Chapter 5
Susanna felt a gentle nudge on her shoulder and opened her eyes with a start, at first not knowing where she was. “What…?”
“I’m sorry, Miss Camille. I didn’t mean to wake you so sudden-like. Ertha sent me to help you dress for dinner. My name’s Corliss, if you recall. I’ll be your waiting-maid—that is, if you like me well enough.”
Time and place came flooding back to her, and Susanna realized from the crick in her neck that she had fallen asleep in the rather stiff chair near the fireplace.
She remembered exploring briefly the luxurious suite with its huge canopied bed, separate sitting area, and curved balcony overlooking beautiful gardens that led down to the river.
Then she had plopped down here, her enjoyment of her surroundings tempered by her unsettling encounter with Adam.
She must have leaned her head back and nodded off.
“I’m sure we’ll get along just fine, Corliss,” she finally replied, hoping to reassure the pretty young woman who looked to be about the same age as herself. She knew she had succeeded when the maid grinned happily.
“I already laid out a few gowns for you to choose from,” Corliss said in a rush, clearly eager to please, “and there’s hot water in the basin if you want to wash. Now if you’ll stand up, Miss Camille, I’ll help you out of your traveling clothes.”
Susanna did as Corliss asked, thinking how strange it was to have someone waiting upon her like this. But she supposed she would have to get used to it. The household servants would wonder if she insisted upon seeing after her own personal needs.
As she washed and changed into a beautiful emerald-green gown—the stays laced to within an inch of her life, and the satin skirt buoyed by the same stiff whalebone hoop-petticoat she had practiced walking in last night—Corliss fluttered around her like a butterfly, arranging and fussing and making flattering comments.
“You’re a true beauty, Miss Camille, I knew it the first moment I saw you.
I swear you’re going to make the other misses jealous when they see you at the ball on Saturday.
If they’re engaged to be married, they better hold on real tight to their menfolk, that’s all I have to say.
One look at you could easily change any gentleman’s mind and bring him running like a hound panting after a fox. ”
Embarrassed at such talk, Susanna quickly sought to shift the focus of discussion to another topic as she sat down at the elegant dressing table.
Now that she had gotten some rest, her mind was much clearer, and her thoughts returned to her troubling encounter with Adam.
Her curiosity about him mounting, she wondered if perhaps the talkative Corliss could enlighten her about this puzzling and most infuriating man.
“Corliss, is it really a common practice in Virginia for a hired man…a plantation manager to have a room in the master’s house?”
“You mean like Mr. Thornton?” the maid asked, whisking a brush through Susanna’s thick hair.
“Yes.”
“Well, Miss Camille, I’d have to answer yes, at least as far as I know.
‘Course if you don’t like it, being the new mistress and all, you could make him move out, but I don’t think you’d want to do that.
A good plantation manager is hard to come by, and Mr. Thornton is said to be the best around.
He might take it into his head to leave Briarwood if he isn’t treated nice.
I ‘spect he could find himself another job real easy, since he’s a crop master, too. ”
There was that strange title again, Susanna thought as Corliss concentrated upon sweeping her hair back from her forehead and fastening it with an ivory comb.
Then the maid reached for a small heated iron with which to curl her long tresses into ringlets, a fashionable style borrowed from the Dutch.
Susanna had arranged Camille’s hair in ringlets countless times.
“What is a crop master?” she queried.
“Someone who knows everything there is to know about tobo, like Mr. Thornton.”
“Tobo?”
“Tobacco. Mr. Thornton’s got planters coming from miles around looking for his advice about growing good leaf.
He knows all about transplanting and cutting, curing and prizing.
That’s all these Virginians care about, growing their tobo, and they respect any man who can bring in a high-quality crop, year after year.
Why, it’s because of Mr. Thornton that your papa’s tobacco has come to be known as Cary’s Finest. Did you know that, Miss Camille? ”
“No. No, I didn’t.” James Cary had never been one for bragging, at least not in his letters to his daughter. Susanna could not recall ever having heard anything about the special quality of Briarwood’s tobacco, just that the plantation was doing very well.
“It’s true, sure as I’m standing here,” Corliss went on.
“Your papa always treated Mr. Thornton well, probably to thank him, probably because he liked him, too. Treated him just like a son, if you ask me. I remember Master Cary saying once that if there were more planters that worked as hard and as honest as Mr. Thornton, there would be a lot better men in Virginia.”
Mr. Cary treated Adam like a son? Susanna wondered in disbelief. Surely not. Corliss must be exaggerating.
“I know Mr. Thornton thought well of Master Cary,” the maid continued, her cheerful tone growing somber as she put the finishing touches on Susanna’s hair.
“You should have seen him after the accident. When he found out what had happened to your papa, he punched his fist right through the stable door. He raged and carried on until poor Ertha thought she might have to send for the doctor. After that, he didn’t talk to anyone for days, just kept to himself…
” Corliss sighed as she set down the curling iron.
“I’m sorry, Miss Camille. Here I am carrying on myself, talking your ear off. ”
“It’s all right, Corliss. I don’t mind,” Susanna said, absorbing everything the maid had told her.
It wasn’t difficult to imagine Adam in such a rage.
He seemed to have a lot of emotion boiling inside him, and he was prideful to boot.
Yet she supposed she owed him an apology for giving him the impression that he didn’t belong in the house.
From what Corliss had said, it sounded as if Adam deserved a lot of the credit for Briarwood’s recent prosperity.
If James Cary had granted him a room under his own roof, it wasn’t her place to take it from him.
Of course, once she was married that might have to change, Susanna quickly amended.
Her husband might have his own plantation manager, and then crop master or not, Adam would have to go.
Maybe her husband might even be a crop master himself—Adam had said the title usually went to other planters—which would certainly mean that Adam’s services would no longer be needed.
She would just have to deal with the situation when she reached it. For now, Adam Thornton could stay.
“Which pinner would you like to wear, Miss Camille?” Corliss asked, holding up two circular caps, one made of delicate cream lace and the other bordered with an emerald ribbon.
“I think the one with the ribbon.”
“That’s the pinner I would have picked, too,” the maid replied, her voice lighthearted again. “It’ll match your gown just perfect.”
Susanna watched in the large oval mirror as Corliss carefully pinned the cap on the crown of her head.
She was satisfied with everything she had learned about Adam so far, but one thing was still bothering her.
“Corliss,” she said, looking down at her hands, “you said that Mr. Thornton was well-respected by the planters, didn’t you? ”
“Yes, I did, Miss Camille. Why, you’d think he was a rich planter himself, they treat him so well, accepting him practically as one of their own kind.”
“How so?”
“Well, he’s invited to their doings, for one thing.
Balls and picnics and such, though he ain’t got much time for it.
Like I said before, any planter would hire Mr. Thornton easy if he could only be coaxed away from Briarwood.
I’ve heard tell of rumors going around the county that a few planters might even be willing to part with their daughters and some land to have a crop master like Mr. Thornton in the family. ”
So, that would explain what Adam had said about courting the gentry’s women, Susanna thought, feeling a sudden shiver.
It was simply amazing to her that a planter would allow his daughter to marry so beneath herself, and all for the sake of growing better tobacco.
Then again, from what she knew of the English gentry, their daughters were often married off for such mercenary reasons.
Yet would one marry a common hired man like Adam Thornton, with no land of his own and probably little money?
“A planter’s daughter would surely be a prize for a man who used to wield a hoe in the tobo fields,” Corliss added, stepping back from the dressing table to survey her handiwork. “An indentured servant one day, marrying into the gentry the next.”
“Mr. Thornton was an indentured servant?” Susanna asked, startled.
She had once considered selling herself into indenture, years ago when she was only eleven, another wild scheme she had briefly entertained as a way to escape her father’s brutality.
But when she had found out that she would not be free again until she was at least twenty-one years old, she had changed her mind.
So many years in servitude seemed too dear a price to pay to one so young, no matter how desperate.