Page 142 of The Summer Country

Fenty extracted a purse from his pocket and tossed it to the boy. To Mary Anne he said hoarsely, “I’m buying his freedom. That will cover his price and the manumission fees. You’re free now, boy. And not a word of this to anyone. You’ll see it done?”

She hated him. She hated him more than she’d hated anyone. But the boy, London, was watching her, his eyes bright, clutching that purse for dear life. “I’ll see it done,” she said, her voice choked with smoke and rage. “Now get out and take that foreign brat with you before I call the law on you.”

“The law is busy tonight,” said Fenty, and he had the nerve, the absolute nerve, to tip his hat to her in passing, as the horse cantered away, out of the stable yard, her Jenny’s daughter, her property, snuggled neatly in the crook of his arm.

“You!” Mary Anne snapped at London. “What are you looking at? Get me a horse! Now!”

“Yes, mistress,” he said, and, miraculously, he found her a horse and helped her mount.

Mary Anne spared a thought for Charles, but it was too late for him; the towers of Peverills were toppling, generations gone in a moment. She leaned hard over the mane of her horse and rode as she hadn’t ridden since she was a girl, her silk skirts hitched up around her knees, riding without saddle or bridle, the smoke in her nose and her hair, the sound of shouting in her ears.

She kept her eyes trained for plumes of smoke, but the air grew clearer as they rode south. Lights blossomed in the house as she pounded up the drive, and she could have cried to see that they were the normal light of candles, not great gusts of flame.

“Rioters at Peverills,” she said shortly to Prince Robert, the steward, as he came hurrying out, fuddled with sleep. “See the silver’s hidden and the household ready to take arms, if need be.”

For a moment, she wondered, if they took arms, would it be for her? But no, that was absurd. Of course they would. Wouldn’t they?

“The vandals have torched the cane fields,” she said shortly. “The militia’s out. They’ll make short work of them.”

Just in case anyone had any ideas. She wasn’t sure whether the militia was out or not, but they ought to be.

She spared a thought for Robert, Robert who had been so handsome in his militia uniform once upon a time. How he would have loved this. He would have donned his brass-embellished coat and flung himself on his horse and gamboled off, delighted with the chance for action. His portrait seemed to smile at her, forever young, forever handsome. On the opposite wall, there was Jenny, holding her shawl and her fan, Jenny, always behind her, always waiting.

Mary Anne sank down into a chair and buried her head in her knees. All her hopes, everyone she had ever cared about, all turned to ash, all gone, all dead.

She hadn’t meant to hurt him. She had never meant to hurt him. But when he grabbed her like that, when he pushed her—what else was she to have done?

And Jenny. Jenny.

The tears dripping down onto her hands were black, black as shame. Mary Anne touched them with a trembling finger, half wondering if this was a sort of judgment, before realizing that it was soot, soot from the fire, that her face and her dress were caked with it, that it was matted in her hair and caught beneath her nails.

The reality of it, that ash, hit her like the falling stones of Peverills, and she lowered her face into her hands and let the grief and sorrow take her. Robert and Jenny and Charles and Lottie . . .

“Mistress?” A hand touched her back, and for a moment wild hope surged through her, Jenny, escaped from the fire, Jenny, returned to her, and she’d make it right this time, she’d scold her for lying, of course, but she’d tell her she was forgiven and they would start over again, together, and she’d find Jenny a nice husband, a good husband, and maybe, maybe, she would even free her if she liked, if she would stay close, just so long as she was alive, alive and unharmed. “Mistress?”

But it was only Queenie, looking anxious and very, very young, and, most important, not Jenny.

Mary Anne pressed her hands to her mouth, choking a howl of grief. “It’s Master Charles,” she managed. “Peverills is burnt, and Master Charles with it.”

Let them think she was crying for Charles, not Jenny, oh Jenny. There was a jagged hole where Jenny had been, all blighted earth and scorched ground. She couldn’t remember a time when there hadn’t been Jenny, standing behind her, brushing her hair, offering her counsel she was too proud to take.

She wanted to crush the face of the clock, to take the hands and turn them back, to make everything right, to bring back Robert in his militia uniform, Charles, with his absurd dreams, but, most of all, Jenny, her Jenny.

“Mistress, come away,” said Queenie, and Mary Anne let herself be led away, hunched and hobbling like an old woman, ash in her hair and in her mouth.

She let Queenie help her into the bath, and watched as the soot sluiced down around her, rinsing out of her hair and off her face, turning the water gray, then black. She stood as Queenie dried her, and held her arms up so that Queenie could put a clean shift over her head, and submitted to being led into the bed she had once, so briefly, shared with Robert.

Gone, gone, all gone.

She slept badly, and her dreams were dreams of riot and flame. Beckles was burning and Edward in it and Jenny only stood there and watched and watched and when Mary Anne reached for her she was gone.

She woke with the taste of soot in her mouth, her throat so raw she could hardly speak.

Mary Anne dressed in a red day dress, banded with blue, and set about the motions of living. She ate a breakfast that tasted of nothing and reviewed books that seemed to be composed of jots and squiggles. Reports came from other plantations. There had been deviltry in the night. Thousands of slaves were up in arms. The cane fields were burning. Martial law had been declared. The militia was out, rounding up the perpetrators. Rum, sugar, wine, corn, jewels, and plate had been looted and discarded, strewn about the roads.

But Beckles, Beckles had been spared. The trouble had passed Beckles by. Mary Anne tried to take comfort in that. But her eyes stung, all the same, and her hand shook too badly to hold her pen.

“I’ll see myself in.” Mary Anne’s head came up at the sound of the voice, raw and smoke-stung though it was.