Bellefleur

by Joyce Carol Oates

  So Germaine must accompany her to Winterthur, to this extremely important meeting, despite Gideon’s and Cornelia’s objections; and of course Helen would be coming, and Nightshade, whom Leah was beginning to find indispensable; and at the last minute Jasper had been added to the party. (Hiram, of course, who had worked with Leah for months on these negotiations, had fully intended to go—but since his mother’s wedding to that old derelict he had been sleeping poorly, plagued by bouts of sleepwalking; it would be too dangerous, he believed, to sleep in unfamiliar surroundings, even if a servant stayed up through the night to watch him. And he had to admit, he said with a wry laugh, that his nephew Jasper, though only nineteen, knew more than he in certain respects . . . the boy had business instincts as remarkable as Leah’s.)

  Leah took off the emerald earrings, and screwed on a pair of pearl earrings, tilting her head, noting with quiet pleasure how the winter light behind her outlined her figure (a superb figure, still, though she continued to lose weight, and her dressmaker was always busy) and, reflected in the mirror, illuminated her fine smooth pale skin. She was still a young woman, still young, though she had lived through so much . . . though she felt, at times, half-amused, as if she might be great-aunt Veronica’s age. . . . Gideon, sullen Gideon, was graying: his wonderful black hair was turning salt-and-pepper: there were impatient, not very attractive, creases on his forehead. Of course he was still a handsome man. It hurt her, it angered her, to see how handsome he was, how little fools like two or three of their houseguests this past month, and of course servants like Helen, and that unfortunate Garnet Hecht, gazed upon him adoringly. They were fools, women were largely fools, and deserved whatever happened to them . . . whatever happened to them when they succumbed to men. . . . Since Gideon’s little finger had been amputated, however, perhaps he would not seem so attractive; perhaps he would seem deformed; freakish; contemptible. (It was a measure of his absurd self-mocking stubbornness that the finger had had to be amputated at all. Gideon’s hand had been infected from a bite of some kind, and though he must have felt pain for days, and noticed the angry red streaks reaching upward toward his heart, he had done nothing about it . . . claimed he was too busy to see Jensen. How angry Leah had been, how she had wanted to strike him with her fists, and claw at that dark imperious face! You would let yourself rot away, wouldn’t you, inch by inch, to spite me. . . . )

  But she hadn’t attacked him. She had not even spoken to him about the finger. The absurd, the ridiculous finger. . . . It was an imperfectly kept secret that Gideon now slept in another bedchamber, at the far end of the corridor, though, for appearance’s sake, or out of indifference, he kept most of his clothes in this room. Certainly the servants knew, for how could they fail to know, and anyway what did it matter: Gideon with his expensive automobiles (the Rolls coupe, Leah had learned to her dismay, had cost nearly as much as the family limousine, which seated eight people comfortably, in addition to the driver) and his lengthy unexplained absences (which Leah supposed had to do with business deals and investments of his own, for he and Ewan preferred to keep their money separate from the family, and were always alluding to matters no one else understood) and his imponderable inert spirit-paralyzing tarry-black moods (which Leah despised, for they were the purest form of self-indulgence): what did it matter, really?

  The mirrored Leah raised her chin, untroubled. She did not care in the slightest about her husband; so one might gather from studying her impassive face. She looked, instead, as indeed she was, like a young woman about to embark upon yet another adventure—confident as a sleepwalker in the destiny opening before her.

  THAT MIRROR, MOVED upstairs from Violet’s drawing room when Leah had had her bedchamber expanded (a wall was knocked out, and a long modern plate-glass window took the place of the fussy old windows with their leaded mullions) to accommodate a spacious desk, as well as other new pieces of furniture, was one of the most handsome of the manor’s antiques: it was about three feet by two, with a heavy ornate gold frame, inlaid with ivory and jade, in a girandole style. Leah had had it moved upstairs along with a somewhat crude but charming bas relief carving of the Bellefleur coat of arms, which hung now on the wall above her desk.

  An antique mirror, evidently a favorite of Violet’s: and, as it turned out, a most unusual mirror. For while it couldn’t be trusted (for reasons of the light, evidently) to show everything that passed before it, as if finicky about its tastes, it certainly showed Leah at her most complete, her most characteristic. It was the only mirror she could rely upon. Dressing, preparing her hair, rehearsing certain facial mannerisms, gazing for long moments at a time into her mirrored eyes: so Leah communed not only with that expertly presented reflection, but with her own interior self, which was of course hidden from the scrutiny of others.

  You know me! Ah, don’t you know me! she laughed into the mirror, running her tongue hard over her front teeth, patting the back of her sleek, heavy coiffeur. If Nightshade were not present (for she often allowed him into her boudoir, he was so asexual, so harmless) she might even lean to the glass and brush it with her lips, innocently vain as a young girl before a ball.

  No one else knows me as you know me, she whispered into the mirror.

  It was quite true: for, on her way to her room on the eighteenth floor of the Winterthur Arms, after a highly gratifying afternoon during which another sizable chunk of the old empire was returned to them (piece by piece, slowly, it reasserted itself, Jean-Pierre’s original property, though now it was, of course, not simply wilderness land but farms and orchards and mills and factories and villages, entire villages, and parts of cities as well), and Leah would be able to declare, in triumph, upon her return to Bellefleur, that they were now more than half their way to their goal—returning to her room undeniably tired but jubilant as well, and fairly gloating with her good fortune, feeling her strong heart beat with confidence, Leah happened to see, in the elevator’s gold-flecked mirror, an image so clearly not herself that she laughed aloud, angrily, at the sight of it.

  The broad, showy, vulgar mirror framed a woman of young middle age, with distinctly sallow skin, and querulous, even shrewish lines about her lipsticked mouth. The woman might have been handsome at one time; but now her eyes were shadowed, and her hair, though expertly and fussily arranged on her head, was dull and lusterless, and lacked body. She wore dangling earrings, evidently pearls, that, so close beside her skin, made it appear almost yellowish, and the fur collar of her jacket looked synthetic. How crude a mirror, and what an insult to the overcharged guests of the Winterthur Arms! Leah did no more than glance in it, absentmindedly patting the back of her head. The lighting in the elevator was poor and the quality of the mirror’s glass was obviously inferior. . . .

  No, only the antique mirror in her own room could be trusted.

  Once Upon a Time . . .

  Once upon a time, the children were told, a seventeen-year-old Indian boy was lynched not a mile away—hanged from a great oak on the lakeshore drive. The oak was called the Hanging Tree. But it was no longer there—it had been felled many years back.

  Why was he hanged, the children asked.

  Some men thought he had started a fire. A hay barn went up in flames, and people thought Indians had done it.

  But did he do it?

  Your great-uncle Louis thought he hadn’t, probably.

  Then what happened?—what happened to the Indians?

  The boy was killed, and they dragged his body around the village for a while, and ended up with it at a riverside tavern. It might have gotten buried. As for the rest of the Indians—they ran away, as they always did. After a while, then, they came back.

  Weren’t they afraid?

  Well—they came back.

  FREDERICKA READ ALOUD to her brother, punctuating her reading with sobs of angry despair, for men were animals, mankind as a whole was unregenerate, and only Christ’s Word could redeem them: by lamplight on a sleeting January evening she read from Franklin’s �
��A Narrative of the Late Massacres in Lancaster County of a Number of Indians, Friends of this Province, by Persons Unknown, with Some Observations on the Same,” while Raphael sat with his fingers still, not drumming, on the desk top before him.

  . . . These Indians were the remains of the tribe of the Six Nations, settled at Conestogo, and thence called Conestogo Indians. On the first arrival of the English, messengers from this tribe came to welcome them, with presents of venison, corn, and skins; and the whole tribe entered into a treaty with the first proprietor, which was to last “as long as the sun should shine, or the waters run in the rivers.”

  This treaty has been since frequently renewed, and the chain brightened, as they express it, from time to time. It has never been violated, on their part or ours, until now. . . .

  It has always been observed that Indians settled in the neighborhood of white people do not increase, but diminish continually. This tribe accordingly went on diminishing, till there remained in their town on the manor but twenty persons, viz., seven men, five women, and eight children, boys and girls. . . .

  This little society continued the custom they had begun, when more numerous, of addressing every new governor, and every descendant of the first proprietor, welcoming him to the province. . . . They had accordingly sent up an address of this kind to our present governor, on his arrival; but the same was scarce delivered when the unfortunate catastrophe happened, which we are about to relate.

  On Wednesday, the 14th of December, of 1763, fifty-seven men from some of our frontier townships, who had projected the destruction of this little commonwealth, came, all well mounted, and armed with fire-locks, hangers, and hatchets, having travelled through the country at night, to Conestogo manor. There they surrounded the small village of Indian huts, and just at break of day broke into them all at once. Only three men, two women, and a young boy were found at home, the rest being out among the neighboring white people, some to sell the baskets, brooms, and bowls they manufactured, and others on other occasions. These poor defenseless creatures were immediately fired upon, stabbed, and hatcheted to death! The good Shehaus, among the rest, cut to pieces in his bed. All of them were scalped and otherwise horribly mangled. Then their huts were set on fire, and most of them burnt down. Then the troop, pleased with their own conduct and bravery, but enraged that any of the poor Indians had escaped the massacre, rode off, in small parties. . . . Those cruel men again assembled themselves, and, hearing that the remaining fourteen Indians were in the workhouse at Lancaster, they suddenly appeared in that town, on the 27th of December. Fifty of them, armed as before, dismounting, went directly to the workhouse, and by violence broke open the door, and entered with the utmost fury in their countenances. When the poor wretches saw they had no protection nigh, nor could possibly escape, and being without the least weapon for defense, they divided into their little families, the children clinging to the parents; they fell on their knees, protested their innocence, declared their love to the English, and that in their whole lives they had never done them injury; and in this posture they all received the hatchet. . . . Men, women, and little children were every one inhumanly murdered in cold blood. . . .

  The poor woman broke off, too moved to continue. After some minutes she asked, in a quavering voice, that Raphael join her in prayer—that they kneel together on the floor of his study, and beg God to forgive them their sins. The white race, she whispered, wades knee-deep in blood.

  Raphael took off his pince-nez, sighing, and laid them on his desk, but did not kneel. He did not move from his chair. He said, before Fredericka could repeat her request, Those Indians have been dead a long time.

  LOUIS’S WIFE GERMAINE, now a woman of thirty-four, with a plump, ruddy, pretty face and hair that frizzed in humid weather, read, in her stumbling way (for she had never entirely learned to read) newspapers and magazines that came into the house, usually by way of her father-in-law, who traveled about so restlessly; and she always read Harlan Bellefleur’s terse letters to Louis, for fear they might contain passages the children, or at any rate the fifteen-year-old Arlette, should not see. . . . For instance, in the Colorado Territory U.S. soldiers, led by Colonel J. M. Chivington, attacked a settlement of friendly Indians camped outside the walls of Fort Lyon, murdering six hundred of them in a day (most of them women and children), and mutilating and scalping them as well: some of the soldiers cut out the genitals of women and girls, and stretched them over their saddle bows, or wore them in their hats while riding in the ranks. . . .

  Think if Arlette should happen to read of such a thing! Germaine said to her husband. Her full, broad cheeks had turned beet-red; her mouth was a tiny damp hook of consternation. Why, that shouldn’t be talked about! That isn’t—that isn’t nice, she whispered.

  ONE FINE OCTOBER day a flotilla of steamboats and canalboats appeared from the west, to celebrate the opening of the Great Canal. The Great Canal was nearly four hundred miles long and had taken eight years to complete, and all along its banks, on this day, crowds of cheering spectators awaited, and cannons were fired, and firecrackers were set off. In the villages and towns church bells rang as if it were a crazed Sunday.

  The Chancellor Livingston, a steamboat, was the flagship of the squadron, and a fine trim ship it was—decked out in red, white, and blue streamers, and carrying the most fashionable of passengers. Another handsome ship was the Washington, carrying naval, military, and civil officers and their guests. There were, in addition, some twenty-nine sailing ships, schooners, barks, canalboats, and sailboats, each receiving cannon salutes from the forts they passed. A canalboat called the Young Lion of the West was bedecked with flags and banners, and carried on board, to the spectators’ delight, two eagles, four raccoons, a fawn, a fox, and two living wolves. The Seneca Chief, a barge drawn by four powerful white horses, bore two fawns, two live eagles, a single brown bear, a young moose, and two Senecan Indian youths in the costume of their dusky nation.

  ONCE UPON A time, the children were told, there was a family named Varrell.

  Where did they come from, so many of them?

  It was said they bred like rabbits, or aphids.

  They must have sprung out of the earth, or maybe crawled out of the Noir Swamp. The men were trappers, Indian traders, peddlers, farmers on small scrubby good-for-nothing soil. . . . No, they were really trash. White trash. They lived common-law back in the woods, and beat their wives and children. They were notorious drunkards and bullies and law-breakers. Horse theft, arson, tavern brawls, backwoods murders that went uninvestigated. (If the Varrells killed people like themselves, or killed one another, why would Chautauqua authorities intervene? Besides, it would be dangerous to intervene.)

  Even their moonshine, customers complained, was inferior. When it wasn’t outright poison.

  Involved in the lynching of the Indian boy were Reuben, Wallace, and Myron Varrell; their ages were forty-six, thirty-one, and twenty-two. And there were other Varrells in the Lake Noir settlement—by some estimates as many as twenty-five.

  Where did they come from, so many of them, in a generation or two? Men with hard flat faces, unkempt hair and beards, eyes the color of chill swamp mist . . . ? Their crimes were of two types: one committed surreptitiously, often by night; the other committed boldly, even self-righteously, in public, frequently with the help of others. Some of the Varrells had of course been killed in brawls, and many of them had been badly beaten (and even crippled: Louis Bellefleur had witnessed, from the street, the drunken melee that erupted at a wedding party in a Fort Hanna hotel that resulted in Henry Varrell’s broken spine—Henry being young Myron’s father); a number were imprisoned at Powhatassie; but most of the time they ran off unapprehended, and witnesses did not care to testify against them. A Varrell girl had married into the family of a Bushkill’s Ferry justice of the peace, and Wallace, even with his record of arrests (for fighting, arson, and petty theft) was a sheriff’s deputy. . . . Reuben, who dared to strike Louis’s horse, and who shouted
drunkenly for him to go on home, had worked on the Great Canal and was said to be half-crazy as a consequence of heatstroke suffered one sweltering August day. He and his common-law wife had been arrested, but never tried, for the malnutrition death of a ten-month-old baby. . . . So Reuben should have been in prison at the time of the lynching.

  But where did they come from, so many of them? Breeding like rabbits or aphids? It seems they sprang from a single woman, a lumber-camp follower who passed herself off shamelessly as a cook. She lived right in the bunkhouse with the men. Migrated from camp to camp, from Paie-des-Sables to Contracoeur to Mount Kittery to the great pine forest east of Mount Chattaroy, season after season, bringing with her two or three squaws, a few white women, and a moronic baby-faced girl, grossly fat, who sucked her thumb and whimpered much of the time, when she wasn’t eating or being employed by the men. Where, exactly, this string of diseased whores came from, whether the Varrell woman (who treated them sternly but not unkindly) had brought them to the mountains, to the lumber camps, or whether they had simply happened to meet there and to team up, for safety’s sake, no one knew. The youngest and most attractive squaw, blind drunk on corn whiskey, tried to stab the foreman of the Paie-des-Sables camp to death, and did a fairly good job of it before his friends pulled her off; but in general the Varrell woman kept her girls under control. She was a tall, soft-bodied, good-natured woman with an agreeably ugly face and a nose that looked as if it had been broken. Already in her early thirties her stout legs were riddled with varicose veins, but as a girl, it was said, she had been quite attractive . . . at least to men in this part of the world, who might go for months without seeing a woman. She was foul-mouthed, blunt, frank, funny, and never wept. And never regretted anything.