Chapter Twenty-Four

Judy stood in the doorway of her sister's room at Bizarre, empty of any sign of her years of occupation. Sarah scrubbed every inch while Judy supervised, tempted to order her to take bedclothes and hangings and burn them. But that would be foolish, impulsive, and the slaves would talk of it — a thought she couldn't tolerate. She mustn't be rash. Having Nancy gone was enough. Judy wanted only to enjoy the quiet. To enjoy her sister's absence from her house and her everyday life.

A noise at the bottom of the stairs disturbed her. Tudor, aged ten and rambunctious, was always clattering in and out, bringing in the stink of the stables and mud on his boots. It was all she could do to get him to wrap up warm. As a young child, he had been beset by coughs and fevers. His frame was slight, his chest his Achilles heel, as it was for his father and uncle. Judy had known days and nights of terror when she feared some flu or ague would take him. She left Sarah working and called to her son.

"Tudor? Come upstairs at once. Where have you been all morning?" She listened for his feet on the stair but only heard the slam of a door. Her lips compressed. Jack was right: Tudor needed to be at school. The thought lay heavy on her shoulders. For a moment, she hesitated outside her own room. The urge to cry was back, and she trembled with it, the desire to let out an ugly storm of tears and misery and spend the rest of the day in her bed. Tudor brought it out in her. Every time he snubbed her. Every time he disappeared. When he ignored her instructions. When he snatched food from the kitchen and ran. When he bolted his meals and left the table without permission. When he left his horse untended and shouted at Saint, laughing that his brother could not hear him, taunting Saint for his confused looks, his grunts and strange laughter. And yet, she loved him no less for it. In the evenings, when Tudor came to the parlor and laid his head in her lap or sat by her and leaned on her shoulder, she experienced a flood of maternal love. At those moments, the dark weights all disappeared. Only in prayer had she found a similar sense of peace. And even prayer did not always relieve her mind. Only Tudor.

She forced herself down the stairs. Saint had departed for England, and Judy tried to imagine him, her near-silent son, an awkward adolescent, standing on the deck of a ship, gazing out on nothing but ocean. As she reached the hallway, Jack threw open the door and marched in, waving a letter.

"Another bloody missive from Tucker about Nancy. Good God, you would think the man was her father, never mind he's only the stepfather of the woman's dead brother-in-law. I've had enough of his high-handed ways." Before Judy could say a word, Jack tore the letter into pieces. He shrugged off his coat and yelled for Ben to come and take it from him. "Why, if Tucker knew half the truth about your damned sister and her loose ways . . ."

"Enough, Jack! Tudor is near and the servants also. Think of Sarah. She mustn't hear you. Nancy's gone. That's enough for me and should be for you, too." She put her hand on his arm, and he looked down at it. His shoulders relaxed.

"You are right. And with Billy Ellis at Roanoke, there will be no reminders."

"Hush!" She pulled him into the parlor. "These were your suspicions, not mine, Jack Randolph, and I'll thank you not to mention them again in my house."

"All right, all right," he ran a hand through his hair. It was the only thing he did that reminded her of Dick. In all else, Jack was nothing like his brother, but with this one gesture, Judy conjured her husband in her mind's eye as clearly as if she had seen him only yesterday. She shook her head, and he disappeared.

"My beloved stepfather, Mr. Tucker, suggests I go to Richmond," said Jack. "To support your poor sister, if you can believe it. ‘To help her find her feet in society.' That's a direct quote. I'm to assure her she can rely on him — and myself — as much as on your brothers."

"He has always taken her part."

* * *

Much of Judy's life after Dick's death was a blur, but one thing had always been clear — the divide between herself and Nancy. On Judy's side, there was Jack, Tudor, Cousin Mary, Dick's half-sister, Fanny and her friend Maria. On Nancy's, the Tuckers, their brothers and Saint.

When Jack first moved into Bizarre to manage the plantation, she'd been wary. His eyes had always followed Nancy. Judy had first seen his fascination with her sister a lifetime ago at Randy and Mary Harrison's wedding. But Jack was never the kind of man to attract her sister, and in the years after his tussle with scarlet fever and that disappointment with Maria, it became less and less likely that he would marry anyone. Little was said, but eyebrows were raised. Only Aunt Page had ever been indecorous enough to whisper her doubt about Jack's ability to father a child. Certainly his voice was not as deep as other men's, his beard was a sparse chaff, his boyish face never thickened the way other men's did. Besides, ever since Dick's trial, when his eyes followed Nancy, they glittered with something much darker than attraction. The love — if that's what it had been — was gone, but the fascination remained. He watched her for years. Only when Maria became fast friends with Judy had Jack seemed able to turn away from his preoccupation. But Nancy had spoiled that for him, gossiping about a letter he'd sent her years earlier. Judy felt a creak of conscience. Her friend had never been in love with Jack. Nancy's revelation that he'd made her some kind of proposal was enough for Maria to force a falling-out and end Jack's hopes. And Judy had been happy to let Jack heap all the blame for his disappointment on her sister's head. He hated her. It had only been a matter of time before he lost his self-control around her.

Judy understood how he felt. She felt it too. In the years after Dick's death, she waited and waited for Nancy to slip up in some way, but she'd been hard to fault. She cared for the boys as if they were her own, sewed clothes, tended the garden, ran errands, listened to all Judy's talk of her health and her boys. She was trustworthy enough to be left at Bizarre while Judy visited the Springs or stayed with friends and sensible enough to spend time away on her own account, so that there had been long periods where they were apart. Enough to keep Judy's anger at bay. Enough for her to find the convenience of Nancy outweighed the pain of having her there, reminding her.

But it wasn't so for Jack. Nancy's presence offered no benefit to him. She was a thorn under his skin, a stone in his shoe. For years after Maria broke with Jack, he and Nancy had circled Bizarre, and each other, never outwardly admitting that they avoided being there at the same time, and yet quietly checking on dates and plans, doing everything they could to avoid being on the property for too long together. Until last summer.

Jack, free for a time from congressional duties, had returned to Bizarre and spent more time on the plantation than he wanted to. Their overseer had left suddenly, and it took some weeks to find a suitable replacement. In the meantime, someone needed to manage the land and ensure the crops were flourishing. Nancy was home; it was the busiest season in the garden. From her window, every morning, Judy saw Nancy's straw hat moving about between rows of beans, green tomatoes and frilly lettuces. Usually, Billy Ellis was there too, working hard, fetching water, digging, following Nancy's directions. Jack saw it differently.

"I'm thinking of sending Billy to Roanoke," he announced one evening at the dinner table. The boys had already been excused.

"Billy?" Nancy said. "Don't we need him here? Judy?"

"I certainly think so. What would Sarah say?"

Jack pulled a face that made Judy want to snap at him. Why did men never understand how their mothers felt about them? Couldn't Jack see how important Sarah's contentment was to the smooth running of Bizarre?

"What Sarah thinks doesn't concern me, nor should it you. I have need of a laborer. He's a strong lad, is he not, Nancy?"

"Yes, but he is needed here, Jack. The garden—" She broke off as Jack sniggered.

"Oh, the garden."

"Yes, the garden. There is heavy work there. We have vegetables to harvest and store. We might lose half our winter supplies if the earth is not watered. Who will take his place?"

"Hmm. Who could take his place, I wonder?" Jack leaned back in his chair, wiping at his lips with his napkin. The sisters exchanged confused looks.

"What are you getting at, Jack?" Nancy crossed her arms. "If you have a point to make, why not make it? We're listening."

He made them wait — folding his napkin, taking a long sip of wine, letting the liquid pool in his mouth before swallowing. "You seem particularly attached to Billy Ellis, Nancy," he said at last.

"Attached? In what manner attached?"

"My very question."

"Billy Ellis is a good-tempered, pleasant man who works hard for us."

"In what way is he pleasant?"

"In what way do you imagine? He is polite. Knowledgeable." Nancy looked from Jack to Judy and back again. "He is one of our people. Sarah's son. You both know him. This conversation is absurd." She started to push back her chair and rise.

"I think he pleases you too much. I think he pleases you in ways a slave ought not to please his mistress. I think—"

"How dare you!"

Nancy's temper was up, but Jack remained unpleasantly calm. He shrugged as if indifferent. "He's a handsome devil, though. You must have noticed that."

"Certainly not!" Nancy sounded sincere but Judy saw a flicker of something in her sister's eye. Suspicion flared. What if Jack was correct? Billy Ellis was clear-eyed, smooth-skinned, strong. And Nancy? What really was she? What was she truly capable of? She thought of the ring on its chain around her neck. What was its story? But Nancy was staring. "You don't defend me, Sister?"

A familiar and unwelcome sense of weariness washed over Judy. She was so tired of it. So tired of Nancy. Everything, everything, always came back to her.

"You do spend a great many hours with him," Judy said.

Nancy was on the road to Tuckahoe within days.