Ciji Ware (47 page)

“No
…
” she said brokenly, “My jewelry is in his pocket, but he didn’t
…
hurt me. Not like what Daddy did to Mama
…
”

***

The meeting in the late Charles Whitaker’s study at Devon Oaks Plantation was brief and to the point.

Simon Hopkins, the Elder, along with the widow Whitaker and Judge Ebner Stimpson sat facing one another over Charles’s large, leather-topped desk.

“As Daphne’s guardian, I have done my best to make this offer as generous as I can, Judge,” Simon declared to the fifty-seven-year-old widowed jurist whose passel of children by his only slave, Leila, was the talk of Adams County.

“So you mean, sir, that I’m not to wed Madeline, but rather her little strumpet of a sister who made cow eyes at the Frenchies at Concord House two nights ago?” Judge Stimpson inquired peevishly. “That’s not what I understood last week from her mother,” he added with a disgruntled look in Susannah Whitaker’s direction.

“Daphne’s mother and I are now in full accord,” Hopkins said sternly. “Either the eldest sister becomes your bride, or take your search elsewhere, Judge. You have debts and you have no white heir. So how say you? Daphne Whitaker is your only option, for I gave you no firm indication that Madeline was to be the answer to your pecuniary and dynastic troubles, sir.”

Ebner Stimpson stroked his chin in an attempt to mask his astonishment at this bizarre turn of events. “Hmmm. ’Tis most unorthodox, you must admit. I dance the gavotte with one sister and marry the other? I shall mull over this proposal, sir, and give you answer in—”

“You will give us your answer now, or our offer will be withdrawn—for both sisters,” Hopkins snapped.

Astonished, the judge’s gaze drifted from Hopkins to Susannah Whitaker to Hopkins once again. He cocked his head, a slight smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “And I will be master of Bluff House?” he inquired politely. “That is, sir, in addition to holding shares in the profits of Devon Oaks Plantation?”

“That is what this document says in very specific terms,” Simon Hopkins replied impatiently, indicating the sheaf of papers lying on the desk. “It also says you will conduct your husbandly duties in such a fashion as to bring honor and
propriety
to this household, so watch your consumption of brandy, and sell that slave girl of yours, is that also understood? We will have no further hint of scandal at Bluff House or any other Whitaker property, do you hear?”

Judge Ebner Stimpson settled back in his leather chair, his flushed face growing even rosier after Hopkins’s ringing admonition. Then he smiled faintly as he considered Hopkins’s confirmation that he would have complete management and control of his wife’s portion of the Whitaker estate—which included his favorite abode in all of Natchez: Bluff House.

He turned slowly toward Mrs. Whitaker, whose eyes were lowered to her hands that she held clasped in her black silk lap.

“My dear Ma-ma
…
” he murmured, doing his utmost to still his racing pulse, “I accept your terms with pleasure.”

***

“You can’t mean it!” Maddy cried, her horrified gaze moving swiftly from her mother to her sister to her guardian’s face.

“You were not promised to Ebner Stimpson,” Simon Hopkins said gruffly, “and there are many other finer fish in the river, my girl.”

Maddy pointed a trembling finger at Daphne. “But Ebner will be miserable with her. He never gave her a glance! He
liked
me
!”

Daphne recoiled as if she’d been struck. “I have no wish to marry anybody! Especially that drunken sot who chases his servant around the woodshed!”

“Daphne, silence!” her guardian bellowed.

“You’re just saying that because Ebner chose me first.
You’re
the harlot,” Maddy spat. “You disgraced yourself with that horrible Frenchman and ruined everything for Ebner and me!”

“Quiet, both of you!” Simon Hopkins shouted. In a softer tone that revealed a Herculean attempt to keep his sorely tried temper in check, he said to Maddy, “I fear the judge appreciated the Whitaker dowry more than he did either of you. And due to that ignoble fact, my dear Madeline, he is perfectly agreeable to make your sister’s reputation whole again.” He patted Maddy’s hand in an awkward gesture of compassion. “I suggest, my dear, that you try to find solace in this. There’s no doubt a young man in your future who will be more suitable in age and with whom you are much more likely to get on happily.”

“And what earthly good is
that
?” Maddy screamed. “If I like such a person, and you find him a better match for my sister Suki, you’ll take
him
from me.” In a voice risen to a pitch that could shatter glass, the teenager sobbed, “I hate you! I hate all of you, and most of all, I hate Daphne and Ebner Stimpson.” She whirled on her sister Daphne. “I hope you both rot in hell for what you’ve done to me!”

And with that, the young girl stormed out of the study, slamming the door in her wake.

“Come back here, Madeline,” Hopkins called after her sharply. He glanced at Susannah Whitaker, whose face was a blank mask. “Can you not teach your daughters to behave properly?”

“Judge Stimpson,” Susannah said, in a tone as flat as if she were discussing the weather, “at first paid court to
me.
But the man smells of spirits and I always find that quite distasteful.”

She rose from her chair, nodded politely in the direction of the man in charge of her financial and familial affairs, and drifted out of the room, vanishing upstairs.

Simon gazed at the last member of the Whitaker family remaining in the study and sighed heavily. “I am only trying to see to your father’s wishes that you be settled sufficiently to end the incessant drama that holds sway in this household,” he said. “Can you not comprehend my good intent?”

Daphne glared unforgivingly at her guardian. She jumped up from her chair beside her father’s desk and strode out of the chamber without even bidding him farewell. She continued through the front door and down the steps, walking without the benefit of a cloak toward the woods that led to Whitaker Creek. The truth was, she thought disconsolately, she didn’t much care what happened anymore.

Fortunately, the sun was at its zenith, providing the February day with its warmest hour. She followed the old horse path toward the river, forcing herself to focus on the trees and the cloudless blue sky beyond… anything other than to dwell on the last few days. If she were forced to marry the toad, she would live at Bluff House, she assured herself. It was a place she loved. She would not have to see her mother’s long face and sad, sad eyes as often. She would ask for Mammy to come, as she was an old lady, now, and would prefer to supervise a fine town house rather than a vast plantation.

And Daphne would insist that the drunken old judge make his quarters on the second floor so that she might command the top of the house with its spectacular view of the river. She would bring her harp upstairs and create a private sanctuary for music and
…

Her mind a million miles away, she approached the narrow path that meandered close to the bank of the swimming hole before she realized where her feet had taken her. As she drew nearer Whitaker Creek, she could hear the sound of the babbling water rushing over rocks. She never came here, she realized with a sudden jolt of fear and apprehension. She hated this spot!

And then she saw it—a figure floating in the water, skirts ballooning below the still surface like a giant lily pad. Beside the stream lay a small pile of stones the size of apples. It was her sister. And she had deliberately drowned.

Daphne Whitaker’s keening cries could be heard as far away as the open study window at Devon Oaks.

“Maaad-dy
…
how did you know about Papa? No, no, NO! Maddy, how
could
you?”

***

The raucous sound of the McGee sisters’ laughter roused Daphne Duvallon from a stupor that had left her near to tears. The tragic suicide scene she had mysteriously witnessed beside a bend in Whitaker Creek was so at odds with the merriment just outside the music studio at Willis McGee’s that she wondered if she were awake or asleep. A door banged open and two young black women burst inside.

“Hey there, girl… whatcha know?” Kendra McGee declared, untying her waitress apron and tossing it on a chair. “Did you know, I’ve got this goofball for a sister? She was willin’ to work another shift just so she could have a piece of pecan pie comin’ out of chef’s oven.”

“Oh, go on,” Jeanette said, laughing. “I was just kiddin’, and look! The guy gave it to me, didn’t he? Hey, Daph, want a bite? It’s the best thing you ever ate in your whole white life,” she announced, waving a small paper bag containing her trophy. She flounced into a shabby love seat and divested herself of her pair of thick, rubber-soled waitress shoes.

“N-no thanks,” Daphne stammered, pinching the bridge of her nose and trying to clear her head of the disturbing images she’d just seen. She glanced around the McGee’s makeshift studio. The rainbow of carpet squares blanketing the floors, walls, and ceiling seemed surreal after the strange events she had—what? Witnessed? Dreamed? Daphne Whitaker’s younger sister had drowned herself in the creek in the same manner and place as her father and one of their slaves. Was it possibly
true
? she wondered. Was there any way she could prove whether this terrible series of tragedies in the Whitaker family had actually taken place? Or was she just getting loonier by the day?

This last question was upsetting to contemplate so she forced herself to pay attention to her companions.

“We grabbed some stuff at the Pig Out ’cause we knew we were late gettin’ here. Sorry. Have you been waitin’ long?” Kendra asked.

“N-no… I don’t think it’s been… very long,” Daphne replied staring at a piece of sheet music she held in her hand. She was in an old garage, she reminded herself sternly, renovated into a music studio. Why in the world would such surroundings whisk her back two hundred years to the governor’s mansion and calamities that happened a half century before the Civil War? She set the music on the stand and held out her hand. “On second thought,” she declared, “I’d love a bite of that pie. I need a sugar rush. For some reason, I feel kind of light-headed. I think I forgot to eat breakfast.”

“The girl
must
be in l-o-v-e
love
with that bird man,” Jeanette warbled as she dug into the paper bag and pulled out a clear container with pie and a plastic fork nestled inside. “When I fall for a guy, I go straight to the refrigerator.”

Just then Willis McGee appeared at the door.

“Hey, girls
…
sorry I’m late. Just got a great gig for Daphne, Kendra, and me, though,” he said, dropping his date book on top of Kendra’s apron.

“What about Althea and me, Daddy?” Jeanette protested.

“Sorry, no sax, sugar, and we don’t need keyboard. It’s a nice lil’ ol’ afternoon engagement party at the Governor Holmes House in early July.” He addressed Daphne, adding, “No rock ’n’ roll, they said, but cool jazz is okay, and you ’sposed to play regular harp in the parlor during the pourin’ of the tea. It’s a real good gig, ’cause not much happens ’round here in the hot summer months, y’know?”

“Willis?” Daphne asked softly. “Have you any idea where that old mansion, Concord, used to be around here?”

Willis gave her a puzzled look at the abrupt change of subject and then grinned. “Hasn’t Miz Whitaker tol’ you nothin’ ’bout your Natchez history, girl?” he demanded. “You’re
sittin’
in it!”

Dumbfounded, Daphne said, “You’re joking.”

“Well, you’re practically sittin’ in it. This housing tract was part of the original lands belonging to the Spanish governor’s place way back when.”

“Gayoso? Manuel Gayoso de Lemos?”

“Yeah
…
I think that’s the guy. He got tossed out by the Americans. Then the old mansion burnt down in the early nineteen hundreds, my mama tol’ me, but the double staircase survived a lot longer, till it became a hazard, and then they pulled it down too.”

Double staircase? Daphne’s strange sojourn to the past had featured no double staircase and she took that as a welcome sign that, perhaps, it had all been some crazy daydream.

Willis looked at Daphne quizzically. “Now, why you interested in a thing like that? Nobody talks ’bout Concord no more… ’cept my ninety-two-year-old mama, and she’s dead five years now.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Daphne replied vaguely. “I just heard about it somewhere and wondered where it had been, exactly.”

“Mama used to tell all kinda stories ’bout
her
great-grandmama takin’ care of white girls goin’ to all the fancy balls, y’know?” Willis shook his head. “Mama thought it was kinda funny that so many of the black folks in Natchez live practically on the spot where that ol’ mansion used to stand.” He shifted his attention to his daughters. “Well, y’all ready to get down to some work?”