by Kyle Onstott
‘Whure at your masta? Whure Major Woodford?’ Hammond demanded.
‘He gone to church, Masta, suh. White folks all gone to meetin’,’ the slave replied. ‘I knows you though, suh. You that white gen’leman that come time back. I knows you. Come in, suh, if you please, suh.’ He threw open the front door.
‘I’ll wait here,’ said Hammond, sitting down on the edge of the gallery floor. ‘I reckon they not goin’ to be long, now, specially the weddin’——’
‘They all goin’ to Sterlin’ Plantation to eat dinner—all ’ceptin’ Masta Dick. He be comin’ home, suh, this afternoon, he goin’ to dip some niggers in the crick that ain’t babtize yet. He comin’,’ the yellow Negro said, dragging out a large chair from inside the house.
‘But the weddin’——’ Hammond urged.
‘Ain’t knowin’ nothin’ about that, Masta,’ the Negro kept his counsel. ‘Masta never said nothin’ ’bout that, suh.’
Had he mistaken the appointed date, Hammond wondered. He got up and sat in the chair for a short while, Meg continuing to sit on the floor, but later Hammond arose and paced the driveway impatiently, glancing toward the entrance at every tenth step. He was aware of Negro eyes on him from the quarters, but ignored them.
‘Kin I git you sompin’, sompin’ to eat, or sompin’, Masta, suh, whiles you waitin’?’ the house servant returned to ask.
Hammond wanted nothing except to be enlightened. ‘I’ll jes’ wait,’ he said.
‘How Masta Charles come on, suh? You’re the one, suh, he go away with, ain’t you, suh?’ the Negro asked.
‘He back, Charles back, weeks ago,’ the white man affirmed. ‘Ain’t he?’ he then asked as an afterthought.
‘Naw, suh, Masta, suh; naw, suh. Masta Charles ain’t never come back.’
So. That was the reason for the lack of preparation for the wedding! No money, no bride! What had become of Charles? What had happened to him? And to Jason? Charles had absconded with the Maxwell money, the Maxwell ring, and the Maxwell slave. He was not only a thief, but worse, a nigger-stealer. What a fool he had been to entrust Woodford’s son with so much money! In his anger he had resolved to order his horses, when a horseman came down the lane.
Woodford dismounted and threw his bridle to the same Negro boy who had taken Hammond’s team. Dressed all in black, he was a fine figure of a young man; save for the wild, ecstatic, irresponsible, drunken look in his faded blue eyes, he might have been handsome. But he was not drunk on alcohol. Hammond walked towards him.
‘You! You that Maxwell!’ Dick addressed Ham. ‘You the one that plight to marry my sister! Whut you do here? An’ I weren’t a preacher an’ you a crip, I’d gouge your eyes out, both en ’em. Whut you do at Crowfoot?’
‘Whut I do at Crowfoot?’ Hammond restrained himself. ‘I come to marry Miz Blanche, like I said. This the day she set.’
‘After you conjure her brother away with you? An’ never send no money like you was a-goin’? You think she marry no sich son-a-bitch like you?’
‘I sent that money. Sent it by that damn nigger-stealin’ brother of yourn!’ Hammond’s temper was rising.
‘Don’t cuss! Don’t cuss! I’m a preacher, you know. Don’t cuss,’ Dick retreated into his vocation.
‘Then, don’t cuss your own sel’,’ Hammond admonished. ‘Nigger tellin’ me Charles never come, never fetched Major Woodford that money?’
‘An’ you trust him with money? Trus’ Charlie?’ Dick was incredulous. ‘Cain’t trus’ that scoun’rel with four bits. I don’t credit you send him.’
‘Five or six weeks back, he bin gone. Took one of my niggers along, my papa’s, an’ twenty-five hunderd dollars, gold.’
‘Gold! A nigger!’ Dick sat down on the edge of the gallery and guffawed. ‘You cain’t trust Charlie with a nigger more than with a dollar. Charlie out an’ gone—maybe in the Texies by this time. Whurever Charlie be, the money sure spent an’ that nigger sure sol’.’
His laughter took the hysterical intensity from Dick’s eyes. It was contagious and Hammond laughed with his cousin, but with less hilarity. It was a costly joke.
‘But whut fer you take him along, first place?’ asked Dick, drying his eyes with his hand. ‘It whut you gits, enticin’ him along.’
‘Enticin’? Charles caught me up an’ say his papa given his leave; he swear it,’ and Hammond retold the story of his being overtaken and joined by young Woodford.
‘An’ you believe him? Better turn it inside out, an’ take it the other way, Charlie never say true in his life.’
‘At Falconhurst, he right good, right trusty.’
‘Gittin’ ready fer devilment. But I believes you. Reckon you say true. ’Bout you an’ Blanche, got to wait till Papa come.’ Dick rose to his feet. ‘Got to eat. Dinner ready. Likely ain’t much an’ folks away. But come along.’
Meg was sent to the kitchen for his meal.
‘Right likely little buck you got,’ Dick commented upon the obediently retreating child. ‘Breed him?’
‘Him an’ his twin, jest alike.’
‘Papa don’ have no luck breedin’, seems like wenches slips ’em or they dies or sumpin’. Ain’ more than about a dozen young around.’
‘My papa don’t have no trouble that a-way.’ Hammond took no credit for himself. ‘Coursen, we mostly buys, when we kin find ’em.’
As the two went through the sitting-room and into the dining-room, Dick clapped his guest on the shoulder. ‘You all right an’ right hones’, seem like. Don’t care an’ you are cripped. You got money an’ all them niggers. I goin’ to like you, don’t make no matter whut folks a-sayin’.’
‘My mamma was a Hammond,’ Ham explained proudly.
‘So also is Charlie’s mamma—and mine,’ Dick countered.
After dinner, Dick excused himself. ‘Papa havin’ me practise preachin’ on the people,’ he explained. ‘Ain’t never babtized heretofore, but got to today—two or three wenches an’ a buck ain’t been saved. Papa puttin’ it off. Don’t crave wettin’ his britches. Reckon you’d rather snooze or somethin’. I’ll hurry. Won’t be long.’ The fanatic gleam, trade-mark of his evangelism, reappeared in Dick’s eyes as he stalked away.
To snooze was the last thing Hammond wanted to do. He paced the floor of the house, paced the gallery, paced the driveway. He wished that he had gone with Dick to the religious meeting for the Negroes and was moved to follow him, but thought better of the project. He had better wait. To be refused his bride he could endure, but he wanted to have the matter settled.
He thought of how much Blanche had cost him, twenty-five hundred dollars plus the ring and two journeys to Crowfoot, though of course the first trip had included his visit to The Coign and his purchases of Mede and Ellen, for neither of which he had any regrets. If only he had gone there first, before he had come to Crowfoot! But dear as Ellen was to him, she wasn’t his wife. That was unthinkable. After all, he needed a wife to give him an heir.
At length Dick returned from his baptizing. ‘I ducked ’em, ducked ’em good,’ he called in triumph. ‘It was easy. I kin do it. On’y that lean wench slip away from me an’ like to a-drowned, on’y she never.’
‘You all soaked. Look at your britches. Better put on dry,’ suggested Hammond.
‘I took ’em off an’ wrang ’em out,’ said Dick. ‘They goin’ to dry. Whut I needs is a drink of corn. Medicine! I temp’ance of course. But carryin’ things too fur to not use it fer medicine—keep from ketchin’ somethin’. You not temp’ance, I reckon? Wantin’ a drink?’ He led the way to the spring-house where the Major kept his whisky.
Hammond was indeed wanting a drink and followed his host with a feeling that approached gratitude. One drink begot thirst for another, and the second for the third. The afternoon was growing late when the sound of horses’ heels in the driveway broke the spell of their session. Hammond heard the orotund voice of the Major demanding, ‘Whose boy are you?’ and heard Meg answer politely, ‘I’s Masta H
am Maxwell’s nigger, Masta, please, suh.’
‘You git out an’ go up to your room, an’ don’ come down until I says,’ Ham heard the Major subdue his voice, which was still loud enough, and heard him boom a whisper into his wife’s ear-trumpet, ‘Hammond Maxwell.’ When Beatrix failed to understand him, he repeated twice, slowly and syllabically as if to enable her to read his lips, ‘Ham-mond! Hammond Max-well!’
The woman replied with a startled intake of breath, ‘Oh!’
Dick and Hammond emerged from the spring-house in time to see Beatrix, all in brown, sedately, without a glance to right or left, enter the front door of the house. Blanche, in the self-same challis dress in which Hammond had first seen her, followed her mother, but with a high-headed assumption of dignity and a tragic tread.
The Major maintained his ground in the driveway and waited for the young man to approach. The carriage drove away towards the stables.
‘Papa, this Mista Maxwell,’ Dick presented the guest as if he were unknown to his father.
‘Reckon I don’ know the skunk?’ the Major demanded, drawing himself to his utmost height. ‘Had ought ter. Throwin’ my poor girl into a decline! Whut he wantin’ here now?’
‘He sent it! He sent the money!’ Dick hastened to appease his father.
‘Then whyn’t it come?’ The Major did not credit his son’s assurance.
‘Sent it by Charlie! Sent it by Charlie!’ Dick’s feet stamped in rhythm with his laughter at the inconceivable stupidity of entrusting anything to his brother.
‘That why he spirit Charles away, I reckon—so he kin tell he sent the money an’ it didn’t come. Right clever sharper. Ain’t got the money an’ never had it. Never meant to send.’
Hammond had not spoken. Now he said simply and without show of rancour, ‘An’ you doesn’t believe me, doesn’t believe I sent the money, doesn’t believe I sent Miz Blanche no ring, doesn’t believe your Charles stole no buck when he left, doesn’t take my word as a gen’leman,’ all I kin do now is to ast you kindly, suh, fer my hosses. I come to wed Miz Blanche, like she say; this the eighth of May. You could save me the journey—the least you could do, suh, seem like. Will you be so good, suh, as to order my hosses?’ He was proud of himself for the speech he had made.
‘I never said it; never said I didn’t believe your word. Wait a minute.’ The Major sheathed his horns. ‘Maybe we goin’ to un’erstan’ one another. Maybe we goin’ to fix things up. I tells you: an’ you sends that money, that is an’ you promise to again, maybe you kin wed my daughter. Maybe you did send; I ain’t sayin’ you never. But you got to show faith, an’ sen’ agin.’
‘I craves my hosses, suh, if you please, suh. I ain’t a-purchasin’ your daughter—the second time. Ifn your son stolen your money an’ my nigger, we pockets our losin’s; but not another dollar does I beg from my papa fer you, not another two bits. Miz Blanche, she ain’t to blame, an’ I ain’t to blame. I’ll marry her, but I ain’t a-goin’ to buy her.’
Major Woodford hesitated. Suitors for his daughter’s hand were rare enough, and no other was affluent. This man in his family should stiffen his credit and later could hardly fail to help him out of his financial jam. Could he afford to wreck Blanche’s prospects and possibly his own on the rock of pride? He decided that he could not. Moreover, he thought of Charles. Maxwell could not be expected to prosecute his brother-in-law for the theft of a Negro—the most heinous of crimes. If Charles should be caught, the theft would be ignored or passed off as a mere mistake. The Major would not desert his son.
All these things ran quickly through his mind.
‘I willin’ to make the sacrifice an’ if Blanche’s mamma is. She a Hammond, you know. She proud. But, other hand, I don’t crave no case of green sickness, that it look like my daughter a-comin’ to.’
‘Come in, come in,’ urged Dick. ‘It all right. Don’t fret. Mamma do like Papa say. Always does.’ He ushered Hammond into the Empire drawing-room. Holding the door, he asked, ‘Wants I should turn your nigger inside or sen’ him to quarters?’
‘He house tamed,’ answered Hammond, sitting gingerly upon the damask divan.
Meg came in and at his master’s behest sat on the floor at Ham’s feet.
The suitor heard the girl’s father discussing the marriage with her deaf mother in the adjoining sitting-room. Dick was with them but had little to say. The Major sought to subdue his voice, but whispers loud enough to penetrate Beatrix’s ear-trumpet were audible to Hammond in the drawing-room. Hammond made an effort not to hear, but if he failed to catch a sentence the first time it was spoken, he was unable to avoid it when it was repeated, as most speeches had to be. The Major’s mind was made up, and his consultation with his wife a mere formula to enable him to excuse himself for his failure to impose, and to extract, harder terms, an effort in his capitulation to save honour.
He assured Beatrix that Hammond had denied abducting Charles, that Charles had claimed parental leave to go with him. He told of Charles’ departure from Falconhurst with the Maxwell money and the ring for Blanche.
‘That a fib,’ said Beatrix with indignation. ‘He ain’t tellin’ true. Charles would a brung it. My boy would a brung it right straight. He never sent it. I never raised Charles to be no thief.’
‘But he is one,’ countered the Major, ‘a nigger thief. He took away one of Warren’s bucks.’ He had to repeat the statement three times before he could make the woman hear it; her difficulty was more a reluctance to credit the story than an inability to understand the words.
When the accusation penetrated to her consciousness, Beatrix gasped. Then she shrieked, after which she lay back in her chair. ‘He dead! Charles is dead,’ she uttered in her empty voice. ‘That’s it. That nigger killed him an’ stole that money. My boy! My pore boy! He’s dead!’
‘He ain’t dead! You knows he ain’t dead!’ the Major laid his hands on his wife’s arm for emphasis and consolation. ‘No sich thing. Charles is off, a-spendin’ that money of mine. You’ll see when he come ridin’ up one of these days.’ He assumed as cheerful a tone as he was able and reinforced it with a grimace resembling a smile, although his assurance lacked confidence. He was, in fact, indifferent to the fate of his son, though not to the fate of the twenty-five hundred dollars.
‘He dead. I say he dead. I knows it; I feels it,’ protested Beatrix, rolling her head back and forth on the back of her chair. ‘My boy dead.’ She broke into weeping.
Dick brushed his father aside to reach the trumpet. ‘An’ he wasn’t saved!’ he screamed into her ear. ‘Charles never got right with Jesus! I knew it would happen. An’ he dead, he burnin’ in hell fire right now, burnin’!’
Major Woodford struggled with his son to pull him out of the range of the woman’s ear-piece. ‘Don’t tell her that,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t make her no worse.’
‘It so, an’ you know it so,’ shouted the preacher. ‘Charlie wasn’t saved, an’ he a-burnin’. Mamma know he a-burnin’.’ Dick seemed to gloat over his contemplation.
‘No! No! No!’ cried his mother. ‘I pray for him; I been a-prayin’ ever’ day an’ ever’ night. Mayhap he saved. Mayhap, jest as that nigger come down on his head, he seen Jesus an’ embraced Him.’ She toppled forward upon her knees and bowed her head in silent prayer.
The Major picked up her trumpet which had fallen to the floor and held it to Beatrix’s ear. ‘Whut about that weddin’? Whut you craves to do about that?’ he vociferated.
‘Do whut you wants! Do whut you goin’ to do anyways!’ the bereft mother looked up in irritation at the interruption of her prayer. ‘You drive away Charles; now you a-drivin’ Blanche. Sellin’ her jest like she was a nigger. Go on an’ sell her, an’ that whut you bent on.’
‘I ain’t neither a-sellin’ her. He done send the money an’ Charlie stolen it. He won’t sen’ no more.’ Woodford held the horn to his wife’s ear and spoke loudly but not directly into the horn. He did not know and cared little whether Beatrix heard
him.
She refused to be diverted from her efforts to rescue her murdered son from the fires of hell and shifted the responsibility to the father for the disposal of her daughter. He laid the horn upon the chair and looked at Dick.
Dick nodded. ‘Go ahead,’ he said in a voice low enough not to interrupt the prayer further. ‘Might as well. He rich. An’ besides, there ain’t nobody else ’at a-wantin’ her. First thing, she goin’ be an’ ol’ maid, an’ then whut?’
Major Woodford pulled himself together, hitched his neck, adjusted his coat, and assumed his most pompous mien. He strode into the adjoining room where Hammond waited.
‘Blanche’s mamma an’ me, we talked it over,’ he announced. ‘We talked it all over an’ we decided. We decided on lettin’ love have its way. We cain’t stan’ up agin it. An’ you wants my daughter an’ Blanche a-wantin’ you, that the way it goin’ to be.’
Hammond got to his feet. He had heard every word of the conversation. ‘I knowed you an’ Cousin Beatrix weren’t a-goin’ to let me come all this way fer nothin’,’ he said, grasping the Major’s extended hand.
‘Better ride fer the preacher,’ the Major turned to Dick. ‘Ride fer Jones, an’ bring him along quick as you kin.’
‘Afore supper?’ Dick objected.
‘Hell with supper. We got to git a preacher an’ they goin’ to sleep tonight. Tell Auntie Celia to keep somethin’ hot, time you git back. But ride fer Jones. Whut’s a-henderin’ you?’
‘Ain’t no press,’ Ham suggested. ‘We kin wait fer mornin’.’
‘Put off a weddin’ after it set?’ The Major was horrified. ‘Bad luck; wouldn’t have no case in it. Got to be today or not never. Set down awhile an’ hold your peace, an’ let me go up an’ fetch her down.’
The Major went upstairs and Dick disappeared by way of the sitting-room and kitchen. Later, Dick’s horse passed the window at a trot, but its hoofbeats turned into the rhythm of a gallop before he had reached the road. Hammond waited. He grew ill at ease as the time elapsed and he speculated whether the girl had grown recalcitrant. The hauteur with which she had left the carriage and walked into the house might have been real.