A Place Called Freedom - Ken Follett [121]
The Manse
St John’s Church
Aberdeen
August 15th, 1768
What was Mother doing in a vicarage in Aberdeen? She read on:
I have so much to tell you, my dear daughter! But I must take care to write it step by step, as it happened.
Soon after I returned to High Glen your brother-in-law, Robert Jamisson, took over the management of the estate. Sir George is now paying the interest on my mortgages so I am in no position to argue. Robert asked me to leave the big house and live in the old hunting lodge, for the sake of economy. I confess I was not best pleased with the arrangement but he insisted, and I have to tell you he was not as pleasant or affectionate as a family member might be.
A surge of impotent anger possessed Lizzie. How dare Robert evict Lizzie’s mother from her home? She recalled his words after she had rejected him and accepted Jay: “Even if I can’t have you, I’ll still have High Glen.” It had seemed impossible at the time, but now it had come true.
Gritting her teeth, she continued to read.
Then the Reverend Mr York announced that he was leaving us. He has been pastor at Heugh for fifteen years and he is my oldest friend. Iunderstood that after the tragic early death of his wife he felt the need to go and live in a new place. But you may imagine how distraught I was that he was leaving just when I needed friends.
Then the most astonishing thing happened. My dear, Iblush to tell you that he asked me to marry him!! And I accepted!!!
“Good God!” Lizzie said aloud.
So you see we are wed, and have moved to Aberdeen, from where I write.
Many will say I married beneath myself being the widow of Lord Hallim; but I know how worthless a title is and John cares nothing for what society people think. We live quietly, and I am known as Mrs York, and I am happier now than I ever have been.
There was more—about her three stepchildren, the servants at the manse, Mr. York’s first sermon, and the ladies in the congregation—but Lizzie was too shocked to take it in.
She had never thought of her mother remarrying. There was no reason why not, of course: Mother was only forty. She might even have more children; it was not impossible.
What shocked Lizzie was a sense of being cast adrift. High Glen had always been her home. Although her life was here in Virginia with her husband and her baby, she had thought of High Glen House as a place she could always return to, if she really needed sanctuary. But now it was in the hands of Robert.
Lizzie had always been the center of her mother’s life. It had never occurred to her that this would change. But now her mother was a minister’s wife living in Aberdeen, with three stepchildren to love and care for, and she might even be expecting a new baby of her own.
It meant Lizzie had no home but this plantation, no family but Jay.
Well, she was determined to make a good life for herself here.
She had privileges many women would envy: a big house, an estate of a thousand acres, a handsome husband, and slaves to do her bidding. The house slaves had taken her to their hearts. Sarah was the cook, fat Belle did most of the cleaning, and Mildred was her personal maid and also served at table sometimes. Belle had a twelve-year-old son, Jimmy, who was the stable boy: his father had been sold away years ago. Lizzie had not yet got to know many of the field hands, apart from Mack, but she liked Kobe, the supervisor, and the blacksmith, Cass, whose workshop was at the back of the house.
The house was spacious and grand, but it had an empty, abandoned feel. It was too big. It would suit a family with six growing children and a few aunts and grandparents, and troops of slaves to light fires in every room and serve vast communal dinners. For Lizzie and Jay it was a mausoleum. But the plantation was beautiful: thick woodlands, broad sloping fields, and a hundred little streams.
She knew Jay was not quite the man she had taken him for. He was not the daring free spirit he had seemed to be when he took her down the coal mine. And his lying to her over mining in High Glen had shaken