William Vanderwein Burgess II, or Van as he preferred, was thoroughly enjoying watching his uncle squirm during dinner conversation, especially since it was directed away from him tonight. It tickled his funny bone that one of the most powerful men in the Colonies was the subject of constant brow-beating from his wife, who cared not a whit for his titles. Personally, he didn’t care much for either one of them, but they kept a roof over his head and food in his gut so he treated them better than they deserved, so he nodded at appropriate times, smiled when he looked at them and kept his mouth full until he could excuse himself. Ah, wouldn’t it be grand to sit down to a normal dinner and enjoy what one was eating. Van continued to eat slowly while his uncle remained at the table, nearly finishing his dessert as Jackson made his leave. Now with just a couple of bites left he felt it wise to go before Elizabeth started in on him about getting married. God, he was tired of that old song and dance! With that in mind he scooted his chair back and bade her good night, to which she nodded her head as a way of acknowledgement and dismissal. Taking his cue, Van turned away and went out the back door to the atrium, where he lit a cigar and waited for the coffee that one of the servants would soon bring him. It was the only part of the evening meal that he truly savored and he took his time, smoking the cigar down to about half and leaving the butt in the ashtray for the servant as a thank you.
When he got up Van stretched and did a few exercises to help wake his muscles up, and went inside and up to his rooms where he could relax and be himself, which apparently wasn’t socially acceptable. Not that it bothered him, but Elizabeth carried on about it at length, letting him know that if he only did this or that, instead of the other, maybe more people - explicitly young women - would like him more. He let it roll off his back like a duck in water and took no offense because he knew she really just wanted babies in the house without her having to let her husband into her bed. Knowing his uncle's habit of bedding every female servant in the house he could hardly blame her, but that didn’t mean that he was going to make up for their lack in those respects. Being an only child of famous adventuring parents had made him appreciate a quiet life, the only person that he had really known and cared for growing up was his nanny, a large black woman named Hattie who loved him with her entire being and was the mother he rarely saw. He loved her as well and was completely attached to her, but when his parents died and he came here to live she stayed there to be with her actual family. It had broken his heart but he realized it would be wrong to make her come when he didn’t have the means at the time of bringing them all. Of course he had a large inheritance which his uncle was still legally in charge of, but by the time he was in control he would of course be a full grown man and not need the services of a nanny.
His last birthday Van had turned eighteen years old, meaning he had to wait another three until Jackson would pass legal ownership to him and in the meantime, when he needed money he had to submit a request in writing outlining the intended uses of said money. Jackson kept meticulous ledgers pertaining to everything so he had no concerns about it being there when he reached the legal age. And to be honest, his uncle never turned down his requests, except that he be allowed to move out before then. Well, he had tried. It wasn’t really that bad here, in fact he was free to entertain himself in any manner he wished, as long as he didn’t get into trouble and bring shame on the family name. Since he’d lived his entire life in exactly that manner it was, as they say, a piece of cake. The problem was he was also somewhat of a womanizer, although he had managed so far to keep things under the covers, so to speak. He smiled at his clever phrases, making his thin mustache curl up on the left side and his brown eyes sparkle. Van went into his bathroom and relieved himself then washed up, and dried off on the slightly warm towel left for him by one of the night servants. He inhaled into the fluffy material to see if he could figure out who had delivered it because he knew each maid intimately enough that he knew their own unique aromas, and this one was Genevieve, or Gennie as he called her.
He combed his hair and used an ointment to slick it down, tamed his eyebrows and sideburns, and used a razor to make sure his mustache was perfectly trimmed so it was just barely a line over his top lip. He believed that it suited him, making him look dashing and a little older and he knew the ladies liked it. Now off to go see Rebekka he thought, as he went down the back stairs that were meant for the servants and out the rear door to the pathway behind the row of slave houses on the right side of the road so Malcolm wouldn’t notice. Van passed by the first half dozen and knocked ever so lightly on the back windowsill, and shortly he was silently invited into to cramped quarters of this slave family. Even though it was late in the evening they welcomed him and he spent a little time having a real conversation with real people, and he loved these interactions more than anything because they kept him human. Here were people he could admire and who seemed to respect what he had to say, which were missing from his life in the big house. These people had been wrenched from their homes, leaving behind the lives they had been leading and the families they had with no possibility of getting in touch with them and then chained and shackled to a ship's hull that was overcrowded with others who shared the same fate. Yet here they were, doing what the white people expected of them and being treated as property without rising up against them. Van could imagine that if it were his loved ones and life left behind just to be made a slave of a crass man who thought too much of himself he would be conspiring against it.
It was a frequent subject when he visited any of them, even knowing that if Malcolm found out he would lash the offenders with a three-tailed whip until their backs bled to the point that you could no longer recognize them as men. The women would simply be sold off and sent far enough away there would never be a way for them to be located. The possibility of those actions were what really kept the black people in line, especially after the conditioning they were put through to get them here. Van was likely the only white person they felt safe with talking about such things, and he felt honored along with a great weight of responsibility. At this time, however, the best he could do was allow them the opportunity to know that not all of his kind were like his uncle Jackson and Malcolm, that some white people not only disagreed with “owning” other people, they were in fact secretly meeting to find a way to end slavery altogher. Most of the nights he went into town on the guise of being a playboy he was actually meeting with a group of men who wanted to eradicate this practice and go back to a more gentlemanly way of doing things, and hire men and women who could then support their families and become productive citizens, and leave the African and West Indies peoples in their home lands where they belonged.
As for being a playboy, all he had to do to hold that reputation was spend the last half an hour before closing at the pub, letting the waitresses sit on his lap while he flirted with them. He made sure to give them all equal time, and habited each pub on different nights which let him appear to bed another woman every night. When he left he always had one of them on his arm, whom he would escort to their rooms and give them a little kiss goodnight before leaving. Some of them were disappointed and pouted, but he was able to cajole them out of it with a little snuggling and a suggestion that there may be a next time. He was sure they talked among themselves, but they couldn’t tell the truth to one another because it would make them feel inferior, so they inadvertently helped keep his reputation as a philanderer intact.
Smiling to himself, Van went to get his horse which was stabled at the back of the Inn, which he paid for on a monthly basis so he always had the same stall and there was ample feed and water for Marvel, the black Arabian steed that he had brought over with him. The stable hand had already combed the dust out of his coat and wiped him down, so all he had to do was guide him out and ride. Van rode bareback for several reasons, one being that he hated putting all that weight on his animal and he felt that girthing was completely inhumane, but it also allowed him and his steed to feel each other and ride as one and it kept him fit as well to remain on the horse’s back keeping his balance as they went down the road, providing exercise which was sorely missing in his life. He was never in a hurry when he went home and tonight was no exception, the horse kept a slow and steady pace that let Van survey the countryside at his leisure and gave him time to ponder. He did his best thinking on Marvel’s back late at night as he rode home and tonight he was considering life as a husband to his slave concubine and a father to their coming child. Sadly he knew there wasn’t anything he could do until he reached legal age and could move out of his uncle’s home and into his own, and he also realized they would have to move north where they didn’t have slaves and were against slavery. He would go right now if it weren’t for his sweet Rebekka and their child growing in her belly, so he bided his time and used it to secretly plot against the white establishment that made her the property of a man who had the right to treat her any way he pleased with no recompense. Feeling frustrated he urged Marvel into a canter and rode home hunched over and thinking only of the ride, and he took the horse to the stable where he brushed him out then wiped him down with large towels before he put Marvel in his stall, focusing on the job at hand and bonding with his horse which helped to ground Van and let him go to bed feeling loved and needed.