Property (Vintage Contemporaries) (14 page)

“Always,” Joel said.

“There is nothing to forgive in natural feeling,” my aunt said. My uncle got up and went to the sideboard, taking out glasses. He poured a brandy with water for me, which he pronounced “strengthening,” and two more without water for himself and Joel. “Just a thimbleful of my berry cordial,” my aunt requested. Joel brought my glass to me and took a chair next to my aunt. Our conversation lingered upon the sadness of the occasion, then gradually moved to my plans for the future. “What will you do with the house?” Joel inquired. “It is such a sweet little place. I have spent many happy hours visiting there.”

“It would be a shame to part with it,” my uncle said.

“I’ll close it up for now,” I said.

“It will make an excellent pied-à-terre,” my aunt suggested.

“It would indeed,” Joel said. “With such a charming situation, perhaps your husband can be tempted to leave his sugarcane more often and join us here for the season.”

I took a good swallow of brandy, looking at Joel over the rim of the glass. Was it possible that he hadn’t guessed how I felt about my husband? Or was his remark just politesse, intended to distract my aunt and uncle? His eyes met mine, thoughtful, interested, there was a trace of a smile on his lips.

“My husband dislikes New Orleans,” I said.

JOEL’ SCASUAL REMARK was much in my thoughts as I went through Mother’s clothes, sorting some for charity and some for alteration. I had only a day to pack and close the house before my return to a place I hated for a duration I couldn’t anticipate. I felt like a prisoner who has been led from his dark cell into the daylight, shown a gay, lively, sunny world, and told, all this is yours, and whenever you can persuade your jailer to accompany you, you may see it again. As I worked, nostalgia and remorse visited me by turns, making each decision a kind of torture, as if a kerchief’s or an earring’s fate had momentous implications for my own. Peek and Sarah were in and out, taking up carpets, putting covers on the furniture, polishing silver and storing it in felt bags. What will become of me? I thought, turning a garnet brooch over and over in my hand. I could remember the exact shape and size of the box it came in, the deep wine color of the velvet bow, and my father’s amused glance in my direction as Mother pulled the ribbon apart eagerly. How had I moved so relentlessly from that bright moment to this one?

In the evening I dined with my aunt and we discussed my arrangements for the morrow. As I was leaving, she insisted on sending a servant with a lantern to accompany me back to the cottage, which was hardly necessary as the streets were well lit and the distance but a few blocks, heavily patrolled. It was a clear, chilly night, and as I passed beneath my neighbors’ balconies I could hear the muted sounds of talking and laughing, the occasional shout of pleasure as someone won at cards or delighted the company with a bit of scandalous gossip. How plain and quiet my own little house seemed in comparison, yet I felt again a pleasurable twinge of ownership as I put the key in the lock and opened the door into the darkened parlor. I lit the lamp and closed the shutter behind me. The room had a ghostly, abandoned look to it already. The furniture was covered in loose cream-colored cases, the grate was swept and dry. Peek had gone to her new mistress, and Sarah, I presumed, was asleep. I passed into my bedroom, which is never entirely dark, as the light from the street filters through the shutters. My nightdress was laid out upon the chair, the pitcher filled with water, the bed linens turned back invitingly. I undressed quickly, and slipped beneath the quilt. Tomorrow, I thought, I will not find so welcome a resting place.

But I had scarcely closed my eyes when my drifting thoughts were focused upon the sound of whispering. At first it seemed to be coming from my pillow. One voice, then another, then a pause. I turned onto my back and lay still, listening. There was nothing. From far off I heard a horse’s hooves approaching the corner, turning off toward the Place d’Armes. I closed my eyes. At once the whispering began again. The voice was urgent this time. Was it a man or a woman? No matter how I concentrated, I couldn’t make out one word. It was coming from the floor. After a pause the other voice answered at some length. I sat up in the bed. Was it the floor or the wall? This one sounded like a woman. She was vexed, insistent. I slipped out of the bed and knelt on the bare floor. The voice stopped; there was no answer. A minute passed in which I heard only my own breathing. Just as I decided to get back into the bed, the second voice—I thought it must be a man—began again, lowered, placating, attempting to calm the first. It was coming from the wall, of course. There was a narrow alley between the cottage and the larger town house next door. Yet I was sure the sound was rising up through the boards between my knees. The space beneath the house was open on that side, but it was low, a man would have to crouch to get in there. Whisper, whisper. At length I made out the word “afraid,” and another word repeated, which was either “never” or “better.” I dropped onto my hands and pressed my ear against the floor. At once the voice fell silent.

I’m going mad, I thought.

Part III

Insurrection

I HOPED MY husband would be occupied with his roofing project and I might at least have the leisure to change from my traveling clothes without seeing him, but as soon as we made the last turn into the drive there he was, stamping up and down on the porch, waving a walking stick which he clearly did not require. He was shouting at Mr. Sutter, who sat astride his horse. In the next moment this gentleman tore off at a gallop, charging past us without a word as if pursued by the devil. My husband came to the steps to attend our arrival.

He was wearing a rumpled white suit without a cravat, riding boots, and an oversized planter’s hat that squashed his red hair into a clump above his eyebrows. The sight of him was like a door slamming in my face. I even heard the catch of the latch, though perhaps it was only Sarah’s baby swallowing hard. Sarah had made a paste of corn bread in her palm and was feeding the child from her fingertips. The creature couldn’t seem to get enough of it. I noticed two white teeth coming in to its lower jaw. As I watched, it smacked its lips and gave me an absurdly cheerful grin. It would find little to be happy about in being weaned, I thought, and Sarah’s long face told me she thought so too.

The driver reined in the horses and the rocking of the carriage smoothed out as they slowed to a walk. We were close enough for my husband to take off his hat and wave it at us. “I just want to turn around and go back,” I said to no one. Sarah stuffed a last bit of paste into the baby’s mouth and brushed the remains off over the side of the carriage. We came to a halt, the driver leaped from his seat, and in a moment we stood in the dirt facing one another. The welcome-home scene. Only let it be brief, I thought.

“Thank heaven you are safe,” my husband exclaimed, relieving me of my traveling case. “I have been worried half to death.” Sarah pulled down the sack of Mother’s linens and slipped past us into the house. The slave’s blessing, I thought, forever exempt from the duties of greeting. “I’m safe enough,” I said to my husband. “But I’m very tired. If you don’t mind, I’ll go straight to my room and rest until supper.”

“Of course,” he said, shadowing me up the steps and through the door in a kind of anxious, ridiculous dance. “But I must inform you of the report I have just received from Mr. Sutter. A group of runaways has organized at Pass Manchac. Their plan is to march downriver picking up recruits along the way. They mean to join another group at Donaldsonville. They have called in the militia there. I’m surprised you weren’t warned by patrols on the road. Mr. Sutter said a slave at Overton informed the overseer of the plot yesterday. The revolt is planned for this very night.”

“And this informer is a free man today,” I snapped. “Doesn’t it ever occur to anyone that these plots only exist in the brains of malcontents who have realized they can get their freedom by scaring us out of our wits!”

This silenced him long enough for me to get to the stairs. I went up to my room without further comment and found Sarah unpacking, the baby already asleep in its crate. “Leave that,” I said. “Go and tell Delphine to make me a tisane; my head is splitting.” As she went out, I collapsed in the rocking chair. I fell to thinking of my husband’s remark about the militia. Indeed we had seen no patrols, no other carriage to speak of. We saw one negro riding a mule and another leading a goat by a bit of rope. The epidemic was over in the city, the weather was fine, yet mile after mile the river road was empty and still. Had this rumor so engaged the population that they were afraid to move?

If there really was a conspiracy north of us, and they intended to meet up with cohorts in Donaldsonville, they would have to cross the river. And how would they do this? The narrowest stretch and the most reliable ferry was just south of our property. Did they plan to commandeer the ferry?

Sarah came in with the tray, which she set on the side table. I watched her back as she poured out the tea and stirred in the sugar. It struck me that she knew more about this story than I did, that she and Delphine could probably name the informer as well as the leader of the runaways. When she brought me the cup, I studied her face, her lowered eyes, her expressionless mouth. She was feeling sullen, I concluded.

“He’ll be locking us up tonight, I gather,” I said, taking the cup, my eyes still on her face. She gave me a sudden penetrating look, then turned away. I drank my tea. A blade of anxiety sliced through the pain in my head, laying it open and raw. In Sarah’s look I had read the same question I had in my own mind: How much do you know?

WHAT DID WE eat that night? It seems a place to start. There was a gumbo, but what kind? It was the last pleasurable moment; Sarah lifting the lid of the tureen, and the delicious aroma filling the room. My aunt’s cook, Ines, had served it often enough in the town, but in my opinion, no one made it better than Delphine. Was it chicken? After that there was another course and another, but what?

My husband droned on about the crop, as he thought it unwise to discuss the threat of a revolt before the servants, though there was only Sarah. He must have pictured Sarah telling Delphine or Rose, who would tell some passing hand, and thus it would make its way to the quarter, as if every negro in fifty miles didn’t already know all about it.

I drank a good deal of wine. Sarah lit the lamps and served the coffee. The room seemed smoky to me, airless. When Sarah went out, my husband got up and bolted the shutters on the casements, which made it seem like a prison. “I’d like a glass of port,” I said. My husband suggested that he had a good bottle in his office. I followed him there.

“Will you be joining the patrol?” I asked as he poured out a tablespoon of port.