Chapter 1
1
I have the business of 3 plantations to transact which requires much writing and more business and fatigue of other sorts than you can imagine, but lest you should imagine it too burthensom to a girl at my early time of life, give me leave to answer you: I assure you I think myself happy.
Eliza Lucas Pinckney
J UNE 1774
Her favorite color would forever be indigo.
Never mind that it made a fine tea and medicine and ink, even an insect repellant when rubbed on horse harnesses. Or that its coveted leaves became the most extraordinary blue dye. A hundred acres of indigo took a hundred skilled hands to tend it. Blue gold, some called it. This year’s hoped-for harvest of the plant was all that was keeping the Catesbys afloat.
As she rode amid blooms that stretched to the horizon on all sides of her, Juliet felt small and insignificant and adrift. Hardly the indigo heiress , as some called her. How she loathed the misleading sobriquet when she nearly owed her soul to its success.
She alighted from the chaise, her straw hat deflecting the noon sun, and faced Emmett Nash, one of Father’s overseers hired from Montserrat. He approached, hat in hand, sweat spackling his dark, lined face. He eyed her dress, a frilly concoction that bespoke an afternoon outing, not standing idly in a sweltering field. Already her hem was dirty. Her gaze met the ground as she tried to stem her rising frustration at all that needed doing. Sometimes she felt like a weathervane, turned in so many directions.
“Have you time to inspect the newest vats, Miss Catesby?”
“The vats that cost us nearly the price of last year’s rice crop?” she returned matter-of-factly.
He grimaced and returned his hat to his head. “And a few hogsheads of Royal Vale’s tobacco to boot.”
Swallowing down an epithet no lady would utter, she traipsed after him, holding her skirts nearly to her knees to not sully them further. Her morning bath mocked her as her armpits grew damp, her tightly laced stays more sweat than linen. But with Father away in Williamsburg again, who else was to manage plantation matters and be accountable?
Certainly not Loveday.
Her younger sister was likely waiting for her, holding tight to the promise they could honor their engagement at Forrest Bend. But first, the vats.
Housed under a wide, seemingly league-long roof, they were a fortune of pumps and pendulums and tubs awaiting the indigo. Once they were filled, the reek was such that they had to be placed a half a mile or more from the main house. Though it produced a beautiful product, indigo making was a putrid business.
“We need more indentures,” she told him.
“What you need, Miss Catesby, are more seasoned indigo hands, and that’s hard to come by with raw indentures.” He pulled his hat lower. “We could bring up the best sugar slaves from further south. Exchange them for the least productive here.”
She wanted to spit—and that was most unladylike. Belle Isle, their Carolina plantation, had been a thorn for years, the overseers there negligent because of distance, the marshlands breeding illness, the enslaved among the most miserable. “You know how I feel about Belle Isle.”
Nash gave a terse nod. “As far as expense, new vats mean less repairs.”
“The vats are the last thing on my mind,” she admitted. “We can only hope that the damage done by grasshoppers during the last dry season doesn’t recur.”
“It reduced the crop by half, aye.”
And our fortunes with it . The damage done to her and her fellow indigo planters was incalculable and sank them further in debt. But a successful yield this year...
Stemming a sigh, she turned back toward the chaise. “I must go.”
The Catesby chariot raced down an avenue of oaks whose ancient branches brought blessed shade. Juliet felt the breeze brush her heated face as she drew her arms closer to her sides to hide the stained silk beneath. Beside her, Loveday chatted as if the summer heat was of little consequence. How was it that her sister didn’t even perspire? Dew , Loveday teasingly called it. Was it because she was so tiny, so dainty? Juliet felt like an Amazon beside her.
Loveday took out a fan and waved it about in the windless air. “Frances promised us ice cream at Forrest Bend. You know the receipt from Hannah Glasse’s cookbook Mama gave Mrs. Ravenal that she was so fond of? When she used the pewter basins? I prefer raspberry but just remembered you have a penchant for peaches.”
Nay, indigo , Juliet almost teased. With the first harvest bearing down upon them, her every thought was colored blue.
“I wonder if Judith and Lucy will be there. I regret we had that falling-out last month, but I can’t stay silent when they speak of you as if you’re a field hand with comments about your complexion—”
“Never mind that.” Juliet sent her a sideways smile. “I am too often in the fields, and though I always wear a hat, the sun sneaks through.”
“You must try my honey of roses masque. I’ve a fresh pot of it in the stillroom just for you.” Loveday inhaled deeply as if savoring the scent. “Apply two drams honey of roses and oil of tartar overnight, then rinse clean with lemon juice in the morning.”
“I do love roses, though it sounds a trifle astringent.”
“Please try it, for my sake. Gentlemen aren’t fond of befreckled women.”
“Oh? What are gentlemen fond of?” Juliet couldn’t keep the mockery from her tone. “I’ve often wondered.”
“Fortunes, to begin. One’s connections.” Loveday turned pensive. “A face and figure.”
“You have the latter in spades, little sister.”
“You are biased, of course. I’m not the belle I wish to be. I’m too ... small.”
“Petite is the better word.”
“Petite, ah,” Loveday said with a smile, arguably her best feature. Dimples dawned in both cheeks, drawing attention to full lips that never seemed to frown or scowl or be less than lovely.
“You make even the shortest gentleman seem tall, always a win for these proud Virginians. And you are voluptuous as velvet, not melting into thin air, as Shakespeare says.”
“I shall never melt, as I like my victuals too well.”
“And your stays tightly laced.” Juliet chuckled. They’d snapped a few laces of late. Rather than have a maidservant, they relied on each other to dress—with varying shades of success.
Loveday looked up from beneath the brim of her bergère hat, its lavender ribbons fluttering. “I cannot wed before you. Even Scripture says it’s not custom to marry the youngest before the eldest.”
“Ancient custom hardly applies. Besides, there’s not an eligible man in America I give a fig for. I’m too busy helping manage Father’s affairs to think of courtship.”
Another swish of her fan. “I suppose I’m a hopeless romantic at heart. I wish I was more like Aunt Damarus, content to be alone.”
“I wonder if women have an easier time of singleness than men.” Juliet worried her bottom lip. Should she spill what she’d heard from one of their neighbors? “Speaking of courtship, Mrs. Nisbet told me there’s a widow in Williamsburg that Father is enamored with.”
Loveday’s fan waving stopped as her mouth made a perfect O . “You jest!”
“I don’t know that it’s true.” Juliet felt another pinch of surprise herself. “Though our neighbor isn’t given to gossip nor exaggeration.”
“Details, Sister, details!”
“Precious few so far. I believe this particular widow is newly arrived from England, visiting some colonial relations in Virginia.”
“So that’s why Father is so oft in town of late.” Loveday’s expression grew speculative. “Why do you think he hasn’t told us but left us to find out secondhand?”
“Too soon, perhaps. I do hope he doesn’t get hurt if he presses his suit and is rebuffed.”
“Oh my.” Loveday made a comical face. “How unsettling to think of Father as a suitor. He’s not exactly a romantic sort. ’Tis sort of odd, is it not?”
Juliet nodded, wondering how best to confirm the matter. “Quite, though he seems increasingly lonely since Mama’s passing and has entirely lost interest in Royal Vale.”
They left the avenue and rolled to a stop before the brick mansion that was Forrest Bend, the James River a blue glimmer behind it. Up mosquito-ridden brick steps they trod, then entered an elegant hall that promised spirited conversation, music, and the much-anticipated ice cream.
Nathaniel Ravenal greeted them as he passed through the beeswax-scented hall. This man, the longtime master of Forrest Bend, had paid Juliet more singular attention than her own father all her six and twenty years. The admission pained her, but then, life in general pained her. She seemed to be losing her grasp on its pleasures.
Her godfather’s gaze was steady. Astute. “All is well at Royal Vale?”
With an unchecked sigh, Juliet watched Loveday hurry into the parlor with Ravenal’s garrulous wife and daughters. “‘Out of difficulties grow miracles.’”
“Jean de La Bruyère?” He pulled on leather riding gloves. “‘It is boorish to live ungraciously; the giving is the hardest part; what does it cost to add a smile?’”
“You always rise to the literary occasion,” she told him, trying to smile. Their years-long game of exchanging quotes held sentimental satisfaction, at least. “’Tis that great library of yours.”
“Always open to you,” he said, gesturing to the door opposite the suddenly noisy parlor.
Slowly, Juliet removed her gloves, wishing to retreat. Today the girlish laughter chafed.
“I sense you could use a quiet corner.” Ravenal looked concerned. “Or a book to borrow.”
Was her weariness so transparent? The telltale shadows beneath her eyes?
Thanking him, she moved toward the library as he left the house, his horse’s hoofbeats raising thick dust as he galloped down the long drive. Juliet could never resist a solitary space or a good book, especially at Forrest Bend.