A Place Called Freedom - Ken Follett [127]
“Why not start with Pond Copse?” said the colonel. “It’s close to your curing sheds and the soil is right. Which reminds me.” He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “I have to visit my sheds before it gets dark.”
Lizzie stood up. “I must get back and speak to my overseer.”
Mrs. Thumson said: “Don’t do too much, Mrs. Jamisson—remember your baby.”
Lizzie smiled. “I’m going to take plenty of rest too, I promise.”
Colonel Thumson kissed his wife then walked out with Lizzie. He helped her onto the seat of the trap, then rode with her as far as his sheds. “If you’ll forgive my making a personal comment, you’re a remarkable young lady, Mrs. Jamisson.”
“Why, thank you,” she said.
“I hope we’ll see more of you.” He smiled, and his blue eyes twinkled. He took her hand, and as he lifted it to kiss it his arm brushed her breast, as if by accident. “Please send for me any time I can help you in any way.”
She drove off. I do believe I have just received my first adulterous proposition, she thought. And me six months pregnant. The wicked old man! She supposed she ought to be outraged, but in fact she was pleased. Of course she would never take him up on his offer. Indeed, she would be careful to avoid the colonel from now on. But it was flattering to be thought desirable.
“Let’s go faster, Jimmy,” she said. “I want my supper.”
Next morning she sent Jimmy to summon Lennox to her drawing room. She had not spoken to him since the incident in the Ferry House. She was more than a little afraid of him, and she considered sending for Mack as protection. But she refused to believe she needed a bodyguard in her own house.
She sat in a big carved chair that must have been brought from Britain a century ago. Lennox arrived two hours later, with mud on his boots. She knew the delay was his way of showing he was not obliged to jump when she whistled. If she challenged him he was sure to have some excuse, so she decided to act as if he had come immediately.
“We’re going to clear Pond Copse ready for tobacco planting next spring,” she said. “I want you to begin today.”
For once he was taken by surprise. “Why?” he said.
“Tobacco farmers must clear new land every winter. It’s the only way to maintain high yields. I’ve looked around, and Pond Copse seems the most promising. Colonel Thumson agrees with me.”
“Bill Sowerby never did that.”
“Bill Sowerby never made any money.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the old fields.”
“Tobacco cultivation exhausts the land.”
“Ah, yes,” he said. “But we manure heavily.”
She frowned. Thumson had not mentioned manuring. “I don’t know.…”
Her hesitation was fatal. “These things are best left to men,” he said.
“Never mind the homilies,” she snapped. “Tell me about the manuring.”
“We pen the cattle in the tobacco fields at night, for the manure. It refreshes the land for the next season.”
“It can’t be as good as new land,” she said, but she was not sure.
“It’s just the same,” he insisted. “But if you want to change you’ll have to speak to Mr. Jamisson.”
She hated to let Lennox win, even temporarily, but she would have to wait until Jay returned. Feeling irritated, she said: “You can go now.”
He gave a little smile of victory and went out without another word.
She forced herself to rest for the remainder of the day, but on the following morning she made her usual tour of the plantation.
In the sheds, the bundles of drying tobacco plants were being taken down from their hooks so that the leaves could be separated from the stems and the heavy fibers stripped out. Next they would be bundled up again and covered with cloth to “sweat.”
Some of the hands were in the woods, cutting wood to make barrels. Others were sowing winter wheat in Stream Quarter. Lizzie spotted Mack there, working alongside a young black woman. They crossed the plowed field in a line, distributing the seed from heavy baskets. Lennox followed, hurrying the slower workers with a