Page 39 of The Summer Country

“No. To be sure. But— My father was different. I believed he was different. When I saw that Father freed Nan, I was proud of him. Proud.”

“He freed her?”

“And her child. Their child.”

Jenny felt a stab of raw envy. To be that child. The girl who would never have to live on a cousin’s mercy, a father’s whim. “There’s many as wouldn’t do as much.”

“But he shouldn’t have debauched her in the first place! He always claimed— It’s no matter now what he claimed, is it? It was all a lie.”

Jenny could hear the moans from the Cage. She turned her face away, toward Mr. Davenant. “People have their reasons. You don’t know what happened between them.”

“My mother was sick for many years. But does that excuse him? Breaking his vows, taking advantage of a woman in his household. Unless . . . Unless he loved her. Nan. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.”

“Does it make a difference?” Jenny couldn’t see that it much mattered one way or the other; it was what it was. But her companion seemed to care deeply.

He looked at her with clouded blue eyes, and Jenny knew he wasn’t really seeing her, or anything else for that matter, too lost in the turmoil of his own thoughts. “She was Mother’s maid. Mother relied on her utterly. Trusted her.”

“She might not have had much choice in it.” A room with a bed in it, mosquito netting around the sides. The light of a single candle casting grotesque shadows along the walls. A hand at the small of her back, shoving her forward. “Unless you think she tempted him to it.”

“No! I didn’t mean . . . I don’t know what I meant. I want each of them to be at fault so the other won’t be. I want them both blameless.”

There was something strangely endearing about his naivete. Endearing and exasperating. “You’re not talking about people, Master Charles. You’re talking about saints.”

“But shouldn’t we aspire to better?” The sun touched his face, lighting it like a beacon. “My father always said that the institution of slavery is a disease that sickens owner and owned alike—but so much worse for the owner, who has choice in the matter. To own another person corrupts one. I knew that. I know that.” He gestured helplessly in the direction of the wharves. “I look at those ships in the harbor and all I want to do is board any one of them bound back to England.”

Jenny looked at the masts in the distance, the ships bobbing at anchor in the bay. Just a launch out to the ship, then . . . the promise of a new life, in England, where they said the very air made men free. She could have wept for the thought of it. “Why don’t you, then? There’s no one to stop you.”

He looked wistfully out to sea, then shook his head, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I wish I might. But there are people who rely on me. My bookkeeper—my brother would have him out on his ear in a moment. If I might fall, what of Robert? He has no interest in my father’s plans. He thinks it’s all nonsense, that it’s our right . . .” He glanced down at her, as though remembering, belatedly, to whom he was speaking. “Well.”

It didn’t take much imagination to guess what he might have said.

“And what do you think?” Jenny asked, even though she knew she shouldn’t, that it was folly to engage in conversation.

She was meant to be seen and not heard. No, not even seen. Invisible in the background.

But there was something very disarming about Mr. Davenant. Perhaps it was that he spoke to her as though she were anyone else, as though she were Mary Anne and free.

Mr. Davenant paced forward, his eyes on the ground, working out his thoughts as he went. “Just because my father failed doesn’t mean he was wrong. He was—he had a quicksilver temperament. He was charming and clever and mercurial. What it needs is someone willing to labor over the details. I’ve looked at the accounts for his model farm, and I think I see where he went wrong. If one divided the sugar fields into sections and granted each family an acre in copyhold . . .”

It was, thought Jenny, like looking through a glass: he made no effort to hide any of his thoughts or feelings.

What would it be to be free to be so guileless? It was both attractive and alarming. The world was full of opportunists. One might as well dangle meat in front of dogs.

And yet . . . there was something about the way he spoke, the way he stood taller as he voiced his plans, his hands moving in illustration, that made her almost believe she could see what he saw, a world made new and good.

“. . . freehold. Not right away, but by and by.” He came to a stop in the shadow of the tower of St. Michael’s, looking at her almost bashfully. “Thank you.”

Something about the way he was looking at her, the warmth in his eyes, made her look away. “I told you it wasn’t far.”

“Not just for leading the way—although I owe you thanks for that as well. Thank you for letting me talk like that.”

As if she’d had a choice. “I didn’t do anything.”

He didn’t allow himself to be deterred. “You gave me my father back. The better part of him, in any event.” She had thought he would leave it at that, but he paused, looking at her as though trying to make out a puzzle. “Colonel Lyons—he’s your father, isn’t he?”

Jenny felt the air go out of her chest, as though she’d been struck. “So some say.”

Mr. Davenant looked at her very seriously. “How do you bear it?”