by Renee' Irvin
After traveling miles through the tall marshes they were finally there. Isabella raised her eyes to the crowd of women and children that looked at her with troubled gazes. Jules abruptly jumped out of the buggy and closed the door behind him. His voice became loud and he dominated the conversation. Isabella observed the crowd. She had never seen so many women and children that looked so thin and desperate; you could see the fear in their eyes. Where were their men?
“Afternoon, Miss Eve, your old man around?” Isabella heard Jules say to a young mulatto woman.
“Nawh sir, he ain’t. He been gone a while now. Mister Jules I need to talk to you bout some things.”
“Go ahead, I’m listening.”
The pretty mulatto woman seemed shy as she unrolled a piece of paper in her hand and handed it to Jules.
“What do dis paper say? Mrs. Willingham, she say, it say something bout you selling dis place. Why you want to do dat? Where you think us women folks and dees chilluns gonna go?”
Isabella climbed out of the buggy and walked closer so she could hear the conversation. She noticed the mulatto woman’s small waist. Then a Negro girl of about twelve walked up. She was just a child, but Isabella noticed that she was going to have a baby. Isabella glanced at the girl whose name was Eve, and the girl looked away.
“Mister Jules, de guvment say dat we got de right to stay here as long as we pay our money and we done dat,” said Eve humbly.
“Eve, the money has not been paid and furthermore, your men have been selling some of the crops and not giving Hoyt the money.”
“Selling crops and not giving Mister Hoyt de money? Dat’s a lie!”
Dear God! That sounds just like Hoyt to take these peoples’ money and keep it, thought Isabella.
“Eve, I’m just gonna tell you what I heard,” said Jules.
“What’s dat, Mister Jules?”
“I’d hoped I wasn’t gonna have to mention this, but Hoyt said, Moses’s boy and some of the other Negroes have been making a deal with some Yankees, selling my crops and keeping the money.”
“You forget what Mister Hoyt say, he ain’t telling you de truth.”
“Well, then where’s the crops and my money?”
Isabella watched Eve raise her eyes, trying to hold back the tears.
“Where’s Moses and his boy, Eve? Where’s your old man?” Asked Jules.
“I can’t say,” said Eve.
“Well, if you can’t say, then there ain’t a thing I can do for you and the others,” said Jules, rubbing his eyes.
“What does dat mean?”
“That means, that if the money you and the rest of the sharecroppers owe me for the crops ain’t paid by Tuesday, then I have no choice but to ask Hoyt to tell y’all to leave.”
“Mister Jules, what you mean? You see dere ain’t no one here but us womenfolks and chillins. How you think we supposed to pack up ourselves and be out of here by Monday night? Dat ain’t but four days! Where is us women gonna go?” Eve reached down and touched a little boy’s nappy black head with her small calloused brown hand.
Isabella stared hard at Jules. “Jules, you can’t do this,” whispered Isabella. Her eyes quickly surveyed the white fields dense with cotton. “Besides, who will look after this cotton? What are you gonna do with it all?”
Jules lit a cigar and looked out across the fields. “Hell, little lady, I’d rather those crops burn than have niggers stealing from me.”
“But you don’t know they stole anything,” said Isabella.
Across the fields, black arms reached down and then back up, many with babies strapped on their backs, others with them at their breasts. A few of the women walked through the field with a baby on their hips and holding the hand of a toddler. They were walking toward Isabella and Jules. Through the tall grassy fields they came. Isabella counted eight young Negro women carrying babies. They stood, waiting and listening. Isabella looked up and saw the depressed looks on their dark faces.
Jules saw old Moses come out onto the porch of one of the shacks and he summoned him to the field.
As her husband and Moses walked away, Isabella glanced at the small army of black women with pleading eyes. One of them held a sleeping child against her shoulder. Isabella’s eyes went to Eve. “Eve?”
Eve nodded.
“Listen to me. I know what it’s like to worry that your house is gonna be taken from you. I’m gonna try and help. I don’t know yet what I’m gonna do, but I’m gonna figure out something. With my heart and soul, I swear on the life of my little girl I will be back.” A silence fell over the women. “Not a word of this can get out, you hear?” Isabella looked at the women, mostly still girls. She thought about the time her daddy told her how, during the war the slave women would stand on the side of the roads and give water and food to sick, wounded and weary Confederate boys.
Small clouds formed in the sky and a faint wind blew. Isabella looked up. “It looks like rain.” Looking out across the fields of cotton and corn were shanties lined up in a row.
“Where’s your men?” asked Isabella.
A woman swollen with child touched her belly and said, “They gone. The only man left here is old Moses.”
“Where did they go?” asked Isabella.
A red cloud of dust blew across the road and the women saw a man in a buggy. The young pregnant girl reached for Eve’s arm, her eyes grew wide with fright.
“What’s the matter?” Asked Isabella.
“You know Mister Hoyt’s a bad man,” said Eve with a stern face.
Isabella noticed tears stream down the young pregnant girl’s face. She glanced down at the girl’s belly and their eyes met. “Hoyt? Did Hoyt do this to you?”
Eve’s eyes flickered like a burning flame. “She ain’t the first. He came out here once with a man named Jacob and dat man is worse dan Hoyt and I ne’er thought there could be such a thing as a man on dis earth worse dan Hoyt.”
Sudden pain shot through Isabella and her eyelids stung with tears. She had hoped that she would be dead ten thousand years before she ever heard Jacob Hartwell’s name again.
“Where are your men?” Isabella asked again.
“Dey miles away from here. Dey been rumors dat something bad was gonna happen.” The women glanced at Eve, looked at each other and then dropped their eyes. “Dat Jacob is more evil dan de devil.” Eve leaned into Isabella and whispered, “Old Moses heard Jim Brown say dat Hoyt and dat Jacob fellow had been messing with his girl. Two days later, they found Jim dead. He had been shot in the head and left in the swamp.”
“Is that all Moses said?” asked Isabella.
“He say Jim’s hands were tied behind his back and his tongue was cut out. Then when Hoyt came over here threatening something about selling Mister Jules crops, old Moses told the menfolk to leave until dis thing cooled down and he had a chance to talk to Mister Jules.”
Isabella glanced at the women, s crops Old Moses told the men away; he did not want to admit it.by sister to Isabella than her own child. Even so it was then heard voices and saw Jules and Hoyt walking toward her. Isabella’s eyes met Hoyt’s. She gave him a hard look and then turned to the women.
“We have to hush, here they come. Hold on. I’ll be back in a couple of days. Remember, just keep the faith. I’ll be back.”
The women looked at Isabella with new eyes. They turned and walked back through the fields.
“Hold on,” whispered Isabella.
Jules climbed into the carriage and he and Isabella rode down the dusty road away from the thick fields of cotton and shanties.
Isabella stared at Jules for a moment and then said, “You don’t care a thing about them, do you?”
“Woman, don’t start on me.”
Isabella turned her head and looked out at the partially standing, burned out plantations. Brick chimneys and rock fireplaces were sometimes all that was left, but it was enough to carry an eternal reminder of Sherman and his soldiers. Isabella glanced at Jules and suddenly,
he reminded her of Rollins Hartwell.
That evening Isabella did not have the energy to go to the dinner table. She knew the truth about the sharecroppers and now she wondered if she was glad. But she knew and she could not forget what she had found out. Those women were terrified and the children looked like starved scarecrows. She lay in her bed waiting for Jules to go to the warehouse to play poker, but he did not leave. Instead, he entered the bedroom and stared down at his wife in bewilderment. “You don’t feel like eating?”
“No.”
Isabella could no longer conceal her feelings. “Those women are scared to death of Hoyt; you can’t put them out of their houses.”
“I don’t want to hear it. Hell, they’ll tell you anything. You can’t listen to them niggers. I should have never taken you over there.”
“But you did, and don’t you even want to know what is happening?”
“Hell, that’s what I’ve got Hoyt for!”
Isabella jumped up off the bed and said, “Hoyt’s a lying pig!”
Jules grabbed Isabella by the shoulders and screamed, “Listen to me, you damn bitch! Who in the hell do you think you are?” Jules swung around and knocked a cranberry luster off the dresser and it shattered into pieces.
Jesse had come in through the kitchen door and heard Isabella scream. He started to run back to the bedroom when Priscilla grabbed him by the arm.
“Where do you think you going? It ain’t your duty to go for her every time she screams like a cat. Mister Jules is her husband and dey ain’t a thing you can do bout that. No matter what he do to dat woman it ain’t anything to you.” Priscilla wrinkled her brow and stared at Jesse. “You’d do good if you ne’er laid eyes on dat woman ever again. Now you hear me, I see de way you look at her. Are you crazy? It ain’t ne’er gonna be. It can’t be; not as long as your skin is black and hers is white, and for you to hope any different ain’t gonna do a thing, but get you hung.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. She’s family to me, like a sister,” Jesse said defensively.
“Uhm, you tell dat to somebody dat believes you. I’se got eyes and dey ain’t lying.”
Jesse looked angrily down the hall, grabbed hold of the kitchen door and went outside.
“Youse better un-ruffle your feathers,” whispered Priscilla.
The next night, Jules did leave to play poker and Isabella made a quick attempt to get out of the house. She remembered that she had not eaten anything since breakfast so she hurried to the kitchen to see what Priscilla had cooked for supper.
“Crawfish, gumbo and whiskey! For Christ sake, no wonder I’m as sick as a dog!” Her stomach grumbled and roared. “Ain’t there even a stick of cornbread in this house?” Isabella looked around the kitchen, found a biscuit and a piece of ham from breakfast. She sat down at the table, looked out the window and ate her ham and biscuit.
Priscilla walked into the kitchen and watched Isabella for a moment. “Youse got a fine life here. Why you want to make a ruckus all the time?”
“You don’t understand a thing do you?” Isabella said glancing up at Priscilla.
“How’s dat?”
“You’d be content to sit right here while the Yankees set this place on fire. In fact, you’d probably be feeding them gumbo.”
“The Yankees done come. What you talking ‘bout dat for?”
Isabella thought there wasn’t any need wasting time talking to Priscilla about something she had no understanding of. Besides, she had to hurry.
“Never mind,” said Isabella. “I’m going out.”
“Where you going? You ain’t got no business going out dis time of night, especially in your condition.”
“Mind your own business. If you had half sense of a goat, you’d want out of this place too! I want to go home, don’t you understand? And I aim to get there anyway I can. And not you nor Jules gonna stand in my way, do you understand me?” Isabella screamed.
She ran out onto the back porch just as Jesse walked up wearing a wide brim floppy hat. “Where you headed?”
Isabella stood, shaking. “You know where I’m headed and don’t try to stop me.”
“I can’t let you go over there alone.”
“Then you can go with me. I just want to see her and maybe talk to her. And I aim to go if I have to walk every step of the way.” Isabella looked into Jesse’s eyes.
Jesse pushed her tumbled hair away from her face and whispered, “Okay. I know where to go. Get ready. If she ain’t home or dere somebody over dere we comin’ right back.”
“Okay,” whispered Isabella.
Staring straight ahead at the cobblestone road lit by gas street lamps, Jesse said, “Dis could be dangerous. We ain’t messing with normal people. If I was you, I’d change my mind. Mister Jules days with dat woman are over.”
“I don’t care! Besides, how do you know? You don’t know a thing.”
“I know you fixin’ to get yourself in a bigger mess than you is already in, and now I’m right in de middle of dis one.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
Jesse turned the horse slowly and headed toward Oglethorpe.
“You know anything ‘bout them shacks Jules has over in Beaufort?” asked Isabella.
“Nuthin’ I care to talk ‘bout,” said Jesse, never taking his eyes from the road.
As they neared Forsyth Park the moss on the trees hung thicker, a canopy of large oaks ushered them in. Isabella touched Jesse’s arm and he turned to look at her. “Here,” said Jesse as he pulled in front of the magnificent Italianate mansion. Sounds of music were coming from the park across the street. Jesse looked over around the fountain. “Looks like they’re having some kind of musical over there tonight.” He jumped out of the carriage and tied the horse’s rein to a hitching post.
Isabella just sat there with her hands in her lap, looking up at the house.
Perhaps this woman was a mean vicious person or maybe she was crazy and she would pull a knife on her. Isabella was a little scared but she was a gambler determined to try and convince the mistress of her husband that she would be better off with him and Isabella would be much better off without him and together they could devise a plan. What kind of plan? She was not quite sure; that part she hadn’t exactly figured out yet. What else could she do? This was it. At last she was at the house of Jacqueline Rousseau and she knew that everything in her life from here on out depended on this woman. Jesse walked around and helped Isabella down from the carriage. She stared up ahead and knew her whole life was in front of her.
“Do you want me to go in there with you?”
“No, I need to do this myself.”
“Okay, I’ll be across at the park.”
Isabella just stood there.
“Well are you going?” Asked Jesse.
“I’m going, I’m going,” she whispered making her way up the tabby lined steps. Gas lanterns flickered on either side of the house. Isabella looked back and saw Jesse slip into the darkness. She heard the sounds of his harmonica as she placed her nervous hand on the intricate black iron gate and opened it.
“I have to do this,” whispered Isabella.
On their way to the musical soiree’ that was being held in the park were Annalee Hancock and Lucy Baker.
“Annalee dear, is that—?”
“Yes, Lucy, I’m afraid it is. What do you suppose she’s up to?”
“I don’t know. Which one is he married to?” asked Lucy.
“It’s the one going inside the gate. Virginia Whitlock saw them at church the other Sunday.”
“Church?” Lucy’s eyes bulged in astonishment.
“Now, Lucy, we both know that that’s what the church is for.”
“For what?”
“For the sinners, of course, and if Mr. McGinnis is trying to repent of his sins, well, don’t you think that’s a good thing?” asked Annalee.
“Well, of course, but you would think they’d be embarrassed,” said Lucy.
“Lord, I would just die, if anyone saw me doing any such thing.”
“Of course, you would, dear, and so would I, but that’s the difference in Christians. The thing I can’t believe is they carry on in front of the whole world.”
“Well, this is certainly interesting. Of course, we’re not ones to gossip, but even if we were, everybody already knows of their disgrace,” said Lucy.
“I still wonder why Mrs. McGinnis is paying that woman a visit?” said Annalee. We’ll just stay across the street for a while and we can see how long she stays.”
“That’s a good idea Annalee,” said Lucy as the two crossed the street under a starlit sky.
The wrought iron gate made a shrill sound as Isabella opened it. She heard the front door open and out of the corner of her eye saw the figure of a woman standing there.
“Do you need something?” the woman said softly.
Isabella closed her eyes and wished that she could disappear. Then she thought of Tom. The image of him in her mind forced her to turn back around and face the voice.
Jacqueline was stunned that it was Isabella McGinnis, Jules’s young wife. Jacqueline looked right at Isabella and through her. Lights flickered from the huge houses that lined the park as the two women stood facing each other. Jacqueline noticed Isabella’s pink cotton dress that was trimmed in what had to be French lace. It was lovely, but a local dressmaker must have made it.
Isabella arched her back, hoping Jacqueline did not see the lines of sweat forming on her dress. Jacqueline stared down at Isabella in bewilderment. The two women’s eyes met.
“I’d like to talk to you,” said Isabella
Jacqueline hesitated for a moment, then said, “Come in.”
“I’ll just be a few minutes,” said Isabella as she followed Jacqueline into the house.
“Please sit down,” said Jacqueline, pointing to a sofa in the parlor.
Isabella was anxious to leave, but knew she had to say what she had come there to say. The words came out in a firm voice.
“I want you to take my husband.”