by Renee' Irvin
“Honey, don’t be so hard on her,” said Patrick.
“I’d like to put her planting cotton,” Jacqueline said.
Patrick bent over and removed his shoes. “Priscilla, how ‘bout running these down to the cobbler for me?” Priscilla took the shoes and hurried off. He turned to Jacqueline. “She’s a good Negro. Has she done something to make you not trust her?”
Jacqueline had to remember this was not Jules she was talking to. This was not a man who would treat her like a daughter; this was a man her own age, or only a few years older. He would not understand her childish ways or appreciate her little girl charm the way Jules did. But, of course, Jacqueline knew that all men liked for their women to act like little girls; especially in the bedroom. Jacqueline looked into Patrick’s eyes, tilted her head and smiled. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Poor thing, you’re right. She hasn’t done anything wrong. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”
Patrick interrupted Jacqueline’s apologies and pulled her close to him. He slowly undressed her and slowly made love to her. When he finished, he rolled over and said, “Lord have mercy on us.”
I don’t know what the Lord has to do with this, thought Jacqueline.
“I love you,” whispered Patrick.
Jacqueline closed her eyes and knew what she had tried to deny: she didn’t love him.
When Isabella and Jules returned to Savannah, Jules had a surprise for her. He had purchased a grand house on Monterrey for his young bride and furnished it with Chippendale furniture, accented with fine oil paintings, all illuminated by the flicker of lit Georgian candlesticks. When the carriage pulled in front of the house, Jules told Isabella to close her eyes. When she opened them, Negroes could be seen hurrying to make everything right for her homecoming. Isabella grabbed Jules’s hand and squeezed it. Her heart stood still, she was paralyzed, her mind was speeding with excitement. Jules looked at Isabella as though he would never forget the way she looked at that moment.
Isabella entered the house and quickly glanced around the rooms. Jules lit two lamps and one candle. The maid and hired hands had left and it was the first night alone in their new home. Isabella had thought about how it would be marrying a man that she did not love, but right now, it didn’t seem too bad, not too bad at all.
That night she sat up in the bed as the moonlight filtered through the shutters. Her new husband was not beside her. Isabella walked through the house, but Jules was nowhere to be found. She thought to herself that it had not taken him long to get used to the sweetness of her youth. She had expected to see wrinkles and loose, sagging skin, but that was not her husband. His body was stocky and firm with all the vigor of youth and the desires of a young man. She heard a carriage come around the front of the house. Isabella scowled and started to speak sharply as Jules walked into the house, but she held her tongue. “Where you been?”
Jules glanced at Isabella and lay down on the sofa. Isabella could smell the whiskey. Her husband was drunk. She stood over Jules and thought of speaking her mind, but knew she’d better leave him be. It was one thing to know her husband did not love her, but another to know that he did not desire her. Then she remembered the conversation she had overheard in the livery stable that day; about the house Jules had bought for his whore on Oglethorpe. She looked at her still husband and thought perhaps there was no difference between her and the whore. Of course, there was a difference—he had married her, and to Isabella, that’s all that mattered.
The next morning, Isabella got up, dressed and left her bedroom. As she started to the kitchen, she bumped into a gray haired Negro man carrying a silver tray with a glass of tomato juice, black coffee and the Savannah Morning News. Isabella smiled, nodded at him, and then realized that he had taken the tray out on the verandah where Jules was sitting. When Isabella walked onto the verandah, Jules motioned to her. He was giving instructions to the stable boy about which horse to saddle and then offered his arm to his wife.
“Where did you go last night?”
There was a look of guilt on Jules’s face. Isabella knew all about girls in dancing dresses; she had seen them at the tavern, laughing and drinking with men until sundown.
“You been with them women in the dancing dresses?” she asked with a childish look.
A slow grin spread across Jules’ face. He glanced at her. “That ain’t something for you to worry about.”
“Who said I was worried? But I reckon now that I’m your wife, it might be some of my business.”
Jules stood up and plopped his hat on his head. Without looking back, he walked toward the carriage. “Little lady, I’ll be home for supper.”
“Do you not think anything’s any of my business?” she yelled.
Isabella’s face flushed red and she stormed back into the house. Her thoughts turned to Jesse. Isabella had not mentioned to Jules that her intent was to bring Jesse to the house on Monterrey as soon as they were settled in. Besides, Jules could not refuse her offer to bring her own driver; he should appreciate the fact that she was so thoughtful not to bother her new husband with such trivial details.
Isabella knew that Jules did not marry her simply because he felt sorry for her. After all, he was not a marrying man. Jules himself had told her so, and on more than one occasion. She knew he was not a romantic, nor did he have a sympathetic heart. In fact, it had occurred to her that he did not have a heart. Jules had made it clear what he wanted out of the arrangement, but still, there had to be something more. Something that Isabella had yet to figure out, but she was determined to. Then there was that mention about the whore who belonged to him. If Jules indeed had his own whore, a woman that would be content to stay at home and have an affair with a man that never intended matrimony, then why did he marry her?
Isabella’s eyes grew moist as she thought of Tom and her lost youth. She thought of her baby Elora, who spent more time with Kate than with her. She thought of her mama and granny. I might as well be dead, she thought. Isabella closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. She dreamed that she and Tom were waltzing, not in a ballroom, but along the banks of the Chattahoochee River. Tom held her close, and Isabella was ecstatic.
Weeks passed before Jesse came to see Isabella. His soft dark eyes flashed anger, but it was obvious he was hurt. Silas, an old Negro porter who had worked for Jules for years, ushered Jesse into Jules’s study where Isabella was busy going through her husband’s business records. Isabella turned as Jesse entered without a coat and shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows.
“I guess sometime you think people got everything and den you see dey done forgot everything dey wuz raised on.”
“You don’t understand. Time was wastin.” Said Isabella, blinking away the tears.
“Don’t know why any of dat matters. Looks like to me you done put all dat behind you.”
“I’m sorry,” whispered Isabella. Jesse’s shoulders slumped and his head bowed.
“Don’t be mad at me,” Isabella pleaded.
His head came up slowly. “You run off and marry a man old enough to be your daddy and you tell me not to be mad?” Jesse shook his head, never taking his eyes off her. “Look at you! What’d you do, sell yourself to him? Ise so stupid I guess I thought white women didn’t let demselves get sold.”
Isabella got up and slapped Jesse hard across the face. “Oh Jesse, what have I done?” she cried. Isabella saw the gentle look on his dark face.
“Don’t you know that sometimes a woman has to do whatever she can to survive? I am neither pure nor sacred. Besides, why does it always have to be one way or another? What else could I do? I know what you’re thinking—I’m no better than those prostitutes that ladies cross the street to get away from. Don’t you think I tried to think of another way? I did, but there just wasn’t one.”
Jesse gave her a sharp look and said, “Nice girls just don’t do things like dis.”
“Nice girls? Don’t you know I wasn’t a nice girl anymore when mama and granny sent me away? Look, I
’m gonna fight hard to get myself out of this mess. If I lay down, I’m gonna be just like them Confederate men daddy talked about that walked and walked until they finally couldn’t walk no more, and they had to lay down and then they died. I ain’t gonna lay down and die, Jesse.”
“It’s done. There ain’t a thing we can do.” Jesse removed a folded envelope from his vest pocket. “This came for you today.”
Isabella sat down in a red velvet chair, unfolded the envelope, removed the letter and read it. “It’s from mama,” she said. Jesse began to notice the fear in her face.
“What duz it say?”
“Granny’s sick and mama thinks I should come home.”
“I suppose we should get ready to go.”
“I suppose. You feeling okay? You look like a starved scarecrow,” said Isabella.
Jesse’s old smile came back. “We gonna go home.” Isabella glanced at him.
“It will kill Granny when she finds out what I’ve done.”
“Not if youse brave and tell her how much you love Mister Jules. When Granny sees dat you done got yourself a rich husband, den she ain’t as liable to worry.”
“Granny’s sick, Jesse, she ain’t dead. You know as well as me that Granny would know I was trying to pull the wool over her eyes.”
“Don’t you love Mister Jules just a little bit?”
“Love him? For heaven’s sakes, no, Jesse. What on earth would make you think such a thing? There ain’t a thing about a man like Jules McGinnis that would make me want to love him for a moment. Why, if he had an honorable intention in his soul, he would have just given me the money that I needed to pay off mama and granny’s debt. Love him? Hah! I’m gonna work as fast as I can to find a good reason to get myself out of this mess. And there’s got to be one.” Isabella thought for a moment in silence. Oh, how she wanted to go home, She missed the rich north Georgia soil and Tom. Oh, how she missed Tom. Suddenly, the pain disappeared from her face and she mustered a smile.
“What you thinking ‘bout?” asked Jesse with narrowed eyes.
“I ain’t thinking about a thing; not a thing I care for you to know, but I might tell you if you promise you won’t tell a soul.”
“I promise.”
“Not Kate or Charlie, not anyone?”
“Not dem either.”
“You swear on your pa’s grave, Jesse Rucker?”
“I swear.”
Isabella walked over and closed the door behind them. She looked out the window and saw a Negro pull a crate of potatoes out of a buggy. She then pulled Jesse to a corner. He stared at her, bewildered.
“My husband has a whore that he keeps in a house over on Oglethorpe,” Isabella said in a tone barely above a whisper.
“How you know?”
“I heard him.”
“How dat happen?”
“Don’t worry ‘bout how it happened and how I heard it, but I’m awful glad I did.”
“So? Besides you shouldn’t say such things.”
“What you mean so? Can’t you see this is a way out of this mess? That woman on Oglethorpe is my way back home. As for me not saying such things, I will say as I please. Jules McGinnis may think he owns me, but there ain’t nobody ever gonna take my mind.” Isabella smiled a satisfied smile.
Jesse rolled his eyes. “Miz Bella, you done lost your mind, forget taking it. Don’t you know mens been having whores and wives as long as there’s been both. And a man like Mister Jules, there ain’t a soul that would not expect him to have one without the other.”
Jesse’s words infuriated her. “I don’t know why I told you a thing. I should have known better than to expect you to understand. You’re a man and you’re all the same. But you better keep your promise and not breathe a word. I’ll die before I spend many more nights in this house with the likes of a man like Jules McGinnis.”
Isabella turned to Jesse with a look of urgency. “You know where that woman lives?”
“No, and I ain’t gonna be finding out.”
“Oh yes, you are! Jesse, please do this for me. Just find out who she is and where she lives and I promise I won’t never cause you a moment’s trouble, not ever again. If you don’t this for me, well, I have no choice but to find her on my own.”
Jesse turned away nothing Isabella said seemed to surprise him anymore. Isabella noticed how bony his shoulders were. “Okay, I’ll find her after we get back from Shakerag, but only if you promise me dat you’ll make Granny think dat you married Mister Jules for love. If you don’t make her believe dat, den you might as well go ahead and throw the dirt on her grave.”
Jesse looked hard at Isabella. “Dat means even if Tom comes around.”
“Even that.” Isabella said with a dart of pain.
While Isabella prepared for her return home, in Forsyth Park ladies with white parasols and dresses of spring could be heard discussing the arrival of new “Yankee types.” They shared how their grandmother’s silver had been buried and abandoned under rose bushes, most of which had never been recovered. Broken laughter was heard as gentlemen tipped their hats to the ladies as they passed by in their carriages.
Over on Oglethorpe, Annalee Hancock could be seen in hours of chatter alongside her iron gate with Lucy Baker. The goings-on of both neighborhoods made Forsyth Park a very social place. And it was greening and flowering up. Magnolias, gardenias, crepe myrtle, and, of course, the much prized Confederate rose. The Savannah sun shone on houses with tiers of columns, cool galleries, and ladies relaxed on verandahs.
Many a Southern banquet could be observed spread across mahogany tables, as always a multi-course affair. A proper Southern mistress always surveyed her garden party, waiting for just the proper time to ascend. Music could be heard rising from the music room of successful cotton merchants and businessmen. Savannah was in her time of elegance.
On the night before Isabella was to depart for Shakerag, she invited Kate and Mr. O’Brien to have dinner at the house on Monterrey. Kate insisted that on her first visit home that Isabella should leave the baby with her, but Isabella made it clear that Elora would make the trip with her and Jesse.
They dined on baked ham, candied yams, corn, green beans and a blackberry cobbler that Kate had brought. Throughout dinner, Jules and Mr. O’Brien talked about the war and the economy of Savannah. Isabella didn’t understand why all men ever wanted to talk about was war. Was that all men thought about—war and sex? She remembered when her daddy talked about her grandpa fighting the Indians in South Georgia. That’s where he met her great-grandmother; she had a French last name, but rumor was she was a Creek Indian and they tried to hide the fact by giving her another name. Isabella wondered why people spent so much time trying to cover up the truth. It just complicated matters. How stupid people were! Isabella looked over at Jules and thought about the whore he kept on Oglethorpe. Of course, her life it could be worse. She knew that the house she sat in that night was a long way from Shakerag and she knew that she ought to be grateful. She glanced at Elora tottering around in the dining room. She watched Jules in deeply animated conversation and she knew he had begun to give her a life that she once could only dream of. She hadn’t forgotten the many hours that Lettie forced her to work like a slave in the tavern. However, the truth was she would never have married Jules McGinnis if she had not been in such a desperate situation. She didn’t wish him ill—she only wanted to pack her things and return home to the only man she had ever loved. But she was married now and now she had to play by the rules.
Kate noticed a long baroque strand of pearls on Isabella’s neck. “Isabella, darling, what beautiful pearls. Were they a gift?”
Jules raised his eyes and glanced with a hint of sarcasm across the table at his young wife. “I chose the pearls when we were in New Orleans.”
Isabella gave Jules a sharp look.
“What’s the matter, honey?” Jules asked.
Isabella’s face grew red with anger. I’ve married a man that I do not love, that’s what�
��s wrong! she wanted to say. Instead, she said, “I sit in this house all day without much more to do than look pretty and help prepare my husband’s next meal.” Isabella paused. “I don’t want to join some dumb garden club or learn to cross stitch with that meddling woman next door. If I ever ask a question about your business, you laugh at me and tell me that ain’t something for me to concern myself with. What is there around here for me to concern myself with other than you, Jules?” Isabella jumped up from the table and ran to her bedroom in tears.
The clock had struck midnight when Jules entered the bedroom. He looked at the dresser and saw the strand of pearls Isabella had on earlier, now broken and spread across the dresser. Isabella pretended to be asleep, but she knew that since she was to leaving the next day, Jules would want her that night. Why don’t he just go over to Oglethorpe? He must know I don’t want him. It seemed to her a man would be better off with a woman who wanted him, but she also knew that they always wanted the ones that didn’t. Or at least those seemed to excite them more.
“Are you gonna miss me while you’re gone?”
Isabella thought not only is he drunk, he’s crazy.
“I want you to love me,” Jules said. “Why do you think I bought you this house and took you out of that tavern?”
“Jules, this is the whiskey talking, not you. Of course, you don’t love me; you’ve told me so yourself.” She started to mention the whore, but stopped herself.
Jules kissed her on the back of her neck. There was something exciting about it, but Isabella didn’t want to admit it. He turned her over and put his hand under her chin. “Sometimes love takes a while. It isn’t always as it seems. Now, it is what it is. You and I are alike. We don’t try to make it into something it ain’t, but that don’t mean that it never will be that way.”
“But if it’s a lie, then why do people go through the motions?” asked Isabella.
“Cause, darling, sometimes that’s all there is. You could have married into a much worse family, you know. My mother was a good woman. I know she wondered many a time what happened to me. I didn’t used to be this way, but life changed me. After the war, I just wasn’t the same man. You think that after a while things will go back to the way they were. But they never do, and a man is left with who he is, but that ain’t to say that he don’t cry for who he was.”