Page 131 of Dawnlands

“He cries often?”

She shrugged. “Why not?” she asked him. “Shouldn’t he?”

Mr. Peabody returned to his home the next day but left an invitation for Johnny to visit in a scrawled note.

What a night of it! Look forward to seeing you at Peabody Plantation. In St. Thomas’s Parish, anybody will tell you where. Come anytime.

Samuel Peabody (Gent.)

PEABODY PLANTATION, WINTER 1687

Dora Peabody was delighted to have a houseguest to break up the monotony of her days, and even more pleased by the gift that Johnniebrought: some little cakes of scented soap from Venice. She sat with the men as they drank the last of the wine after the long extravagant dinner, and only went to bed when Samuel said that they would have a bowl of punch as a nightcap.

“Good night,” she said, giving her hand to Johnnie. “It’s such a pleasure… Such a…” She was nearly as drunk as her husband. Bonny came in silently, and helped her to bed. Johnnie and Samuel took their seats in his library, two comfortable chairs before the empty cedarwood shelves.

“M’ father-in-law’s library,” Samuel said, seeing Johnnie looking at the echoing space. “Took all the books when he went back to England, and I’m not much of a man for reading.”

Johnnie accepted a glass of punch. “Me neither. I never went to college.”

“I read law for a term,” Samuel reminisced. “But I’d no real use for it. I always knew that I’d come out here, or the Americas. Second son, you see—nothing left to me but a good name. I knew that I’d always find someone who wanted a good old name to attach to new dirty money. A true match,” he said. “A true love match: old name, new money.”

“How many slaves d’you have here?” Johnnie asked, trying to turn the conversation towards Rowan. The thought that she might be somewhere on the plantation, nearby, made his head spin as much as the drink.

“About two hundred,” Mr. Peabody said thoughtfully. “Overseer counts them every day so he knows exactly.”

“Two hundred?”

“Give or take. Mind!” He raised a fat finger at Johnnie. “I didn’t buy them all,” he said owlishly. “Most of them came with the land, part of her dowry.” The stubby finger jabbed upwards in the direction of Dora Peabody’s bedroom. “But so many of ’em died off. I had to buy a few, about a score, and about half a dozen white servants. I like a few white servants to keep the place safe. Even the scrapings of the poorhouse, whatever. Even rebels. Even Irish. You’ve got to have enough white men to hold the blacks down. You always have to keep that in mind.” He blinked at Johnnie as if he might have argued. “We’ve put angry natives into an empty country,” he said. “Madness. There was nobody here when we first came here. Think of that?Virgin land. But now we’re as surrounded as badly as any New Englander, overwhelmed by savages. We’ve imported our enemies.”

“It’s not a risk, buying English rebels?” Johnnie prompted.

“They don’t last,” he complained. “They can’t stand the fieldwork, and half of them have no trade. And they die of the heat. Or they wander off and get lost. Just last year I had one out looking for Dora’s little dog. Did he come back as he’d promised?”

“Did he?” Johnnie prompted when it seemed that Samuel Peabody had fallen asleep.

“No!” he said with a start. “Didn’t find his way to my neighbors, didn’t stroll off to Bridge. Vanished off the face of the earth.”

“Drowned?” Johnnie suggested.

“Only if he went all the way to the headland and fell off into the sea,” Samuel pointed out. “Didn’t drown in the pond, for sure. Not deep enough. Only the black women drown in there when they tie themselves to the anvil and haul it from the farrier’s.”

“What was his name?” Johnnie asked.

Samuel Peabody scowled with the effort of remembering. “I bought him off theRebecca,” he said.

Johnnie felt himself grow cold in the heat of the library.

“Young lad, lean as a lop.”

“Off theRebecca?”

“Aye. Would’ve been one of the rebels. Said he was just a servant following his master. But they all say that.”

“What was his name?” Johnnie repeated.

“Ferryman.” Samuel found the name with quiet triumph and did not notice that Johnnie had clutched the arms of his chair and was staring at him, as he searched for the Christian name.

“Ned Ferryman.”