It was a pathetic contrast to La Rêve. As we approached the buildings some dogs that were tied near a tilting smokehouse set up an hysterical barking. Hennessy was humming lightly, echoing their high, angry tones. He spoke sharply to the dogs and they subsided a little. A handful of chickens in the yard scattered as we approached the house. We came to a halt at the door. A pale thin woman appeared. Two wan little girls clung to her skirts.
"Edward! Did you get a good price?" she called. When she saw me step out from behind the horse her mouth fell open.
"This is Frenchie," Hennessy said. I was startled by the gleeful note in his voice and I looked at him. He was grinning widely at her, daring her to challenge him. The little girls whimpered.
The woman pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. "I don't understand," she said. "You were—"
"She's a new slave, Martha," the man explained gruffly.
Martha Hennessy stepped into the sunlight and shaded her eyes with her hand. "But—but the money, Edward," she said hesitantly. "We needed it so badly. The crops—I—I don't understand. Isn't there any money?"
"No." He hooked his thumbs in his belt and cocked his head at her, daring her to say anything more. She stood gaping at me, and after a moment he said, "This is all, Martha. I traded the furs for the girl. They were worth five hundred dollars. She was a bargain, was Frenchie. Step up, girl. Show yourself off. Isn't every day Martha gets to see a woman worth that much money."
Two desolate tears ran down his wife's thin cheeks. She gulped. "I suppose we can put her in with old Annie," she whispered. She almost gagged on the words.
"She's to have the spare room," he told her. "She's a fancy house servant, Martha. A helper for you. What's the matter? Can't you appreciate what I've done for you?"
She shook her head wordlessly and ran into the house. He bolted after her, almost falling over the two terrified children, who wailed and looked at me fearfully, then followed their parents inside. I heard angry voices, his deep and biting, hers high and shrill. The children were crying. Then I heard a shriek, followed by a short silence, followed by more wails and shouts. He had struck her.
I stood alone in the hot, shadeless yard. So he had brought me here to torment his wife. He was mad and hate-filled, and we were all his victims. The need to be free was so strong in me that it was almost painful and I had to stop myself from crying out. I knew I would escape him somehow. I had to.
Chapter 15
The Brand
Blinking my eyes against the rising clouds of steam, I plunged my arms into the hot soapy water and kneaded the dirty clothes energetically. Then I dragged each piece out of the water and scrubbed it over the fins of a washboard before I set it aside for rinsing.
"Do you like being a slave, Frenchie?" Jenny asked. She was eight, and even the terrible tension that filled her life could not dampen her natural curiosity.
"Not much," I said gruffly. I didn't want to grow fond of the children. I didn't want to become attached to the farm or the Hennessys in any way. I tried to rebuff them when they wanted to get close to me, but it wasn't easy. They were sweet little girls, and although they had some of their mother's shyness and timidity, they had none of their father's meanness. "I would rather be far away, in a place where I wouldn't have to do any washing or scrubbing or cooking," I said, punctuating my words with vigorous strokes on the washboard. "Far, far away."
"What would you do then?" Sarah, who was six, was picking up her sister's habit of questioning.
I thought a moment. "I would go sailing. Yes, I think I'd go sailing under the blue sky and the stars. I'd have a strong wind at my back and a wide, empty sea in front of me and all around me. Sailing alone in a fine shiny boat with sails as white as clouds, and smooth decks and a little cabin filled with good wines and lots of food. And I'd have lots of warm blankets for when it got cold."
I wished for all the things I did not have: privacy, good food and wine, warmth against the chill of Virginia's autumn nights. And freedom.
"Papa says you're from France," Jenny said.
I glanced at their thin faces peering at me over the edge of the washtub. "Yes, that's right."
"Is France far from here?"
"Quite far. First you have to get to the coast, and then you cross the ocean in a big ship. And then you get into a golden carriage and you ride until you get to Orleans. That's a beautiful city, very old. Jeanne d'Arc is from Orleans. And after that you ride south a little ways. The land is rolling and wooded, but not like it is here. Things are smaller, and simpler. And the estates are lovely, older and more beautiful than American plantations." I could almost see the Chateau Lesconflair in the steam that rose up from the hot water. "And life there is very good, very good indeed." I clamped my teeth down on my lower lip and viciously rubbed one of Martha Hennessy's faded housedresses on the washboard.
"Would you like to go back there?" Jenny's blue eyes were sad.
"To France?" I stifled a bitter laugh. Ever since Hennessy had brought me to this place I had thought of nothing else. Sometimes the longing for my home was so strong that I could hardly bear it. I would have given anything to be able to go back. "Yes, I guess I would like to see my home again."
Edward Hennessy's large frame filled the doorway of the wash house. "Go play someplace else, girls," he said to his daughters.
The girls turned their frightened eyes to him for a second and then slipped past him and ran into the yard.
"Gettin' homesick?" he asked gleefully, leaning against the doorframe.
I didn't look up. "What if I were?"
He said, "What the hell difference does it make whether you're French or whether you're the bastard bitch of some white planter and his black whore?"
"Obviously it makes a great deal of difference to me," I retorted.
He advanced into the room and stood next to me. I could feel the heat thrown off by his body and smell the traces of tobacco and sweat that clung to his clothing. I hated him so much that his nearness made me shake with loathing. I didn't try to hide it.
Rivulets of perspiration trickled down my face and neck. In the close heat of the tiny shed I had unbuttoned my blouse and permitted it to hang open over the tops of my breasts. Now I pulled the fabric together and held it closed with my hand while I stood waiting patiently for him to leave.
His big laugh filled the cramped shed. "You're a rare bitch, Frenchie," he said, stepping closer to me and yanking my hand away from my blouse. "I knew the first minute I set eyes on you that you were the kind of woman who could appreciate a real man, and I was right. But you got to watch yourself. You're gettin' to be as cold and mean as Martha."
"Then the fault must be yours," I observed tartly. "Any woman who works as hard as we do can hardly be expected to have any outside interests."
He wrenched my blouse open and cradled my breasts in his gross hands. I tried to pull away. "No," I said through clenched teeth. "Get out of here. Don't you care anything about the children? If they saw—"
"I'll whip them if they try to come in," he said. "Come here—"
We struggled. He tried to put his arms around me and when I resisted he struck me in the face with his open hand. I felt as though I had been hit with a sledge hammer. My eye started to swell immediately and I knew it was turning black. He rubbed his knee against me and slid his hand under my skirts. While I fought him weakly he started to drag me down to the floor.
"Mas' Edward, one of the mules has gone and busted her leg!"
A Negro named Ira stood panting in the doorway, watching us.
"Goddamn it, get out of here!" Hennessy bellowed. "Where?"
"North field, Mas'," the man said, shifting uncomfortably and staring at the floor. "She fell in a hole and she went down like she was dead. Now she's jes' lyin' there, breathin' heavy."
"I'll be there in a minute. Now get the hell out of here."
"Yes, Mas'."
The slave disappeared. Hennessy clenched his fists. He seemed to grow large wi
th fury. He roared thunderously and with one sweep of his arm he sent my heavy steaming tub and washboard flying. Water flooded the shed floor and clean clothes lay with dirty ones in pools of mud on the rough boards. He whirled on me, daring me to say just one word. I gazed back woodenly. I knew better than to open my mouth. He hurled himself out of the wash house and ran towards the north field.
I stood for two solid minutes ankle-deep in hot dirty water. Tears of hatred and shame streamed down my cheeks, mingling with sweat and the blood that oozed out of the cut he had opened under my eye. I had never felt so low, so degraded. I swore I would have my revenge on him, on all the people who were responsible for my being here: Georgette, Arnold, Garth. I blamed Garth, too, for not keeping his word to me, for not meeting me that morning and taking me away before any of that could happen. I pulled myself up and walked briskly towards the kitchen. I tried not to think about him. It was too sad, too painful. I had enough to worry about without letting my mind dwell on the past.
I told myself that it could be worse: I could be Martha Hennessy. Even now she was out in the tobacco fields working as hard as any of the blacks, helping to harvest the crop and to carry the tied bundles to the drying sheds. She never spoke an unnecessary word to me, and only addressed me when she had to give me orders about my duties around the house. I couldn't blame her. I could tell that the very sight of me made her sick with hatred and jealousy. I tried to avoid her, as she avoided me. I had decided that Hennessy must be the wickedest man alive, for he was intelligent enough to know how to torment people mentally as well as physically, which made him an even worse devil than Josiah Fowler.
I crossed the yard, pressing the corner of my apron to my bleeding cheek. I would have to dress my wound, and then I would need more hot water to rinse my soiled laundry. On my way I met Isaac, a black boy of about fourteen who was in charge of the kitchen garden and the poultry.
"Good morning, Isaac," I greeted him with forced cheerfulness. He grinned in reply. "How are you feeling today?"
"Better, Missy, a mite better." He bobbed his head and limped away, using a branch cut from a tree as a crutch.
I watched him go and a heavy sadness settled over me. When I first came to this benighted farm, Isaac had been a spry, light-hearted lad—inasmuch as it was possible for anyone to be light-hearted on Hennessy's land. Then one day he had run away. Hennessy took the dogs and went after him. When they returned the boy was a cripple. One of his legs had been horribly mangled. Hennessy said the dogs had done it, but Isaac told the other slaves that the Mas' had deliberately severed his Achilles tendon as punishment for running away. Now his foot curled inwards and was almost useless. Isaac would not try to run away again, it was true. He could barely hobble.
The slaves had been unsure at first of the way they should treat me. They knew that I was a white woman, yet I was clearly as much Hennessy's slave as any one of them. We were all abused and downtrodden, and I'm sure not one of them envied my place in the Master's bed at night. Hennessy was trying to make a living from land that was rocky and unyielding and utterly unsuitable for farming. He had no money to spend on frivolities like shoes for his workers in winter and any but the poorest rags for their backs.
I heard a faraway shot. He had killed the maimed mule, I guessed.
I had soon realized that the cooks at La Rêve had thrown away better scraps than Hennessy's slaves got to live on. Most of the women were chronically ill, the men were gaunt with hunger and undernourished, and their children's bellies were distended with hunger. The master beat them all harshly when they did not work hard enough to suit him, and once he tied a man to a stake in the center of the yard on the hottest day of the summer and left him there for two days and nights without food or water. I tried to give the man some water and Hennessy caught me. He had knocked me flat with one swipe of his huge hand. If he had balled that hand into a fist he would have broken my jaw.
I looked every bit as scruffy and ragged as the rest. My nails were broken and my feet and hands were calloused and so dirty that they never really came clean no matter how much I washed them. I wore a scarf around my head most of the time, just like the other slave women, because it kept my hair out of my face and also absorbed some of the perspiration that poured off my forehead when I worked. I often thought about the rich, easy life at La Rêve, particularly when I had to do my turn in the fields at harvest time, whacking down tobacco and picking the cotton bolls that grew so sparsely on the starved anemic plants that grew out of the barren soil.
The slaves were a little better fed since my arrival, thanks to my cunning in the kitchen. Hennessy had decreed that I would have to learn how "to cook decent" so that his wife would be free to use her energies in the fields. I smuggled food out to the cabins whenever I had the opportunity and if I was sure the food would not be missed. As yet I had not been found out, even though Hennessy kept a sharp eye on the stock in the larder, which he usually kept locked until I asked him for certain items for the day's meals.
When I finally finished the laundry and hung it out to dry, I went back to the kitchen to prepare lunch, the main meal of the day. I heated the oven and baked some loaves of bread that I had put to rise earlier. I paused for a moment to gaze out the kitchen window at the mountains in the distance, from which I had come to this place with my new master. I never used that title when I addressed him, but always looked at him boldly and said whatever I had to say without needless pleasantries.
The green and blue mountains glimmered through the haze beyond the parched hardness of the farmland. They seemed so distant, so unreachable, like the Promised Land, or a mirage. I longed to run to them, to escape this horrid existence. If only there were some way I could get away from him. But I was never out of his sight long enough: he watched me closely during the day and would notice my absence immediately, and he never failed to come to my room at night.
I saw the little girls racing down the hill towards the house. Both were in tears and were shrieking wildly. I looked past them. Edward Hennessy was coming across the yard with his wife in his arms. Her head and limbs were drooping limply, and even from a distance her face looked as pale as death. I ran out of the kitchen.
"Mamma's dead, Mamma's dead," the children sobbed, clinging to my skirts.
"Go inside at once, girls," I said briskly, "and make sure your Mamma's bed is turned down. Will you do that for me?" They obeyed. "What happened?" I asked Hennessy. I grabbed her hand and felt for her pulse.
"She fainted, that's all," he growled. "No need for all this excitement. She ain't dead yet."
I followed him inside and up to her room. He dumped her on the bed. I sent the girls for a basin of water and a cloth, and when they returned I told them to go outdoors and sit in the shade until I called them. Then I undressed the unconscious woman and bathed the grime of the fields off her face and arms. Hennessy watched silently from the doorway.
"She'll be all right," he said brusquely. "It's time for lunch. Leave her."
I said savagely, "She will not be all right. You'll have to get someone else to take the place of your dead mule. And you can damn well get your own lunch."
He smirked. "Maybe you'd like to take her place in front of the cart?"
I ignored him and continued to minister to the woman. I slapped her face lightly until she began to jerk and moan, then I helped her into a sitting position and tilted a glass of water to her lips. She choked and fell back on the pillows. I heard a noise behind me and looked up. Her husband had left the room.
"Drink it," I urged her. "Please try. It's all right now, he's gone."
She licked her lips and murmured harshly, "No. Leave me alone. Get out of here. I don't want you in here. Get out." I made no move to leave her, however, and after a moment she accepted a drink of water. "What happened?" she asked dazedly. "I feel so awful."
"You fainted," I told her.
"Oh. Yes, I remember now. I felt so sick all of a sudden, and then—everything turned inside out. It—i
t must have been the heat."
"It wasn't the heat," I said bluntly. "You're pregnant, aren't you?" she closed her eyes and sighed deeply. "Are you crazy, working like a beast of burden in heat like this?"
"Do you think I have any choice?" she demanded tearfully. "Oh, I don't even care any more. It would be better if I died."
"Don't say that," I snapped. "That's no way to talk. Do you want him to win after all? Do you really want him to have the satisfaction of killing you? Think of the children if you can't think of yourself. And the baby. How far along are you?"
She laughed and sobbed all at once. "Five months. You'd think I'd be past getting sick, wouldn't you?"
"You're not past killing yourself. Does he know?"
"What do you think?" I tried to wipe her face with the damp cloth. She pushed my hand away. "He hasn't looked at me since he brought you back here. Why should he? I suppose I should be grateful to you—but I'm not. Go away and leave me alone." She buried her face in her pillow.
I served lunch to Hennessy and the girls. The children had been upstairs to see for themselves that their mother was really all right and had just been "overcome by the heat," as I told them. They were even more subdued than usual, and they picked listlessly at their food. I hated to see them like this. It was unnatural for children this young to be so quiet and sad. Most children don't have fathers like Edward Hennessy, however. He seemed to be unaffected by his wife's sudden illness, and he ate and drank greedily and spoke to me and his daughters as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. I don't think I ever hated him as much as I did that day.
That night he came to my room as usual. I had stopped trying to resist him after he knocked me unconscious one night and used me anyway, even though I was as limp and unresponsive as a wet dishcloth. He finished quickly and was soon snoring heavily. I turned my back to him and drew as far away as I could. Once again the nightly ritual had been accomplished. His wife never protested. He had blackened both her eyes that first day, and she knew that her next complaint would bring an even worse punishment. I thought about the child she carried. How would this monster react when he found out? In most families the arrival of a new member was an occasion for rejoicing, but that wouldn't be the case here. Another child would mean another mouth to feed and another soul to torment.
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