Landry 05 Tarnished Gold (9 page)

"Besides, you should be grateful I have provided you with these safe, comfortable quarters during your period of disgrace," she said.
Safe, comfortable quarters? I was going to sleep, eat, and go to the bathroom in a room not much bigger than some people's closets, and in this mammoth house that had a dozen grand rooms. I would be shut away, forbidden to see the sun or feel the breeze on my face, and permitted to look out only when the sun went down, permitted to emerge like a bat.
"Now," she continued, folding her arms across her chest, "as to the rules."
"Rules?"
"Of course, rules. Everything must be spelled out and followed to the T.
"First and foremost, you are never to leave this room without my permission. As I said, I will come by and let you know when it is clear for you to go down to empty the chamber pot and wash yourself.
"Second, don't even wear those moccasins up here. Walk barefoot and walk as little as you can so that you create as little noise as you can. If anyone hears any scuffling about, I will tell them it's field mice, but we obviously can't have any clanging or banging. No singing, no music, and when you talk to yourself, as I imagine you will, keep your voice down to a whisper. All this must be true especially in the morning when my maids are cleaning the upstairs area. Is that clear?"
"Oui,
madame," I said.
"Good. Third, food. I will try to be up here twice a day, but it might just be once a day
occasionally. You will notice a gallon jug of water on the other side of the bed. Don't waste it. When you go down to the bathroom, you can refill the jug, but remember, you won't be doing that but once a day. see to it that you have the proper things to eat so my baby is kept healthy. You'll have one fork, one spoon, one knife, one plate, one cup, and one glass because I will have to wash everything myself. Obviously we can't have the maids doing it.
"Fourth, there is no electricity up here. You'll use this kerosene lantern only when the sun goes down and keep it as low as possible and as far from the window as possible. In fact," she said, stepping forward, "I have made a mark on the floor here. Look," she commanded, and pointed. I gazed down and saw a black streak over the plank floor. "Don't bring the lantern across this line at any time, understand?"
"Oui,
madame," I said, shaking my head, amazed at how well she had thought out every detail.
"You can laugh to yourself all you want," she snapped, "but I took great pains to plan this out today, and it's for your benefit as much as it is for anyone else's. I don't know if you truly appreciate that."
"Of course I do, madame."
"Umm," she said, nodding skeptically. "We'll see.
"Fifth, amusements. There are some books in the closet. You're welcome to play with the games, of course. I understand you weave and embroider, so I will bring some of that up to you. There can be no radio, no Victrola, for obvious reasons.
"Last, every Thursday night, my maids and my butler have the night off and leave The Shadows. I will come up to fetch you and you can come down to stretch your legs and eat dinner in the dining room. You can, if you wish, walk about in the rear of the house. I do have some field workers living nearby, but I'm not worried if they see you occasionally during the first few months when you won't show as much. Toward the second half of the pregnancy, however, you will not be permitted to go outside, even at night. Understood?"
I nodded.
"Good. Do you have any questions?"
I gazed around. "What if I need something during the day?"
"You'll have to wait until I can safely come up here," she said.
"I don't like this any more than you do," she continued. When I didn't reply, her eyes became glazed with fury.
"How do you think I feel housing the woman my husband made love to in the swamps, the woman who hosts his child, the child that should have been my child, in my body? What do you think it will be like for me sleeping beneath you and gazing up at the ceiling every night knowing you're here?"
"I'm sorry, madame, but this was your idea and--"
"I know it was my idea, you little fool, but that doesn't mean I have to like it because it was mine, does it? I was just smart enough to think of a way out for everyone." She pulled her head back. "Does your mother appreciate whatI'm doing, too?"
"She understands," I offered.
"Umm. She understands? Well, I don't, but I'm not
a traiteur.
I'm just a. . . an abused wife." She sighed. "I'm tired," she said. "This has been a terribly emotional and draining day for me. I will bring you something to eat late in the morning after the maids have served us and cleaned up the kitchen and moved on to other parts of the house. If something prevents that, you'll just have to be patient, and don't, whatever you do, try to find out why I'm not here when I said I would be. Be smart enough to figure out that something serious is preventing it at the moment.
"This all requires great cooperation on your part to work," she explained. "I assure you, if it fails, it won't be because of something I've done."
"I'll do my best, madame."
"Your best might not be enough. Do what I want," she corrected.
"I will try."
"Yes, try," she said, twisting her mouth. "It's so much easier to conceive a child, isn't it? You just lie back and the man puts his hardness in you and grunts his pleasure."
"I didn't just lie back, madame," I retorted.
She stared at me with that wry smile.
"I'm telling the truth. I was raped!"
"It's not a big secret around here that Octavious is not a man of great strength. My father chose him, trained and schooled him in our business, prepared him to be my husband. He was afraid I wouldn't find a decent enough, proper man, so he found one for me.
"He arranged for our courting and practically dragged us both to the altar. Octavious is a meek individual. I find it hard to believe that he could force himself on anyone, even a supposedly helpless young girl.
"But whatever happened, the damage has been done, and once again, I had to come up with a solution to a problem."
"You should never have married a man if you weren't in love with him, madame," I criticized, my anger and indignation fueling my courage.
Her smile became crooked and mean as she shook her head.
"You young girls today amuse me. You go to picture shows and see all these movie stars in their dream romances and think that can be you, too. You think you'll meet a man and suddenly there will be music and you'll skip off into the sunset together. Well, life isn't like a movie. It's real and in the real world, people are brought together for more practical reasons, and even if there is love in the beginning, it doesn't last long.
"Are your parents still in love?" she asked disdainfully. "Do they still cherish and adore each other until death do them part? Well? You're not answering me," she said before I could take a breath.
I sucked in air and straightened my back the way Mama often did. "Not everyone has a perfect life, madame, but you began yours believing it wasn't perfect to start. You knew and yet you did it. That," I said firmly, undaunted, "was your mistake."
The smile left her face. "You're pretty insolent for a girl your age, but I'm not surprised, considering where you live and how you've been brought up. We'll tolerate each other and do what we have to do, but the day this baby is born, that's the day you leave this house and my life," she declared.
"Madame," I said. "That's the first real thing we agree about."
It seemed all the blood in her body rushed to her face. She jerked up her shoulders and straightened her back. For a moment she simply glared at me. Then she turned and went to the door.
"Remember all I have said," she ordered, and left, closing the door softly behind her. I heard her tiptoe down the stairs and go out the second door. But then I heard her insert the key and turn the lock.
Now I was alone.
I gazed about my new world. I felt like Alice but in a stranger wonderland. The diminutive furniture, the faded walls, the dusty dolls, made it all seem unreal, dreamlike. I had been deposited in Gladys Tate's past, a past obviously rarely visited, a past draped in cobwebs and filled with discarded memories. It was as if I had fallen into someone else's nightmare.
The dolls glared down at me with distrust. The thick shadows cast by the lantern danced with the flicker of the flame. Below me and even above me, the great house creaked. I was afraid to move, afraid that if I made the slightest sound, Gladys would come rushing back upstairs to order me out of the house. But I took off my moccasins and rose slowly to go to the window and raise the shade a few inches. A slight breeze flowed through and I caught the lovely scent of blooming jasmine. When I peeked out, I saw the darkness and the cypress and oak trees silhouetted like sentinels against the still purple-black night sky.
I unpacked my bag, setting Mama and Daddy's picture on the tiny dresser along with my combs and brushes, and the small statue of Saint Medad. Then I took off my dress and underthings and put on my nightgown.
There was nothing to do but put out the light and crawl into bed. I said my prayers and lay there with my eyes open, staring into the darkness. I envisioned Mama miles away getting ready for bed herself, hiding her tears from Daddy, maybe gazing into my empty room and feeling the emptiness in her heart.
I felt that same emptiness now.
And then, for the first time since all this had begun, I thought about the baby forming inside me. Was it a girl or a boy and how would he or she like living under this roof'? How would Gladys Tate really treat the child? Would she be cruel to him or her or would she really accept the baby as her own and find a place in her heart for the infant? It would be horrid to learn she mistreated the baby. Right now she seemed capable of taking her vengeance out on anyone or anything, and yet . . .
And yet, I had this abiding faith, this deep-set belief that she somehow saw me as a necessary evil, a temporary place of incubation for her own longsought-after child. She was hard and filled her sentences with threats, but surely she wanted it all to go well. I would not be neglected or abused, I thought.
My hope, no, my prayer, was that time would pass quickly and I would go home to the only world I had known and cherished. Just as I closed my eyes, I heard the cry of a night heron. I went to the window and peeked out to see it had landed on the railing outside my window. It turned and looked at me and then lifted its wings as if in greeting and as if to tell me all the animals of the swamp I loved and I believed loved and trusted me were here, watching over me.
The heron lifted off the railing and swooped toward the shadows and trees, its neck bent in that S shape. A moment later it was gone and all was quiet. I returned to the tiny bed, crawling in as quietly as I could, and then I closed my eyes and pretended I was falling asleep in my own room. In the morning Mama would call to me and all this . . .
All this would have just been a nasty dream.

5
Denied the Sun
.
Sometime during the night someone must have

come into my tiny room and pulled down the shade so that when dawn came it provided only a dim light through the sole window. Of course, it had to be Gladys. It shocked and amazed me that I hadn't heard and awoken when she had entered the room. But the emotional strain associated with coming here and my own pregnant condition had put me into a deep sleep.

The moment my eyes snapped open and I had scrubbed the drowsiness from them, my instinct was to rise and pull up the shade, but Gladys Tate's warnings buzzed around in my head like a bee trapped in a jelly jar. How dismal it was to open my eyes and not see the bright sunshine or be able to look out the window and see the birds flitting and flowers spreading their blossoms to catch the invigorating rays. Mama always said I was like a wildflower and needed the sunshine to make me happy and help me grow and be healthy.

I sat up, but I couldn't peel back the blanket of depression. Would I be able to endure this for the number of months I had left before the birth of the baby? Had I made promises I couldn't keep? All I could do to counter the dreariness and despair was remind myself of how this would keep the shame from our doorstep and provide a good home for the baby who bore no blame for its existence. Why should a child suffer for a father's sin?

The aroma of freshly brewed, dark Cajun coffee, just-baked bread, fried eggs, and sausages permeated my room, slipping in under the
floorboards. It made my stomach churn in
anticipation. I rose and, because of the dimness, turned on the lantern. Then I dressed and, using the back of one of Gladys Tate's toy cooking pans as a mirror, brushed and pinnned my hair. I used the chamber pot and some of the water to wash my face and feel as refreshed as possible under these conditions. After that, I sat on the bed and listened hopefully for the sound of footsteps that would signal Gladys's arrival with my breakfast. I could hear the muffled voices of people below, the slam of a door, the barking of dogs, some grounds workers shouting to each other outside, but I heard no footsteps heralding her arrival.

Bored with the wait, I rose and began to explore the room. First I took the lantern to the small closet and, after blowing the dust away, brought out the books, which were all children's stories. What had Gladys Tate been thinking when she had said I could read these books to pass the time? They were designed for a child who had just learned to read and consisted mostly of pictures with occasional simple words.

The most impressive thing in the closet was the handmade dollhouse with everything inside it constructed to scale. I quickly realized that it was a model of The Shadows, and by studying it, I could learn where every room was and what was in each room. However, absent from the model was the room in which I was presently living.

There was tiny furniture, even tiny books in the bookcases and tiny kitchen implements in the kitchen. My fingers were too thick to fit in some of the small openings, so I imagined it had been built for Gladys when she was very little. Aside from the dust that had made it a home, the dollhouse was in perfect condition. Exploring it further, I discovered that the roof could be detached and I could have a godlike view of the interiors. I saw what I was sure was meant to be Gladys's mother and father lying beside each other in the king-size bed in the master bedroom. What looked like Gladys's room had a bed with a canopy, but the miniature doll meant to represent her was gone. There were wee dolls to represent the maids, cooks, and the butler, even minuscule replicas of some hound dogs sleeping in the den by the fireplace.