A Place Called Freedom - Ken Follett [151]
He kissed her eyes and her nose and her chin, still moving gently inside her. When her breathing eased and she opened her eyes she said: “Look in the mirror.”
He looked up at the cheval glass and saw another Mack on top of another Lizzie, their bodies joined at the hip. He watched his penis move in and out of her body. “It looks nice,” she whispered.
He looked at her. How dark her eyes were, almost black. “Do you love me?” he said.
“Oh, Mack, how could you ask?” Tears came to her eyes. “Of course I do. I love you, I love you.”
And then, at last, he came.
When the first of the tobacco crop was at last ready for sale, Lennox took four hogsheads into Fredericksburg on a flatboat. Jay waited impatiently for him to come back. He was eager to know what price the tobacco would fetch.
He would not get cash for it: that was not the way the market worked. Lennox would take the tobacco to a public warehouse where the official inspector would issue a certificate saying it was “merchantable.” Such certificates, known as tobacco notes, were used as money throughout Virginia. In time the last holder of the note would redeem it by handing it to a ship’s captain in exchange for money or, more likely, goods imported from Britain. The captain would then take the note to the public warehouse and exchange it for tobacco.
Meanwhile Jay would use the note to pay his most pressing debts. The smithy had been quiet for a month because they had no iron to make tools and horseshoes.
Fortunately Lizzie had not noticed that they were broke. After the baby was born dead she had lived in a daze for three months. Then, when she caught him with Felia, she had become furiously silent.
Today she was different again. She looked happier and she seemed almost friendly. “What’s the news?” she asked him at dinner.
“Trouble in Massachusetts,” he replied. “There’s a group of hotheads called the Sons of Liberty—they’ve even had the nerve to send money to that damned fellow John Wilkes in London.”
“I’m surprised they even know who he is.”
“They think he stands for freedom. Meanwhile, the customs commissioners are afraid to set foot in Boston. They’ve taken refuge aboard HMS Romney.”
“It sounds as if the colonists are ready to rebel.”
Jay shook his head. “They just need a dose of the medicine we gave the coal heavers—a taste of rifle fire and a few good hangings.”
Lizzie shuddered and asked no more questions.
They finished the meal in silence. While Jay was lighting his pipe, Lennox came in.
Jay could see that he had been drinking, as well as doing business, in Fredericksburg. “Is all well, Lennox?”
“Not exactly,” Lennox said in his habitual insolent tone.
Lizzie said impatienüy: “What’s happened?”
Lennox answered without looking at her. “Our tobacco has been burned, that’s what’s happened.”
“Burned!” said Jay.
“How?” said Lizzie.
“By the inspector. Burned as trash. Not merchantable.”
Jay had a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. He swallowed and said: “I didn’t know they could do that.”
Lizzie said: “What was wrong with it?”
Lennox looked uncharacteristically flustered. For a moment he said nothing.
“Come on, out with it,” Lizzie said angrily.
“They say it’s cowpen,” Lennox said at last.
“I knew it!” Lizzie said.
Jay had no idea what they were talking about. “What do you mean, ‘cowpen’? What’s that?”
Lizzie said coldly: “It means cattle have been penned on the land where the crop was grown. When land is overmanured the tobacco acquires a strong, unpleasant flavor.”
Jay said angrily: “Who are these