Chapter Thirty

Bizarre, Virginia, 1813

Judy's shoulders slumped as she sealed her latest letter to Fanny. Her dear friend was unwell, more than unwell. She squeezed her eyes so tightly, it pained her. Dick's half-sister was dying. Her loss would be immeasurable. Fanny was the one that kept the family together, who maintained contact with Jack, despite all his tempers and wild accusations. Fanny kept Judy bound to the Tucker family, softening the differences of the past. Fanny understood her. She knew the struggle Judy went through to clear their debts and keep Dick's promise to free his slaves in the face of Jack's opposition. Sarah and Ben had stayed at Bizarre, but Syphax, the Ellis children and many other former slaves now farmed their own parcels of land on the banks of the Appomattox River.

She forced her eyes back on the paper. She'd written to Fanny about Tudor's impending departure to Harvard, but as ever, there was much left unsaid. After a few wild years in Richmond, Judy had kept him close at home. It was yet another thing she and Jack had argued about — but she'd stood her ground and enrolled him in a nearby school run by the Reverend John Holt Rice. Naturally, Jack made a scene about it, arms flailing and his words running away with themselves. Because his quick rhetoric impressed some politicians, he assumed he could talk her into bringing up her child according to his own obsessive ideals of Virginian honor when it was as plain as day that Tudor needed good principles and faith to help him resist the temptations that brought down his uncle Theo. She had not been cowed by Jack's tempest of words, even when he invoked Dick's name and asserted that his brother would have nothing to do with the Reverend Rice's brand of evangelical fervor.

Jack might say what he liked. The reverend's sermons and writings offered great balm to Judy, something she would need if — when — Fanny left the world. Fanny understood her reliance on prayer and faith to push away the dark shadows that plagued her. It was only by believing in a more perfect place, a heaven where she might meet those she had lost, that Judy was able to quit her bed each day. Struggles a man like Jack Randolph would never comprehend.

Tudor going to Harvard caused another difficulty Judy chose not to share. Saint was furious. She turned her mind to him with reluctance. He was as broad and strong as any mother might hope her son to be. He towered over her and Tudor, inches taller than his younger brother, solid of feature, with a wide nose and forehead and thick black hair, making Tudor look almost girlish in comparison with his thin, pale face. Tudor had Dick's handsome eyes though. He didn't smile or laugh as his father had, perhaps, but then, he had grown up in different circumstances, and she didn't blame herself for that. No son was more loved. But Saint? He'd returned from England no better than when he left. At least it was Jack's money wasted, not her own. Only now, Saint seemed to think he was entitled to the same opportunities as his younger brother.

She rubbed her eyebrows and stretched out her back. Little ailments assaulted her daily. Pains in her hips. A stiff shoulder. Some days, she couldn't lift her arm above chest height. In the spring and fall, she was afflicted with headaches and congestion in her nose and throat. In winter, she was plagued by every chill or fever that the farmhands seemed to breed and then look to her to cure, their stupid eyes bright in their dark and fearful faces. How she resented that fearfulness. Who did she ever have to look to for help when she was afraid?

A noise outside distracted her. Yells and thuds, clear sounds of a fight of some sort. She heard shoes scuffling on the dry dirt path at the side of the house and went to the window, but no one came into view. Her shoulders dropped. Was a little peace too much to hope for? As the noise grew in intensity, she bit on the inside of her lip and picked up her skirts, whisking down the hallway and out into the yard.

"Boys!" Anger spiked in her chest, hot and resentful at the sight of them. "Tudor! Stop it at once!" Her sons paid no attention. They carried on wrestling, fists flying, both grunting, their faces lit with fury as she called out, "Sarah! Ben! Fetch someone. Someone stop them!"

Three men came running. Her sons were pulled apart, chests heaving. Blood ran down Saint's face. Tudor struggled for breath. She rushed to him.

"Stay away from me, Mother," he snapped, trying to free his arms. "Get off me. It's over now. You can let us go."

She nodded to the man who held Tudor's arms and turned to her other son. "What were you thinking?" She tapped at her head, knowing he would understand her meaning. He scowled and dropped his eyes, only infuriating her more. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and crouched down beside Saint, waving away Ben who still knelt in the dust with him. Judy took her oldest son's chin in hers and forced him to look at her.

"You're twenty-one years old, Saint. Your brother is eighteen. You're men. What happened?" His eyes tracked her lips. She wiped the blood from a wound under his eye and gave him a corner of material to lick before pressing it against the cut to stop the bleeding. "Tell me."

"No!" His voice, as always, was low and guttural. She schooled her face to hide her pain when he struggled to speak. Judy didn't know what he'd gone through in England, whether he'd worked hard or found friends or missed his home. Clearly, he never missed his younger brother. They circled each other like resentful cats, rarely in the same room and often away, staying with Jack at Roanoke, but not together as normal brothers might. As Saint got to his feet and limped off to some quiet spot to nurse his injuries, she felt the eyes of Ben and the other men on her. Shame fueled her discontent.

"Tudor. Inside with me. Now." She marched to the house with what dignity she was able to muster and was rewarded by the sound of him following her into the parlor.

"What was that all about?"

Tudor walked to the sideboard and poured himself a generous glass of brandy. She settled down into the high-backed chair by the fireplace and folded her hands.

"He has no sense of humor."

Judy kept her face still and her mouth shut. Tudor hated silence.

"Well, it started with talk of Uncle Jack." He refilled his glass and settled into the chair opposite her. "He spoke frankly to me last night."

She waited.

"He's furious with Tucker in Williamsburg. Jack ranted for hours about the old man. About what a terrible stepfather he was to the three of them. How he knew nothing of the land — how should he, being born in Bermuda of all places? How he'd steered Jack and his brothers wrong at every turn."

"Was he drunk?"

"Only a little breezy." Tudor took another sip. "He has a catalog of crimes he lays at Tucker's door, but the greatest is the sale of the Matoax Plantation."

"Your father and I lived there when we were first married."

"Oh, I heard all about that. He gets quite sentimental when he talks about Theo and Father."

"They were very close. Unlike you and your brother." She threw him a pointed look, but his eyes were on the amber liquid in his glass.

"Jack says Tucker embezzled our money after my grandmother died. Says he took all the best male slaves and furnishings to Williamsburg. And—" he threw her another glance and his lips almost smirked, "—he said Tucker sent the female slaves he liked best to Roanoke."

"What?" Judy was confused. Jack had moved to the family property at Roanoke three years earlier, when their arguments over the management of Bizarre brought them to the point where they couldn't stand to be in the same room together. He'd said he couldn't eat a meal with her sour face watching him — that had stung — but at the same time, she'd known there was more to it. Jack was never a stable character. She believed his move to Roanoke would be a short-lived whim. The house was small and offered few creature comforts. His people there lived entirely off the land, working hard and maintaining traditions. In some way, she assumed, it satisfied his determination to be a Virginia gentleman. He retreated there when not caught up in politics or other civic duties and rarely set foot in Bizarre, preferring to do business with her by letter and have his nephews visit him in his rural retreat.

"Jack claims Tucker sent the women he had an eye for to Roanoke and would visit them. He said the younger slaves at Roanoke are all Tucker's children. Some are as pale as I am. Do you think it's true?"

"No! And this is not an appropriate subject for discussion."

"You asked me, Mother. And it's not as if Tucker's the first man to find those dark-skinned girls . . ."

"Enough." She straightened in her chair. "Your Uncle Jack is not himself. He's isolated at Roanoke and since he lost his seat in Congress, is too much alone and prone to wild imaginings. Anyway, what has this to do with you and your brother trying to kill each other? Tell me what you said to Saint."

"Just what I've told you now. And he was shocked, much as you are, but what's another lascivious story in our family? I thought you'd enjoy it. Something from the other side of the family to balance out the indiscretions of Aunt Nancy. The scandalous Tuckers. Makes a pleasant change."

"Tudor!" She heard the bitterness. The story of his father, of the trial and its lingering disgrace still held a fascination for Tudor. She pushed away the self-recrimination. "But why come to blows over it? What else did you say to your brother?"

"His reaction irritated me. He should have found it funny. I'd gone to such pains to speak slowly so he could read my lips and not go off only half understanding the story in his customary blockheaded way."

"And?"

"It was only a jest. He has no sense of humor."

"Tudor?"

He rolled his eyes. "I merely said that since he'd no hope of finding a wife in this life, perhaps I should warn the negro girls that he might try to let off some of his oh-so-obvious frustration on them, as our father's stepfather had so prolifically done at Roanoke."

"Tudor!"

"What? It was a joke, Mother. A stupid joke. If he'd half a brain, he'd have known it. But he charged me like a bull! I'm glad I bloodied him. I'm sick of his miserable hangdog face. He's so bloody tiresome. I don't know how you stand him."

This was her moment to stand up for her firstborn. Time to correct Tudor and to insist upon kinder thoughts and words. Reverend Rice would know what to say.

She said nothing. Heavy weights slid over her bones. Her face ached, and her eyes burned. She was so tired. She didn't have the energy to argue. She never had. She longed to pack her bags and take herself off to Augusta County, to Fanny, to bring her, if not hope, then at least some comfort. She didn't have the energy to defend Saint or go looking for him. What could she even say to him if she did?

"I don't believe Jack's stories and neither should you. He's bitter, half mad I think sometimes. Perhaps you shouldn't visit for a time."

"And let Theodore Dudley worm his way into my uncle's good graces? Over me? You don't need to worry, Mother. I can enjoy Uncle Jack's tales and imaginings without believing every accusation he makes."

"Good. Because while I've no great fondness for Mr. Tucker, you know his daughter, Fanny, is one of my dearest friends." There was a catch in her voice, he must have heard it, but no, Tudor was still thinking about Jack Randolph.

"Are all his stories false then, Mother? I never thought there was much to that old one about Aunt Nancy and Billy Ellis."

"Nor me."

"Although, you didn't seem so certain at one time."

Judy couldn't look at him. He often did this, this son of hers. Turned conversations in ways that made her uncomfortable. Pressed on her bruises. Probed for weakness. Tested. Certain conversations she'd had with Tudor she wished could be left in the past. But he forgot none of it — particularly in relation to her sister, Nancy.

* * *

Fanny's funeral was acutely painful. Seeing Fanny's husband, John, and their three children, Mr. Tucker and Lelia and all the siblings and half-siblings circling her grave saddened Judy deeply. She remembered the loss of her own mother and had the same unwelcome feeling of her own individual grief lost amidst the swarm of relations staking louder claims to sorrow and sadness, of her own emotions shriveling in others' heat. Memories preoccupied her on the carriage ride back to the Tuckers' house in Williamsburg. It had taken years to truly understand what she had lost.

Mr. Tucker looked shaken by his daughter's death, but still had a kind word for Judy, thanking her for her friendship to Fanny. He took time to talk to Tudor and asked after Saint. Jack gave his stepfather a wide berth, but soon enough found his way through the crowd in the house to pick a fight with her.

"Where's my other nephew?"

"At Bizarre."

"He should be here."

"Saint's not well."

"Actually not well?"

Judy's jaw clenched. She nodded at a spot in the garden where they might not be overheard, and Jack followed her outside.

"Well?"

His impatience was one of many things she found annoying about Jack. Judy forced herself to speak calmly. "He's perfectly healthy in his body but has been emotional of late. He doesn't do well in crowds."

"He's a Randolph. The oldest son of my oldest brother."

"I'm aware of that."

"He should be here."

"He cannot be trusted to, to . . ." She hesitated, unable to put her fears into words.

"Ridiculous! You don't like to be seen with him. You never have. It's unnatural to watch how you are with him. What kind of mother—"

She struck him in the face.

Heat rushed to her cheeks, and she glanced toward the house. It appeared that no one had seen them. Jack's breath skimmed her face, his mouth inches from her ear. "Apparently, it's not my nephew who cannot be trusted to behave in public."

She turned back, unrepentant. "Your insults demanded a response, Jack Randolph. My son has barely slept in weeks. He and his brother do not look at each other, far less communicate. Saint's envy of Tudor's advantages, Tudor's lack of sympathy or compassion, Saint's struggles with the limits to his existence make him morose and destructive. Let me see you live with him before you question my motherhood again. Let me see you worry for his future when you're dead and gone. Let's see you watch your own flesh and blood tear at his hair and cut at his arms. He has pulled his own eyebrows out, hair by hair. He barely eats. He is miserable, abjectly so, and I'm forced to witness his distress with no answer to anything that ails him."

She had some satisfaction in watching Jack's response to all this ripple across his face in a wave of revulsion. She fell silent, tight in her chest and breathless. For a moment, his eyes softened. She thought he might reach out and embrace her. She didn't know if she would welcome that or not. How long had it been since anyone had held her? But his expression clouded.

"And meanwhile, that bitch is in New York, living in luxury," he said. "The rest of us all but forgotten." He turned on his heel and left. They didn't exchange another word.