The black swan (4 page)

Ross looked up, terrified. "Tom, no! Please! For God's sake, I didn't mean anythin'—she didn't mean a thing to me! Please! Oh, God, please—Tom!'*

Tom, straddling him, let the bottle come down almost to Ross's horrified eyes. After a long moment he shuddered and tossed it away. He hardly recognized his own voice when he spoke. "Don't ever come near her again, Ross. I'll kill you."

He left Ross lying on the ground, moaning. The black faces stared across the stream at him, approving yet sullen. He mounted his horse, riding toward Ullah's cabin.

Her eyes widened with fear when she saw him spattered with blood, one eye reddened and already turning dark. "Tom!" She reached out for him, but he brushed her away.

"I don't need any help. Gather up your belongin's!" He stalked out of the cabin to get the carriage.

Ullah hurriedly bundled up her ruined shift, the rough blanket that had been folded neatly on her tick, and a small battered wooden box.

Tom returned holding Angela frightened and clinging to

his neck. "Is that all? Leave it. You won't need any of it'*

Slyly Ullah kept the battered box under her arm.

"Leave it!"

Tears came to her eyes. "It's mah things."

Tom shut his eyes for a moment. He said gently, "Let's go, Ullah."

In minutes he was driving through the outer gates of Gray Oaks. He would never again return to the welcome he had so long enjoyed or to the life he had led so casually until this morning.

Ullah sat quietly beside him, while the blond child on her lap bounced and giggled with the novelty of a carriage ride. Held tightly between Ullah's bare feet, was the scarred box that held her things.

Tom Pierson touched Ullah's arm, and they smiled at each other, more in hope than in certainty that everything would be all right

Chapter Three

In New Orleans, Tom stopped on Rue Royale and, blushing, bought shoes, stockings, gloves, and petticoats. He selected for Ullah a shaded-silk dress of blue and green, with a matching bonnet For Angela he found a flounced dress of gold muslin. Last he bought Ullah a veil and a fine cassimere shawl.

He drove to an abandoned shed, standing guard while Ullah and Angela made their transformation. Tears came into his eyes at the sight of his handsome woman and child.

Ullah, knowing they were unobserved, kissed him on the mouth. She said softly, "Tom, you the onliest person ever make me feel so feelsy. Ah gwine do for you the bes' Ah ever did."

Tom took UUah, primly veiled, along the streets of the city he had always loved. They passed through the Vieux Carre, resplendent with lushly flowering plants, dignified in its fine brick homes with glimpses of intimate courtyards and lacelike ironwork balconies, safe and settled in the rich, joy-filled life of the Creole.

He wanted Ullah to see it as he did, to feel the soft.

tender air, to sense the blue sky and its thick creamy clouds that moved swiftly ahead of the Gulf breezes. He wanted her to know the odors of the waterfront, its faint fishiness, its heady smells of molasses and coffee beans. He stopped the carriage by a huge Negress in a white apron and tignon, calling, "Belles calas, Madame! Tout chauds, Madame!" and bought them all the thin, hot Creole fritters.

He was looking for a particular man, one he had frequently seen on the busy fringes of Circus Square. At last he saw him, a wizened, smiling black man in a tattered cast-off green coat. He stood on Rampart Street, clapping two grimy blocks of wood to punctuate his joyous singsong invitation.

"An' breth'en an' sistahs {tap, tap), if yo wants to git to heb'n (tap, tap), yo got to heed de Gospel (taptaptap) an' yo gotta do good (tap, taptap, tap, taptap, tapppp!)!"

Tom made his arrangements. In a few minutes they were in the formal garden behind a church, facing a fragrant riot of blooms. On the old man's face was a look of intense pride as he married the lovely dark-eyed quadroon girl and the obviously enamored ruddy-faced man. Tom had never given thought to weddings, but he knew his own was beautiful.

He had no ring to place on Ullah's finger. No one bore witness to their marriage. It was an event important only to those two and having no legality.

Their marriage was a vow taken against the Black Code, a law already one and a quarter centuries old. Tom Pier-son became a felon liable to be hanged by the righteous for marrying the only woman he ever loved.

After they left the church, Tom turned into the American section where he lived. Here, street sounds and familiar faces seemed more sharply drawn on this momentous day. To those who called greetings from the banquettes, Tom nodded, acutely aware that he had made himself an alien to all he had ever known and loved. While he spoke to these welcoming faces with a smile stretched on his own, beside him, shawled and veiled, he hid his wife to protect her from them.

It was impossible for him to live in New Orleans now. He would have to leave without saying any farewells to these people he had called friend. With the awful clarity of a thought vaguely considered but largely ignored, Tom now foresaw he could not, even for a night, bring UUah

into his house as his wife. His own servants would mutter in the corridors where he could hear them; they would spread word of his deed; they would take their subtle revenge on Ullah for thinking herself above her natural station.

He made another stop, another purchase. In the bam behind his house, Ullah changed once more. When she emerged, she wore the servant's full-skirted calico dress. Her only visible nod to vanity was a striking seven-pointed tignon that covered her head. Until he could get them safely away, Ullah would be his new servant, barred from him in every way he wanted her to be near.

Their most serious threat, while they remained in New Orleans, came from Angela. At three, she was too young to be drawn into the deception.

As they approached the front porch, Ullah hesitated, then dropped behind them and walked around to the servant's entrance. Tom went on, Angela hanging onto his finger, pointing and, in her peculiar darky patois, commenting on everything she saw.

Tom's butler, William, grinned when he saw the blond, pale-skinned child, whom Tom introduced as his sister's daughter. William's expression flickered. Mercifully, Angela did not call for mama or try to find Ullah when he lifted her into Bessie's arms to be entertained, coddled, and cosseted as she had never been in her life. She would be safe, kept busy and away from Ullah.

Tom told his housekeeper. Jewel, of Ullah's arrival and outlined her duties. He had never felt so dishonorable or so much a sneak as he did in that moment

He went to bed that night, minutely aware that UUah slept in his slave quarters, separated from him, and too near the male servants, who did not know she was married at all, much less to their master.

By dawn he hadn't slept at all. Miserably he stared at the ornate ceiling. His eyes felt like sand grating along the shore. But slowly the cherubs embossed on the ceiling had their hypnotic effect. Tom's eyes closed.

He was sound asleep by the time Angela awakened to a strange room, hearing strange sounds. The smells and feel of the i5lace were different, and Ullah was not there, warm and close beside her. Frightened, Angela began to whimper, then to cry in earnest for her mother.

Downstairs, Ullah could hear her daughter. Preparing

Tom's breakfast, she listened anxiously for the sounds that would tell her Tom had gone to Angela. Nothing broke the quiet of the house but Angela's small, frightened cries. Nervously Ullah started toward the staircase, only to turn back, knowing if she walked up those stairs to her daughter now, it would end their secret.

It was too late. Angela was peering down the staircase. At the bottom she saw Ullah. "Mama! Mama!"

Ullah looked around anxiously. From the dining room came the round, jowled, curious face of Jewel, the housekeeper. Ullah stammered, "Po' li'l thing . . . she misses her mama." She scooped Angela up into her arms and held her fast as she cooed and comforted, trying to make it sound as though the child cried for a mother who wasn't there at all. Ullah had only to glance back at Jewel's face to know it was a matter of minutes before every slave on Tom's property would be speculating about Masta Tom's new servant and the child.

She took Angela upstairs and knelt by her, drying her tear-stained face. "You be a good li'l gal now. You let Bessie dress you, then mebbe they'll be somethin' special happen to you today. Mebbe they's a pony cart for you to ride in . . . that right, Bessie?"

New tears formed in Angela's eyes. Her hand clutched at Ullah's bodice.

Tom, immobilized, viewed the scene. "Bessie! What's goin' on here?"

Bessie's eyes widened as she mouthed words. "Ah doan know, Mastah Tom."

"Does it take both of you to manage one small child?'*

"No suh, but—"

"But nothin'. Come here, Angela." He lifted her into his arms. "Go back downstairs, Ullah. Bessie can manage now. You can, can't you, Bessie!"

"Oh, yassuh, Ah sho' kin. Yassuh!" She nodded vigorously.

Tom took Angela with him, making her laugh as he showed her her own image in the mirror, then lathered her small face as he shaved his own. Once he had Angela content, he gave her back to Bessie.

"We'll have to leave here immediately," he muttered to Ullah in the dining room. She bustled around serving him breakfast.

"You shou'n'ta brung us heah. They knows, an' what

they knows eve'y darky in Nawlens is gwine know afore the evenin' pinks up tonight. Won't be long till yo' white flien's knows too."

"No one knows!" Tom looked at her in alarm, then frowned. "Not for sure . . . everythin' will be all right."

Ullah smiled at him, removing his coffee cup from his hand to refill it before he. absentmindedly drank the dregs. "It gwine be all right, 'cause you say so." She looked mischievously at him from the corner of her eye. "But they knows. Ain't no darky gwine be bamboozled by a ragtaU story like our'n."

He'd hardly finished breakfast when William came to announce Josiah Whinburn. "My God, I'd forgotten!"

"My apologies for bein' so early, Tom," said Josiah.

"It's fine, Josiah, fine. I'm glad you came early."

"I . . . got an offer to sell Marsh House." Josiah looked miserable.

"Who made the offer?" Mentally, Tom put his money on Edmund.

"Mr. George Andreas, the lawyer. He wants to move to the country."

"Are you goin' to accept?"

"I've got one hundred dollars cash. Edmund won the money I was countin' on to see me through the roUin* season. I can't let my people starve."

"You were a God-damned fool, not thinkin' of this until now."

Josiah nodded, his head down. "I'm gonna lose mah daddy's plantation."

"Guess you don't know George Andreas is my attorney.**

Josiah's head jerked up. "What does that mean, suh?"

"He's Edmund Revanche's attorney too. That's what it means."

"Why, the low-down . . . you think he's actin' for Edmund?"

Tom put his hand up. "I can't answer for Edmund. But I know you need money, and I'm offerin' to lend it to you. Twenty-five thousand ought to carry you through the year.**

Josiah's face seemed to dissolve. "My—God, Tom! I knew you for a kind man . . . but"—he buried his face in his hands and sobbed.

Tom squirmed uneasily. "Think you might get it paid back in ten years?"

"Yes . . . yes, I can." He wiped his eyes. "You're a blessin' straight from the Lord, Tom, an' Him willin', I'll pay you back."

"There's one condition on this money, Josiah." Josiah's eyes never wavered from Tom's face. "There'll be no more gamblin'."

Josiah's voice caught on the laughter of relief. "You got my word, suh." He thrust out his hand to Tom.

"Good! Let's go down to the bank and get this drawn up."

Later that day, about fifteen miles northwest of New Orleans, Tom found the Welkins holding nestled in tree-shrouded isolation, its back against the bayou. The land around it was owned by poor whites, Arcadians of a forgotten past eking out a living by their own independent code in the lengthy shadows of the great plantations.

Mr. Welkins's bayou farm was sixteen acres, and perhaps not that.

"Watah changes the face of the land sometimes," Welkins drawled. He spat at a huge cypress, hitting its trunk dead center with a wash of tobacco juice. "Bes' I recall, that tree marked the east boundary." He grinned at Tom. "Never know for sho'. Trees grow. Change."

Tom said nothing. He entered the yard through a dis-repaired opening in the split-rail fencing and walked toward the house.

"Bad storm hit the house 'while back. Never did get 'round to fixin' it"

The mud chimney needed repairing. On the ground lay sodden cypress shakes.. Behind the house was a large barn. Welkins took care of his outbuildings: The barn, chicken house, and smokehouse were in good repair.

Tom saw a flat-bottomed boat. "That goes with the house."

"Hadn't figgered on that. Hadn't figgered on sellin' a-tall."

Only days ago, Tom wouldn't have spoken to this man, wouldn't have looked at land whose boundaries changed with the growth of trees or the coming of rain. Today was a different time, a different life.

"You've sold your farm." Tom tried to smile.

Like an animal smelling fear, Welkins's watery eyes

narrowed as he sensed Tom's need. "Never said I was sellin'. What's a fine fella like you want with my ol' place?" He fingered the cloth of Tom's coat.

"I've stated my price, Mr. Welkins." He waited, hiding his anxiety as the old man considered his chances of dickering. Welkins took the money, his bundle of possessions, his mule, and left that same afternoon.

The next day Tom took Ullah to see the house. She stood amidst the rubble cluttering the house Welkins had abandoned for the shelter of the barn and looked at the tattered mess of quilts and upholstery that mice had chewed up for nests. The leavings of a family of raccoons were on the floor. Bright sunlight came vivid and sparkling through the holes in the roof. Tom winced, seeing with Ullah's eyes the home to which he had brought her.