Regardless of his anger, John reported to work the next day after his contretemps with the sherry.
He heard Tyrone’s slow footfall coming in his direction as he mopped the Italianate white marble floor in the foyer.
Billingsly cleared his throat. John cocked his head and looked up at the patriarch of Billingsly.
John stood up and faced him.
Billingsly put his right hand on John’s left shoulder and looked in John’s eyes, which were set under long, thick black lashes. John had mostly seen Billingsly’s eyes soft, but they sometimes turned opaque when he had a fight with his wife or when he was involved in a business dispute. Billingsly rubbed the stud in his left shirt cuff with his right thumb.
John had seen that foreboding gesture before.
As much as Laura protested about John’s behavior, she knew Tyrone was right about one thing: John was a hard worker; he did what he was told. Rather than fire him, she’d exact her revenge in another manner. Laura had demanded that John work in the field for a few months, but Tyrone negotiated a shorter sentence. “I’m going to need you to help Edmund take care of the tobacco field; it’ll be just for a couple of weeks.”
Despite Laura’s flammable temper, John had come to recognize his mother’s wisdom regarding the advantages of working inside Billingsly as long as he could compartmentalize his hatred from Madame Billingsly. Working there was a desideratum—it made him smarter, which he’d figured as a teenager on the edge of manhood would someday be a serviceable quality. He hated doing back-breaking tobacco work. It was pure drudgery from beginning to end—he’d envied the mules he’d used to work the land because of the respite they got during the day when he’d have to put tobacco leaves in the barn for curing and grading. He thought about asking why he’d been relegated back to doing that kind of work but decided against it. He knew the answer.
In the end, John’s sentence working in the field went from a couple of weeks to one month. He figured that Madame Billingsly had somehow stuck it to him again. But he was relieved his sentence ended on time as Monsieur Billingsly had promised, and he returned to Billingsly.
Billingsly, of Scots-Irish ancestry, was rangy and had a high, slanted forehead and craggy face. He had deep-set gray eyes with a hint of blue, like the sea in a northern latitude, and they could be soft or hard as the situation demanded. He wore clothes from the finest tailors in London. Where he could be jaunty, beguiling, and patient, Laura was regularly shrewish, spiteful, and bumptious.
Wealth had always surrounded Tyrone Billingsly. His father was a wealthy businessman and his mother a wealthy heiress. Billingsly’s father had paid for Tyrone’s Oxford University education, but he hadn’t asked his father for much money after college, although his father lavished him with it and assorted valuables from time to time.
His fortune derived largely from the foundry business. Though his loyalty to the South was a given, he’d often take the train to Northern states to meet with businessmen who were interested in doing business with him—but that was before South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union. At that time, money was money, and he did not discriminate against business outside of the South—he’d need lots of it to maintain the lifestyle of his wife.
Before Billingsly’s climb to the top in the business world stopped, Richmond’s Tredegar Iron Works had been one of Billingsly’s biggest customers, supplying it with iron ore and metal materials used to make iron. Tredegar had been the South’s largest major antebellum rolling mill, at one time fabricating cannons and gun carriages for the United States government.
Once the War started, Tredegar became a vital ingredient to the South’s winning the War; it was the industrial heart of the Confederacy. With sky-high demand for iron to build ships to protect Richmond from Union forces, Billingsly worked feverishly to supply Tredegar with his materials, and his finances swelled in return. And like his father, he’d see to it that his wife and children benefited from the spoils of his wealth. When Tyrone’s children were young, he’d taken them and his wife to Paris and other European cities about once every two years. His wealth allowed him to build Billingsly, where dozens of slaves worked at the height of Billingsly’s empire.
It was not all work for a man of Billingsly’s stature—he had other interests. To indulge his passion, and partly to liberate himself from Laura’s suffocating carping, Billingsly bred Cleveland Bay horses. He’d been introduced to them by an Englishman who’d told him about their versatility. He later became the chairman of the 1884 Upperville Colt and Horse Show in Virginia where Cleveland Bay horses were showcased. The horses were reddish-brown with small white spots on their foreheads. They were sure-footed, had a strong back and hindquarters, and limbs with plenty of bone, allowing them to move with ground-covering power. He kept a stable of them, selling many to stagecoach businesses, which had a large presence in Richmond.
Richmond had been good to Tyrone. The city was a bottomland along the James River, with fecund soil that produced crops such as tobacco, all kinds of leafy green vegetables, corn, and soybeans for the Billingslys. Although several fruit trees dotted the landscape, Billingsly’s prized trees were always peach and apple trees. Billingsly’s expansive farmland, which seemingly stretched to the horizon, fed his family, his horses, his farm animals, and workers and their families.
Like many businesses in the Confederacy following the War, Tredegar would later fall into financial trouble, which caused Billingsly’s fortunes to suffer. He had to shut down his major shop, which in turn caused him to cut back on household discretionary spending, which rang discordantly with Laura.
Laura never understood. Her rightful place was at the top of the Richmond bon ton. She had been lectured from birth on the stringent social graces of a privileged people. Although Billingsly told her that trade across the Atlantic had come to a halt as a result of the War and the defeat of the Confederacy, Laura searched for any business that could sell her things to which she had been accustomed. She didn’t find much, but whatever she found she’d purchase in Billingsly’s name, which was enough to cause Billingsly to curse her. He told her that they could lose Billingsly one day. Laura dismissed such an unthinkable notion, and blithely went about her life, assured that Tyrone would see that she’d never fall from atop her bon ton perch.
Billingsly would soon lose more money. A fire destroyed one of his smaller foundry shops, and the other shops suffered from poor management. He endeavored to stave off his hungry creditors by using one loan to satisfy another. But even as a man who had been chosen as Richmond’s businessman of the year, he had become unworthy of credit.
By 1887, Tyrone simply went through the motions of working; his mind was elsewhere, and he accomplished little. He made the trip home to Billingsly one evening and removed his white starched shirt as he stood in front of the oval mirror, attached to the mahogany dresser in the master bedroom. He stared in the mirror as though he didn’t recognize the person staring back; his mounting financial crisis had aged him, and his face was even craggier.
Without preamble, Tyrone said to Laura as he sat next to her on the bed, “They’re after me, the damn banks.”
She had known that something was wrong from the moment he walked into the room. She had already begun to cry. She was angry that her husband was failing her, failing to live up to the standards that she believed were predetermined for her at birth. “Why, why is this happening?” Laura said while crying on her husband’s chest, pounding it softly with her right hand.
John was in Billingsly’s second-floor private study, which was adjacent to the cavernous bedroom. The books that filled the shelves in the room included such topics as literature, botany, history, animal husbandry, and finance. In moments when he took a break from cleaning, he sometimes removed a book from the shelf. He’d stroke its spine, then he’d open it. He’d quickly write down a few words he didn’t know and look up the words at home in a dictionary Tyrone had given him.
John had just finished scrubbing the oak wood floor. As he prepared to retire for the evening, he overheard Tyrone say in a raised but sober voice, “Listen to me, Laura.”
Laura ignored him.
“I said listen to me,” he repeated in the same tone.
Laura screamed, “Why did you let this happen? You have ruined me! Tell me what reason do I have to live?”
John had heard them argue before, but this argument seemed different, an ominous-sounding one. He edged closer to the door in the study to listen.
Although Tyrone was used to Laura’s self-entitled attitude, her words rankled him this time more than usual. He was the one who’d made the money, who’d afforded Laura an extravagant lifestyle. All he wanted from her was a little understanding and appreciation of what he was going through. At the nadir of financial downfall, he could not even count on her for emotional support to get him through the mess that had befallen him.
It’s something we must face. He steadied himself for what he needed to say, something that would knock Laura off her deep foundational Richmond roots. “Laura, we may need to leave here soon ... for our safety. The banks will harass us, and we can’t count on the law to protect us.”
The house that had been paid for was in hock. The banks wanted their money, and Tyrone could no longer keep up with payments, even when he had borrowed from a loan shark, who had warned Tyrone he had missed a few payments.
She sighed deeply, and her body shook with spasms.
Tredegar had made a slight comeback after the War, but its fortunes didn’t last long. Tyrone blamed everything on the War. “Ever since we lost the War, our fortunes have suffered,” Tyrone continued. “Tredegar, one of my biggest customers, has not been the same since the economy went sour in seventy-three. The one thing I know well is the iron and metals business. It’s moving south now, where steel is being made. We need to follow it.”
Laura hated talk about the War. “That damn war. It’s ruined everything. Those Union bastards burned our beautiful city.”
Tyrone looked into Laura’s misty, cerulean eyes. He wanted to correct her, to tell her that the Confederate government authorized the burning of buildings, which resulted in considerable damage to Richmond’s business district. He dared not tell Laura that he’d actually thanked Union soldiers for extinguishing fires in the business district. He knew it wasn’t the time to be correct, and certainly not the time to tell her that he’d ever said a nice word about Union soldiers.
Laura had a positive thought. She managed a flicker of a smile. “But we can bring back Richmond, make it more glorious than ever, Tyrone. You’re savvy enough to make it happen.”
At Tyrone’s look of resignation, Laura ramped up her entreaty. “I can never leave this place, Tyrone. I’ve lived in Richmond all my life. My daddy, granddaddy, and great-granddaddy were born and raised in this city. I can breathe no other air but Richmond’s.”
Tyrone looked out of the large bedroom window and stared at a grove of elm trees in the back yard. He wished he had told her at once instead of letting things drip out. He just had to say it. “The Old Security Bank has called in a loan; they’re close to getting the deed to this house. They’ll be coming soon. We need to take our things and leave.”
Laura sobbed again. She longed to turn back the clock to rewrite the War’s end.
Tyrone’s relief at having told her something he had known for some time that was inevitable lifted a heavy weight from his heart and mind.
He walked to the five-foot-by-three-foot oil on canvas portrait of Papa Billingsly, Tyrone’s father, that hung on the wall opposite their massive four-poster mahogany, white cotton, canopy-framed bed. The portrait dominated the room. He had hung it there, so he could see the slender-nosed, portly, bearded white man with his hand in his waistcoat, like Napoleon, every time he walked out of the bedroom. He thought his father had been a wise man and still hoped to learn from him even though he was dead. He stroked the ornately carved oak frame for a few seconds, then gently removed the portrait from the wall, exposing the family safe. He opened the safe and retrieved a thick wad of money wrapped in a white band.
“We’ll use this money,” he said, showing it to Laura. “We’ll find a new life somewhere else. I’ll start another business. We have enough money to last a while.”
Laura went numb. She sat on a bergère and stared blankly out of the window.
Tyrone sat on the bed and leaned over and rubbed Laura’s right thigh, trying to console his grief-stricken wife. She turned her torso away from him, erecting a wall between them.
Unable to console her, he got up, closed the safe door, put the portrait of his father back in place. He moved a few steps back and peered into his father’s gray eyes. As if his father spoke to him, he suddenly remembered two whiskey flasks that Papa Billingsly had given him before he died.
When Tyrone and his six siblings were young, Papa Billingsly would hide treasure around his vast estate. He’d give the children clues to use to search for the coveted prize—whether it was gold and silver coins or just trinkets; the children were always ready for this sporting game. Tyrone recalled that Papa Billingsly read books about lost treasure and had gone on a few expeditions off the Barbary Coast to look for treasure.
So, it was not a surprise to Tyrone when Papa Billingsly told him years ago that he buried the gold and silver coins and bars on the grounds of Billingsly while Tyrone and the family vacationed in France.
“Can never go wrong with gold,” his father had said ever since Tyrone had been a young boy.
Tyrone had kept the flasks hidden in his study for years, seldom thinking about them, as he had always had more than enough money to take care of his business and to satisfy Laura.
“Laura, Papa left me—left us—something very valuable, which may help sustain us for a good while. It could help restore some of our wealth,” he said as a dig at his creditors. “We’ll need it after we leave here.”
John listened, pressed up against the doorjamb in the study.
“So where is this stuff, this valuable stuff?”
“Don’t know exactly where, but Papa said the clues to finding it are on the whiskey flasks Pa gave me.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me about this, Tyrone?”
“I don’t rightly know, Laura, but I’m telling you now. I’ll get some men, and we’ll start digging after I return from a business trip in a few days’ time.”
“Where are these flasks?”
“In the oak cabinet in my study.”
“Jesus,” John whispered, looking at the cabinet.
Laura’s life was with Tyrone; without him, she’d cease to exist. She needed to cling to any hope that she’d see her wealth again someday. “Tyrone, you’ve got to promise me this is going to work out. I just need to hear you say it.”
Tyrone nodded. “We’ll be fine, dear. I’m going to take care of you, just like I have always done.”
Tyrone threw his arms around Laura and hugged her, hoping to offer her a small measure of comfort, but instead he felt her disdain with her cold embrace. The businessman who had always walked and acted with great confidence was faltering in his wife’s eyes. He needed to reassure her in some way. “Come with me.”
John heard Tyrone and Laura walk out of their bedroom. He looked through the door frame and saw them holding hands, walking to the other side of the house. As they stepped to the far side of the mansion, John stepped quietly in an open area and saw Billingsly open the French doors that led to the balcony. John stepped closer to the French doors to listen to their conversation.
Tyrone and Laura stood on the balcony, holding hands, just like they had done so many times before when they lorded over Billingsly watching their subjects come to them in supplication.
He looked into her sullen eyes. “I’ve been reduced in circumstance, but it’s just temporary.”
“What is it that is so valuable about the flasks?”
“Papa said he buried valuable items on our land.” Tyrone figured he knew that a lot of gold lay buried on his property somewhere but decided not to tell Laura. It would be a wonderful surprise for her soon. “Don’t know rightly what it is, but I’m thankful for his deed.” With a less than confident tone, he let the words blow out: “We’ll use the flasks to keep Billingsly, now and forever.”
John didn’t know what fortunes the flasks contained, but he knew he wanted them. It would be just a matter of time before he’d go after the flasks.