Farnham's Freehold

  Hugh knew that the tables could indeed be turned. He had seen it once, now he was experiencing it.

  But Hugh knew that the situation was still more confused. Many Roman citizens had been “black as the ace of spades” and many slaves of Romans had been as blond as Hitler wanted to be—so any “white man” of European ancestry was certain to have a dash of Negro blood. Sometimes more than a dash. That southern Senator, what was his name?—the one who had built his career on “white supremacy.” Hugh had come across two sardonic facts: This old boy had died from cancer and had had many transfusions—and his blood type was such that the chances were two hundred to one that its owner had not just a touch of the tarbrush but practically the whole tar barrel. A navy surgeon had gleefully pointed this out to Hugh and had proved both points in medical literature.

  Nevertheless, this confused matter of races would never be straightened out—because almost nobody wanted the truth.

  Take this matter of singing—It had seemed to Hugh that Negroes of his time averaged better singers than had whites; most people seemed to think so. Yet the very persons, white or black, who insisted most loudly that “all races were equal” always seemed happy to agree that Negroes were superior, on the average, in this one way. It reminded Hugh of Orwell’s Animal Farm, in which “All Animals Are Equal But Some Are More Equal Than Others.”

  Well, he knew who wasn’t equal here—despite his statistically certain drop of black blood. Hugh Farnham, namely. He found that he agreed with Joe: When things were unequal, it was much nicer to be on top!

  On the sixty-first day in this new place, if it was the sixty-first, they came for him, bathed him, cut his nails, rubbed him with deodorant cream, and paraded him before the Lord Protector.

  Hugh learned that he still could be humiliated by not being given even a nightshirt as clothing, but he conceded that it was a reasonable precaution in handling a prisoner who killed with his bare hands. His escort was two young Chosen, in uniforms which Hugh assumed to be military, and the whips they carried were definitely not “lesser whips.”

  The route they followed was very long; it was clearly a huge building. The room where he was delivered was very like in spirit to the informal lounge where Hugh had once played bridge. The big view window looked out over a wide tropical river.

  Hugh hardly glanced at it; the Lord Protector was there. And so were Barbara and the twins!

  The babies were crawling on the floor. But Barbara was breast deep in that invisible quicksand, a trap that claimed Hugh as soon as he was halted She smiled at him but did not speak. He looked her over carefully. She seemed unhurt and healthy, but was thin and had deep circles under her eyes.

  He started to speak; she gestured warningly with eyes and head. Hugh then looked at the Lord Protector—and noticed only then that Joe was lounging near him and that Grace and Duke were playing some card game over in a corner, both of them chewing gum and ostentatiously not seeing that Hugh was there. He looked back at Their Charity.

  Hugh decided that Ponse had been ill. Despite the fact that Hugh felt comfortably warm in skin, Ponse was wearing a full robe with a shawl over his lap and he looked, for once, almost his reputed age.

  But when he spoke, his voice was still resonant. “You may go, Captain. We excuse you.”

  The escort withdrew. Their Charity looked Hugh over soberly. At last he said, “Well, boy, you certainly made a mess of things, didn’t you?” He looked down and played with something in his lap, caught it and pulled it back to the middle of the shawl. Hugh saw that it was a white mouse. He felt sudden sympathy for the mouse. It didn’t seem to like where it was, but if it did manage to escape, the cats would get it. Maggie was watching with deep interest.

  Hugh did not answer, the remark seemed rhetorical. But it had startled him very much. Ponse covered the mouse with his hand, looked up. “Well? Say something!”

  “You speak English!”

  “Don’t look so silly. I’m a scholar, Hugh. Do you think I would let myself be surrounded by people who speak a language I don’t understand? I speak it, and I read it, silly as the spelling is. I’ve been tutored daily by skilled scholars—plus conversation practice with a living dictionary.” He jerked his head toward Grace. “Couldn’t you guess that I would want to read those books of mine? Not be dependent on your hit-or-miss translations? I’ve read the Just So Stories twice—charming!—and I’ve started on the Odyssey.”

  He shifted back to Language. “But we are not here to discuss literature.” Their Charity barely gestured. Four slut servants came running in with a table, placed it in front of the big man, placed things on it. Hugh recognized them—a homemade knife, a wig, two pots for deodorant cream, a bundle, an empty Happiness bottle, a little white sphere now dull, a pair of sandals, two robes, one long, one short, mussed and dirty, and a surprisingly high stack of paper, creased and much written on.

  Ponse put the white mouse on the table, stirred the display, said broodingly, “I’m no fool, Hugh. I’ve owned servants all my life. I had you figured out before you had yourself figured out. Doesn’t do to let a man like you mingle with loyal servants, he corrupts them. Gives them ideas they are better off without. I had planned to let you escape as soon as I was through with you, you could have afforded to wait.”

  “Do you expect me to believe that?”

  “Doesn’t matter whether you do or don’t. I could not afford to keep you very long—one bad apple rots the rest, as my uncle was fond of saying. Nor could I put you up for adoption and let some unwitting buyer pay good money for a servant who would then corrupt others elsewhere in my realm. No, you had to escape.”

  “Even if that is so, I would never have escaped without Barbara and my boys.”

  “I said I am not a fool. Kindly remember it. Of course you would not. I was going to use Barba—and these darling brats—to force you to escape. At my selected time. Now you’ve ruined it. I must make an example of you. For the benefit of the other servants.” He frowned and picked up the crude knife. “Poor balance. Hugh, did you really expect to make it with this pitiful tackle? Not even shoes for that child by you. If only you had waited, you would have been given opportunity to steal what you needed.”

  “Ponse, you are playing with me the way you’ve been playing with that mouse. You weren’t planning to let us escape. Not really escape at least. I would have wound up on your table.”

  “Please!” The old man made a grimace of distaste. “Hugh, I’m not well, someone has again been trying to poison me—my nephew, I suppose—and this time almost succeeded. So don’t talk nasty, it upsets my stomach.” He looked Hugh up and down. “Tough. Inedible. An old stud savage is merely garbage. Much too gamy. Besides that, a gentleman doesn’t eat members of his own family, no matter what. So let’s not talk in bad taste. There’s no cause for you to bristle so. I’m not angry with you, just very, very provoked.” He glanced at the twins, said, “Hughie, stop pulling Maggie’s tail.” His voice was neither loud nor sharp; the baby stopped at once. “Admittedly those two would make tasty appetizers were they not of my household. But even had they not been, I would have planned better things for them; they are so cute and so much alike. Did plan better things at first. Until it became clear that they were necessary to forcing you to run.”

  Ponse sighed. “You still do not believe a word I’m saying. Hugh, you don’t understand the system. Well, servants never do. Did you ever grow apples?”

  “No.”

  “A good eating apple, firm and sweetly tart, is never a product of nature; it is the result of long development from something small and sour and hard and hardly fit for animal fodder. Then it has to be scientifically propagated and protected. On the other hand, too highly developed plants—or animals—can go bad, lose their firmness, their flavor, get mushy and soft and worthless. It’s a two-horned problem. We have it constantly with servants. You must weed out the troublemakers, not let them breed. On the other hand these very troublemakers, the worst of them, are
invaluable breeding stock that must not be lost. So we do both. The run-of-the-crop bad ones we temper and keep. The very worst ones—such as you—we encourage to run. If you live—and some of you do—we can rescue you, or your strong get, at a later time and add you in, judiciously, to a breeding line that has become so soft and docile and stupid that it is no longer worth its keep. Our poor friend Memtok was a result of such pepping up of the breed. One quarter savage he was—he never knew it of course—and a good stud that added strength to a line. But far too dangerous and ambitious to be kept too long at stud; he had to be made to see the advantages of being tempered. Most of my upper servants have a recent strain of savage in them; some of them are Memtok’s sons. My engineer, for example. No, Hugh, you would not have wound up on anybody’s table. Nor tempered. I would like to have kept you as a pet, you’re diverting—and a fair bridge hand in the bargain. But I could not let you stay in contact with loyal servants, even as insulated as you were by your fancy title. Presently you would have been put in touch with the underground.”

  Hugh opened his mouth and closed it.

  “Surprised, eh? But there is always an underground wherever there is a ruling class and a serving class. Which is to say, always. If there were not one, it would be necessary to invent one. However, since there is one, we keep track of it, subsidize it—and use it. In the upper servants’ mess its contact is the veterinary—trusted by everyone and quite shamelessly free of sentiment; I don’t like him. If you had confided in him, you would have been guided, advised, and helped. I would have used you to cover about a hundred sluts, then sent you on your way. Don’t look startled, even Their Mercy uses studs who have to stoop a bit to get through the studs’ door when a freshening of the line is indicated—and there was always the danger that you might get yourself, and those dear boys, killed, and thereby have wasted a fine potential.”

  Their Charity picked up the pile of Kitten-delivered mail. “These things—All my Chief Domestic was expected to do was to thwart you from doing something silly; he never knew the veterinary’s second function. Why, I even had to crack down on Memtok a bit to turn his copies of these over to me—when anyone could have guessed that a stud like you would find a way to get in touch with his slut. I deduced that it would happen that time that you stood up to me about her, our first bridge game. Remember? Perhaps you don’t. But I sent for Memtok, and sure enough, you had already started. Although he was reluctant to admit it, since he had not reported it.”

  Hugh was hardly listening. He was turning over in his mind the glaring fact that he was hearing things told only to dead men. None of the four was going to leave this room alive. No, perhaps the twins would. Yes, Ponse wanted the breeding line. But he—and Barbara—would never have a chance to talk.

  But Ponse was saying, “You still have a chance to correct your mistakes. And you made lots of them. One note you wrote my scholars assured me was gibberish, not English at all. So I knew it was a secret message whether we could read it or not. Thereafter all your notes were subjected to careful analysis. So of course we found the key—rather naïve to be considered a code, rather clever considering the handicaps. And useful to me. But confound it, Hugh, it cost me! Memtok was naïve about savages, he did not realize that they fight when cornered.”

  Ponse scowled. “Damn you, Hugh, your recklessness cost me a valuable property. I wouldn’t have taken ten thousand bullocks for Memtok’s adoption—no, not twenty. And now your life is forfeit. The charge of attempting to run we could overlook, a tingling in front of the other servants would cover that. Destroying your master’s property we could cover up if it had been done secretly. Did you know that that bedwarmer I lent you knew most of what you were up to? Saw much of it? Sluts gossip.”

  “She told you?”

  “No, damn it, it didn’t tell the half; we had to tingle it out of it. Then it turned out it knew so much that we could not afford to have it talking and the other servants putting one and one together. So it had to go.”

  “You had her killed.” Hugh felt a surge of disgust and said it, knowing that nothing he said could matter now.

  “What’s it to you? Its life was forfeit, treason to its master. However, I’m not a spiteful man, the little critter has no moral sense and didn’t know what it was doing—you must have hypnotized it, Hugh—and I am a frugal man; I don’t waste property. It’s adopted so far away that it’ll have trouble understanding the accent much less have it’s stories believed.”

  Hugh sighed. “I’m relieved.”

  “Choice about the slut, eh? Was it that good?”

  “She was innocent. I didn’t want her hurt.”

  “As may be. Now, Hugh, you can repair all this costly mess. Pay me back the damage and do yourself a good turn at the same time.”

  “How?”

  “Quite simple. You’ve cost me my key executive servant, I’ve no one of his caliber to replace him. So you take his place. No scandal, no fuss, no upset belowstairs—every servant who saw any piece of it is already adopted away. And you can tell any story you like about what happened to Memtok. Or even claim you don’t know. Barba, can you refrain from gossip?”

  “I certainly can where Hugh’s welfare is concerned!”

  “That’s a good child. I would hate to have you muted, it would hamper our bridge game. Although Hugh will be rather busy for bridge. Hugh, here’s the honey that trapped the bear. You take over as Chief Domestic, do the kind of a job I know you can do once you learn the details—and Barba and the twins live with you. What you always wanted. Well, that’s the choice. Be my boss servant and have them with you. Or your lives are forfeit. What do you say?”

  Hugh Farnham was so dazed that he was gulping trying to accept, when Their Charity added, “Just one thing. I won’t be able to let you have them with you right away.”

  “No?”

  “No. I still want to breed a few from you, before you are tempered. Needn’t be long, if you are as spry as you look.”

  Barbara said, “No!”

  But Hugh Farnham was making a terrible decision. “Wait, Barbara. Ponse. What about the boys? Will they be tempered, too?”

  “Oh.” Ponse thought about it. “You drive a hard bargain, Hugh. Suppose we say that they will not be. Let’s say that I might use them at stud a bit—but not take their thumbs; it would be a dead giveaway for so private a purpose with studs as tall as they are going to be. Then at fourteen or fifteen I let them escape. Does that suit you?” The old man stopped to cough; a spasm racked him. “Damn it, you’re tiring me.”

  Hugh pondered it. “Ponse, you may not be alive fourteen or fifteen years from now.”

  “True. But it is very impolite for you to say so.”

  “Can you bind this bargain for your heir? Mrika?”

  Ponse rubbed his hair and grinned. “You’re a sharp one, Hugh. What a Chief Domestic you will make! Of course I can’t—which is why I want some get from you, without waiting for the boys to mature. But there is always a choice, just as you have a choice now. I can see to it that you are in my heavenly escort. All of you, the boys, too. Or I can have you all kept alive and you can work out a new bargain, if any. ‘Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi?’—which was the ancients’ way of saying that when the protector leaves there is always a new protector. Just tell me, I’ll do it either way.”

  Hugh was thinking over the grim choices when Barbara again spoke up. “Their Charity—”

  “Yes, child?”

  “You had better have my tongue cut out. Right now, before you let me leave this room. Because I will have nothing to do with this wicked scheme. And I will not keep quiet. No!”

  “Barba, Barba, that’s not being a good girl.”

  “I am not a girl. I am a woman and a wife and a mother! I will never call you ‘uncle’ again—you are vile! I will not play bridge with you ever again, with or without my tongue. We are helpless…but I will give you nothing. What is this you offer? You want my husband to agree to this evil thing in exchan
ge for a few scant years of life for me and for our sons—for as long as God lets that evilness you call your body continue to breathe. Then what? You cheat him even then. We die. Or we are left to the mercy of your nephew who is even worse than you are. Oh, I know! The bedwarmers all hate him, they weep when they are called to serve him—and weep even harder when they come back. But I would not let Hugh make this choice, even if you could promise us all a lifetime of luxury. No! I won’t. I won’t! You try to do it, I’ll kill my babies! Then myself. Then Hugh will kill himself I know! No matter what you have done to him!” She stopped, spat as far as she could in the old man’s direction, then burst into tears.

  Their Charity said, “Hughie, I told you to stop teasing that cat. It will scratch you.” Slowly he stood up, said, “Reason with them, Joe,” and left the room.

  Joe sighed and came over close to them. “Barbara,” he said gently, “take hold of yourself. You aren’t acting in Hugh’s interests even if you think you are. You should advise him to take it. After all, a man Hugh’s age doesn’t have much to lose by it.”

  Barbara looked at him as if she had never seen him before in her life. Then she spat again. Joe was close, she got him in the face.

  He jumped and raised his hand. Hugh said sharply, “Joe, if you hit her and I ever get loose, I’ll break your arm!”

  “I wasn’t going to hit her,” Joe said slowly. “I was just going to wipe my face. I wouldn’t hit Barbara, Hugh; I admire her. I just don’t think she has good sense.” He took a kerchief to the smear of saliva. “I guess there is no use arguing.”

  “None, Joe. I’m sorry I spit on you.”

  “That’s all right, Barbara. You’re upset…and you never treated me as a nigger, ever. Well, Hugh?”

  “Barbara has decided it. And she always means what she says. I can’t say that I’m sorry. Staying alive here just isn’t worth it, for any of us. Even if I was not to be tempered.”