The Handsome Road (9 page)

“I understand,” Denis returned, and he smiled tolerantly. Then he grew serious again. “But there’s something else I’ve got to say, and I may as well say it now.”

“Yes, Denis?”

He answered without hesitation, but slowly, as though choosing his words with care. “I don’t know why you shouldn’t admire anybody as charming and sweet-tempered as Ann. But since you do dislike her so much, it’s hopeless to expect one house to hold you both in peace.”

Frances started inwardly, but she said nothing. She had not expected this. But she could not deny that from Denis’ viewpoint she had probably deserved it.

“If father were alive,” Denis went on, “Ann and I could take a house in town. But as it is I’ve got to be here on the plantation.”

Frances stood up slowly, sending up a wordless prayer that she would be able to control her voice. She answered him steadily. “I understand, Denis.” She looked straight at his clear gray eyes. “I want to take Cynthia abroad anyway,” she went on. “Her French accent needs improving. We’ll leave right after your wedding, and when we come back to America we won’t come back to Ardeith.”

He smiled at her again. “Mother, you have a great deal more sense than most people. Thank you very much.”

“My dearest boy,” said Frances. She took his face between her hands. “God help me to let you live your own life in your own way. Run along to Silverwood, and tell Ann I sent my love.”

“You’re rather a dear,” said Denis. He bent and kissed her cheek.

She heard him clatter down the staircase. Frances went to the mantel and began pulling one of the dahlias to pieces. The petals fell on the hearth.

She had tried very hard to do her duty in the world. Nobody knew how hard it had been. Nobody but herself seemed to remember those four little graves in the churchyard. Frances felt a flutter in her bosom like a little flame. Her heart sometimes behaved this way in moments when an effort at self-control had been almost too much for her, though she complained of her own ill-health as rarely as of the pains her spirit had undergone. But now she wondered if those two glittering young things would ever have to learn by experience how hard it was, when one was being continually assailed, to keep one’s character intact. In spite of her, a sob caught itself in her throat and she laid her forehead on the marble, grateful for its coolness. A tear trickled down her cheek where Denis had kissed her and splashed on the rich-colored petals at her feet.

Frances found herself striking the mantel with her hands. She had been so proud of Denis, watching him ride his acres with the imperious authority of one born to rule. But either he or she was wrong about this marriage, and she loved him enough to hope it might be herself. It was quite simple to say to Denis she would leave the house so as not to be one of the mothers-in-law of funny stories. He would love her better for her tolerance. And as for that canary-brained girl he was marrying, she would merely shrug and take it as her right that the older generation should bow itself out to leave her room.

4

Denis and Ann were married in the period of mist and quietness that came to the plantations between the time of the cotton-picking and the time of grinding the cane. Ann stood by Denis in the great hall of Silverwood in a gown that had required forty-two yards of handmade lace, and a veil that looked, as Denis said, as if it had been made of river-fog. Her skirt was so wide that Denis almost had to lean over to reach her hand when she slipped her finger out of the slit in her glove and held it to receive his ring, a heavy gold band that had engraved inside it, “Denis to Ann, December 6, 1859.” There were a hundred guests at the ceremony, and two hundred others who came to offer congratulations and speculate on the value of the wedding presents, while two trusted slaves wandered with owl-eyes about the parlors lest some inebriated wellwisher take a spoon for a souvenir of this the most brilliant wedding the river country was likely to see for years.

Half the party piled into carriages and rode after the bride’s carriage to the wharf, where Denis and Ann were to take the boat downriver to New Orleans. They planned to spend the night at the St. Charles Hotel and go on to Pass Christian the next day. At the wharf Ann let Denis help her out of the carriage, and she stood arranging her skirt around her and pulling her fur cloak closer about her throat—for it was cold here by the river—reflecting that she was being very self-possessed for a bride and reflecting also that she had never looked better in her life. A wagon rumbled down with her trunks. Denis went over to speak to his boy about their proper disposal and Ann stepped aside, nearer the gangplank and away from the chattering guests, whose reiterated good wishes were beginning to be tiresome.

Her hoops brushed the carpetbag of some lowly passenger waiting for the crowd to thin so he could mount the gangplank. She glanced up, a word of apology on her lips, and saw that the man before her was her father’s ex-overseer Gilday.

Ann started back as she felt his raisin eyes creeping over her again, but behind her was a line of Negroes carrying her trunks to the boat and for the moment she was prisoned where she stood. Seeing that she could not get away, Gilday took off his hat with a cool deliberate movement and looked her over.

Ann turned her eyes aside, toward the river. She was remembering what Jerry had told her when she complained that she did not like having Gilday at Silverwood. Jerry said the colonel would have got rid of him anyway, because he had just discovered that Gilday had formerly been part owner of a breeding-farm in Maryland and wanted no overseers of that ilk on his plantation. Ann had never heard of a breeding-farm and asked Jerry what such a place might be. Jerry did not want to tell her; he was sorry he had let the word slip out. But she insisted, and he finally explained that there were stretches of cheap land in Maryland and Virginia where men established colonies consisting of a few Negro men and many Negro women, where they forcibly bred infant slaves for the market, and where women were advertised for sale at prices based not on their training but on their fertility. When she heard it, the idea horrified her so that after barely managing not to be sick she buried it deep in her mind, and resolved never to think of Gilday or his wretched ways again. Meeting him here today gave her the same feeling of physical revulsion. She had a sickish sensation in her stomach. And this was her wedding day, she recalled angrily. She could have wished him dead for bringing her such thoughts at such a time.

“Howdy, ma’am,” Gilday was saying greasily. “So you got married.” His lips stretched in a sleek smile. “Quite a fancy wedding, I observe.”

Ann glanced indignantly at the moving trunks. Oh, why didn’t they hurry? If this creature touched her she was going to scream. But he did not touch her.

“Well, I’m going,” said Gilday, mouthing his words slowly. “You got no reason to be upset any more about me. But too bad,” he murmured, “I should just happen to take your honeymoon boat, seeing as how you don’t like me.”

“I’m not concerned about how you travel,” she said shortly.

“No ma’am, I expect not,” Gilday drawled. “But I been hoping to see you. They tell me it was you told your father and brother I should ought to be sent off their place. Told them you didn’t like me. Now that warn’t pretty of you, miss, not pretty of you at all.”

“Will you please be good enough to let me pass?” Ann exclaimed.

“Sorry.” But he did not move. “I just wanted you to know I ain’t thanking you. On your wedding trip at them fine hotels you might think sometimes about poor Gilday, with no job because of you.”

“Oh, be quiet!” she cried through her teeth. The Negro carrying the last of her trunks passed behind her, and she rushed away from Gilday, up the wharf to where her friends were. One of her bridesmaids, a merry red-headed girl named Sarah Purcell, ran to meet her.

“Why, here she is! Where on earth have you been, Ann?”

“I got caught behind the trunks,” Ann said hurriedly, feeling as if Gilday’s slimy eyes were still on her back.

“A fine bride you are,” Sarah chided, “getting lost at your own wedding.”

Ann tried to control her panting breaths. “Where’s Denis?”

“Here,” said Denis’ voice. It had never sounded so welcome. She unceremoniously snatched her hand from Sarah’s and caught his arm. “The trunks are on,” he was saying. “We can board now.”

She held his arm tight. They started toward the gangplank under a sudden shower of rice. Denis laughed, and Ann laughed too with almost hysterical relief. All this was so right and normal, running across the deck of a steamboat on her wedding day with rice falling on her bonnet and trickling down the back of her neck. They ran together across the saloon and into their cabin. Denis banged the door behind him and slipped the catch.

“There’s tons of it on deck,” he exclaimed, flinging off his coat and hearing the rice clatter on the floor. “Nobody’ll be able to walk there till it’s swept up.”

Ann laughed as she shook the rice off her bonnet. Tossing the bonnet to one side she linked her arms around Denis’ neck and looked up at him.

“Denis, I do love you so.”

He put his arms around her. “I love you too, darling.”

“I don’t think I knew till this minute how much I loved you,” said Ann. “But you’re so
nice
, Denis. So—so inevitable. I always know exactly what you’re going to do because it’s always what you ought to do at the moment. I’m so glad I’m married to you!”

Denis kissed her. In his embrace Ann felt as if she had withdrawn into a citadel.

5

The slaves of Ardeith were curtseying and singing on the lawn when Ann came home. The whole clan of the Larnes, headed by Denis’ mother, stood on the gallery to welcome her. Ann neither blushed nor fluttered, but received their kisses smiling, knowing perfectly well they were studying her for possible circles under her eyes that might indicate the shadow of the stork’s wings and finding it amusing to keep them in doubt before her blooming countenance. She had no reason to expect the stork yet, but she knew they had too much delicacy to ease their curiosity by asking her.

She went in, changed from her traveling-dress into a gown of checkered blue challis with white lawn collar and undersleeves, and a matron’s cap of lawn and lace with blue ribbons; and she presided for the first time over her own supper-table. There were twenty guests, including her father and Jerry and a confusing group of cousins of both families. Mrs. Larne, who was leaving for Europe tomorrow (“God be praised,” Ann thought devoutly), sat remotely at the far end, at Denis’ right hand, but Cynthia sat next to Ann, adoring.

As the ladies rose to leave, Mrs. Larne came down the length of the table and proffered Ann her keys. Ann said “Thank you,” and kissed her forehead. Denis’ uncle rose to give another toast to the bride. Ann waited, thanked them, and slipped the key-chain around her girdle.

The keys made an uncomfortable burden at her waist. These ceremonies were really a nuisance. That night as she was going upstairs with Denis, Ann caught sight of Napoleon putting out the candles in the hall. She leaned over the balustrade and called him, slipping the chain off her belt.

“Napoleon, I’ve engaged a housekeeper-lady and she’ll be here next week. Until then I reckon you know more about where things are kept than I do. Suppose you take these.”

Napoleon cupped his hands, but his expression was astonished. “You want me to carry the keys, Mrs. Denis?”

“Yes, until she gets here. Then give them to her.”

She dropped the keys. Napoleon’s eyes went to Denis. Denis laughed with loving indulgence. “It’s all right, Napoleon.”

Ann tucked her arm into his and they went on up the staircase.

Standing in the open doorway of her own room, Frances heard their voices. As Denis and Ann came up the stairs she stepped hastily inside, but though they did not look in her direction she could see them. Denis opened the door of the master bedroom. As they went in he picked up the decanter on the little table just inside. “A nightcap, honey?”

“Yes, thanks,” said Ann.

He leaned across the decanter and kissed her, reaching with his free hand to push the door shut. Behind them Frances could see the candles burning in the silver sconces, and the white marble mantel with a bowl of roses at either end, and the armoires ready for Ann’s clothes, and the great crimson-curtained fourposter that had had to be brought up the river in pieces because it was so huge. She looked along the hall at the spiral staircase built by Denis’ grandfather as the monument to a great race. Frances felt a helpless anger that was like pain. She closed her door.

Chapter Four

1

N
ot even so vast a sum as a hundred dollars will last forever. Though she skimped the very best she could, Corrie May found it vanishing before winter was over. Pa made a lot of fine speeches but he was no better than ever about work. He was off on his houseboat again with a couple of traveling preachers and they were saving souls up and down the river and everybody said what a fine preacher he was when he got going, could make you feel hellfire under your feet and angels over your head, but that didn’t put any beans in the pot.

Day after day Corrie May walked the wharfs, thinking. Budge was mad with her, and her parents were mad with her for the way she had done Budge. He was living tidily on his piece of ground. Now and then she was tempted to believe if she had married him it would have been an end to her perplexities, but all the time in the back side of her mind she knew it would have been no such thing. Marrying Budge would have done nothing but tie her to the hopeless life she was born into, and at least now she was free to climb out of it if she could. But there seemed no way to climb out. Rattletrap Square held her like a quicksand; every day it seemed that another piece of herself was buried in it. At night, lying on her cot in the cubbyhole behind the stove, Corrie May would stretch herself and feel the muscles underneath her firm flesh and think how young and strong she was, how ready to fight her way out of Rattletrap Square, but always there would rush over her the realization of how hopeless was the battle. You could not go ahead unless you knew where you wanted to go, and the world’s possibilities were hidden from her like the west bank of the river in an autumn fog.

There was something, she knew, better than what she had. There were a few fortunate people like Ann Sheramy and Denis Larne. Corrie May had stood on the wharf when they were taking the boat for their honeymoon trip. That night while she was cooking supper she tried to imagine what it was like to live that way, but again she came up against the fog. It was not only having a lot of money that made those people different, it was something else, an assurance that came of being born in the right place. Their slaves had it—that bustling mammy curtseying as Ann passed, that tall coffee-colored manservant bowing as Denis climbed the gangplank, those coachmen sitting on the carriages—they had it, the unconscious certainty that they occupied a definite place in the scheme of things, and as long as they followed their destiny they were assured of material plenty and social goodwill. That was what she did not have, and unless one was born to it she knew no way to get it.

But meanwhile one had to stay alive, one had to eat and pay rent. Corrie May asked for work on the wharfs. She could wash office windows or sweep out the hotels. Always the answer was the same. They had slaves, no need to hire white girls. Sometimes men spoke to her on the wharfs or tried to take her arm. She shook them off, less from principles of virtue than because she knew that was no way out. She did get some work in the early winter, for that year the orange crop was heaviest just when the cane had to be cut, and the Ardeith overseer hired white girls to pick the oranges. They paid her thirty cents a day. She and her mother could live on a dollar and eighty cents a week—a quarti red beans and a quarti rice and an onion for lagniappe, and there was dinner for a nickel—but the work did not last long.

But one day, six or seven weeks after Ann’s wedding, Corrie May saw her walking in the park with a young lady named Miss Sarah Purcell, and Ann dropped a glove. Corrie May picked it up and turned it over. It was doeskin, the color of an unripe lemon, and to her astonishment she saw that there was a tiny darn at the tip of the forefinger. Corrie May returned the glove and Ann thanked her and went on into a shop with Miss Purcell, but as Corrie May looked after her a new idea pushed itself into her mind. She had never thought rich ladies wore mended clothes. She had had some nebulous notion that if an article got torn they threw it away. But evidently they did wear mended things. And Corrie May knew that she could mend very neatly. Ann doubtless had all the servants she needed, but a lady who required as much waiting on as she evidently did could always find room for one more.

The next morning Corrie May came down early to the wharf. She had put on her shoes—for she had a pair bought with part of her brothers’ insurance money—and she looked very tidy. She stood around till she saw a sugar-wagon labeled “Ardeith.” When it had been unloaded of its hogsheads she approached the driver.

“I got business to do out at Ardeith,” she said to him. “Give me a ride?”

He grinned, looking up from the orange he was sucking. “Sho, white girl. Get on.”

Corrie May climbed up, wrapping her hands in her skirt to keep them clean. It was a long ride, but she enjoyed it, for it was a shining January morning and the sun sparkled on the fields and the sugar-mills spurting fire. At the gate of Ardeith she got out, thanked the driver and went around to the back door. To the girl who answered her knock she said her name was Corrie May Upjohn and she wanted to see the mistress.

Presently the girl came back with word that the mistress was waiting. Corrie May’s heart began to bump timidly. Ann had been pleasant to her, but then she had never asked her for anything; maybe now that she came seeking a favor Ann would be less cordial. At least, though, she would have a chance to walk up that glorious staircase.

But she was disappointed. The servant girl led her across the back gallery to where a straight narrow flight went up the wall. Corrie May climbed obediently. This was no time to be fussing, but she did wish she could get to be good enough to climb those spiral stairs.

The upper hall, wide and high as the lower, extended to a great window in front looking on a little white balcony. There were several doors on either side, and Corrie May observed with a smothered gasp that these too had silver hinges and doorknobs. The colored girl rapped. “Yes?” Ann’s voice called.

“It’s that white girl that wanted to see you, Miss Ann,” the servant said, and she let Corrie May into the room.

Corrie May stepped over the threshold. Her eyes moved around with wonder. She was in a lady’s sitting-room, high and warm and intimate, its ivory-colored walls hung with prints and its furniture upholstered in damask the color of thick cream. There was a soft perfume in the air. From the windows she could see the magnolia trees and budding camellias on the lawn. On a sofa near the fire Ann was reclining against a pile of cushions. Her hair was down and she wore a white satin dressing-gown with wide ruffled sleeves, and no stockings, her feet half out of little white slippers edged with fur. As Corrie May came in she looked up, lowering the fashion magazine in her hand.

“Why hello, Corrie May,” she said, and to the colored girl, “That’s all, Bertha.” Glancing at Corrie May again she asked, “What did you want to see me about?”

Corrie May had intended to be apologetic. She had rehearsed her speech all the way out in the wagon. “I hope I ain’t putting myself forward, ma’am.” … But at the sight of Ann so warm and indolent, so luxurious that she need not even put on her clothes though it was already past noon, her resentment flared above her diffidence. She blurted angrily, “I’m sorry I come so early in the morning, Miss Ann.”

“So early?” Ann sounded puzzled, then she glanced down at her attire. “Oh,” she said, smiling a little. “I was up late last night at a fancy-dress ball, and I’m just out of bed. That’s why I’m not dressed.”

Corrie May noticed, on a little table beyond the sofa, a breakfast tray with the coffee-pot still steaming. Just out of bed, this time of day. Ann was asking,

“I hope you’ve been well?”

Corrie May clenched her hands together to keep them from following their impulse. She felt like dragging Ann’s soft body off the cushions and pounding it blue and then hauling her down to see how most people had to live in the town of Dalroy, the richest town on the river, the city of palaces. She swallowed and answered, but instead of the sweet respectful answer she meant to give she said,

“I’ve been terrible. I don’t mean I’ve been sick. But since my brothers died in your husband’s cypress there ain’t been nobody to work in our family.”

“Oh,” said Ann. She let the magazine fall to the floor and raised herself on her elbow. “I’m so sorry for you. If you’ll pull the bellcord—”

She had the amiable condescension of a lady reaching for her purse. Corrie May came nearer and gripped the table on which stood the silver coffee-pot. “I ain’t asking you for charity!” she cried.

Ann was evidently puzzled. “Then what do you want?”

“I want to work!” Corrie May exclaimed. “Please ma’am let me work for you! I know you’s got plenty niggers. But I want to work and take care of my ma and—and be somebody my own self—I mean, there’s lots of things I can do. I can mend your clothes.”

“But I don’t need—” Ann began, then paused as Corrie May rushed on.

“I bet there ain’t one of your niggers can mend your clothes as pretty as me. And if I do it that’ll leave them time for something else. I can sew with little bits of stitches, Miss Ann. And I got to work.”

“I understand,” Ann said kindly. “I’m sorry I made a mistake at first. Of course I’ll give you work if you need it. Can you clear-starch muslins too?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I’m sure I can find something for you. You’re a good girl to want to take care of your mother. Come in here.” She went across the room to a side door, her dressing-gown rippling over the rug behind her.

The door opened into a bedroom on the front corner. It was the biggest room Corrie May had ever entered in her life. Every one of the four posts of the bed was bigger around than Ann’s waist, and the bed-curtains hung in heavy crimson folds from the tester. There was a fire burning here too, though it was sheer extravagance to have a bedroom fire in the daytime. The bureau and washstand had big mirrors, and there were embroidered monograms on the towels, and on the bureau were hairbrushes and flasks of scent and downy powder-puffs with silken backs. A mulatto girl was picking up clothes and things from the floor. Corrie May walked marveling through the cloud of fragrance to where Ann stood opening one of the high mahogany armoires.

“Here,” said Ann, taking out a petticoat that clattered as its starched folds fell apart. “I tore the frills on this. Lucile,” she said to the maid, “get a needle and thread. Sit here, Corrie May, and when you’ve mended this I’ll look at it. If you do it well I’m sure I can find some others for you.”

Corrie May took the petticoat, diffident with pleasure. Working in a place like this! Heretofore, she had merely thought of it as a job that would enable her to live, but that was before she had actually walked through the grandeur and thought what it would do to her spirit to be surrounded by it—no dirt, no screaming children, nobody drunk next door, no cats prowling against her legs, no cockroaches, no bad smells. She looked up.

“Miss Ann, this here’s just outen the washtub. I expect I better scrub my hands right clean.”

“All right. There’s the washstand.” Ann went back to the door of her sitting-room. “Lucile, you may go down when you’ve finished. Some time today press the ribbons on my blue satin bonnet.”

Lucile brought Corrie May a workbox with thread and scissors and a thimble, and then went out. Corrie May washed her hands, feeling almost sacrilegious as she dried them on one end of the towel and refolded it so from the front it would look as if it had not been used; and she replaced the cover on the soap-dish, emptied the water and rinsed out the basin. Then she sat down and began catching up the ripped frills of the petticoat, working so hard she felt little beads of sweat on her forehead.

When she had mended the torn places Corrie May leaned back luxuriously. What a lovely room, and how clean. For the moment she was almost glad she was not used to houses like this, for if she had been she would have missed this rich sensation of pleasure. Everything was so beautiful. At one side, between the windows, was a little table. The sun had slanted to shine on it, and Corrie May’s eyes were suddenly dazzled with green and ruby lights.

She got up softly, folding the petticoat on the chair. They lay in a heap, bracelets and necklaces and earrings, the stones glinting under the sun. She wondered what they were. Her mind ran over the names of all the jewels she had ever heard of—diamonds, amethysts, pearls, topazes, emeralds—what a pile of glory!

Timorously she reached out and touched the heap. In the glass over the washstand she saw her reflection, and she wondered daringly how she would look wearing jewels like these. It wouldn’t be any sin, not if she put them back. Pushing up her sleeve she clasped a bracelet around her arm, and held a necklace against her throat, almost shivering with delight as she watched the sun flicker across the stones and reflect highlights on her face.

The door opened. “Have you finished?” Ann’s voice asked.

Corrie May wheeled around. The necklace fell out of her hand and rattled on the floor. Her dreams of security and quiet in this house went down with it. She felt her skin get hot under her clothes.

“Miss Ann—I swear to God I wasn’t taking them!” Her voice was quivering with fear. She began tearing the bracelet off her arm. “Please, Miss Ann! I wouldn’t steal nothing for the whole world—I never stole nothing in my life—I know they belongs to you and I just wanted to see how they looked!” She burst into tears. Her legs were shaking under her. She could see visions of herself in jail for attempted thievery. Sobbing, she flung the bracelet on the table and rushed to catch Ann’s elbows in her hands. “Miss Ann, before the Lord God Almighty—”

“Why, you poor girl.” Through her own sobs Corrie May heard Ann’s voice. She felt Ann’s arm around her shoulders and Ann’s handkerchief drying her tears.

The satin of Ann’s gown was cool under her cheek. “My Lord, Miss Ann, but you’s a sweet young lady.” Her voice choked. “I know they’s worth a thousand dollars or something and I shouldn’t ought to’ve bothered them. But I never had diamonds or nothing like that.”

“Don’t cry,” said Ann. Suddenly Corrie May realized that Ann was laughing. She raised her head incredulously and looked up. Ann was really laughing. “Why Corrie May,” she was saying, “that’s not jewelry. The whole lot isn’t worth ten dollars.” Crossing quickly to the table she gathered the ornaments into her hands. “Here. Do you want them?”