The Gamble (I)

by LaVyrle Spencer

  Ruby pushed her in, robe and all. “Why, shucks, no, we not scared. Any snakes in dere, ya got ‘em all out by now.”

  Though Jube came up gasping, she wasn’t in the least angry. “Come on, you high-handed nigger woman. Get in here so I can get even with you!”

  Ruby laughed, slipped from her robe, and walked down the marble steps like a naked ebony goddess, followed by Pearl. Jube splashed them and they gasped. Then the pair piled in to get revenge on Jube and soon the three of them were romping like children.

  Agatha was much slower getting wet. She wore her cotton combination—a sleeveless garment that buttoned on one shoulder and at the crotch, combining pantaloons and chemise into one.

  As Gandy had said, the water was icy. But once in it, she adjusted to the temperature just as she had at White Springs. The remembered weightlessness and grace returned—heavenly. The girls knew how to swim in a rudimentary fashion. They taught her to roll onto her back, flutter her feet, and use her hands like a fish’s fins. And how to do a surface dive and come up nose first. And how to blow out through her nose to keep the water from getting into it. And how to rest in the water and pull in a deep lungful of air and hold it and feel herself lift, lift, lift to the surface and hang there as if floating upon a puffy cloud in the sky.

  It ended altogether too soon. But Agatha promised herself she’d go again, soon.

  Meanwhile, the plans for the wedding progressed. It took longer than expected before Jube’s wedding dress was done and the overseer’s cabin was livable. But finally everything was ready and the minister from Leatrice’s Baptist church agreed to perform the ceremony.

  They gathered in the front parlor on a late golden afternoon in early April—Gandy’s family, and all the current guests at Waverley Mansion (all three rooms were filled now), and every former slave who’d returned to help the place thrive again. The room created a splendid setting for the bridal couple, with the sun slanting in through the tall west windows and the azalea bushes in profuse bloom, both outside and in. Enormous bouquets of pink ones had been placed on the piano and on tables throughout the room. In the wedding alcove, Jube, dressed totally in white—her color—stood beside Marcus, wearing elegant dove-gray. Jube held a cluster of white azaleas bound by a single white satin ribbon. Marcus held Jube’s free hand.

  Ivory played the piano while Ruby and Pearl harmonized on “Sweet Is the Budding Spring of Love.”

  The Reverend Clarence T. Oliver stepped forward and smiled benevolently at the bridal couple. He was a spindly man, with too much height and too little breadth, upon whose lanky frame clothing hung like a flag on a windless day. He wore round spectacles and couldn’t seem to stand still, even when speaking. But the moment he opened his mouth one forgot about all this. His voice, a deep basso profundo, resonated like a jungle drum.

  He opened his Bible and the ceremony began.

  “Dearly beloved...”

  Gandy stood nearby, recalling the day he and Delia had heard the same words in the same alcove. They’d been bright with happiness then, too, just as Jube and Marcus were now. Their future had lain ahead of them, mapped out like a golden road upon which they had only to walk, hand in hand, to eternal happiness.

  How brief that happiness had been and how relatively little he’d known in the years since. He envied Marcus and Jube, radiant with love, committing themselves to a future together. It was what he, too, wanted.

  Between himself and Agatha, Willy fidgeted. She leaned over and whispered something to him and he settled down.

  The minister asked who witnessed this union and Gandy spoke up. “I do.”

  Pearl and Ruby, together, said, “We do.” (Jube had adamantly insisted on two female witnesses, declaring she could absolutely not choose one over the other, and the minister had finally given in.)

  The minister asked, “Do you, Marcus Charles Delahunt, take this woman, Jubilee Ann Bright, to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health and forsaking all others till death do you part? Signify by nodding yes.”

  Marcus nodded, and from the corner of his eye Scott saw Gussie pull a handkerchief from her sleeve.

  The question was repeated to Jube.

  “I do,” she answered softly.

  Scott watched Gussie dab the corners of her eyes.

  “In the presence of these witnesses and with the power invested in me by God, I now pronounce you man and wife.”

  Willy looked up at Gussie and whispered, “What’re you cryin’ for?”

  Gandy nudged the boy’s shoulder.

  Willy transferred his uplifted gaze to Scott. “Well, she’s cryin’. What’s she cryin’ for?”

  But the boy received no answer. Scott was engrossed in watching Agatha dry her eyes. Engrossed in the play of golden sun on the glossy red-tipped waves of her hair. And the curve of her jaw as she refused to turn and look at him. And the puffiness of her lips as she half covered them with the handkerchief. And the sudden crazy thumping of his own heart.

  The conviction hit him as abruptly as if the ancient magnolia had suddenly toppled in the yard and crashed through the roof: It should be us standin’ in that alcove. It should be Gussie and Willy and me!

  CHAPTER

  21

  He pondered for two days, stunned by the realization that Agatha Downing had worked her way into his heart, a heart that had remained indifferent since Delia. Yet how could he remain indifferent to one who’d brought so much happiness into his life? Before Agatha there’d been no Willy, no Waverley. He’d been drifting, always drifting, searching for contentment in an unfulfilling affair with Jube, in the surrogate family with which he surrounded himself, in the string of riverboats and saloons where he gambled and sold whiskey and substituted the superficial gaiety of night life for the true contentment of family life. During those years he’d thought himself happy. Only in retrospect did he realize how shallow that happiness was. His “family” had been nothing more than a sad troupe of malcontents, searching for roots, for constancy, for purpose in their lives.

  Jube and Marcus had found theirs in each other. And unless Gandy missed his guess, it wouldn’t be long before Ivory and Ruby did the same. And what about himself and Gussie? When had he been happier than since she’d been at Waverley? Who had ever done more to lead him back to the values on which he’d been raised? When had he last felt the elemental familial security that he had since she’d arrived? Having her here, a mother to Willy, a hostess to their guests, a quiet influence on the girls, had completed the picture he’d had of Waverley revived. Only after she’d come had it been as he’d imagined. And now that she was here, he never wanted her to leave again.

  He wanted to watch Willy grow to be a bright and honorable young man, guided always by the two of them; to watch their business prosper and share its success with her; to raise a batch of their own babies who would romp on the lawns with the peacocks and fill the rooms until he was forced to add a wing on to the house; he wanted the assurance that he’d retire with her and awaken with her and glance across the corner of the dining room table to find her sipping her soup with the impeccable manners he’d come to admire; he wanted to watch her magnificent mahogany hair fade to gray along with his own, and sit on the bois d’arc benches in their dotage, while their grandchildren fed corn to the peacocks.

  LeMaster Scott Gandy wanted Agatha Downing for his wife.

  Evenings were her favorite. Evenings, when the girls came across the lawn in their hoop skirts, gliding as if upon air. Evenings, when everyone gathered on the deep back veranda for mint juleps, while Willy fed the peacocks and the guests sat upon the bois d’arc benches and the smell of fresh-scythed grass filled the nostrils with green. Evenings, when they retired to the great dining room table and shared a meal amid happy chatter. Evenings, when the gas jets were lit and the house glowed with mellow light. Afterward, there was music in the parlor—Ivory on the piano, Marcus on th
e banjo, and the girls singing pastorale songs.

  And sometimes they would dance gracefully with the guests on the polished pine floor of the great rotunda while the chandelier threw amber light upon their shoulders and their skirts swished with a sound like long grass soughing in summer wind. Then Scott and the other men would invite the lady guests to waltz, while Willy sat on the third step and played his harmonica and tapped his foot to Ivory’s quiet renditions. And Agatha would look up from her embroidery and drop her hands to her lap and become lost in the enchantment of the graceful couples that never failed to raise a wellspring of longing in her breast.

  Then one evening shortly after the wedding, Scott stood before her, bowing from the waist. “May I have this dance, Miz Downin’?”

  Her heart fluttered and her neck grew hot.

  “I...” To save face she chose to play it like a game, affecting a rich drawl, using her embroidery hoop as if it were a fan. “How kind, sir. Howevuh, Ah’ve danced til’ mah feet ah simply fallin’ off.”

  He laughed and captured her hand. “I refuse t’ take no for an answer.”

  Her eyes flashed to the rotunda. Her cheeks flared. “No, Scott,” she whispered anxiously, “you know I can’t dance.”

  “How do you know? Have you ever tried it?”

  “But you know—”

  “We’ll take it real slow.” He plucked the hoop from her fingers and set it on the sofa. “I assure you it’ll be totally painless. Come.”

  “Please, Scott...”

  “Trust me.”

  He tugged her to her feet and linked their fingers firmly while escorting her to the rotunda, where three other couples circled slowly. How awkward she felt, facing him with her cheeks the color of ripe tomatoes and her hands unaccustomed to taking the waltz position.

  “One here,” he said, placing her left hand on his shoulder. “And the other here.” He lifted her other palm on his own. “Now, relax. You’re not expected t’ prove anything, only enjoy yourself.”

  He began by swaying, smiling down at her, while she refused to lift her face. She didn’t ever remember being so embarrassed in her life. But the others went about their dancing as if unaware that a lame woman groped in their midst.

  He took a small side step and she moved too late, lurched, and was forced to grab his palm to keep from falling. His grip was sure and supportive. He stepped the other way and she preguessed him, finding that moving in that direction was much easier, much smoother. He took one step for every three the other dancers took. It was nowhere near a waltz, but he didn’t seem to mind. She struggled along to his patient swaying—one awkward step left, one smooth step right. And when at last her face cooled she lifted her eyes. He was smiling down at her and she smiled back uncertainly. And suddenly it didn’t matter that she really wasn’t waltzing. It didn’t matter that she had to clutch his hand and shoulder a little harder than the others. It only mattered that she was on a ballroom floor for the first time in her life. And that Scott looked beyond her clumsiness to her yearning and had given her a gift of more worth than all the crown jewels in the world.

  Her heart filled with gratitude. Her eyes filled with love. She wished fervently that she could be graceful and unbroken for him, that she could whisk around the dance floor laughing, leaning back from the waist while she watched the chandelier go around and around above them. He was such a beautiful man, he deserved a perfect woman. It struck her that he was beautiful not only without, but within. He was one of those rare beings who measured people not by what he saw, but by what he learned of them. He was benevolent, generous, judicious, and honest. And he was all of these things to all people. He didn’t put on one hat to please one person, and another to please the next. He expected people to accept him as he was, because that was his own way. He was the first person with whom she’d ever been able to relax fully, to whom she could admit her frailty and the extent of its emotional drain upon her. And knowing; this, he had brought to her the gifts of swimming and dancing, two freedoms she had never hoped to know.

  “Gussie, I didn’t know you could dance!” Willy piped from his spot on the step.

  She smiled at him with cheeks now lit from happiness instead of embarrassment. “Neither did I.”

  “Think I could do it?”

  “If I can do it, anyone can.”

  He barreled off the step, brushing his way between two hoop skirts. Scott leaned over to pick him up. “Give Gussie your left hand,” he ordered. “No. Palm up.” Willy turned over his palm and Agatha placed hers on it. With Scott’s left hand still around her waist, the three of them danced, Willy giggling, Agatha beaming, and Scott looking pleased.

  This is how it should be, she thought, the three of us together. She savored the happy moments, storing them in her memory to take out and examine later—the warmth of Scott’s hand on her back, the firmness of his shoulder beneath her palm, Willy’s happy giggle, his small damp hand beneath hers, the play of amber light falling upon Scott’s face from above, his dimples as he smiled, his dark, merry eyes.

  When the dancing stopped she went upstairs with Willy. It was the only time each day she climbed the stairs, at his bedtime. He had come to expect it and she to enjoy it. She found his nightshirt and laid out a clean shirt and underwear for the next day, then watched as he folded his pants neatly, as she’d taught him. While he changed into his bedclothes she wandered to the dresser, glancing at Scott’s things as she often did. Humming the song they’d danced to, tilting her head, she picked up his hairbrush, flicked her thumb over the bristles, then ran it through the hair just above her right ear as far as the French knot permitted.

  “Need any help up here?”

  She dropped the brush with a clatter and spun toward the doorway. Scott leaned against the frame with his weight on one hip. His eyes moved lazily from her flaming face to the hairbrush, then back again. His dimples looked as deep as the tufts on a chaise. He’d never come up before when she tucked Willy in. Willy generally scampered downstairs to find him in his office, give him a peck good-night, get a last drink of water, and delay bedtime as long as possible. She’d call over the rail, “What are you doing down there?” And he’d come trudging upstairs with an air of persecution. Then she’d plump his pillow, kiss him good-night, adjust the netting around his bed and extinguish the light. It was her custom to retire to her room immediately afterward. Scott would always be in his office as she passed his door. And when she’d turned to roll her own closed, she’d look up to find him watching her, smoking a cheroot or toying with a pen.

  “Good night,” she’d say.

  “Good night,” he’d answer.

  Then the doors would roll and thump quietly between them.

  But tonight he sauntered into Willy’s room and adjusted the netting on the far side of the bed, then came around and sat down on the edge of it.

  “’Night, sprout,” he said. Willy went pell-mell into his arms and gave him a reckless kiss.

  “I like dancin’!”

  Scott laughed and rumpled Willy’s hair. “Y’ do, huh?”

  “Can we do it again tomorrow night?”

  “If Gussie wants to.”

  “She will. You will, won’t you, Gussie?”

  Scott studied her, still wearing the grin. Tiny shocks of awareness buzzed up the backs of her legs.

  “Of course.” She busied herself with Willy. “Now, down with you, young man.”

  “Kiss first,” he demanded, kneeling beside Scott, lifting his arms to Agatha.

  She leaned down for the customary hug and kiss. Her leg bumped Scott’s knee, her skirts buried his pant leg. The awareness trebled. Willy flopped back and the two of them stood up. Watching Scott close the netting, she was gripped by a fantasy as vital as air—that Willy was theirs, that as they exchanged good-nights with him, Scott would take her hand and lead her from the room, along the cantilevered balcony to the master bedroom. And there she would take down her hair and preen it with the brush they shared, and don
a fine lawn nightgown with open lacework across the top, and look across the room and find his dark eyes following each movement, while he slowly unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it from his trousers. And they would meet on the big tester bed where he’d been conceived and he’d say “At last,” and she would do with him the thing that Violet said no woman should miss.

  But what happened was that they walked down the curving stairway with Scott adjusting his single step to her step and a half. And he turned into his office and she into her bedroom. But when the doors had rolled within a foot of each other, she paused and looked up to find him standing in his office doorway, watching her again.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Do you sleep when you go t’ bed so early?”

  “Sometimes. Not always.”

  “Then what do you do?”

  “I read. Or work on my stitchery. The lighting is so good here, it’s a pleasure, even after dark.”

  “I find it hard t’ sleep if I go t’ bed before eleven.”

  “Oh,” she said, then stood there like a dummy, wondering if he could see her pulse race from clear across the rotunda.

  “Are you sleepy?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “Would you like t’ come into my office for a while? We could talk.”

  Like they used to do on the steps, listening to the coyotes. How many times had she longed to do it again? “I’d like that.”

  He stepped back and allowed her to enter the office before him and she felt his eyes on her back as she circled the room, examining the furniture, the portrait of his parents on one wall, a set of clay pipes inside one of the glass-fronted cabinets. Behind her she heard the humidor close, a match strike. She smelled his tobacco even before she turned.

  “Would you mind if I have a glass of brandy?” he asked.

  “Not at all.”

  “Sit down, Gussie.”

  She chose a wingchair of sea-foam green, while he filled a tumbler and crossed to a leather chair no more than three feet away. As he settled down he freed the bow from his tie and unfastened his collar button.