Part IV
En Ville
YOUR UNCLE IS persuaded that we should engage Mr. Leggett,” my aunt said. We were seated in the parlor of my cottage. It had taken me barely three weeks to be resettled in this agreeable domicile. My aunt was eager to return to town, and, as I couldn’t be expected to spend a night alone in my husband’s house, I had come down with her, leaving Rose and Delphine to pack my clothes and follow. I was propped up on pillows on the settee, and my aunt had turned the chair of Mother’s desk to face me. It was chilly outside, but we had a fire in the grate, the curtains drawn, the lamps lit.
“How could she have disappeared so completely?” I said.
“Your uncle believes she is no longer in town. His inquiries usually result in some leads, but in this case he has come up with nothing.”
“I assume Mr. Roget has been interviewed.”
“Repeatedly, though not by your uncle. They are not on speaking terms.”
“Is Mr. Leggett a trustworthy person?”
My aunt sent a dismissive puff of air through her nostrils. “None of them are trustworthy,” she said. “They are the worst sort of men. They inflate their expenses past all reason and there’s nothing to be done about it. But your uncle has employed Mr. Leggett in the past with some success. He will want twenty-five dollars in advance, against the reward.”
“And if he fails to bring her back?”
“The money is forfeit,” she explained. “There is no guarantee that he will find her. He is complaining that we have allowed too much time to pass. If she is, as your uncle suspects, making her way north, she may have gotten quite far by now. Mr. Leggett has retrieved runaways from as far away as Boston, but it takes time. Once she is in a free state, he can’t rely on cooperation from the authorities, though there are always those who will assist in a capture for a price.”
“Boston!” I said.
“It does seem unlikely,” my aunt agreed. “Mr. Leggett wants to know if she has any relatives in the North who might assist her.”
“Not that I know of,” I said. “She never spoke of anyone. Do you know where she was born?”
“Mississippi, I believe. She was from a plantation near Natchez. I assume that’s where she was born.”
“Perhaps she has gone there.”
“I think not,” my aunt said. “She was sold as part of a bankruptcy settlement.”
“Is that where Uncle Emile bought her?”
“No. He bought her from a sugar planter in St. John Parish. Actually, he took her in payment of a debt. He knew I was in need of a housekeeper. She was just fifteen or sixteen, very bright and willing, though she had a stubborn streak even then.”
“She is stubborn,” I mused.
“I still believe Mr. Roget knows where she is.”
I recalled my one sighting of Mr. Roget as he turned from Sarah, lifting his hat to me and walking away. “She told me she had a brother,” I said. “I didn’t believe it at the time, but perhaps it is true. She said Mr. Roget came here to give her the message that her brother had been leased to work on the docks.”
“Did she say the brother’s name?”
“Clarence,” I said. “But why would she tell me if she planned to escape with his help?”
“Perhaps she had not yet formulated the plan.”
“Could she have boarded an ocean vessel?”
“If she were in disguise, if she had money and passed as a free negro? I think it entirely possible.”
“But she speaks so poorly. Surely someone would notice.”
“Sometimes the dullest negro is discovered to have a perfectly good wit when it serves his purpose. And she might not be called upon to speak very much.”
I imagined Sarah, dressed in some borrowed finery, her hair pulled up in a good bonnet, her elbows propped on the rail of a ship, while the water churned below her and the miles between her and the world she knew slipped away.
“You are right,” I told my aunt. “We must tell Mr. Leggett about this brother and bid him make inquiries on the docks.”
JOEL BORDEN SENT flowers on the day I arrived, and again a week later, this time with a note asking if he might visit me. I examined my face in the mirror. The swelling and redness were largely gone, and a normal color had returned to my complexion. My shoulder ached, especially as the weather turned cooler, but the wound was closed over. I kept only a thin bandage on it to keep the cloth of my dress from rubbing against it. Yes, I decided, I would see him. I sent Rose with an answer, suggesting four the following afternoon as the hour for our tête-à-tête.
As that hour approached, I was giddy with excitement, a condition completely inappropriate for one so recently widowed. I had Rose take Walter out to the levee with strict orders to stay away from the house for several hours. Rose liked nothing better than strolling about the town with the poor idiot on a halter and leash that Delphine had fashioned for him. I had Delphine move an armchair close to the settee and put the coffee urn on a table in reach of my good arm. Then I waited for the bell, which sounded promptly at four. Delphine passed through the room to admit Joel, then scurried back to the kitchen while he stood in the parlor doorway smiling down at me. “At last,” he said. “I have tried to be patient until you were well enough to receive visitors, but I have not had an easy moment until this one.”
“I fear you will find me sadly changed,” I said.
He came in and took the chair near me, leaning forward to look into my face. “After what you have been through,” he said, “how could you not be changed?” There was no trace of revulsion in his scrutiny, only a fascinated admiration, such as I had seen in my uncle’s eyes when he visited. I had survived that which we all in some degree feared. “Your aunt told me that you spent the entire night hiding in the forest, wounded by a gunshot.”
I lifted my useless arm by the wrist and let it fall back into my lap. “This is the result,” I said.
“My dear,” he said.
“I try not to think about any of it.”
He sat back in his chair. “You are right. You must go on with your life.” He looked around the room at the fire, the paintings, the vase of flowers on the side table. “What a comfort it must be to you to be back in this house.”
“It is,” I said. “It makes me think of happier times.” I turned to the coffee urn. “Will you have coffee? Or would you prefer a glass of sherry?”
“Let me serve you,” he said, getting up. He busied himself with the cups and saucers, pouring the coffee and milk together expertly and talking all the while. “I have visited your aunt regularly to keep up with your progress. She tells me your brother-in-law is handling the sale of your plantation and that an American has offered to buy it outright with everything in it.”
“Mr. Kenilworth,” I said. “He has come out of the North like a god, possessed of more money than sense and a fantasy about being a planter that I’ve no doubt will rob him of both.”
“Poor Mr. Kenilworth.” Joel chuckled, handing me my cup. “You know, I’m never certain if it is your wit or your beauty that pleases me most.”
“You are easily pleased,” I said. “Perhaps as easily as Mr. Kenilworth.”
“I care nothing for him,” Joel said, “but that he serve the purpose of making you rich.”
“Alas, I fear that’s something even Mr. Kenilworth cannot do.”
Joel resumed his seat, and stirred his coffee, looking puzzled.
“My husband was heavily in debt,” I explained. “Mr. Kenilworth’s offer will barely cancel it.”
“I didn’t know,” Joel said somberly, as if he’d just heard of the death of a favorite dog. He looked up, then back down. For the first time in my memory, he was at a loss for words. All this time he has been thinking I would be rich, I thought. For a moment we sat silently, staring into the reality of his requirements and my resources.
“Fortunately,” I said, “Mother’s estate is adequate. I’m not rich, but I am independent.”
&nb
sp; “And well out of sugar,” Joel responded, rousing himself. “I’m sorry to hear that your husband was unsuccessful, but he was certainly not alone in that.”
“Do you never think of quitting it yourself?”
“I should,” he said. “I hate it. I never go to Rivière. But I’m continually advised to wait, as the economic tide will turn, or the weather change, or the negroes all get well by some miracle and start doing a decent day’s work. What else can I do? I’m not fit for business. Half the time I live on credit from my factor.” He sipped his coffee, resting his eyes on the portrait of my father, whom he never met. “It seems the happiest years are behind us,” he said.
I set my cup on the side table and leaned back into the cushions, seeking to ease the pain in my shoulder. “I’ve never known you to be melancholy,” I said. “I was counting on you to cheer me up.”
Joel opened his eyes wide, as if he’d just glanced at his reflection and seen someone he didn’t recognize. “As you have every right to expect,” he said. “You must forgive me.”
“I do,” I said. And I did, but the effort fatigued me. It seemed that happiness must always be just beyond me and I should always stand gazing in at it as through a shopwindow where everything glittered and appealed to me, but I had not enough money to enter. It was money, only money, that would keep Joel from ever being more than my friendly admirer.
Joel struggled to rise above the somber mood that had fallen upon us. “I have some excellent gossip for you,” he said. “Pierre Legrand has finally gotten his comeuppance.” He launched into an amusing story about a man we both despised whose wife had discovered his craven efforts to seduce her niece. After that he went on to another hilarious account of a distinguished lady who had proved a poor loser at bezique. “You are a tonic,” I said, when I had paused from laughing. “And I must pay for my medicine. May I offer you some champagne?”
“It is what the doctor recommends,” he exclaimed.
“Ring for Delphine,” I said, and he rose to pull the cord. She came in, wiping her hands on her apron, her chin tucked nearly into her breastbone. I gave her my instructions— there were oysters as well; I’d had Rose buy them in the morning—and she went out hurriedly. “She’s not accustomed to serving,” I said. “She is mortified to leave the kitchen.”
“What’s become of Peek?” he inquired.
“I had to give her away. She was getting on and her cooking really is abominable. Delphine is an accomplished cook. In a few weeks I will give a small dinner party and you may sample her daube.”
“Gladly,” he agreed. Delphine came in, desperately clutching a tray, in terror that the glasses must tumble over. Joel directed her to the desk, clearing away the few papers scattered over it. “Well done,” he said, as she backed away. “No need to stay. I’ll serve your mistress with pleasure.” She hurried out, casting me a cautious look, but I waved her away. Joel struggled with the cork, then there was the sharp pop that is the signifier of gaiety. He turned to me, holding the bottle close over a crystal flute as the golden liquid frothed inside. His eyes were bright, his smile infectious. He was turning his own pleasure over in his mind. My mother had offered maternal kindness, boundless admiration, and the occasional dinner. My tenure would be more enticing. He handed me a glass, filled one for himself, and proposed a toast. “To this house,” he said, “which is for me the sweetest refuge in the civilized world.”
It wasn’t long before the bottle was empty and the refuge, at least for one evening, no longer requisite. There was a dinner engagement and after that gambling or dancing; a city full of amusements to tempt my guest from my cozy parlor. At the door Joel took my hands and gave me a brotherly kiss on each cheek. “I am dining at your aunt’s on Saturday,” he said. “Will you be there?”
“I will make a point of it,” I said. Then he went out into the street.
I bolted the door and leaned against the wall, light-headed but not lighthearted; in fact a considerable darkness descended upon me. I went back to the settee and sat gazing into the fire.
Standing in the doorway, bidding Joel good-night, had made me think of my husband, of his visits in this house so long ago, when I was too naïve to understand the nature of the bargain I was making. I was young, I was pretty, and I had no money. My husband was of a good family, had expectations and a large house. I didn’t find him particularly attractive, but I felt no positive revulsion, and I enjoyed how strongly he seemed to be attracted to me. His eyes were always moving over me. If I let him touch my hand or my waist, I could feel his struggle to refrain from pulling me to him. Mother observed this and, as it didn’t disturb her, I took it to be in the proper order of things. “Mr. Gaudet is taken with you,” she said. “I think we needn’t worry too much about the dowry.” I had in myself, I concluded, some value, something more desirable to my husband than money. At the time, this struck me as unusual.
My invincible stupidity was revealed to me on my wedding night. My mother’s house having been reckoned too small, when the wedding celebrations were over I was arranged upon the bed in a room at my aunt’s house. The servant was sent away; my husband came in unfastening his cuffs. He pushed the door closed with his boot. Mother’s entire advice had been the word “submit,” but I had no more idea of what I would be submitting to than I had of the workings of a steam engine. A likely metaphor! My husband roared over me like a locomotive. There were moments when it seemed to me his object was to pull my limbs from their joints. I glanced over his shoulder at the mantel clock, anxious to know how long the operation might take. My breasts, which had never been touched by another, save a servant with a sponge, were so kneaded and sucked upon I feared they would be blackened by bruises. I wanted to shout to my mother, “Why did you not warn me?” but then it occurred to me that Father would never have subjected another creature to such an assualt. I looked into my husband’s reddened face, at his eyes, which seemed to start from their sockets, at his lips swollen by his passion. Was there to be no trace of feeling for my helplessness, no tenderness in my marital bed? The answer to both these questions was no, none. Afterward he was silent, not critical, there were no harsh words. He did not appear to be displeased. He had exhausted himself and within a few minutes was sound asleep. I touched the damp sheet beneath my hips and found my fingertips reddened with blood. I am married, I thought, looking at his sleeping face. His mouth was open, his breathing as easy and peaceful as a child’s. This is my husband, I thought.
We stayed in town for two weeks. I was given to understand by my aunt and my mother that these would be the happiest days of my marriage. That turned out to be true. I was not unhappy. There was the novelty of being greeted by friends who clearly thought I’d done well for myself. My husband had not yet begun his long descent into bankruptcy, so there was money to spend. We gave a dinner at the hotel which was heralded in the journals as one of the most delightful of the season.
The fury of my husband’s nightly assaults did not abate, but they interested me, and I soon discovered I was strong enough to withstand him. I persisted in the delusion that the intensity of his abandonment was the direct result of some power I had over him, which must somehow accrue to my benefit. I went so far as to anticipate his pleasure, I encouraged him, and found some pleasure in it. I entered the fray. Later, when I understood that my sense of having some particular value to him was a delusion, this willingness on my part became a source of deep humiliation.
I found our conversations more trying than those hours we spent in what passed for conjugal embracing. My husband could talk about sugar, he was knowledgeable about wine and spirits, he liked to shoot animals; this was the range of his interests. Art and music meant nothing to him; he could not concentrate on a picture long enough to see it. Five minutes of my performance upon a piano put him into a deep sleep. Whenever he spoke in company, I noticed the other young men politely waiting for him to finish so that the subject could be changed. When their repartee became sprightly, he looked from one
to the other with a dumbfounded expression. He rarely laughed.
That he was dull, that he was without tenderness: was this reason enough to hate him? Surely not, but by the time we left the city, I had come to dread the feelings that must arise in my own breast when I was dependent on my husband alone for whatever joy life might have left to offer me. And I was right to be afraid. In town he was unsure of himself, but in his own home he was a tyrant. He drained the color from every scene, the flavor from every bit of food, the warmth from every exchange of sentiment. He had not so much destroyed my life as emptied it, and now that he was gone, I had to pretend there was something alive in me. Joel had sensed this. My laughter was too ready, and it was hollow. When he looked into my eyes, it must have been like staring through the windows of a burnt-out house. Doubtless, he attributed this to the ordeal of the insurrection, and it didn’t occur to him that what had left me with ashes for a heart was not murderous negroes, but my marriage.
The coals had crumbled in the grate and a chill rose up from beneath my feet. Images from the night I wanted to forget flickered across my mind: the horse champing the grass, the sharp blow to my jaw, the flare of the torch, Sarah pausing to point into the darkness, my husband’s startled face as his murderer pulled him up by his hair. I examined his expression as if I were looking at a painting, and I discovered a detail I hadn’t noticed before. The moment before the fatal blow was struck, my husband called Sarah’s name.
I heard the gate open, the sound of footsteps in the alley: Rose and Walter returning from their excursion. There was the repeated slapping of a hand against the side of the house, all the way to the back. Walter, I thought. My husband’s curse, as impossible to accustom myself to or rid myself of as my own crippled right arm.
“HOW CAN A light woman and a dark child disappear without a trace?” I complained to my aunt. We were seated in her drawing room. On the table between us lay a much-crumpled, atrociously written letter, the report of Mr. Leggett on his efforts to secure the runaway Sarah.
Property (Vintage Contemporaries) Page 13