Property (Vintage Contemporaries) (11 page)

My legs gave out beneath me and I dropped to my hands and knees on the carpet. “Mother,” I said. A loose strand of my hair fell across my cheek. The tip of it was black and so wet that a thick drop landed on my splayed fingers. There was someone else in the room, I knew. Someone had come in. I looked up to see Sarah, squatting near the door, picking up the broken china and placing the pieces on the tray. “Leave it,” I said. “Leave me.” She lifted her head to look at me; we were level there on the floor. She was biting her lower lip with her upper teeth, looking down her nose at me, I thought, with about as much sympathy as a lizard. Behind me I could hear Peek weeping. Sarah stood up and backed out the door.

“Help me up,” I said to Peek.

PEEK AND I washed Mother’s body, dressed her in a clean linen gown, and laid her flat upon her bed. Her face was swollen, of a brickish hue, her eyes bulging, the whites as yellow as a lemon’s flesh. We tried to close her eyes, to cover the black line between her lips with powder, but our efforts proved futile. I couldn’t bear to see her so disfigured. At last I put a pillowcase over her head and left the room.

I sent off two letters, one to my aunt and one to my husband, informing them of Mother’s sudden death. My aunt was staying at her summer house near the lake, so I thought to hear from her before the morning. I ate only a little soup and bread, then called Sarah to sit in the court with me and help sew together two sheets for a shroud. Peek was burning a bit of horseskin and a hoof, which is said to ward off the infectious vapors of one who has succumbed. It filled the air with an odor bad enough to punish the living for having survived. Peek, who is usually talkative, was quiet, tending her fire with a stick, occasionally wiping a tear from her eyes. She’s afraid to ask what will become of her, I thought, and I couldn’t tell her if she did ask, as I don’t know what is in Mother’s will.

We finished our work as the daylight faded. I had Sarah light the lamps in the parlor and went inside. I was certain I would not sleep, as I had forgotten my tincture in the rush to depart. I couldn’t bear the thought of lying awake in my room. But what was I to do? I was tired of sewing, my thoughts too agitated even to read a journal, it did not seem proper to play the old piano, which was probably out of tune. I went to Mother’s desk with some notion of organizing her papers, though she was the most orderly person I have ever known and I doubted I would find anything amiss. I heard Sarah’s baby screaming from the kitchen. “Bring me a glass of port,” I told Sarah, “and then get that child and come sit in here. I’m expecting a letter from my aunt and I want you to answer the bell.”

She filled a glass at the sideboard and brought it to me. I opened a drawer and took out Mother’s account book. Sarah stood next to me, watching my hands as I turned the pages. “What is it?” I said, but she made no reply and went out. I ran my finger down the column of numbers in the margin.

After Father died, Mother sold the farm and most of the slaves, used part of the profit to buy her house, and invested the rest to create a small income. She kept track of every penny. I saw at once that she had been living well inside that income and had, in fact, been steadily increasing the capital over the years. If my husband gets his hands on this money, I thought, it will be gone in a month. I recalled Sally Pemberly, who had managed to rescue her dowry from her husband’s extravagance, and resolved to learn the name of her lawyer.

In a side drawer I found three packets of letters neatly tied with black ribbon. Two were from my mother’s brother, the third was from my grandmother. At the back was what appeared at first to be another, older account book. The edges were frayed, the brown leather cover much faded. As I opened it, Sarah came in with her baby and sat on the settee near the door. The child was whining softly, but as soon as her mother had opened her dress she grew quiet, occasionally making lip-smacking sounds, like a man savoring his meat. With a thrill, I recognized my father’s handwriting, page after page of it, closely written, the entries dated. It was a diary, started just two years before he died. What a treasure, I thought, but I had no moment to read even one sentence before the bell rang and Sarah leaped up, detaching the baby from her breast and buttoning her bodice as she went to the door. I closed the diary, thinking to examine it at some quieter time. Sarah came back in, followed by a boy I recognized as one of ours. “He means to stay the night here,” she said. “It’s too late for him to go back.”

“Has he a pass?” I asked.

The boy produced a strip of pasteboard from his pocket and held it out to me. “Master say I should stay,” he said boldly. “He say Mistress send a letter by me in the morning.”

“I’ve already written to him,” I said. “Our letters have crossed.”

The boy hung his head, casting a stealthy look about the room at the same time.

“Very well,” I said, breaking the seal of the letter. “You may stay.”

“Yes, missus,” he said.

I rang for Peek, who came in covered with flour. “This boy is to stay here tonight,” I said.

“Where he to sleep?” Peek said, eyeing the child. “The kitchen table?”

“Just make a place for him,” I said, extracting the single sheet from the envelope. As the boy followed Peek back to her domain, I moved close to the lamp to read my husband’s cramped handwriting. If only I’d had an example of his epistolary style before I agreed to marry him. But he had been careful to send the briefest messages, apprising me only of his expected arrivals and departures in town. Stupidly I took his terseness as proof that he was a man of affairs, but now I know it is because he is so dull he can think of but few words to say. This missive, though brief, was unusually expansive and informative.

My dear Manon,

I write to tell you of events after your departure. As we discussed, I joined the patrol at Chatterly. We routed 15 negroes from the swamp. 10 are dead, 5 awaiting sentencing. The leader was a devilish mulatto from Plaquemines who had escaped from his master four years ago. None of our party are seriously injured, but I am sorry to report that I took a fall from my horse and my ankle was badly sprained. I am slowly recovering.

I trust you arrived safely in town and I pray that your mother’s health has improved. We receive such worrisome reports. I will expect word from you by this messenger and look forward to your earliest return.

With loving affection,

His signature, as always, was his initials scrawled together to make both completely illegible.

I laid the letter across Father’s journal, then pushed it aside, so strong was my sense that one should not touch the other. I rested my head in my hands. My brain was suddenly raging, my chest tight, my face hot. Everything about the letter appalled me: the condescending tone, the charmless conceit, the element of command at the end, offset by an absurd pretense of warmth in the salutation and the closing. His letter was a perfect miniature of the monument to falsity he has made of my life. Tears filled my eyes, and I made no effort to stanch them. There was no one to help me. When Mother was alive, I had some vain hope that she might come to understand what I have had to bear and take my part, but now even that was gone. How am I to arrange for her burial? I thought frantically. Why has my aunt not written to tell me what to do? I looked around helplessly, wiping my eyes with my sleeve.

Sarah was there in the shadows, watching me. Her bodice was open, her breast exposed. The baby lay still in her lap, breathing peacefully, its dark mouth open to reveal a flat pink tongue. She had rested her head against the back of the settee and her eyes were lowered, her shoulders relaxed. The flickering light from the lamp bronzed her skin and made her eyes glisten like wet black stones. She was enormously still.

I wiped the last of my tears away as I looked at her, my head awash in pain. Why did he let her keep that child? I thought. What had she done to make him agree to it, what bargain had she struck, what promise given?

And then, as if to answer me, a white drop formed at her nipple and clung there. She made no move to wipe it away, indeed she seemed unaware of it. Her eyes closed, then she looked back at me steadily.

It was for his own pleasure, I thought.

The room was stifling, the air so heavy it seemed to clog my nostrils. I fancied I could smell the decay taking place in Mother’s body there in her bedroom, though Peek and I had bathed her with scent only a few hours before. When I stood up, everything whirled around me so that I clutched the chair.
We receive such worrisome reports,
I thought, and I could hear my husband’s nasal voice. I steadied myself and took a few steps toward the shadows where Sarah sat. “Put the child by,” I said.

She leaned forward, lifting the sleeping creature by its shoulders and sliding it onto the cushion next to her, where it made the slightest murmur, moved its thumb to its mouth, and drifted back into sleep.
I am sorry to report
. My husband’s world was full of reports. He’d managed to use the word twice in a letter of ten lines. I pictured him, limping across the dining room on his bad ankle. When we got back, he’d use Sarah for support. If he were dead, I thought, my heart aching in my chest.

Sarah was sitting forward, her long hands folded in her lap, her eyes resting on the child. The drop of milk still clung to the dark flesh of her nipple; it seemed a wonder to me that it should. I dropped to my knees on the carpet before her and rested my hands upon her wrists. I could feel the smooth, round bones through the thin cloth of her sleeve. I leaned forward until my mouth was close to her breast, then put out my tongue to capture the drop.

It dissolved instantly, leaving only a trace of sweetness. I raised my hand, cupping her breast, which was lighter than I would have thought. It seemed to slip away from my fingers, but I guided the nipple to my lips and sucked gently. Nothing happened. I took it more deeply into my mouth and sucked from my cheeks. This is what he does, I thought. At once a sharp, warm jet hit my throat and I swallowed to keep from choking. How thin it was, how sweet! A sensation of utter strangeness came over me, and I struggled not to swoon. I could see myself, kneeling there, and beyond me the room where my mother’s body lay, yet it seemed to me she was not dead, that she bore horrified witness to my action. And beyond that I could see my husband in his office, lifting his head from his books with an uncomfortable suspicion that something important was not adding up. This vision made me smile. I closed my eyes, swallowing greedily. I was aware of a sound, a sigh, but I was not sure if it came from me or from Sarah. How wonderful I felt, how entirely free. My headache disappeared, my chest seemed to expand, there was a complementary tingling in my own breasts. I opened my eyes and looked at Sarah’s profile. She had lifted her chin as far away from me as she could, her mouth was set in a thin, hard line, and her eyes were focused intently on the arm of the settee. She’s afraid to look at me, I thought. And she’s right to be. If she looked at me, I would slap her.

The bell sounded so harshly we both leaped to our feet. I turned to the desk, wiping my mouth against my hand. Sarah hastily fastened her dress and went to the door, glancing back only to see that her baby was secure on its cushion. I heard the bolts pulled, the creaking of the shutter hinges, and then my aunt’s voice, coming toward me. “My poor darling,” she said, as I went to her and she embraced me. “What a frightful time you must have had. Look, you are as white as a sheet. I came the moment I received your message.”

IN A TOWN where half the population is dead and the other half in hourly terror of dying, it is no easy matter to arrange a decent funeral. Mercifully my aunt set herself to the task at once. She sent an announcement to the newspaper, ordered the casket and a private hearse, and notified the cemetery of the proposed ceremony. I would have preferred to bury Mother in St. Francisville with Father and my two baby brothers, but there was no time, nor place for her there, so she must be laid to rest in the Petrie crypt with her mother and grandparents on her mother’s side. My aunt and I made a list of Mother’s relations and friends. While she went out to engage the priest, I sent cards to these people. I added Joel Borden’s name, because he was so kind to Mother and she so fond of him. I doubted that he was in town, but I wanted him to be notified upon his return.