Deep Summer

by Gwen Bristow

  “Why, I’m sorry, Miss Judith. I must have gone to sleep.”

  “But why are you lying down? Don’t you feel well?”

  “I’m all right.” She got up. “I’ll get my clothes on and dress you before Mr. Philip comes in.”

  Judith sat down on the cot. “I think you need a tonic. If you’ve got spring fever maybe you oughtn’t to work for a day or two. Christine can dress me.”

  Angelique poured some water into her basin and began to wash her face. “I’m really all right, Miss Judith. I had to go out to the kitchen to iron that dress you wanted, and I got all hot and tired by the fire.”

  Judith rested her elbows on her knees and watched her. If Angelique was sick there was no reason why she shouldn’t say so; she was usually well, but Judith had nursed her through one or two minor indispositions before this. Probably, she reflected ruefully, the fact that her own legs had been aching all day made her doubt that anybody could feel quite well. Suddenly she sat up and stared. Angelique had taken out a fresh petticoat and was about to pull it on over her head, standing in her chemise with her arms up.

  “Angelique, are you with child?” Judith exclaimed in amazement. “Why on earth didn’t you tell me?”

  Angelique pulled down the petticoat and began tying the drawstring around her waist. She was looking down. “Well—I thought you might be annoyed with me. I wasn’t going to tell you till I had to.”

  Judith put her chin on her hand and thought a moment. All servants palavered; there wasn’t any sense in being shocked.

  “I’m not angry, honey,” she said. “I own I’m astonished, after your being such a rock of chastity all these years. Who is he?”

  “It really doesn’t matter,” said Angelique, putting on her dress.

  “Don’t stand up there with that blank look and tell me you don’t know!”

  “I didn’t say that,” Angelique returned evenly. “I said I’d rather not tell.”

  “All right. You don’t have to.” Judith wondered if Angelique with her golden skin and satiny hair had let herself be seduced by a black boy and was about to bear a dark child she dreaded and was ashamed of. Angelique tied her tignon into a bow over her forehead.

  “I’m ready to dress you, Miss Judith.”

  “Very well. Come into my room.”

  While she was having her hair combed Judith suggested,

  “Angelique, would you like to get married?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “But you can, you know, if you’re fond of him. I’ll give you a wedding in the parlor, and a supper afterward for all the house-folk.”

  “It’s very nice of you, Miss Judith, but you needn’t bother. Shall I use that bergamot pomade?”

  “Yes. But if you change your mind let me know, and I’ll give you the wedding.” As Angelique put the last pins into her hair Judith turned around. “I’m really glad you’re having a baby, Angelique, because I think I’m with child again and you can be my baby’s nurse.”

  “Very well, Miss Judith.”

  “Don’t sound as if it were such a calamity, honey!” Judith patted her hand. “You’ll love your baby after it’s born. I always think I don’t want mine and then the minute I see them it’s like looking into heaven. Didn’t you tell me you had one that died?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “This one will make up for that. And if our children are the same sex I’ll give yours to mine as personal servant, and it can grow up in the house. And by the way. Don’t tell Mr. Philip I’m with child—I don’t want him to know until he’s done with the worry of getting a crop into that new piece of ground.”

  “All right, Miss Judith.”

  “Bring me a candle,” said Judith, “and go to bed. You don’t look well at all.”

  After Angelique had left her Judith stood playing with the combs and jars on the bureau. She wished she had known this before. Angelique had been overworked. And she was behaving queerly. Maybe she ought to be relieved of work altogether until after her delivery. When Philip was ready for supper she detained him in their room to ask what he thought.

  “I’m worried about Angelique,” she said to him.

  Philip pulled down the ruffle at his wrist. “Tell the girls not to use so much starch in my linens, will you? What did you say?”

  “I said I’m worried about Angelique.”

  Philip turned around. “Angelique? Why?”

  “Well, after all these years she’s got herself with child. She didn’t say a word until I noticed it this afternoon and asked her. She looks perfectly awful and she won’t tell me anything about it—she’s behaving so curiously—”

  “Angelique is with child? Are you sure?” Philip took a step forward, into the candlelight; the scar was like a white slash across his face and his eyes reflected the candle-flame in two points as he stared at her.

  “Why yes. But what are you—”

  He had turned on his heel and was gone out of the room, shutting the door so hard that the latch failed to catch and rattled noisily behind him. Judith got up slowly, catching the post of the bed, and for an instant it was as if the flame swelled until all she could see was the light and the halo around it and Philip’s face with the scar, which had never seemed repulsive before. But he was not there; she could hear his footsteps in the hall, then they were gone too, and she put her fists to her temples and pressed as though by doing so she could stop the hammers beating on her head as she cried out:

  “Oh Philip! Philip!”

  She sat down slowly on the edge of the bed and her hands dropped into her lap. For a moment she stayed like that, watching the wavy shadows of the candlelight, and then even the strength to sit up went out of her and she found herself face down, quivering under waves and waves of pain. It brought an anguish that she could not surmount or even fight, the consciousness that what she had just found out was not something that had happened today but months ago, and now she too was with child by Philip because she had believed in him.

  She wondered how long it had been going on. For months, certainly, maybe years, and her trust in them both had hidden it from her. Angelique dressed her twice a day and undressed her at night, and Philip would sit and watch while they all three chattered about the house and crops and children, and while she smiled at herself in the mirror their eyes would meet secretly over her head. She could see and feel and hear everything at once; Angelique combing curls on her neck—“Mr. Philip always likes you with roses in your hair, Miss Judith”—Philip’s kisses on her shoulders and his arms around her in the dark.

  Her forehead rested on the bend of her elbow. She moved her hand down and wrenched off the topaz necklace, breaking the chain, and threw it to the other side of the room. It fell on the floor with a little soft rattle. The flatboat and the dip of the poles in the river, and the sun flaming on the orange trees and she who had never owned a jewel in her life asking him, “Philip, did you come by this honestly?” He had not; nothing he had given her had been come by honestly; he had founded Ardeith Plantation with pirate loot, and now he had cheated her even of his love. He had left her this unborn child of his as permanent evidence that she had believed his lies, and the knowledge that it was alive within her brought a rush of nausea that left her limp and cold.

  There was a knock on the door. She jerked up. The knock was repeated and she heard Christine’s voice calling:

  “Miss Judith! Supper’s on table.”

  “I’m not coming to supper,” said Judith. “Go away.”

  How strange her voice sounded. Clinky, like the sound of a key striking a brass candlestick. She wondered if Christine knew about this. Perhaps Angelique was not the only one. Angelique was the most attractive of them, but she was not the only pretty quadroon in the house. Oh yes, probably they all knew about it and had laughed at her innocence or had been sorry for her. They had talked of it in t
he kitchen and in the quarters, furtively. “Po’ Miss Judith. Wonder if she’ll ever find out how Mr. Philip’s carryin’ on.”

  “Shut yo’ crazy black mouf. You know what you’ll get for talkin’ too big.”

  They wouldn’t tell her. They were Philip’s slaves and they knew too well what punishments there were for slaves who displeased their master. He could do this to her because the very sheltering he had given her made her helpless; she did not own a farthing nor a slave nor a pound of indigo. She bit the flesh of her arm to keep from screaming.

  She had not bolted the door. The latch was lifted from outside and Philip came in. Judith raised up again, her hands on each side supporting her as she looked at him. Philip stood there a moment, then he came to the bed and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Judith,” he said, “I’m so horribly ashamed and sorry.”

  She did not reply. She sat there looking at his handsome face with the laughter-crinkles about the eyes and the scar across his cheek, the white linen stock about his throat, the ruffles that went down into his yellow satin waistcoat, his long blue coat, the dark breeches buckled about his well-turned legs, and wondered that she had never known it was possible to hate any human being as much as she hated him. She hated his virile beauty and the strength in the hand that held her shoulder, the fine chiseling of his features, all the details she had loved so much and that made him as irresistible to other women as he had been to her.

  “What do you want me to do, Judith?” he asked at length.

  “I want you to take your hand off me,” said Judith, “and let me alone.”

  He released her. Judith got up and walked to the bureau at the other side of the room. The candle had melted down to a shapeless mass. She pinched a drip of tallow as she asked him:

  “Do you know what you’ve done to me, Philip?”

  He said, “Yes.”

  “No you don’t,” she returned in a low voice, still watching the guttering candle. “You don’t understand. You never will. It isn’t in you.”

  She was surprised to hear herself speaking so evenly. Temper storms came readily to her when there was nothing of importance to be angry about. She went to the door and put her hand on the latch.

  He came after her and took her by the shoulders with both hands, turning her around to face him. “You aren’t going yet.”

  “Yes I am. I’m not going to stay and talk to you.”

  “But you are,” said Philip.

  She tried to free herself, but he held her where she was. “Very well,” she said wearily. “You’re stronger than I am. What is it?”

  For a moment he did not answer. His mouth was shut so tight that it was like a line across his face. At last he said, “Judith, I know what you’ve been thinking of me. I’m not going to let you go till I’ve told you it’s not true.”

  She gave an exasperated little sigh. “Don’t try to tell me it’s not your child Angelique is carrying.”

  “It is,” said Philip. “I’m not trying to lie to you.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference,” she answered. “I couldn’t believe anything you said anyway.”

  “You’ve got to believe me,” he exclaimed. “You’ve got to understand that this never happened before and never will again. I’m surer of that now than I was the night I married you. I never could let women alone before. I’ve told you that. I thought I’d done with that sort of thing. Then you went to New Orleans. You were gone nearly four months.”

  He stopped. She was looking past him at the darkness beyond the window, where there was a magnolia tree with white flowers like great dim stars.

  “Are you listening to me?” he demanded.

  “No,” said Judith. “I suppose men always think women are going to believe tales like that.”

  “It’s true,” said Philip.

  She looked around the room where he and she had lived for so long. Nothing about it had changed since this afternoon, only everything looked bigger and darker in the faint light. She had loved it so, and had worked hard to make it attractive. The curtains she had hemmed herself, and she had crocheted the bedspread and only this morning she had arranged the roses on the bureau.

  She said, “Philip, will you please let me get out of here?”

  He let her go. She opened the door and walked down the passage without looking back. In the hall she saw Angelique, standing there as if she had been waiting. Angelique stepped away from the wall as she passed.

  “Miss Judith,” she began.

  Judith caught her breath. “Go to your room,” she said. “Stay there till you’re sent for.”

  “All right,” said Angelique quietly.

  Judith went on down the hall and opened the door of the room where David and Christopher slept. In the dark she could just make out the outlines of their little figures in the big bed. David slept straight, on his side, with his hands out in front of him. Christopher was cuddled up in the shape of a question-mark. Judith shut the door softly behind her and began taking off her clothes. Letting her dress and stays and petticoats lie on the floor where they had fallen, she slipped into the bed in her chemise and drew the little boys into her arms. They were so soft and sweet. David’s fluff of golden hair was like silk under her fingers. She thought how much she loved them, and wondered if they would grow up to hurt her as their father had done.

  She shut her eyes, but she could not go to sleep; she turned away from the children and buried her face in the pillow. Her numbness began to pass, leaving her with a flaming sense of fury. She felt a wild desire to make Philip and Angelique suffer as they had made her suffer. Angelique—she had been so good to Angelique to be used like this! Judith began to think of all the things she could have done to Angelique, ordering that she receive twenty lashes for burning her hair with the curling-irons—some women did. She wanted to do it now. How she would love to see Angelique’s beautiful slim body tied to the post, quivering under an overseer’s whip!

  Only now she couldn’t do it. Philip would not let her. Philip who had gone to sleep last night with both his arms around her—he would protect Angelique from her, because Angelique was his mistress.

  She wished she could shed tears. Her eyes were hot as if she had a fever.

  Day was breaking when she finally went to sleep. But the children woke noisily at sunrise. They were surprised to find her with them, and thought there should be some sort of celebration, a pillow-fight or a game, and David got one of the petticoats off the floor and tried to dress up in it, marching up and down in his bare feet with the flounces trailing behind him. Mammy was astonished too, or pretended to be. Judith told her to have Christine bring coffee to her here.

  She was aching with sleeplessness, but the children were too rackety to let her try to sleep again, so she told Christine to bring her fresh clothes and hot water. Christine obeyed timidly, as if frightened. She said Mr. Philip had ridden early into the fields. As she did not see Angelique about the house, Judith supposed she was still in her room. She tried to give David his lesson without much success, for he was restless and she herself too unhappy to care whether he learned his letters or not. He went out to play and Judith told Christine to move her things from the master bedroom into the room where Dolores had stayed. She stood in the window, looking out at the gardens and the fields beyond and the dark border of the forest, with a feeling of empty deadness. Christine brought her dinner on a tray, but she sent back nearly all of it. Most of the day she spent walking from one wall to the other, too tormented to sit still and too tired to do anything. The house was hushed, as if somebody had just died in it. Nobody came near her. From the windows she could see the children playing, and the servants wandering about, talking in undertones. Toward evening she saw Philip riding up and Josh leading away the horse. She put her hands over her eyes, but she only shivered and did not cry. She had not even tears to give him. At last she
called Christine and let herself be undressed and put to bed. It was late when she remembered that she had not even gone in to say good night to the children.

  When she woke up the sun had risen. There was no bell in this room and she had to go to the door and call Christine to bring her coffee. She did not put on her clothes, for there was nothing she wanted to do. Instead she pulled a dressing-gown around her and began walking again. What a hideous room it was, with its smooth pink walls and stiff walnut-stained bed. Square, like a prison cell, and there was a grasshopper on the floor staring at her. She must remind the girls to put arsenic in the cans under the legs of the beds before the summer influx of ants. The men must bring in some moss, too, for restuffing the mattresses; this one was getting lumpy. Oh, but what for? She didn’t care what happened to the house. Somewhere in another room of this house was Angelique, and Philip’s child within her—at least she did not have to endure seeing Philip’s face on a half-breed child. Angelique could be sold down the river, or up the river, or any place on the face of the earth if only it was out of sight, and her child sold with her before it was born. Anywhere, if only her enticing golden beauty was away from Ardeith, and her slave-child who would look like David.

  Judith shuddered, thinking she could have stood anything if only she were not carrying this other child.

  The door opened and Philip came in. Judith started.

  Philip came over and leaned against the bedpost.

  “Judith,” he said, “I can’t go on like this. I let you alone yesterday.”

  “Yes,” said Judith. She added ironically, “Thank you.”

  “But you can’t keep this up. Staying shut in here.”

  “Why not?”

  She was angry to see how well he looked. Already he was getting his summer tan.

  “The household is dazed,” he exclaimed. “The servants are wandering about in a mist, the children aren’t half cared for, nobody knows whether there are to be any meals—”

  “Oh, can’t you stop for five minutes being so damnably physical?” she cried. “You’ve sent me to hell and all it means to you is that you don’t get a good dinner. Maybe I should be grateful to have some slight value to you as a housekeeper!”