A Place Called Freedom (1995)

Alicia said quietly: “I think your father will give it up if the survival of the entire family enterprise depends upon it.”

Robert’s face wore a triumphant look. “Father can’t, even if he wants to. The plantation already belongs to me.”

Alicia looked inquiringly at Sir George. “Is that true? Is it his?”

Sir George nodded. “I made it over to him.”

“When?”

“Three years ago.”

That was another shock. Jay had no idea. He felt wounded. “That’s why you wouldn’t give it to me for my birthday,” he said sadly. “You had already given it to Robert.”

Alicia said: “But, Robert, surely you’d give it back to save the entire business?”

“No!” Robert said hotly. “This is only the beginning—you’ll start by stealing the plantation, and in the end you’ll get everything! I know you’ve always wanted to take the business from me and give it to that little bastard.”

“All I want for Jay is a fair share,” she replied.

Sir George said: “Robert, if you don’t do this it could mean bankruptcy for all of us.”

“Not for me,” he said triumphantly. “I’ll still have a plantation.”

“But you could have so much more,” said Sir George.

Robert looked sly. “All right, I’ll do it—on one condition: that you sign over the rest of the business to me, I mean everything. And you retire.”

“No!” Sir George shouted. “I won’t retire—I’m not yet fifty years old!”

They glared at one another, Robert and Sir George, and Jay thought how similar they were. Neither would give in over this, he knew, and his heart sank.

It was an impasse. The two stubborn men were deadlocked and between them they would ruin everything: the wedding, the business, and the family’s future.

But Alicia was not ready to give up. “What’s this Virginia property, George?”

“Mockjack Hall—it’s a tobacco plantation, about a thousand acres and fifty slaves.… What are you thinking?”

“You could give that to Jay.”

Jay’s heart leaped. Virginia! It would be the fresh start he had longed for, away from his father and brother, with a place of his own to manage and cultivate. And Lizzie would jump at the chance.

Sir George’s eyes narrowed. “I couldn’t give him any money,” he said. “He’d have to borrow what he needed to get the place going.”

Jay said quickly: “I don’t care about that.”

Alicia put in: “But you’d have to pay the interest on Lady Hallim’s mortgages—otherwise she could lose High Glen.”

“I can do that out of the income from the coal.” Father went on thinking out the details. “They’ll have to leave for Virginia immediately, within a few weeks.”

“They can’t do that,” Alicia protested. “They have to make preparations. Give them three months, at least.”

He shook his head. “I need the coal sooner than that.”

“That’s all right. Lizzie won’t want to make the journey back to Scotland—she’ll be too busy preparing for her new life.”

All this talk of deceiving Lizzie filled Jay with trepidation. He was the one who would suffer her wrath if she found out. “What if someone writes to her?” he said.

Alicia looked thoughtful. “We need to know which of the servants at High Glen House might do that—you can find that out, Jay.”

“How will we stop them?”

“We’ll send someone up there to dismiss them.”

Sir George said: “That could work. All right—we’ll do it.”

Alicia turned to Jay and smiled triumphantly. She had got him his patrimony after all. She put her arms around him and kissed him. “Bless you, my dear son,” she said. “Now go to her and tell her that you and your family are desperately sorry about this mistake, and that your father has given you Mockjack Hall as a wedding present.”

Jay hugged her and whispered: “Well done, Mother—thank you.”

He went out. As he walked across the garden he felt jubilant and apprehensive at the same time. He had got what he had always wanted. He wished it could have been done without deceiving his bride—but there was no other way. If he had refused he would have lost the property and he might have lost her as well.

He went into the little guest house adjoining the stables. Lady Hallim and Lizzie were in the modest drawing room sitting by a smoky coal fire. They had both been crying.

Jay felt a sudden dangerous impulse to tell Lizzie the truth. If he revealed the deception planned by the parents, and asked her to marry him and live in poverty, she might say yes.

But the risk scared him. And their dream of going to a new country would die. Sometimes, he told himself, a lie was kinder.

But would she believe it?

He knelt in front of her. Her wedding dress smelled of lavender. “My father is very sorry,” he said. “He sent in the surveyors as a surprise for me—he thought we’d be pleased to know if there was coal on your land. He didn’t know how strongly you felt about mining.”

She looked skeptical. “Why didn’t you tell him?”

He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “He never asked.” She still looked stubborn, but he had another card up his sleeve. “And there’s something else. Our wedding present.”

She frowned. “What is it?”

“Mockjack Hall—a tobacco plantation in Virginia. We can go there as soon as we like.”