Deep Summer

by Gwen Bristow

  Gideon began to wonder if he could go on at all, working till his back nearabout broke and never getting enough for what his folks needed. Yet tramping the docks was easier than going home, for the room was hot and smelt always of stale cooking and diapers drying, with baby John whining on the bed and little Gardy toddling around all dirty from falling in the mud around the door, and Esther so cross he hardly dared speak to her. Not that he blamed her; God knew it was as hard for her as for him or maybe harder. But he went sure enough crazy one night when he came in and found Esther’s pa was back.

  He hadn’t meant to do anything, but when he found the old man there Gideon’s head started to spin. The baby was crying on the bed and Gardy was screaming with terror as the old man shook Esther by the shoulders and shouted that he knew she had a husband making good money and she had to give him some for whiskey. As Gideon opened the door Gardy ran to him for protection and tripped over the old man’s foot. The old man kicked at her. Gideon grabbed Esther’s meat-knife from the table and stuck it into the old man’s throat.

  When his head cleared and he looked down at the old man with his face in a puddle of blood on the floor Gideon could not be sorry he had killed him.

  But the door was open, and a woman in the alley outside was yelling with horror. She ran to the next door, and in a minute or two the room was full of people. The woman cried out that the two men had been having a fight and the young one had killed the old one. They took Gideon off to the calaboose.

  Esther was sure they would let him go when she told the law-men how it happened. Meanwhile she got a neighbor to keep the children and she went back to peddling fruit on the docks.

  When they stood Gideon up before the judges she found there was hardly anybody at the court that could even talk plain. They jabbered English and French and Spanish all at once. Gideon had learned Spanish from his mother and Esther had picked up some French on the docks, but the law-men didn’t use words she and Gideon knew. There was one judge who didn’t know a word of English and another who didn’t know any Spanish and there were clerks who kept translating and retranslating until she was so befuddled in the head she didn’t know what any of them were talking about. They wanted Gideon to sign a paper and by that time all he could do was shake his head in bewilderment and try to make them understand he didn’t know how to write his name.

  The next thing she knew a long-nosed man was announcing that the person of Gideon Upjohn was re-consigned to the guardhouse and he was to be hanged for the crime of murder. Three men said that in three languages and it was the only statement of the day Esther understood clearly. She cried out and rushed to Gideon, throwing her arms around him and sobbing.

  But a man pulled her away, saying, “Now, now, lady, don’t take it so hard.”

  Gideon exclaimed, “Say, look ahere, ain’t I told you—” But they told him to be quiet and took him off.

  Esther dragged herself home. She sat down on the floor and gathered up her children, but she had hardly strength left to cry over them. While she sat there the rent-man came in. He had to have the rent; it was three days behind now, he said.

  “I ain’t got a copper,” Esther told him dully. It was as if all the feeling inside of her was dead.

  The man told her he couldn’t wait any more. If she didn’t have the rent she’d have to move out in the morning. Bright and early he’d be around and if she wasn’t out he’d set her and her young uns in the street.

  The children were crying for their supper. Esther found some hominy grits in the bottom of a bag and boiled it for them. She got into bed and pulled the children into her arms. So their pa was going to be hanged and they were going to be put into the street. No they weren’t either, Esther said to herself with a blazing resolution. Nobody was going to do such things to her man and her young uns while she was up and around. Gideon could say what he pleased. Tomorrow she was going to Silverwood and they’d have to kill her to keep her from saying to Mr. Sheramy what she wanted to say.

  In the morning she got up early. She put her belongings into a bundle and carried it and the children to Lulie’s. When Esther told her she didn’t have a place to stay Lulie said she’d keep the children today. Esther let her think she was going to the calaboose to say goodby again to Gideon.

  She started walking the road that led across the bluff to the plantations. The day got scorchingly hot as the sun went higher. Esther had dressed herself as neatly as she could and put on her shoes, but when carriages passed the horses’ hoofs kicked up clouds of dust and before she had gone a mile she was dirty all over. The heat made her head itch and tingle under her sunbonnet.

  The plantation country was strange to her, and she called to a Negro turning a wagon into a road through the cotton-fields. “Where is Silverwood?” she asked.

  He pointed with his mule-whip. “Up de road.”

  “Far?”

  “Right far piece, I reckon.”

  Esther held her hands together tight. “You ain’t by chance going there, is you? So you could give me a ride?”

  “I sho ain’t, white ’oman. I got my work to tend to. I ain’t got no time to be totin’ folks around.”

  He struck at the mules, and the wagon lumbered on. Esther sat down on the ground. Her legs ached so she wondered if she could get up again and keep going, but she managed at last to do it.

  The road curved past more fields of cotton and a seemingly endless stretch of cane. Then there was a patch of wood and more fields. She asked another Negro she met on the road and he told her these fields belonged to Silverwood, and the next big white house was the manor.

  The manor was set away back from the road behind trees and flower-gardens. Esther walked around the gardens to the back door. The house-slaves were working around or taking their ease on the steps of the quarters. Esther went up the back steps and knocked.

  “I want to see Mr. Sheramy,” she said to the door-boy who answered.

  The door-boy looked at her sweaty face and sticky hands and the dust around her skirt. “He out in de field,” he returned. “What you want wid him?”

  “I want to see him,” said Esther. She moved a step back and held to the gallery rail. She was so tired her legs were shaking.

  Two or three Negroes lounging about the kitchen-house door surveyed her with indifference. “De missis don’t ’low no beggin’,” said one of them.

  Esther wheeled around. “You shut up, you black nigger,” she cried. “I want to see Mr. Roger Sheramy and you can’t make me move till I do see him.” She whirled back to the door-boy. “If he’s in the field where’s the old master? His father?”

  The door-boy shrugged. “Ole massa Caleb, he done been dead dese two years. What de matter wid you, ’oman?”

  “There’s nothing the matter with me except I’m so wore out from walking I can’t hardly stand up,” Esther exclaimed. “I want to see Mr. Roger Sheramy because I’m married to his brother and he’s gonta be hanged if Mr. Sheramy don’t do something. I’ve got to—”

  “You get outen my sight,” said the door-boy. “You married to de massa’s brudder! He ain’t got no brudder. He swat yo’ backsides. Get out. Trash!”

  “Damn your black hide,” cried Esther.

  At that moment the back door opened and there stood the lady Esther had seen with Mr. Roger Sheramy on the wharfs. Esther instinctively thought anybody who was so pretty must be sweet too. The lady was small and frail-looking, with a fluff of golden curls bound by a fillet of blue ribbon. Her gown was made of cool white muslin, and a ruffle stood crisply around her shoulders. She led a little boy by the hand.

  “Lem,” she exclaimed, “what on earth is all this noise? Haven’t I told you darkies not to quarrel?”

  Her eyes fell on Esther, standing against the gallery rail with her sunbonnet askew and her face distorted with anger. “Who is this woman, Lem?” she asked.

  The do
or-boy shrugged. “Miss Martha, she just came and pounded on de do’. I ’spect she’s plumb crazy. She says her husband’s gonta get hanged—”

  Miss Martha glanced at Esther. “What was it you wanted?” she asked with remote condescension.

  Esther started forward. “Please ma’am, ain’t you Mrs. Sheramy?”

  “Yes, I’m Mrs. Sheramy. What are you doing here?”

  “I got to see you,” pled Esther. “Please ma’am, let me see you! I done told this nigger and he said it was a lie. It ain’t no lie. I’m named Upjohn and my husband is brother to your husband and they’re gonta hang him—”

  The lady’s mouth tightened. Her eyes tightened too. Her hand holding the little boy’s tightened. She said:

  “Come inside.”

  Esther followed her. Mrs. Sheramy opened the door of a big cool room with white curtains and pictures on the walls. She pulled an embroidered cord and a Negro woman came in.

  “Mammy, take Master Cyril to the nursery,” said Mrs. Sheramy. “And don’t let any one disturb me until I ring again.”

  His mammy led the child out. The lady sat down in a big chair by a table on which there was a bowl of flowers. “Now what are you talking about?” she asked.

  Esther dropped into a chair. She hadn’t been told to sit down but she was too tired to stand up any more. Her clothes felt sticky and her tongue was thick with thirst. She told her story. It was blundering and disconnected. The words came out before she had time to form them. Mrs. Sheramy listened, her chin on her hand.

  “I don’t know whether you’re lying on purpose or simply out of your mind,” she said at last, and her words were slow and cool and distant.

  “I ain’t neither one!” Esther cried desperately. “Please ma’am, ain’t your husband ever told you his ma married a man on the docks?”

  Mrs. Sheramy gave an adjustment to one of the roses in the bowl. “My husband never knew much about his mother,” she said after a moment. “There was some vague yarn about her having taken up with a man on the docks. But I have no way of knowing whether or not your husband is her child—and even if he were, I don’t know what you want of me.”

  “I want you to help me,” said Esther weakly.

  “But my good woman, how can I?” Mrs. Sheramy smiled gently. “I’m sorry for you, but you say your husband killed a man and was legally condemned to execution. There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s deplorable that you and your children should be left unprovided for—here.” She opened a drawer in the table and took out a purse. “This will help you until you can find work.”

  Esther stood up slowly. Her hands clenched. “I think,” she said, “you are the meanest woman I ever saw.”

  Mrs. Sheramy came to her and put the purse into her hand. “You’d better go,” she said soothingly.

  “I won’t go.” Esther threw the purse on the floor. “I don’t want none of your money. My husband can make a living for me and my young uns if he gets out of jail. I want you to go down and tell them judges he knifed my pa ’causin’ pa was drunk and kicked my little girl.”

  Mrs. Sheramy sighed. “But if that’s true, Mrs. Upjohn, why didn’t you tell them?”

  “I tried to. But I couldn’t make ’em understand no ways. They was all jabbering at once and half guinea-talk anyhow. They’d listen to folks like you!”

  “But I didn’t see the murder. I couldn’t testify,” said Mrs. Sheramy patiently, as if explaining something to a child. She picked up the purse. “You’d better take this and go, Mrs. Upjohn. Screaming like this won’t do you any good.”

  “I ain’t going,” said Esther. “I’m gonta stay and tell Mr. Sheramy his self. I ain’t going no place.”

  “Oh yes you are,” said Mrs. Sheramy, and even through her exhaustion Esther wondered that any one could speak with such sweet gentleness when you could see she was burning up with rage. “And I’m afraid,” Mrs. Sheramy added evenly, “that if you continue to shout and make a scene I shall have to ask the servants to take you out. Now will you go quietly, or shall I ring?”

  She put her hand on the bellcord. Esther felt her own hands making vague movements in front of her. Mrs. Sheramy’s pretty, pitiless face seemed to get further away and then very close, then Esther felt a strange lightness in her head and she knew she was falling but she couldn’t help it.

  When she opened her eyes she was lying on a soft clean bed with a blue counterpane. Standing at the foot of the bed was Mr. Roger Sheramy, and his wife was sitting nearby. Mr. Sheramy looked a little bit like Gideon. He had the same whimsical dished-in nose and the same heavy eyebrows growing almost together.

  “So then what did you do, Martha?” he was asking.

  “Why, I started to pull the bellcord, and she fainted.”

  Mr. Sheramy’s hand tightened on the bedpost. “Martha,” he said slowly, “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “Good heavens, Roger!” she exclaimed. “That tale has been scandal enough already—are you going to take in any illiterate convict who claims to be related to you? You’ll have them in droves at the back door.”

  He sighed, and after a moment he glanced at Esther. “I think she’s coming to. Will you have one of the girls bring some brandy?”

  He sat down by the bed. Esther looked up at him in speechless gratitude.

  Roger was in a good deal of a quandary. Esther’s story, recounted to him when she had been fed and rested, sounded entirely true. Caleb had never told him very much about his mother. Roger thought now that perhaps if his father had really wanted to find her other children after she died he might have been able to do so. Though in one detail Martha might be right—if the story was given public credence there’d be no end to the paupers and convicts who would demand his bounty on the ground of possible relationship—still Esther roused his natural sense of justice. Whether or not Gideon Upjohn was the son of Dolores, if he had killed a man under the circumstances Esther described he didn’t deserve to be hanged for it. Roger told Martha so when he found her in tears that afternoon.

  “There’s no reason for your being so distressed,” he said to her, “just because I want to help a man in trouble.”

  Martha’s tears trembled on her lashes as she looked up at him. One of her ringlets had escaped the ribbon and lay like golden floss on her forehead. “Roger, darling,” she murmured, “it’s not myself I’m distressed about. It’s Cyril.”

  “Cyril?” he repeated, puzzled.

  Martha sat on his knee and put her arms around him. “Of course, dearest. Don’t you see what will happen if you acknowledge any relationship with people like that? That woman’s filthy brats yelling ‘Hello, cousin!’ every time they see Cyril on the wharfs! And you know what a scandal gossipy women can make out of it once it gets started. Oh, don’t do that to him! Our darling baby that we love so much—please don’t, Roger!”

  She laid her cheek on his and held him tight. When she wept he was always helpless, and he felt unable to cope with her now. But he tried to.

  “Martha, you’re asking me to be quite heartless. Do you really want to let a man be hanged when he doesn’t deserve it, without even trying to get a fair hearing for him?”

  “But you aren’t responsible for anything that’s happened to him,” she pled, lifting her head again. He felt one of her tears trickle down his cheek. “And neither am I—”

  “I wonder,” said Roger thoughtfully. “Did Mrs. Upjohn tell you she’d been evicted for non-payment of rent?”

  “Yes, and I offered her money.”

  “Well—doesn’t your family own that property below the wharfs?”

  “I believe so. That was part of the original St. Clair grant from the king. But is it my fault some people can’t pay rent?”

  “No, honey, it’s not your fault. But if I’m a landowner who helps make the laws I ought to be interested in seeing that they’re
administered fairly. Besides, Gideon Upjohn is very likely to be my half-brother, and if I don’t help him out of this I’ll never have any peace of mind again.”

  “Suppose that man is your half-brother,” urged Martha. “You aren’t responsible for that. And you are responsible for your own child. Do you want Cyril to have a family skeleton tied to his heels everywhere he goes? I couldn’t bear it, Roger!” She put her hands to her eyes and began to sob again, softly and helplessly.

  At last Roger left her. In desperation he sent the carriage to Ardeith. The coachman bore a note to his Aunt Judith, asking her to come to Silverwood at once. He had to talk to somebody who knew more about his mother than he did.

  Judith appeared just before dark, followed by a maid carrying a parcel. “That,” she said to Roger, “is a bedgown. I’m not going back along that lonesome road at midnight. Now what’s the trouble, child? Your letter was half illegible and entirely frantic.”

  Roger laughed with relief. He was so glad to see her. He knew she had small respect for Martha and in less drastic circumstances he would have hesitated asking her to settle one of their disputes, but Judith was at least definite in her thinking, and would understand his conviction that he must help the Upjohns in spite of Martha’s tears.

  “It’s like this, ma’am,” he began, when they had gone into the parlor. “I’m not exactly frantic, but I do need advice. You knew my mother.”

  “Oh,” said Judith. “I was sure this had to come up again. What’s happened, Roger?”

  Roger told her about Esther’s coming to Silverwood.

  “I see,” said Judith finally. “You want me to suggest a compromise that will be just to Gideon and yet pacify Martha.”

  “Exactly. Aunt Judith, is Gideon Upjohn my brother?”

  “Yes,” said Judith. After a moment she asked, “Where is the wife?”

  “Here. She wasn’t fit to be sent home today. I talked to her. All she wants is a chance to live in peace, and in spite of Martha it seems to me the least I can do is give it to her.”