A Place Called Freedom - Ken Follett [133]
Wilhamsburg was small but grand. The main street, Duke of Gloucester Street, was a mile long and a hundred feet broad. The Capitol was at one end and the College of William and Mary at the other—two stately brick buildings whose English-style architecture gave Jay a reassuring feeling of the might of the monarchy. There was a theater and several shops, with craftsmen making silver candlesticks and mahogany dining tables. In Purdie & Dixon’s printing office Jay bought the Virginia Gazette, a newspaper full of advertisements for runaway slaves.
The wealthy planters who made up the colony’s ruling elite resided on their estates, but they crowded into Williamsburg when the legislature was in session in the Capitol building, and consequently the town was full of inns with rooms to let. Jay moved into the Raleigh Tavern, a low white clapboard building with bedrooms in the attic.
He left his card and a note at the palace, but he had to wait three days for an appointment with the new governor, the baron de Botetourt. When finally he got his invitation it was not for a personal audience, as he had expected, but for a reception with fifty other guests. Clearly the governor had yet to realize that Jay was an important ally in a hostile environment.
The palace was at the end of a long drive that ran north from the midpoint of Duke of Gloucester Street. It was another English-looking brick building, with tall chimneys and dormer windows in the roof, like a country house. The imposing entrance hall was decorated with knives, pistols and muskets arranged in elaborate patterns, as if to emphasize the military might of the king.
Unfortunately Botetourt was the very opposite of what Jay had hoped for. Virginia needed a tough, austere governor who would strike fear into the hearts of mutinous colonists, but Botetourt turned out to be a fat, friendly man with the air of a prosperous wine merchant welcoming his customers to a tasting.
Jay watched him greeting his guests in the long ballroom. The man had no idea what subversive plots might be hatching in the minds of the planters.
Bill Delahaye was there and shook hands with Jay. “What do you think of our new governor?”
“I’m not sure he realizes what he’s taken on,” Jay said.
Delahaye said: “He may be cleverer than he looks.”
“I hope so.”
“There’s a big card game tomorrow night, Jamisson—would you like me to introduce you?”
Jay had not spent an evening gambling since he had left London. “Certainly.”
In the supper room beyond the ballroom, wine and cakes were served. Delahaye introduced Jay to several other men. A stout, prosperous-looking man of about fifty said: “Jamisson? Of the Edinburgh Jamissons?” His tone was a little hostile.
The face had a vaguely familiar cast, although Jay was sure he had never met the man before. “The family seat is Castle Jamisson in Fife,” Jay replied.
“The castle that used to belong to William McClyde?”
“Indeed.” Jay realized the man reminded him of Robert: he had the same light eyes and determined mouth. “I’m afraid I didn’t hear your name.…”
“I’m Hamish Drome. That castle should have been mine.”
Jay was startled. Drome was the family name of Robert’s mother, Olive. “So you’re the long-lost relative who went to Virginia!”
“And you must be the son of George and Olive.”
“No, that’s my half-brother, Robert. Olive died and my father remarried. I’m the younger son.”
“Ah. And Robert has pushed you out of the nest, just as his mother did me.”
There was an insolent undertone to Drome’s remarks, but Jay was intrigued by what the man was implying. He recalled the drunken revelations made by Peter McKay at the wedding. “I’ve heard it said that Olive forged the will.”
“Aye—and she murdered Uncle William, too.”
“What?”
“No question. William wasn’t sick. He was a hypochondriac, he just loved to think he was ill. He should have lived to a ripe old age. But six weeks after Olive arrived he had changed his will and died. Evil woman.”
“Ha.” Jay felt a strange kind of satisfaction. The sacrosanct Olive, whose portrait hung in