Freeman (29 page)

Prudence kept silent. She wished she had the derringer with her now, but she had thought it improper and unnecessary to go armed to church. Assuming her safe return from this trip, she would not make that mistake again. In this country, she told herself—no, in this
part
of the country—it might be necessary to go armed everywhere.

“I couldn’t help myself,” said Wheaton, as though she had spoken. “I’ve always had too great a fondness for drink. My father, my brother, my sister, they all say that. And of course, drink causes a loss of control. You’re very pretty, ma’am. You must know that.” Here, he glanced over his shoulder at
her and the smile he gave was almost bashful. Prudence turned away. He went back to watching the horse’s rumps.

“But the thing I can’t understand,” he went on, “the thing none of us can understand, is how you can come down here and do what you’re doin’. You have to know—even a
Yankee
has to know—how wrong that is, ma’am. And not just wrong, but dangerous.”

He looked back at her again, as if waiting for agreement. Prudence studied the river. Wheaton sighed as if fatigued and went back to the horses. “That’s all I’m sayin’,” he muttered. He did not speak again for the balance of the journey.

After a few more minutes, they arrived at a large house that sat on a bluff at the end of a long, tree-shaded lane. When the wagon clattered to a stop, a Negro man and woman appeared as if by magic. The man, stiffly formal and dressed in livery, placed a step stool for her convenience. He touched her elbow lightly as she climbed down from the rig. Then he went to tend the horses. He never spoke.

Prudence found herself standing beneath a columned portico beside a short, plump colored woman whose hair was gathered beneath a kerchief. Prudence smiled at the woman, who only bowed her head in response. “This here is Sassafras,” said Wheaton, coming around to Prudence’s side as the footman led the horses away. “Call her that on account of she’s so sassy whenever anyone dares intrude upon her kitchen. I have some work to do. She’ll take you to my father.” He lifted his hat. “Ma’am,” he said and then lowered the hat and sauntered toward one of the outbuildings.

“If you please come with me,” said the colored woman.

She led Prudence through the front door and into a hall that rose two stories above her. From either side, stairways curled along the wall up to the living quarters above. A massive chandelier hung suspended overhead. Prudence wondered idly how long it took to light all the candles.

The woman led her through an equally elegant parlor and dining room, where the table looked long enough to accommodate 20 diners with ease. A door from here led to a wide, covered porch that wrapped around the back of the house, looking down upon the river. A steamboat was just passing by, heading north. Its decks were crowded with soldiers.

“What is your real name?” Prudence asked the colored woman as the latter gestured toward a chair positioned next to a round table, facing the view.

“Sassafras real enough,” the woman said, and Prudence felt chastened, abruptly reminded of her place in the grand scheme of things. Why had she thought this woman would allow herself to be drawn into conversation with a white woman she did not know? It was vanity, that’s all it was.

Prudence sat. There was a pitcher of lemonade in the center of the damask-covered table. It was flanked by two drinking glasses, one of which Sassafras now filled and placed next to Prudence. She pointed to a tiny bell that sat on the table.

“Marse be with you in a minute,” she said. “You need anything, you give that bell a ring.” And with that, she disappeared back into the mansion.

Prudence drank her lemonade. It was cool and tart and a welcome antidote to the oppression of the heat. In silence, she took another sip as the river rolled past below her. Despite herself, she was enraptured by the view.

A few minutes later, the sound of metal wheels turning against hardwood brought her around to see the door open and a balding, legless man in a wheelchair pushed through it by a young Negro man. How many servants did these people have?

“Well,” said the man, as he was wheeled to a position opposite her. “I see you appreciate the view. I am pleased to think we have that much in common at least. I am Charles Wheaton,” he said, without extending his hand. “You would be Mrs. Kent. I am pleased you accepted my invitation to come up here, especially on such short notice.”

“Your son was rather insistent.”

“Yes, he has that quality.”

“Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell me why you wanted to see me,” said Prudence.

He cut her a glance. “We are to be direct with one another, then? Good. I much prefer it that way. I grew up here, Mrs. Kent. I love this town. I am certain even those of your race can appreciate what it is to be attached to a place. This is my home, and I don’t want to see it harmed.”

“I do not follow you,” said Prudence.

His smile just then was shrewd and mean. “I suspect you do,” he said. “I want you to shut down that nigger school.”

Her chin came up. “Mr. Wheaton, I will thank you not to use such vulgar language in my presence. I had taken you for a gentleman, sir.”

It stung him. She could see that in the way his eyes went out of focus for just a second. Then they turned hard, little pellets of metal embedded in the fleshly folds of his face. “I want you to shut down that school,” he repeated.

“I will not,” she said.

He went on as if she had not spoken. “Ordinarily in this situation, I would strike a bargain to buy the building at a price that allowed you to make a handsome profit, on the condition that you go away and stir up no more mischief. However, I happen to know that your father left you a tidy sum—a furniture maker, wasn’t he?—so I don’t expect you would be subject to the ordinary temptations of money.”

“You are quite right,” she said.

“However, I thought you might listen to an appeal on simple moral grounds.”

“Moral grounds,” she said. It was not a question.

He sighed and did not speak for a long time, staring out at the lazy Mississippi. Then he said, “Mrs. Kent, do you believe in God?”

“I do,” she said.

“As do I,” he said, glancing at her. “And I believe God has set in place a natural order for all creation. He set white men on top of that order for a reason.”

“Is that what your Bible tells you, Mr. Wheaton?”

“It is also what the evidence of my eyes and plain common sense tell me, Mrs. Kent. In physical deportment, intellectual capacity, and moral integrity, white men were set apart from all the other races of the world. That includes your red man, your yellow man, and most certainly, your black man.”

“Most certainly,” said Prudence, not bothering to hide her smile.

“I assure you it is not a joke, Mrs. Kent. There is an order to creation, and when all accept their places in that order, it works as God intended and every man is happier. But when people meddle with that order, when they sow confusion and discontent, dire consequences must naturally follow. Consider the late war as proof. Consider the fate of your president.”

“Are you threatening me?”

Frustration blew out of him in a heavy sigh. “I am trying to
instruct
you, Mrs. Kent. As you can see, I am hardly in a position to do you any harm. I lost that ability, along with my legs, in a Yankee bombardment at Vicksburg. And I can further promise you that no one of my household or
in my employ will do you harm, either. But Mrs. Kent, I cannot control what other people will do.”

“You cannot or you will not? It is my understanding you are the most powerful man in this town. I find it difficult to believe there is much that happens in Buford you do not control.”

“You give me entirely too much credit,” answered Wheaton through a tight smile. “I do not control. But I do predict. This is cotton country. In a few months, it will be picking season and our planters will again be obliged to suffer the indignity of hiring labor they formerly owned outright. People will find that difficult enough to stomach. But if you, through your misguided efforts, give their labor force some foolish notion of moving beyond their station in life, if you interfere with the planters’ livelihood…” He spread his palms as if to say the rest did not even bear speaking.

“Your townsmen have already been quite busy, Mr. Wheaton. They have threatened us. They have vandalized our school.”

He waved at her words as one would a bothersome fly. “Those are just pranks, Mrs. Kent. They are getting their nerve up. If I were you, I would be braced for much worse.”

“And yet these are the people you say God has ordained at the top of the natural order.”

The flat of his palm slammed the table so fiercely that lemonade sloshed out of the pitcher. He roared, “Yes, by thunder! That is
exactly
what I am saying!”

He took a moment. She could see him struggling to master himself. Down below, a scrawny white boy, barefoot and bare-chested, wandered along the banks of the river. Prudence watched him until he was almost out of sight.

When Charles Wheaton next spoke, his voice bore only the remnants of his sudden rage. “Do you know that if it were not for a handful of investments in some northern firms that predate the war, I would be wiped out right now?”

“What is your point, Mr. Wheaton?” asked Prudence.

“We have lost so much, Mrs. Kent,” he said. “This is what I am struggling to make you see. We have lost our homes and other property. We have lost our dignity and pride. We have lost our way of life and we have lost our country. By the holy God, how much more can you Northern people expect us to lose? Would you have us surrender our sacred place in the very order
of creation? We will not meekly accept that. We cannot, if we wish to still consider ourselves white
men
. You will not prop the Negro up as our social or political equal. We will resist that with every means at our disposal, Mrs. Kent. We will resist for a hundred years, and more.”

He regarded her for a long moment. Then he made a weary sound. “But you are going to do it anyway, aren’t you? You are going to continue teaching them at that school of yours.”

“Yes, I am,” she said.

“You will not even consider locating your school elsewhere, perhaps in another town where the people are less likely to take offense?”

“And where would such a town be?” asked Prudence.

His eyes filmed over and he stared at the river. “Too bad,” he said after a moment. “I had hoped I might be able to make you understand. Of course, I should have expected your response. I had a similar discussion with your father when he thought to buy a piece of the old Campbell place and loose a plague of free Negroes in our midst. You remind me of him. He was an idealistic fool, too. He had to learn the hard way, too. It mystifies me that neither of you can comprehend elemental truth. You are white, after all, even if you are from the North.”

“I suppose that makes all the difference,” said Prudence.

“I suppose it does at that,” he said. “I am just sorry we could not come to terms. There has already been such suffering. Too much, really.”

“On that much, we can agree,” said Prudence.

He gave her one last speculative look, then nodded curtly, as if to himself. “Very well, then. Sass will show you out. Beauregard will take you back.” The young Negro man reappeared on the porch as if by magic. He took the handles of the chair and wheeled the old man away.

Prudence was alone. She sipped her lemonade. After a moment, the large, dark-skinned woman stepped out of the house. “Come with me, ma’am,” she said. Prudence stood and the woman led her back through the large, silent house. They stood together under the portico a moment without speaking. Then the woman said, “My name Colindy.”

Startled, Prudence said, “Beg pardon?”

“You asked my name before,” she said. “My name Colindy. Sass, that’s just something they calls me. They think it’s funny.”

Before Prudence could respond, the wagon rattled to a stop in front of them. Bo Wheaton came around and offered a perfunctory hand as
Prudence climbed up. From her seat, she regarded Colindy closely and the colored woman watched her just as intently, eyes large in a face void of expression. As Bo clambered into his own seat, the black woman said, “You take care of yourself, ma’am. You hear me?” Still nothing showing on her face.

Prudence had a bare second to nod, then the wagon moved forward with an abrupt jolt. Colindy watched her go, then turned back toward the house.

“You turned him down,” Bo was saying as the wagon flew at too great a speed down the long lane.