has pressed me for one, although,” she added with a brief smile, “my parents are perhaps as anxious as are you.”

Hugh frowned. “Are you afraid to make a decision?”

Etáin shook her head. “I will not be, when I have found an answer.” She studied him again. “Is it because you fear my answer, that you are anxious?”

“Yes, I own that it is that. It is, I think, the only thing I fear.”

“Dear Hugh,” said the girl, “you will not lose me, whatever decision I make. You must remember that as your rival is not a Boeotian, I am not a…sister of your Reverdy.”

Hugh grinned in concession. He was pleased that she remembered their first conversation years ago, at the celebration ball at Enderly. It was then and there that, facing him and Jack Frake, she had first posed the
riddle: Which of you is the north, and which is the needle? “I know that about both of you,” he said. “It is always on my mind, as a reproach to my anxiousness.” He paused. “Why can you not decide between us, Etáin?”

Etáin put down her cup and saucer. “Because you are so much alike in everything I think is admirable in a man, yet so different in your approaches to things. You are like twins. Together, you and Jack are my Gemini.” She stopped, and then said, “But, there is a…flaw in one of you that I have not been able to ken, because I do not think it has manifested itself.”

“A flaw?” mused Hugh. “I cannot imagine what that might be…in Jack. As for myself…well, I am as mortal as he. One of us is the north, and one the needle. Am I Castor, or Pollux? But,” he sighed, “I am happy that we comprise your Gemini. It is no small honor you pay us, and some consolation to me, at least.”

Etáin said, “Jack asked me those same questions, Hugh. And I gave him the same answers.”

“It would be like him to ask them,” remarked Hugh. “How can you know that a flaw exists in one of us, if you cannot identify it?”

“Because you both have done something, or said something, that seems to tell a distinction between you. I am not even certain that it is a flaw. And I have been unable to identify what it is.”

Hugh sighed again. “Well, until you do, I suppose we shall conform to the story of the Gemini, and Jack and I consider you as our sister, Helen. There, however, the analogy of our Olympian myth grows skewed. There is no Paris to steal you away, and Caxton is no Troy.”

He saw the fondness in Etáin’s eyes dissolve to love. “That is one of your sadder virtues, Hugh,” she said. She rose then, came to him, and bent to brush a hand lightly over his face. “I still have the penny you gave me at the ball. It will never be spent.”

It was the first intimate evidence of her feeling for him. Hugh closed his eyes at the touch of her cool fingers and palm. He allowed himself to raise a hand, and pressed it against her unseen waist.

Etáin lingered for an immeasurable second, then stepped away. “I must go back to the shop.”

Hugh looked up at her with loving gratitude. “Yes. You must.” He glanced down at the tea service. “Thank you…for remembering our first encounter,” he whispered.

“Thank you…for it,” whispered the girl in turn. With a rustle of her
skirts, she turned sharply and left the parlor.

Hugh followed her back into the shop a moment later. He exchanged a few words with Madeline McRae, and then left. He mounted his horse and walked it leisurely back to Meum Hall, somehow happy about his short time with Etáin, but only just then wondering what she had meant by his “sadder virtues.”

* * *

Ian McRae returned to the shop near dusk. His wife and daughter both noted that he looked unusually dour. He said little, except to inform them that he had arranged to have his modest cargo — plows, hammers, nails, pewter dishes, tinware, kettles, muskets, and sundry household necessities, all specially ordered by his customers — drayed up to the shop the next morning.

After their supper that evening, he waited until Madeline and Etáin had cleared the table of the last of their meal, then took a letter from inside his coat and dropped it on the table. “
That
came today, on the
Galvin
. Sutherland and Bain are ordering me back to Glasgow, and instructing me to settle all the accounts here.” He glanced at the shocked, attentive faces of his wife and daughter. “If I were not in arrears to the firm, I would resign and begin my own trade here, or in Norfolk. But I have been too generous in my terms with my customers, it would seem, and so I am in arrears, and we must comply.” He paused. “Etáin, you may stay, provided you marry.”

Etáin shook her head. “I am not ready to, Father.”

Ian McRae did not immediately reply. “Well, perhaps by spring you will be,” he said. “For by then, we must have sold everything in the inventory here and closed this place.” He looked at his daughter with a sad but firm resolution. “If you mean to stay, my dear, you must be bold.”

I
n Lausanne, Switzerland, near Geneva, young Edward Gibbon, on a restless quest for a history to write, contemplated a sojourn in Rome to study its past and its ruins. In Blackburn, Lancashire, James Hargreaves, a poor weaver, refrained from scolding his daughter Jenny for having, in the course of her play, overturned a spinning wheel, his chief mode of income, for the sight of it gave him the germ of an idea for a better way to work wool and cotton. And at Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, upriver from London, Horace Walpole, member for Castle Rising and youngest son of the late Earl of Orford, was preparing to publish The Castle of Otranto, a new genre of novel later called “Gothic.” Respectively, these events comprised a major step in the evolution of the discipline of history, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and the debut of what would in the next century become Romantic literature.

Etáin McRae was as oblivious to these men and events as they were to her, yet her own ponderings were no less momentous.

That night she tossed and turned in her bed like a woman gripped by fever, made sleepless by the turmoil of her thoughts. Until now, she had enjoyed the luxury of time. This had been abruptly robbed of her. Now she must make one of two decisions: to return to Scotland with her parents, or to choose between Jack Frake and Hugh Kenrick.

The first choice loomed ominously in her thoughts. She imagined a dozen dire, vividly likely events that could end her life, or at least the possibility of her ever seeing the men again: a savage storm at sea that could sink her ship; a fatal error in navigation that could dash the ship on the rocks on the coast of England, a common tragedy; a deadly shipboard sickness; on land, robbery and murder by highwaymen; an overturned coach; a variety of catastrophic mishaps…. The prospect of going to England thus became less and less a portent with each stark, capricious nightmare, and the choice receded in her mind until it was a mere distant, abstract foolishness it was pointless to dwell on further.

She would not return.

That left Jack and Hugh.

She plumbed the depths of her soul, asked herself a hundred questions, and set up in her imagination a special ledger book such as she kept in her father’s shop, with columns for pluses and minuses for each man.

But she found that all she could enter for both men were pluses.

In the end, she decided on her measure; she chose her north. Exhausted by the task — realizing ultimately that her decision rested on what she regarded as justice for herself — she fell asleep just as light began to touch the top of the holly tree beyond her window.

She allowed herself a few days to test her certitude. In her free moments, when neither her mother nor her father’s shop required her presence, she spent time on her harp. Once, her mother heard her playing a simple melody that was somber but serene, a melody that seemed to mirror her daughter’s recent mood. When she complimented her on it, Etáin said, “It is a Quaker hymn that I found in some of the music Hugh brought from Philadelphia last month. It is called ‘The Right of Conscience.’”

“It is pensive,” remarked Madeline McRae, “yet untroubled. Are there words to it? There must be, if it is a hymn.”

“Yes, but they are not worthy of the melody, which is fine enough. One can attach one’s own words to it, so that it becomes a private hymn.”

Some mornings later, as Etáin donned her cloak and bonnet, her mother asked her what errand she was going on.

Etáin first finished tying the ribbon of the bonnet beneath her chin and the cord of her cloak. Then she faced her mother and said, “I shall not return to England with you and father.”

“I see.” Madeline McRae let her needlework rest on the shop countertop. She knew what her daughter meant, knew what had distracted the girl for the past few days, knew better than to inquire, and knew that this was all she would learn for the moment. She searched for a question to ask. “How…are you to go on this errand?”

“I shall walk. It is not far.”

“Do you wish me…to accompany you, my girl?”

Etáin shook her head. “I must go alone.” She paused. “I will return before midday. When is Father coming back from Yorktown?”

Ian McRae had gone downriver to see a tradesman about some goods the man had purchased on credit. The mother said, “Perhaps, tonight. If
not, then by tomorrow morning.”

“You shall both be pleased.” Etáin leaned over the counter and bussed her mother on the cheek, then turned and left the shop.

Etáin walked up Queen Anne Street out of Caxton. She crossed the stone bridge at Hove Creek and turned west on the public road that followed the creek. The countryside was quiet, except for the lowing of cattle searching for forage, and the sound of an ax somewhere chopping wood. She met no one on the road, and was glad of it. The world and the morning seemed to be her own. She hummed the melody of the Quaker hymn.

She reached a narrow log and plank bridge; such a bridge crossed the creek to each of the plantations on the north side, from the Otway place to Cullis Hall and the eastern part of Queen Anne County. She walked passed that bridge; it led to Meum Hall.

She crossed the one to Morland Hall and followed the path that meandered through the fields, past the tenants’ homes, past the cooperage and tobacco barns and the prizing machine. She found Jack Frake and John Proudlocks in the stables harnessing a cart for a trip to Williamsburg for supplies that were not to be found in Caxton. Both men were startled to see her, Jack, of course, more so than Proudlocks. She nodded to the latter, and smiled at Jack. Jack knew that only some extraordinary reason could have caused her to walk this distance, alone, so early in the morning.

He took her inside the great house, to his study. Etáin removed her bonnet and laid it on the desk, and undid the cord of her cloak. She said, “Father has been recalled to England by his firm. He must close the shop.”

“I did not know that.”

“The letter arrived yesterday. He and Mother will return in the spring.”

Jack let a moment pass before he asked, “And you, Etáin?”

This time Etáin let a moment pass. She said, “You are the north, Jack. I will marry you, if you still wish that.”

“If I still wish…?” Jack reached out and embraced her. They kissed for a long moment. Then they stood for another long moment, holding each other. Jack, his face pressed to her hair, said, “I…had not expected you to decide so soon…. ”

“Nor had I,” said the girl. “Father said I could stay, provided I marry.”

“I see.” Jack held her shoulders and spoke to the face he loved so much. “Of course, you have told your parents.”

Etáin shook her head. “No. Not even
maman
. Father is in Yorktown. I
have told no one.”

“Not Mr. Kenrick?”

“I will tell him now.”

Jack smiled a cautionary smile. “He is not a needle, Etáin.”

Etáin’s face was serene. “No, he is not. Rather, he is the south.”

* * *

Hugh Kenrick was in the field with Mr. Settle and Bristol, marking out sections for the spring planting of corn and barley, when Mr. Spears came from the great house to inform him of his visitor.

Hugh frowned in surprise, then said, “Have Miss Chance fix us some tea, will you, Spears? And see that Miss McRae is comfortable. I will come down shortly.”

“Yes, sir,” said the valet with a nod, and turned to hike back to the great house.

Hugh finished instructing Mr. Settle about the corn and barley acreage, then mounted his horse and rode back to the house. Inside, he put on a waistcoat and washed his hands before descending the stairs and crossing the breezeway to the supper room. He found Etáin admiring Westcott’s portrait of his family. A tea service sat on the table. The girl turned to him as he came through the doors. “Good morning, Hugh.”

“Good morning, Etáin. My apologies for having made you wait.”

The girl did not immediately reply. She shook her head and said, “No, Hugh. It is I who owe you an apology, for the same reason.”

“Wait? Wait for what?” He said it, almost mechanically, but knew instantly what she meant. He allowed himself some hope, and added, “You are forgiven, for whatever reason that may be.”

“I have just come from seeing Mr. Frake,” said Etáin. “We…are to be married.”

This time, he allowed himself some time before he replied. And now it seemed as if a dooming eternity passed between each of their exchanges. Hugh remarked, “Yes…of course…. ” With a flickering, pained smile, he added again, “You are still forgiven…Etáin…. ”

“Thank you, Hugh.” The girl sat down at the table and studied him for a while. The tea service was near her, but she did not glance at it. “I want you to know that…I do not esteem you any the less…. It was a difficult choice…. I am neither indifferent to you, nor fearful of you…. I wish there
existed a way to spare you the cruelty.”

“If such a way existed, it would be a kindness…a worse cruelty,” remarked Hugh after another eternity. He heard himself speak the words, but they seemed to have been uttered by another person. After a moment, he shook his head. “I am not privileged to enquire into your criteria, Etáin. And I hope that you will not think it vain of me for knowing how difficult a choice you were faced with. You know that I am a proud man. I know that I am not a Boeotian. If I were, a riddle would not have occurred to you.”

Etáin smiled for the first time, but only briefly. “And
there
is one reason it was so difficult.” She paused. “About my silly riddle, Hugh…. Jack is my north. He always has been. I know that now. But you are not a mere needle. You are a different direction. I do not know how else to explain it.”

Hugh shook his head once. “No explanation is necessary, Etáin.”

“Then why do I feel that I owe you one?”

Hugh remained on the other side of the table that separated them. He leaned forward, resting his hands on the tabletop, and spoke almost as though he were scolding her. “You honor me with the feeling, but I beg you not to entertain guilt for your decision. That would distress me almost as much as it might you. You do not owe me an explanation of a private judgment, which should make you happy…. And I wish most earnestly for your future happiness…. ”

Etáin nodded. “You have paid me so many kindnesses, Hugh — the music, the concert at the Palace, your company, every moment since we first met, from that first ball, to this moment — and I hope you do not think me ungrateful.”

Hugh straightened to his full height. “They were not kindnesses, Etáin. Remember that I am not a kind person. Nor were they bribes. They were, and will continue to be, expressions of my…feeling for you. If Jack will allow them — as expressions of affectionate friendship.”

“I am certain he will, Hugh. You and he are almost brothers.”

“An elder brother,” mused Hugh to himself. For a moment, Etáin saw that he was lost in a thought of his own. In his face she saw a distant, sad irony. Then he began pacing. “When will your parents publish the banns?”

“Soon, I suppose.” Etáin thought for a moment. “What moved me to decide, Hugh, is that my parents are returning to England — I mean Scotland — for my father’s firm has instructed him to close the shop.”

“Oh…?” Hugh paused in his pacing. “Well…I must see more of them before they leave. Well, that will leave Mr. Stannard the whole business,
too…. ” He resumed his pacing. “Now, Reverend Acland is not likely to want to come so close to Jack in so intimate a circumstance as a marriage ceremony. He would probably refuse to officiate. And, I am certain that Jack would likewise not savor a proximity, nor wish him to have a hand in such an important event. Therefore, I shall write Governor Fauquier, and ask him to perform the wedding. He is, after all, the titular head of this colony’s church establishment. Would you mind that?”

“No.” Etáin smiled again. “You are generous, Hugh. I will ask Jack about it.” Then she rose and put on her bonnet. As she tied the knot of the ribbon, she said, “I must go now.”

“Yes.” Hugh escorted her to the front door. He said, “My riding chair has been repaired. May I drive you back to town?”

Etáin shook her head. “Thank you, no. I will walk.”

Hugh took one of her hands, raised it to his lips, and kissed it, lingering on it long after that gesture had been made. Etáin brought up her other hand and lightly brushed his face with her fingers. After a moment, Hugh released her hand. Then she turned and walked down the porch steps. Hugh watched her go along the path that led past the kiln and other outbuildings to the gate hidden in the far trees. He stood on the porch until her form merged and vanished into the early spring foliage.

He retreated to his study, and sat for a long time staring at the books on his shelves. Fénelon…Bodin…. Locke…. Harrington…. Bolingbroke…. Not a single light among them could offer him a word of advice or a nugget of wisdom this moment on how to cure himself of the aching desolation he felt now, and which he knew he would feel for a long time to come.

I must congratulate Jack, he thought. But, not this minute.

A ray of sunshine briefly pierced the melancholy overcast of his soul, and he understood what Etáin had meant by this being one of his sadder virtues. Well, he thought, there is some dignity in grief — depending on how well one wore its mantle — but little consolation, and no resolution.

All he could see now in the unlit space of this study, glowing in the aura of his memory, were an angelic face and hands that played gracefully over the string of a harp.