The black swan (27 page)

"Oh, yes, Jem . . . please!" She put her hand on his arm, her tear-stained face lifted to his. "Ah won't have to have a new dress or anythin'! We can have it aftah the weathah cools off, an' Ah'U weah mah lavendah silk you like so well. An' we ckn ask the Saunderses an' Chilcotes an' Biggses. . . ."

Jem, relieved to have safely surmounted Patricia's resistance, grinned at his wife. "And you can have a new dress too."

She squeezed his hand rapturously. "Jem honey, youah too generous foah youah own good! No, Ah'll be a thrifty li'l wife! You'll see!"

They rode back to the house in the dusty red rays of sunset, Jem more at ease and hopeful than he'd been the past two summers. Patricia was already planning her party, trymg hard not to think about the other thing, for she could feel herself blushing every time she considered telling Agatha Saunders about the farm for breeding people.

Patricia's attention was caught by a flash of white out near the quarters. It moved very fast in several directions at once, then suddenly pounced on an unseen object in the grass. The motions were punctuated by childish yells of rage intermingled with those of attempted conciliation.

"Dulcie!" Patricia gasped. "In her nightdress!"

"Where in hell is Mammy? I'll tan her for this! Mammy!" Jem roared.

Mammy materialized from a cabin, hastily straightening her clothing. She reached down into the writhing mass of nightgown and extracted her charge as Jem and Patricia approached.

". . . an' he swallied it so's I can't have iti" Dulcie was wailing.

"Swallowed what?" asked Jem. "Who swallowed some-thin'?"

"Jothan—he put my marble in his mouth an' he let it go down! Now it's in his stummick, an' I want it!" She began to cry desolately.

Jem knelt down. "Dulcie, come over to your daddy."

Mammy shoved Dulcie toward Jem; Dulcie jerked loose and went to sit on her father's knee. Once safely there, she made a face at Jothan.

"Dulcie Jeannette, listen to me. That marble you're scrappin' over belongs to Jothan because I gave it to him. Do you understand?"

"But I want—"

"Hush! You're not to take toys away from the darkies. I absolutely forbid you to have that marble."

Dulcie considered crying some more. Instead she looked into her father's eyes stubbornly. "It had a blue lady in it," she whispered. "A pretty blue lady.'*

"I don't care if it had a double eagle in it, it's not yours."

Not another word was mentioned about the marble until, two days later, Dulcie sat in her mother's parlor. She had a small object she was rolling around in her hand, holding it up to the light and marveling at it

"What is that, Dulcie?" Patricia asked.

"A marble."

Patricia got up from her desk, coming close to her daughter to gaze disbelievingly at the marble with the blue lady in it.

"Did youah daddy bring you that?"

"No, Mama."

"Well, wheah did you get it?"

Dulcie rubbed the marble over her jaw and cheek, smiling in delight. "It's mine. Jothan didn't want it anymore."

"Ah thought Jothan swallowed it."

"He did, but I followed him till it comed out."

Patricia blushed, setting her lips tightly. This was all Jem's fault. He was too careless of a little girl's natural sensibilities. And Patricia, considering Dulcie's store of unchildlike knowledge, knew this wouldn't be the last such problem.

The Morans missed no meals while Jem developed Mossrose into a breeding farm. The initial sale of slaves bolstered his credit. Later he sold timbering rights to a section he wanted cleared. Patricia proved to be thriftier than he had ever dreamed, seeming to take pleasure in making over and making do. As a lady should, she ignored the seamier aspects of their new life, complaining only when Dulcie was involved. Otherwise she let Jem do what he wished. If Jem wanted to send his field hands over to neighboring plantations for wagonloads of manure to spread on the fields, he knew what he was doing. If Jem felt he needed to oversee the human breeding as he did the animal breeding, that was Jem's affair: She pretended to know nothing of it.

To Jem's mind, overseeing the breeding of his slaves was important. Fellie, Darcy, and three of the females were pure Gullah. He would keep the strain pure. Jem permitted Fellie and Ester, his two best Gullahs, to live as a family, because they had done so in the past and because he liked Fellie. For the other slaves, there were no families. There were merely studs and females ready for conception. With

the blacks whose African lineage was no longer pure, he bred with an eye to docility, intelligence, size, and length and strength of limb. There was no mating at Mossrose that hadn't Jem's approval. There would be no weakening of his stock by indiscriminate coupling. His animals would be of the finest quality.

Patricia was busy every waking minute with the management of the house and her responsibilities for the welfare of the slaves. However, her main concern was keeping Dulcie innocent. When the slave quarters suddenly seemed full to bursting with gravid females, all apparently due to deliver on the same night, Patricia set her small foot down. "Jem, you've got to buy a midwife."

Jem bought Ludy, calm and intelligent, a slave who had been taught to read. Ludy was exactly what Patricia had specified. The only problem was that she and Dulcie's Mammy hated each other on sight.

Mammy had always been the queen bee, lording her position of caring for Little Miss over the others. Now, Ludy, while not a house servant, held a position as important to the plantation as Mammy's. Ludy also had a good singing voice and rivaled Manmiy in another of her strongholds, the prayerhouse.

At Patricia's request Jem had built a small chapel that the slaves called their prayerhouse. Inside were the long backless benches the Negroes preferred, so that if the Lawd moved them to sway or writhe or leap up with the coming of the Spirit, their movements would be unhampered. Up in front was the small area where Mammy stood as she led them in song. The first night Ludy was there, she unwittingly took Mammy's place.

It wasn't the end to the insults heaped on Mammy. Weekday mornings Patricia taught the slaves rudimentary reading, writing, and arithmetic. Ludy could both read and figure, something Mammy had never learned, for Mammy was a grown woman long before Patricia ever held school.

Jem was not enthusiastic about educating his darkies, for education meant discontent, and a discontented slave meant constant little irritations. But Patricia having steeled herself for the inevitabilities of slave breeding, argued that when it came time to sell them, the educated ones would bring more.

In 1852 Jem installed a spinning house, in which rough

linens for the plantation could be made, with extra to sell to neighboring planters. He put Fellie, a regal black of nearly perfect proportions, in charge of his cobbler's shop. Fellie was not only Jem's best breeding stud, he was intelligent and hardworking. Without need of guidance or a driver, Fellie taught others how to make and mend shoes.

By 1854 Mossrose had taken on the look of a prosperous small town. Scattered down the hill from the main house were two neat rows of whitewashed buildings, each housing a separate industry where Jem's people took quiet pride in their work.

The largest building, the best built and equipped, was the nursery. Until a child was old enough to walk, he was kept there, closely supervised. At specified times the mothers left their work and went to nurse their babies. At odd hours either Patricia or Mammy would inspect the nursery. The elevation of Mammy to inspector of the babies had quieted the rivalry between herself and Ludy, who was only a midwife after all, but it hadn't erased the undercurrents of hostility. Mammy took her inspection seriously. As she put it, "Dem chilluns better be took good care of, 'cause Mastah Jem gots a lots o' money tied up in 'em. Dey's quality niggers."

Slowly Jem's dying Mossrose came alive again. The plantation was transformed into something more prosperous and different from what it had been. As it changed, so did Dulcie. At ten she was gangly, all hands, feet, and teeth that didn't fit together yet. Her red hair had darkened to a glinting coppery tone. Her pigtails had given way to curls that bounced when she walked or, more usually, ran.

But some things had not changed. Dulcie stayed in trouble with her parents or Mammy most of the time. Her eyes saw too much. Her swift, undisciplined mind concluded too much. For a young lady she knew too much of the wrong sort of thing. As Patricia had feared, Dulcie saw pregnant women daily and took for granted that darkies had babies every year. Only her mother. Mammy, and Ludy seemed exempt. Dulcie concluded they were too old.

Then one summer morning, as Mammy dressed her, things Dulcie had been noticing all came together. Mammy's heavy body had always been soft and pursy, swathed in osnaburg and covered by her white apron. Now Mam-

my's apron was higher, the strings were shorter, and her belly, pressing against Dulcie's shoulders as she brushed her hair, was hard, no longer soft.

"Mammy, are you in a family way?"

Mammy dropped the hairbrush. In the mirror Dulcie saw her eyes bulge and her mouth pop open. "What make you ast me a thing like dat. Miss Dulcie? Yo' mama scold you good did she fin' out you astin' questions!"

Dulcie had not taken her eyes off Maraniy's face. "You are, aren't you?" When Mammy didn't answer, she went on, "Mama doesn't know yet, does she?"

"Bless de Lawd, Miss Dulcie, doan you go tellin' Miss Trishy! Ah got a swellin'. Yes, ma'am. A swellin'. It go down purty soon."

"What kind of swellin'? Where did you get it from?"

"No kin' o' swellin' you needs to know nothin' 'bout, chir. Mammy got bit by a trowser worm, dat's all."

Dulcie, with a directness that would have delighted her father and made her mother swoon, asked, "When's it supposed to get born. Mammy?"

Mammy threw up her hands in combined fear and resignation. "Miss Dulcie, yo' mama fin' out Mammy in de family way an' she sell me. You doan wan' yo' ol' Mammy selled, does you?"

"I can keep a secret as well as you can." For the first time in her life Dulcie had the upper hand over Mammy. "I can help you keep it from Mama if you want me to. Is Ludy goin' to help with the birthin'?"

"No, rna'am," -said Mammy firmly. "Ah he'p mahseff. Dat Ludy done put de bad eye on me, or Ah doan be in dis fix."

"Where are you goin' to go when it's time for it to get born?"

"Asa make me a baid. Doan you worrit, chil'. Mammy kin manage."

When her time came, Mammy could not manage to leave the house. Closely followed by Dulcie, who had hampered her every move for days, Mammy was in the plunder room, a small storage room where "play-pretties" were kept. In the narrow space between the rows of shelves, Mammy hardly had space to turn around.

"Miss Dulcie, you de wustest chil' Ah evah did see fo' gittin' undahfoots," she said in exasperation. "You got to

give Mammy room accordin' to her stren'th, an' Ah feelin* strong terday."

"You don't look very strong," Dulcie retorted, "How come you stop every now and then and bend over and go all sweaty?"

"It's mah swellin'. Kickin' up a stawm dis mawnin'."

Then the storm broke. As Dulcie watched, half-fascinated and half-horrified, water ran over the floor and into the low corners of the room.

Mammy's voice was strange. "Chil', git inter de ragbag an' git a couple ol' rag rugs. Mammy got to lay down on de flo' awhiles."

Dulcie, full of questions, moved speedily, reaching into the pile of washed dark-colored rags. "It's time, isn't it, Mammy?"

Mammy was hanging onto a shelf, her eyes bulging. "Git outer heah. Dis minit. Heah me?"

Instead Dulcie shut the door. "You don't want Mama to find you here, do you? I can help you."

Mammy sank to the floor. "Miss Dulcie," she panted, "you kin he'p me mos' of all efien you go 'stract Miss Trishy. Go out an' git inter a scuffle wiff somebody."

"I don't get into scuffles anymore," Dulcie said coolly. "Except sometimes with Glenn Saunders, 'cause he's a priss."

As Dulcie watched, Mammy strained and grunted, stopped and strained again. But nothing seemed to be happening. Mammy kept her struggle as quiet as possible, but a groan escaped now and then. She rolled from one side to the other in a sort of rhythm.

"Does it hurt. Mammy?"

"Not... so bad. Git on out, chil'." Her tone was pleading.

"Mama's gonna switch us both anyway. What can I do?'*

For a while Mammy didn't answer, lying there moving her head from side to side. "Chil'? Mammy got to puU her skirts up. You look an' see effen dat baby's head comin' out."

Dulcie looked. Wonder of wonders, there was a tiny head partway out of Mammy. "It's there! I see it!" she said excitedly.

"Ssshh! Miss Trishy heah you! Take holt an' pull a li'l bit, not too strong, jes' keep steady." Dulcie did as she was told, turning the baby's shoulders until suddenly there on

the floor lay Mammy's newborn child. Mammy, panting heavily, said, "Git clean rags an' wrop it up warm an' put it on Mammy's boozum."

Mammy held her child close, patting it hard on its tiny back until it began to cry in thin, short little wails.

"Make it quit, Mammy! Mama might hear!"

"Can't he'p it. Miss Dulcie. Dis chil' got to git breaf someways."

Suddenly the plunder room door opened. Patricia, a bunch of summer flowers in her hand, stood with one foot inside the room. Her eyes flitted unbelievingly from Mammy, on the floor with her skirts up to her knees and an infant screaming on her broad breast, to Dulcie, who had shrunk against the shelves all hunched up as if her mother might strike her.

"Dulcie—Moran! What—is—^goin*—on—heah?"

Dulcie and Mammy spoke together: "Mammy just birthed a baby. Mama." "Ah tried to git Miss Dulcie outa heah. Miss Trishy—'*

Dulcie added, "It's a boy. Mama."

Patricia's voice, when it came out, was hoarse and ragged. "Dulcie Jeannette, go straight to youah room! This minute!"

Dulcie stepped carefully over Mammy and scooted past her mother, lingering partway down the hall hoping to hear what was said.