Prologue
Doubtless the human face is the grandest of all mysteries.
Madame de Staël
ROYALVALEPLANTATION, VIRGINIA
FEBRUARY1774
Amid the timeless silence of the verdigris parlor, Juliet remained seated in her Chippendale chair ... for the third hour. Resisting a twitch, she fisted her hands in the folds of her indigo silk gown. Beneath the artist’s intense scrutiny, her back ached and her stays pinched. She nearly forgot to breathe. The once vibrant rose she clutched had surrendered its fragrance, its petals captured in delicate pink strokes. The portraitist, John Singleton Copley, stared at her boldly as no man save a husband would ever do. How long did a miniature, a tiny watercolor on ivory, take?
“You’ve an unusual look, Miss Catesby,” he’d said to her after the first hour.
Unusual? She sensed his frustration. She did not doubt her beauty eluded his brush, for she was not that.Striking, some called her. Loveday was the beauty of the family.Ravissante, their former French dancing master had called her.
However had this commission come about? For being the son of a humble New England tobacconist, Copley had done well. Somehow Father had torn him away from his wealthy New England subjects to paint this far south, which was a mystery. They themselves could hardly afford it.
“’Tis my birthday gift,” Father had insisted when the young artist appeared at their door days before. “Capturing my beloved daughters in miniature is overdue.” He darted a fond look at an obliging Loveday. “Consider what you wish to wear and Copley will handle the rest.”
Clasping her hands together, Loveday gave a graceful twirl in Royal Vale’s hall. “I shall don my raspberry silk—or perhaps my duck egg–blue brocade.”
Juliet smiled, not wanting to dampen her sister’s high mood. “I shall wear my indigo taffeta and Mama’s sable choker, then.”
Father passed into his study with a mournful, “If only your mother were still with us.”
A respectful hush followed as the sisters stopped at the study door.
Sitting down at his mahogany desk, Father began rummaging through the disorder. “I also want a lock of hair from you both—you know, housed in a gilt metal case. I’ll have the date engraved upon it as well.”
“Of course, Father,” Loveday answered. “A lovely touch.”
Juliet looked at him, confused. He wasn’t usually so sentimental. In fact, he often scoffed at such. And what was he searching for amid the ledgers she kept for him? He’d all but abandoned his business interests of late.
As Juliet remembered the moment now, something failed to ring true. Then Copley’s baritone voice returned her to the present.
“Lift your chin a bit, Miss Catesby.” He held his brushaloft, his caterpillar brows at odds with his small, close-set eyes. “There, that’s better.”
Across the chamber, Loveday watched from a window seat, her miniature finished and fussed over as a great likeness. She’d proved such a charming subject that Copley had asked to paint her in oils and Father relented. Since the artist liked to capture his subjects with what held significance for them, Hobbes, Loveday’s tabby cat, lay regally on her lap. The creature hadn’t lasted long before tripping away to other parts of the house, just long enough for the artist to capture the gist of his striped orange fur and long whiskers.
Copley hadn’t asked Juliet for a second sitting. Did he sense her restlessness? Her disdain for repose when she’d rather be on her feet? After all the fuss, would her miniature please Father? Would it look anything like her? Some miniaturists flattered. She hoped Copley wasn’t one of them.
On the other hand, how could a little flattery hurt?
1
I have the business of 3 plantations to transact which requires much writing and more business and fatigue of other sorts than you can imagine, but lest you should imagine it too burthensom to a girl at my early time of life, give me leave to answer you: I assure you I think myself happy.
Eliza Lucas Pinckney
JUNE1774
Her favorite color would forever be indigo.
Never mind that it made a fine tea and medicine and ink, even an insect repellant when rubbed on horse harnesses. Or that its coveted leaves became the most extraordinary blue dye. A hundred acres of indigo took a hundred skilled hands to tend it. Blue gold, some called it. This year’s hoped-for harvest of the plant was all that was keeping the Catesbys afloat.
As she rode amid blooms that stretched to the horizon on all sides of her, Juliet felt small and insignificant and adrift. Hardly theindigo heiress, as some called her. Howshe loathed the misleading sobriquet when she nearly owed her soul to its success.
She alighted from the chaise, her straw hat deflecting the noon sun, and faced Emmett Nash, one of Father’s overseers hired from Montserrat. He approached, hat in hand, sweat spackling his dark, lined face. He eyed her dress, a frilly concoction that bespoke an afternoon outing, not standing idly in a sweltering field. Already her hem was dirty. Her gaze met the ground as she tried to stem her rising frustration at all that needed doing. Sometimes she felt like a weathervane, turned in so many directions.
