River Queen

by Gilbert, Morris

  Julienne kept staring at her for so long that Leah thought she might be going into a stupor again. “Julienne? Are you all right?”

  She roused, then said in a coldly bitter voice, “A fire. A deserted farmhouse. That’s what he told you.”

  Leah cocked her head to the side. “What’s the matter, dear? The Lord blessed you mightily by having Mr. Bronte there to save your life. And though I would think that going through such a terrible thing would make you grateful to the Lord Jesus and also to Mr. Bronte, you sound as if you’re angry. Is it because of Tyla?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know,” Julienne said wearily.

  “I think it’s time for you to lie back down,” Leah said sternly. She stood and poured a brown liquid from a heavy crystal decanter into a small glass. “Drink this, dear. Then you should be able to rest quietly.”

  Obediently Julienne drank and shuddered as the harsh warmth from the brandy spread down her throat into her stomach. Leah rearranged her pillows and Julienne lay back down. Catching Leah’s hand, she asked, “Where is Mr. Bronte now?”

  “I don’t know, dear. Charles begged him to stay with us for a few days, but he flatly refused.”

  “Good,” Julienne said in a stony voice. “I don’t want him here. I don’t ever want to see him again.”

  “Oh, really?” Leah asked gently as she settled back into her chair and picked up her Bible. “That’s odd. Because you’ve been asking for him, Julienne. For the last five days, you’ve asked for Dallas Bronte again and again.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Cruel winter was gone, and late April in Natchez was gorgeous. It seemed as if Nature was trying to make up for the desolation of the cold season, for the spring had been balmy and pleasant.

  The barn was dark, but slanting rays of light filtered through the cracks, falling on Carley’s face. Industriously she worked a shovel into the soft ground of half manure and half dirt. In the nearest stall, their horse Reddy seemed to watch her with disapproval. When she saw a group of huge earthworms wiggling, she let out a cry of joy. “I gotcha!” With both hands she scooped up the dirt and worms over and over again, dumping all of it into her ever-present straw bag.

  Caesar came into the barn and, sighting Carley, crossed his arms and said sternly, “Here you are. Your Aunt Leah sent me to find you and fetch you back to your lessons. And just look at that dress, and your pantaloons, Miss Carley! Your poor mama might faint dead away when she catches sight of you!”

  “I’m digging worms, Caesar. Fishin’ worms,” she said, ignoring his chiding.

  “You’ve got no call to be down at that pond by yourself. You could fall in and drown. Then where would you be?”

  “I’d be dead.”

  “There. That’s just what I said.”

  “Silly, Darcy’s going to take me. If I fall in, he can pull me out. He can swim.”

  A small look of regret creased Caesar’s face, and he spoke more gently. “Mr. Darcy, he’s poorly today. I don’t think he’s going to feel like taking you fishing.”

  “But he promised,” she said, straightening to look up at Caesar. Then her face fell. “He got all liquored up last night again, didn’t he.”

  Uncomfortably he replied, “Miss Carley, little girls don’t need to know things such as that. All you need to know is he’s feeling poorly.”

  “He promised,” she said dully. Dropping her bag, she stalked out of the barn, her hands down at her side in stiff fists. Running upstairs to Darcy’s room, she knocked and called, “Darcy! Darcy, wake up!”

  She heard his muffled voice inside, “Not now, Carley. Later.”

  Stubbornly she opened the door, and there Darcy lay, fully dressed in the middle of the bed. Carley could smell the sour reek of alcohol in the air. She shook his shoulder, very gently. “Please, Darcy, please get up. You promised to take me fishin’.”

  Darcy groaned and rolled over to turn his back to her. “No, Carley, I can’t today. Tomorrow.”

  “You always say that,” she said angrily.

  “Carley, just go away. I’ll take you fishing some other time,” he mumbled. “I promise.”

  She repeated bitterly, “You promise. You always promise, but you never do.”

  But he didn’t hear her, so she left, slamming the door behind her, and ran back to the barn. She decided to re-bury the earthworms. Maybe in a couple of days Darcy would take her fishing, and she would dig them back up.

  DARCY STAYED PASSED OUT for most of the day. At about two o’clock he suddenly sat up and grabbed his head with both hands. He had a blinding headache. For a long time he sat there trying to pull his mind together, then slowly and carefully he rose, walked over to the pitcher and bowl on his washstand. Picking it up, he drank deeply straight from the pitcher, and the tepid water soothed his burning throat. Searching his face in the shaving mirror on the chest, he groaned. His eyes were so bloodshot they seemed more red than blue, his thick shiny auburn hair was standing up all over his head and looked greasy, and his complexion looked sickly yellow.

  Pouring the rest of the water into the bowl, he splashed water into his face until he finally began waking up. As he dried his face with a clean towel, he smelled the fresh cottony smell of the towel and realized that he stank of stale liquor and sour sweat. Mentally he cursed their lack of servants, for he would have given anything to have a hot bath. Instead he picked up an amber bottle, pulled the cork, and made a disgusted face. “Bay Rum, how could I have ever put that sickening stuff on myself?” He slammed it back down and picked up a small deep green bottle, uncorked it, and sniffed it. Relieved, he emptied a few drops into the water left in the washbowl. Royal Lyme, imported from England, had a lighter, bracing scent. Stripping, he scrubbed himself all over with the freshened water, and immediately he felt better. Rubbing his scratchy jaw with regret, he thought, Draw the line at shaving with cold water. I just have to convince Father to get me a body servant, that’s all there is to it.

  He dressed quickly in a clean linen shirt and comfortable black breeches. Though he felt better, his head still throbbed, and he had a familiar subtly nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach, a sure aftereffect of drinking too much.

  It was too warm to wear a coat, so he grabbed some papers out of the coat he’d been wearing the previous night and went downstairs. No one was in the parlor, so he went out the back door and down the bricked path to the freestanding kitchen. Inside, their cook and maidservant Libby looked up at him. “Well, hello there, Mr. Ashby. You look awful, just purely awful.”

  “Just say whatever you’re thinking, Libby. Don’t worry about hurting my feelings,” he said sarcastically.

  “I won’t,” she said sassily. “Sit down, I’ll get you some coffee. And it’s a pancake day, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “It’s a pancake day,” Darcy said. “Please.” He always begged Libby to make him pancakes when he had a hangover. He had no idea why, but they seemed to make him feel better.

  He took his seat on a stool at the waist-high oak worktable. It was old and scarred, and for at least the thousandth time he smiled a little at the crudely etched letters in the corner: a crooked angular “D” and the first downstroke of an “A.” Their butler back then, a dignified old slave named Eli, had caught him carving them when he was eight years old, and had stopped him. Darcy had never finished the “A.”

  Libby set down a thick old mug in front of him and poured hot, fresh coffee from a blue-speckled tin coffeepot into it. He looked up at her and managed a ragged grin, and she made a face at him.

  Libby was thirty-five years old, but she looked younger. She and Caesar made an odd couple. Caesar was average size, average height, and his looks were unremarkable except for the dark gleam of his ebony skin and his somber manner. Libby was short and curvaceous, and she had warm golden skin and delicate features. She was lively and bright-e
yed, a complete contrast to her husband in every way. When he had reached his teen years, he had realized that Libby had a lot of white blood, and he wondered about it, for she had been born a slave at Ashby Plantation. But in a thousand years he couldn’t imagine his father, or his grandfather, committing such a sin. Both of them were men of deep Christian faith and high moral scruples.

  Dryly Darcy reflected that it seemed he didn’t take after any of the men in his family.

  With quick efficiency Libby made Darcy a stack of pancakes and set them down, along with a dish of melted butter and a small tin pitcher of Vermont maple syrup. “You’re about as spoilt a boy as I ever saw in my life,” Libby said as she served him. “I swear I don’t know why I baby you like I do. But I guess all women do,” she added slyly.

  “Guess so,” he agreed. “I’m glad, too.”

  “Brat,” she muttered as she went back to the fireplace, to continue turning an enormous roast on a spit.

  “Sass,” he retorted. It was an old ritual between them.

  He ate hungrily and polished off two more cups of coffee. When he was finished he felt much better, as he knew he would. He stood and stretched. “Where is everyone, Libby?”

  “Miss Julienne’s making her calls, your mother is resting, and Miss Leah was in the library, and the Good Lord Himself only knows where Miss Carley is,” Libby answered. “Caesar found her just after breakfast, but he lost her again.”

  “What about Father? He didn’t go out to the plantation again, did he?” Darcy asked.

  Libby shook her head. “He’s been in his study all day.”

  Darcy headed to the door. “Thanks, Libby. Your pancakes have mystical healing properties.”

  “I should sell ’em,” she grumbled. “Libby’s Mystical Hangover Remedy.”

  Ignoring her parting shot, Darcy finished off the coffee, left the kitchen, and went to his father’s study. The door was closed, and Darcy knocked. “Father?”

  “Come in,” he heard faintly.

  Darcy found his father sitting at his desk, staring at the mass of papers before him. When he looked up, with a slight shock Darcy thought that his father seemed to have aged. All of a sudden, he looked old, his face gray with strain, small spectacles perched on his nose, his normally square shoulders stooped.

  Darcy sat down in an armchair in front of his desk and lounged back. Idly he asked, “Do you feel all right? You don’t look too well.”

  “I’m fine,” Charles answered rather shortly. “I’m just really busy, Darcy.”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Darcy said unrepentantly, “but I have to talk to you.” Throwing his papers down on Charles’s desk, he continued, “Guess I overspent my allowance again, Father, so I need some more money. And there’s these.”

  Slowly Charles picked up the papers and perused them with a pained look on his drawn face. Appalled, he said, “Three hundred dollars? You gave out three hundred dollars in I.O.U.’s to Stephen Moak and Lucky Darden?”

  Darcy shrugged. “Started out on a streak, but it fizzled out. And Lucky Darden’s name fits him all too well.”

  Charles leaned back in his chair, took off his spectacles, and massaged his temples. Looking down, he said quietly, “I don’t have any more money to give you, Darcy. And I can’t pay these markers.”

  “What! But they’re debts of honor! I have to pay them!” Darcy almost shouted.

  Wearily Charles looked up at him and said, “Then pay them.”

  A long heavy silence stretched out. Finally Darcy muttered darkly, “I can’t pay them, and you know it.”

  “I can’t pay them either, and now you know it,” Charles snapped. “What were you thinking, Darcy? Haven’t you paid any attention at all to what I’ve been telling you for months? We do not have any money! I told you that I doubted I’d be able to give you your allowance, maybe for the next several months! I told you that, son!”

  Darcy jumped out of his chair and began to pace. “You’ve been saying things like that for years, that we have to cut back and do without some things. But we didn’t. Julienne keeps getting enough clothes to dress the county, Mother got her new barouche, and you even tried to get Julienne to replace Tyla with a new maid! And here I am, with no body servant, and she’s had a maid all of her life! If we’ve got no money, where were you going to get the money to buy a maid?”

  Charles’s dark eyes sparkled angrily when Darcy started speaking, but as his son’s rant went on, Charles seemed to wilt. Faintly he answered, “I wasn’t going to buy a slave, Darcy, you know that. There’s a girl at the plantation that I thought might do, and her pay would only be a little bit more as Julienne’s maid. I just thought, since she lost Tyla, that she would want another girl. But it seems she doesn’t.”

  “But my point is that you’re willing to spend all kinds of money on Julienne, but you’re cutting me off,” Darcy complained. “It’s not fair.”

  Charles started to speak, but then he seemed to think better of it, and shook his head. “Son, I misspoke before. I’m not feeling well, not at all. And I had already decided that we’re going to have to have a family meeting tonight after dinner. We’ll discuss all of this then.”

  “I’m going out tonight,” Darcy retorted.

  “I know I can’t stop you. But I am not giving you any money, Darcy, and I’m telling you right now that I won’t honor any more of your debts, so don’t try to borrow any money from your friends. Anyway, I would like for you to stay and have dinner with us tonight,” Charles said with evident weariness.

  “I suppose I have no choice,” Darcy said, yanking the door open. “I’m going back to bed until then.”

  THE ATMOSPHERE AT DINNER was strained. Charles and Leah were silent, and Darcy was in a foul humor. As usual, Roseann was quiet, seeming not to notice the strain on the conversation.

  Julienne was oblivious to everyone else’s discomfort, as she talked about her calls that day. Since she had recovered from the accident, she had stayed ostentatiously busy, making calls every day that someone wasn’t calling on her, going to town almost every day, even when she couldn’t beg her father for any money to spend, accepting every invitation offered to her. In the springtime there were many parties and balls and barbecues, and she was out almost every night.

  She said with artificial brightness, “I was calling on Felicia and Susanna, and Stephen was there, and we were having a wonderful time. And then Mary Nell and Sadie Stanford came driving up in that awful black landau that looks just like a hearse. Of course the Moaks have to receive them, even though they are such dreary women, with faces like puddings. And Sadie has gained so much weight that I swear I could see the seams splitting in her bodice. It really ruined my visit.”

  No one said anything for long moments. Finally Julienne went on, “I suppose Archie will call tomorrow. He missed today.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Aunt Leah said deliberately. “He did call, but you missed him because you left so early.”

  “Oh. Well, he’ll live.”

  Carley had been subdued, but now she giggled and said, “Archie-Bald calls every day, Julienne. He’s sooooo in looooove with yooooou!”

  Julienne laughed. Leah glanced at Roseann and Charles, who seemed not to hear Carley. She said quietly, “Carley, children shouldn’t make fun of adults. You should be more respectful.”

  “Aw, it’s just ol’ Archie-Bald,” Carley said with disdain. “Even Julienne calls him that sometimes.”

  “Could you people stop talking so loud?” Darcy said ungraciously. “It makes my head pound.”

  “Darcy got liquored up last night,” Carley announced. “Darcy’s got a hangover, Darcy’s got a hangover,” she went on in a singsong voice.

  Grimly Darcy turned to his mother. “That child is a disgrace, Mother. I think she needs a good spanking and to be sent to bed without supper
.”

  Roseann’s eyes were downcast and she said nervously, “Please, Darcy, don’t be so harsh. She’s just a child.”

  Aunt Leah’s mouth drew into a straight harsh line, but of course she couldn’t discipline Carley when her parents wouldn’t. And in spite of Darcy’s outburst, he and Julienne indulged her shamefully. That was why Carley would never sit through her lessons, she always ran out of the schoolroom the moment Leah’s back was turned. No one in the family ever tried to correct her, and Leah felt that it wasn’t her place.

  Little was said the rest of the meal. As they were finishing up, Charles sighed deeply and said, “All of you please come into the sitting room. I need to talk to you.”

  “Even me?” Carley piped up.

  He hesitated, then finally said, “No, no, Carley. Libby will take you upstairs and you can get into your nightdress. I’ll come up later to read to you.”

  He was so grave that Carley took Libby’s hand and left the dining room without protest. Charles went down the hallway to the family sitting room, a less formal, and more comfortable room than the parlor, and they all followed him. Though the night was warm and the windows were opened, Caesar had laid a small fire in the fireplace. Charles took his place standing in front of it, his hands behind his back. The others seated themselves on the plump sofa and rather worn armchairs.

  Timidly Roseann said, “Are you sure you want to do this tonight, dear? You look as if you aren’t feeling well.”

  “I’m all right, dear. No, I’m afraid this can’t wait any longer.” Absently he massaged his left hand with his right. “I wish I had been a better husband, Roseann, and a better father to you, my children.”