Deep Summer

by Gwen Bristow

  Judith watched a feather of smoke above the candle. “Then Roger, why don’t you do it? I know you don’t want to quarrel with Martha. I won’t pretend I ever got along very well with her, but I won’t pretend either that I think it’s any sin for a man to be in love with his wife. Get a smart lawyer and have Gideon Upjohn tried again. And if anybody wants to know why you did it, say the poor fellow’s wife came begging at your door and you heard her story and took pity on her. The name Upjohn doesn’t mean anything to the parlor gossips Martha is so afraid of.”

  “Fine!” Roger exclaimed gratefully. “Thank you, Aunt Judith. Martha can’t possibly object to that.”

  The next morning, after she had talked to Esther Upjohn, Judith went down below the wharfs and paid a year’s rent on decent lodgings for Esther and her children. Roger engaged a notable lawyer who obtained Gideon’s release. Before the case was over Roger considered that he had been an extremely generous and chivalrous young man. He had not laid eyes on Gideon Upjohn, but he had spent a great deal of money on the lawyer. Not many men would have done as much, Martha said, and this, Judith admitted, was quite true.

  Martha said it lying pale and pretty against her pillows, for the morning after Roger decided to defend Gideon she woke feeling so weak that she could not possibly get up, and she remained an invalid throughout the proceedings. Roger worried, for Martha was ordinarily as healthy as a colt. But Martha, languidly inhaling the perfume of roses lying in the curve of her arm—for the perfume of roses eased her nausea a little—murmured that with what she was going through it was hardly surprising that her health had broken down. When she got no better physicians were summoned from New Orleans. They said it was a strangely prolonged case of the nervous vapors, and recommended that she be bled.

  The day she was to be bled Roger summoned Judith to be with her, and Judith, in a state of exasperation, brought Emily along. Emily had never had the vapors, and though she was less pretty than Martha she was considerably easier to have around.

  Judith sat by Martha and held her hand, and after it was over and Martha lay in an exhausted sleep, ravishingly white and lovely, Judith left Roger to sit by the bedside and went out to the parlor where Emily was waiting.

  “Here’s a glass of sherry,” said Emily. “You probably need it. How is she?”

  “Thanks, darling. I do need it. Oh, she groaned quite pitifully.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” said Emily. “Let’s go home.”

  “Do you think she’s likely to need us again?”

  Emily shrugged. “I think she’ll sleep all night. And after this Cousin Roger won’t dare own the existence of his lowly relations.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Generally Philip and David shared responsibility for the plantation, Philip supervising the cotton and David the cane. Emily was as enthusiastic about the sugar as David. Even after she had children to occupy her attention Emily rode into the fields often, and could discuss the possibilities of the harvests as competently as he. Judith admired her for this. David would have tired easily of a woman who confined her conversation to clothes and babies, and she was glad Emily had sense enough to know it.

  About the time of David’s marriage Philip had bought a tract of sugar land west of the river and shipped a boatload of Negroes across to work it. David and Emily sat on the steps talking about the crop on this land one evening when Judith brought her knitting out to the gallery.

  “I was telling David he should send a white overseer across the river,” Emily said when Judith joined them. “The Negroes aren’t likely to do much work without supervision.”

  “I thought the same thing at first,” David put in, “but they seem to be turning out pretty good crops. Father wanted to try out a Negro overseer, and he sent the best sugar man we’ve got as head of the gang.”

  “Did he? Who?” asked Emily.

  “Fellow named Benny. He’s young, but he’s smart as a whip. His mother used to work in the big house when I was a little boy, till father put her in charge of the day-nursery in the fields. Benny’s nearly white, and he’s got a lot more sense than the average slave.”

  Emily nodded thoughtfully. “If the other Negroes respect him enough to mind him, it may be a good idea.”

  “It seems to be working all right,” David told her.

  Judith went back into the house. In her own room she stood drumming her fingers on the mirror. So that was what Benny was doing. She had not mentioned Benny in years, and had not seen him since the afternoon little Philip was stricken with yellow fever. But when she heard David speak his name she knew she had not forgotten and that she still resented him. Evidently Philip had bought that extra sugar land for Benny’s sake, and she told herself she ought to be glad the problem presented by his existence had been solved so nimbly. But she was not; she could not be glad of anything that reminded her of the agonizing period preceding Benny’s birth. However, she added grimly, if the years had left her undisciplined within they had at least taught her to hold her tongue. And she did hold it. She did not speak of Benny, not even when David mentioned him one night a year later while they sat at supper.

  “Father, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you about that cane-patch across the river.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” Philip asked.

  “Nothing’s wrong with the cane—yet,” said David. “But that fellow Benny we sent across as overseer—we’re going to have to bring him to this side.”

  “What’s he been doing?” Emily asked, when Philip said nothing. Judith did not look up. She made herself sip her wine quietly, and buttered a biscuit.

  “He’s making trouble,” said David shortly. “Benny’s smart, but he’s nearly white and that sort always seems to get obstreperous in the fields. He’s started a lot of fool talk over there about how the Negroes do all the work and get nothing for it, and he’s making them discontented.”

  “Good heavens,” said Emily. “And everybody says the Negroes at Ardeith are pampered like children.”

  “Ours have always been contented,” David answered, “but it just takes one big-talker like that Benny to start rebellion. If he can’t learn to keep quiet I’m in favor of selling him—then he might learn what it means to belong to a master who doesn’t indulge his Negroes.”

  Judith had split her biscuit and buttered it too thickly. She scraped off the surplus, and heard Philip ask:

  “What’s he telling them?”

  “Something about their being free and getting land of their own in the West. A lot of nonsense, but dangerous.”

  Emily laughed a little. “Will you pass me the marmalade, David? You’d think an intelligent Negro would have more sense than that. Doesn’t he know anything about the laws relating to freedmen?”

  “Of course not,” returned David. “Negroes think being free means they’d be white. Benny’s been a slave all his life and thinks such things as food and shelter are free as sunshine. What do you think of selling him off the place, father?”

  “I don’t want to sell him, David,” said Philip tersely. “But I’ll attend to him. How’s the cane on this side?”

  But David would not be put off the subject. “But look here, father. I don’t want Benny in the cane, this side or the other. If I’m to be responsible for the sugar I’ve got a right to have workers I can control. If you want to put Benny in the cotton that’s none of my business, but he’s never been a cotton hand.”

  Philip was silent.

  “You know,” said Emily after a pause, “if I were running a plantation I’d either sell bright-skin Negroes to townspeople or make house-folk of them. They’re almost never any good in the fields. They put on so many airs. Always pretending to be related to the big house—”

  “That will do, Emily,” Philip exclaimed. “There’s no sense in making a speech. I’ll attend to him.”

  It was the first time he
had ever spoken sharply to her. Emily stopped and colored. David was too well-bred to rebuke his father in the presence of other people, but he glanced at him indignantly, and Emily said:

  “I—I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to be meddling.”

  Philip put his hand on hers. “Forgive me, honey. But it’s been pretty hot today, and I’m tired.”

  Judith managed to get through supper, and she tried not to think about Benny. He was none of her business, she told herself over and over, and she had no right to object to Philip’s attempt to be just to him. Philip was quite right to keep him at Ardeith where he was sure Benny would receive good treatment instead of selling him to an unknown master who might or might not be kind. She wished he could be set free, but this was an easy escape that she knew Philip would not take. The condition of freed Negroes was pitiable and nobody could pretend otherwise; hedged about with all sorts of legal restrictions, they were in worse state than the poorest of the poor whites. She said nothing about Benny to Philip, and knew he was grateful for her silence. But she could not help thinking of him. David did not know who he was—half the bright-skins on any plantation claimed to be related to their owners, and if Benny knew his origin and spoke of it David would regard it as more big-talk. But David was still concerned about him. Judith heard him say so to Emily.

  “What did your father do about that bright-skin in the sugar?” Emily asked one day.

  “He put him in the oranges for the present. But that’s not full-time work, and he’ll have to go into the cotton. Father won’t take my word for it that Benny’s a born troublemaker. If I were master of the plantation I’d get him off it in double-quick time.”

  Judith went out, and got rid of her tense nerves by scolding the girls for not polishing the brass knocker on the front door. She was glad David talked politics at dinner instead of plantation affairs.

  She was glad too that politics were assuming unusual interest, because she could fill up her mind with the state of the country and so crowd Benny out of it. For a long time the residents of the Dalroy bluff had virtually ignored their political affiliations, taking them as something changeable but uncontrollable like the weather, but now they were in a state of uncertainty that hampered their development. Dalroy was growing fast. All the Louisiana country was filling up with population since the purchase by the United States, but Dalroy was in the subdivision that had been West Florida. The province at one time, when it was under English rule, had been completely separated from the rest of Louisiana, and whether or not West Florida was part of the Louisiana Purchase nobody seemed to have decided. She asked David to explain it to her.

  “It’s rather funny,” he said. “The Americans assume that we’re American, but the Spanish governor is still here. And meanwhile we obey whatever American laws we like and whatever Spanish laws we like and nobody seems to pay much attention.”

  He was so casual that Judith was amazed when the men of the bluff suddenly decided they were going to do something about it.

  It was a day in late summer. Judith sat on the gallery embroidering a dress for Emily’s little boy Sebastian when Emily came down the staircase by the front door. “Please ma’am,” she exclaimed, “are all those gentlemen going to be here for dinner?”

  Judith turned around. “What gentlemen, Emily?”

  “I saw them from upstairs.” Emily gestured toward the front, and Judith caught sight of Philip and David riding into the avenue followed by about twenty others. She gasped. On pleasant days she generally ordered dinner for ten, for Philip and David were likely to bring in two or three guests apiece, but she had not prepared a banquet.

  “I can have the girls scramble eggs,” she said to Emily, “but I wish they’d told me they were planning a party.”

  “It doesn’t look like a party,” objected Emily. “They aren’t bringing any ladies.”

  Judith went to the steps to greet the guests. There were the three young Purcells, and Louis Valcour, Roger Sheramy, Christopher and several men of the Durham family, Carl Heriot and his two brothers, and several more. “Can you feed us?” Philip called as he dismounted.

  “Yes,” she called back, “if you aren’t particular about what you get.” She could not help laughing in spite of her annoyance. Philip’s expression was scampish like that of a little boy about to raid the pantry. Leaving them to pay their respects to Emily she drew Philip to the staircase, demanding, “Will you please tell me what you’re up to now?”

  Philip grinned upon her. “We’re just before displacing the Spanish governor.”

  “Philip, for heaven’s sake! How are you going to do it?”

  He laughed and snapped his riding-crop. “We’re going to meet in the public square at dark, several hundred of us, and go to the palace and order him out.” He chuckled at the others. Philip’s hair was nearly white, but except for that he looked hardly older than David.

  “But isn’t that sort of thing dangerous?” Emily was protesting. “Isn’t there an armed guard at the palace?”

  “Why don’t you let the American government put out the Spanish officials?” Judith exclaimed.

  “The American government,” said David, “has had seven years to do it, and they’ve never paid us any mind. So we’re doing it ourselves. Louisiana has been organized as a territory and before long it will be asking admission into the Union, and we’re part of Louisiana. Yet there’s that Spanish guard eating up our taxes, and the Americans either don’t know the Spanish are still here or don’t care. So—” He drew a document from inside his coat. “We’ve drawn up a declaration of independence for West Florida.”

  Judith sat down weakly on a step. “I never heard of anything so absurd in my whole life.”

  “Why absurd?” demanded Roger Sheramy. “By tomorrow morning either we’ll be locked up or you’ll be living in the nation of West Florida.”

  “And then watch the Americans notice us,” finished Philip.

  She caught sight of Emily’s dismayed face. Judith was frightened too, but she had lived with Philip and David longer than Emily had and knew the impossibility of stopping either of them when they had set out on some such wild scheme as this. So she only sighed, murmuring, “Try to keep your heads on your shoulders,” and went in to order dinner.

  They ate hurriedly, all talking at once with such gusto that she found it hard to learn anything. Emily was quiet, as though no longer disturbed by revolutionary dangers, but toward dark as the men rode off to meet their friends at the square, Judith saw her drop tears on Sebastian’s head as she kissed him good night. Emily let him go off with his mammy, but as they went out she exclaimed:

  “I’m scared! Anything might happen to them!”

  Judith took her hand gently. “The Spanish governor really hasn’t any right to be here, honey.”

  “I don’t see,” said Emily faintly, “how you can be so calm.”

  “I was wondering how you could be.”

  “Oh dear,” said Emily, “I was shaking inside. But I hated to get panicky in front of David.”

  “I wish I had been as wise as you when I was your age,” Judith said smiling.

  Emily did not seem to hear. She laughed shortly. “David thinks I’m so self-possessed. When he went off he said it was good to have a wife who wasn’t frightened—Martha Sheramy was half drowned in a cascade of tears.”

  “Oh—Martha,” said Judith. “She looks so pretty when she cries.”

  “I don’t,” said Emily shortly. “But I’m still scared they’re going to be shot.”

  She took up some crochet and went to sit by the candle. After a while she looked up to add, “It’s very sweet of you not to pet me. I hate to be fussed over.”

  It was late, but neither of them suggested going to bed. Emily went to see how Sebastian was and came back to report that he was sleeping in peaceful oblivion of the affairs of nations. Judith brought her em
broidery to the candle. More concerned about the attack on the palace than she had confessed to Emily, she was too restless to sleep. For a long time they worked silently. It was nearly midnight when Emily dropped her work into her lap and sat up abruptly.

  “What’s that?”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” said Judith. But she stuck her needle into the muslin and listened.

  “There it is—it sounds like somebody shouting a long way off.” Emily went to the window.

  Judith followed her, remembering that she was older and must set an example of courage. “But my dear, if there was a battle it would be in town. They can’t possibly be fighting all the way out here!”

  Emily had pulled back the curtain. Her hand caught Judith’s shoulder. Judith gave a gasp.

  Far off in the fields, so far that they were tiny as stars, were moving torches. They were not advancing in a line, but in a confused huddle, and there was the faint sound of angry voices. Emily put her hand to her throat with a cry.

  “That’s not soldiers!”

  Jerking the curtains together Judith stepped back from the window. Her scalp felt prickly and the palms of her hands were suddenly wet.

  “It’s Negroes,” she said.

  Emily pressed backward, her hands spread out against the wall and her whole body quivering with fear.

  “Benny!”

  The syllables slid into an inarticulate cry as she rushed out of the room and up the back stairs to the nursery.

  Judith pulled the bellcord and heard the bell jangle in the silence of the house-quarters. With a furious effort she made herself stop trembling and forced her thoughts into clarity. They were miles from any other residence. A slave uprising at Ardeith could happen and nobody need know it until she and Emily and Emily’s children were found murdered when the men returned in the morning. They had never seriously considered any such possibility. The Negroes at Ardeith were well trained, well treated and to all appearances happy. But one malcontent like Benny could stir up rebellion in a hundred others who would never of their own accord have dreamed of such a thing. Evidently he had done so. They were a mob, crazy and undisciplined, yelling for the chance to plunder the big house while the masters were away.