to Queeny, boy. Tell her what I said. Both things. You are a good hunter, and you can have a good life here. But you must know your place.”
“Yes, sir.”
Washington thought of clasping his shoulder, but he didn’t. A slave should not need comforting when the Master had spoken to him. Washington tried to regulate his slaves in the tradition of the ancients. His firmness would not have offended Epictetus, he was sure.
Mount Vernon, Virginia, late January 1774
“Coward! Drunkard! That he would dare…”
Washington’s voice trailed off as he realized that his angry words had been audible throughout the house and that the girl who had been tending the fire was now cowering in the corner. He colored in embarrassment, and within a moment Martha appeared from the back stairs and their own apartment just above, her pretty face a picture of concern.
“Hush there, husband. You’ll wake the neighborhood.”
He all but stuttered his apology; it shamed him to be so uncontrolled in front of his wife. His hand was still clenching the letter and his knuckles were white. He opened his hand as he realized how he must look, and the letter fell free to the desk.
“I think you should tell me, my dear.”
“Nothing. I was a fool. Apologies.”
“Nonsense, my dear. No one shouts in that manner at half past ten on a winter’s night unless moved beyond the capacity of the human frame to resist.”
Portraits never did her justice; she was uncommonly pretty, even now, a little thing with an elegant carriage and a firmness of purpose. He could dislike her when she was an overprotective copy of his own mother, but when she was like this, she was the woman he wanted, his partner.
“Do you recall my mentioning George Muse?”
“He admitted to cowardice at Fort Necessity, I believe. I expected to hear his name—we don’t number so many cowards among our acquaintance.” She smiled.
Her turn of phrase, so much wittier than he could manage, made him smile through his anger, as she had known it would, and he saw her relax as if she had expected more difficulty. It struck him that she was handling his temper, that he was being managed and that he could resent it but didn’t. He knew in that moment that he had shouted the words to get her to come to him. And she had come.
“He has had the effrontery to send me a perfectly odious letter, suggesting that my interest in the veterans’ grants in Ohio is all self-interest—that I have attempted to cheat him and others of my former officers. Utter rot. It sticks in my craw, madam.”
She turned her head slightly, at the pistols in the case on the desk.
“Washingtons don’t fight Muses, my dear.”
He looked confused for a moment. Then he saw it. She thought the cleaning of the pistols went with the letter.
“I won’t fight him unless he calls me. But I’ll write him such a letter, and make my feelings plain. To bear such an affront is beyond me. I’m speechless.”
“You are not, dear. Come to bed.”
“I think I will read, madam, if only for a bit.”
“I’ll wait for you, then.”
She came and kissed him, a social kiss, and his temper cooled some, but just the sight of the letter on his desk made his pulse race again.
The room was cold, despite the fire, and the girl hadn’t really done much but stir the coals and add logs that hadn’t caught. He crossed the room in front of his desk and pushed the logs around until they made a blaze, smiled to think of Martha and her wit, and went to his wall of books, looking for an old friend to calm his mind. He knew that George Mason and other more learned men turned to the ancients in moments such as these. He’d never really learned his Latin and now he regretted it, because they were farmers as well as soldiers.
Another packet on his desk brushed at his attention, and with deep pleasure he withdrew careful drawings of a plow from England, with a letter from a scientific farmer there. The letter and close consultation on the plow eased him out of the worst of his temper; fifteen minutes’ study required to understand the harness and he was quite ready to face her again, and bed.
It was a troubling time. He woke with the specter of Muse’s letter in his mind, and it stayed with him as he was shaved and had his hair prepared by his valet. It left him sharp all day although it couldn’t contend with the cares of the estate. He was up with the dawn, and an hour later ahorse with nothing but a cup of chocolate in him, riding down the lane to see his farms with a small staff of men behind him: two slaves, Bailey, and a secretary. All the men were working. Washington noted with surly pleasure that the herring nets were out on two farms, and the work of repair and restoration going along smartly. He handled the English-made linen twine himself; experiment had shown that there was no substitute for it, despite the relative expense and the trouble of keeping it stocked. Prices for herring were falling, but the fishery provided a reliable cash crop that cost him nothing but net repair and the labor of slaves. If no one bought the fish, he could feed all his farms on them for the whole year, although that might require more clay for jars. He jotted a note in his daybook.
Twice he met neighbors on the road. Both made sure to congratulate him on Jack’s marriage, and both asked if he would hunt the next day, or if preparations for the wedding would keep him away. He smiled at both and gave nothing away, although most of his acquaintance knew he felt ill-used in the matter. He did the civil thing, and assured both gentlemen that he would indeed hunt, and that his dogs (the best dogs in the county, except perhaps the Fairfax pack) would be at their service. Both men commended him on the slave Caesar. This didn’t entirely please him. Something about the boy irritated him; he did not wish to be unfair, and that annoyed him the more.
Caesar worked with a will, washing every dog in the pack, even the gun dogs that would spend the next morning at home. He was not in his fine clothes; he was dressed in a pair of cast-off breeches and an evil cotton shirt of a weave so coarse that he could feel the sun right through it on his back.
Old Blue was better—there couldn’t be much doubt of that, although whether the mineral or the broth baths or her own animal constitution saved her was open to question. He washed her and scratched her head; of all the dogs, he now knew her the best. He wondered if she’d take the pack from the temporary leader now that she was back—whether they’d fight (not likely) or if some hidden signal of speech would pass between them, like him and Pompey, where the fight was just the symbol of the thing.
When the dogs were clean, he changed their straw, mucked out the kennel until it was as clean as Queeny’s cabin, swept the front of the building, and put water out for all the dogs. He was just yoking up a second pair of buckets in the yard by the stables when the Master came riding down the road between the overseer’s house and the new dung pit. Most of the slaves went right on with their tasks, which was odd to Caesar. In Jamaica, they would all have stood and tugged their forelocks until the Master passed. But this was a freer place, so he raised his face and smiled before realizing that he had been warned against just such, by both white and black. It caused an odd spasm to cross his face, which stopped his master in his tracks.
“Bailey, find out what Julius Caesar means by that long face of his.”
“Stop there, boy.”
Caesar stood in confusion, knowing he was in the wrong but resentful, as well. He was only seeking to please, even if that thought didn’t sit well. He kept his buckets on the yoke and his head down. This generally worked in Jamaica.
“I saw that look, Caesar. What did you mean by it?” Bailey sounded more concerned than