The Witching Hour (61 page)

The drunken brothers were the only ones prone to argument and several times made sneering remarks, for it seemed to the youngest, Pierre, who had none of the good looks of his ailing brother, that they had enough land and did not need the neighboring plantation, and Charlotte knew more about the business of the planter’s life than a woman should.

This was met with cheers by the loud and nasty André, who spilt his food all down his lace shirtfront, and ate with his mouth stuffed, and put a greasy stain from his mouth upon his glass when he drank. He was for selling all this land when their father died and going back to France.

“Do not speak of his death,” declared the eldest, the crippled Antoine. To which the others sneered.

“And how is he today?” asked the doctor, belching as he did so. “I fear to inquire if he is any better or worse.”

“What can be expected?” asked one of the female cousins, who had once been beautiful and was still pleasing to look at, handsome one might say. “If he speaks a word today, I shall be surprised.”

“And why shouldn’t he speak?” asked Antoine. “His mind is as it always was.”

“Aye,” said Charlotte, “he rules with a steady hand.”

There ensued a great verbal brawl, with everyone talking at once, and one of the feeble old ladies demanding to be told what was going on.

Finally the other old woman, a crone if ever there was one, who had nibbled at her plate all the while with the fixed attention of a busy insect, suddenly raised her head and cried to the drunken brothers, “You are neither of you fit to run this plantation,” to which the drunken brothers replied with boisterous laughter, though the two younger females regarded this with much seriousness, their eyes passing over Charlotte fearfully and then sweeping gently the near paralyzed and useless husband, whose hands lay like dead birds beside his plate.

Then the old woman, apparently approving of the response to her words, issued another pronouncement. “It is Charlotte who rules here!” and this produced even more fearful looks from the women, and more laughter and sneering from the drunken brothers, and a winsome smile from the crippled Antoine.

Then the poor fellow became most agitated, so that he in fact began to tremble, but Charlotte hastily spoke of pleasant things. Once again I was questioned about my journey, about life in Amsterdam, and the present state of things in Europe, which related to the importation of coffee and indigo, and told that I should become very weary of life in the plantations, for nobody did anything but eat and drink and seek pleasure, and so forth and so on, until suddenly Charlotte broke off gently and gave the order to the black slave, Reginald, that he should go and fetch the old man and bring him down.

“He has been talking to me all day,” she said quietly to the others, with a vague look of triumph.

“Indeed, a miracle!” declared the drunken André, who now ate in slovenly fashion without the aid of a knife or fork.

The old doctor narrowed his eyes as he regarded Charlotte, quite indifferent to the food he had slopped down his lace ruff, or the wine spilling from the glass which he held in his uncertain hand. That he should drop it was a distinct possibility. The young slave boy behind him looked on anxiously.

“What do you mean spoken to you all day?” asked the doctor. “He was stuporous when last I saw him.”

“He changes hourly,” said one of the cousins.

“He’ll never die!” roared the old woman, who was again nibbling.

Then into the room came Reginald, holding a tall gray-haired and much emaciated man, with one thin arm flung about the slave’s shoulder, and head hanging, though his bright eyes fixed all of us one by one.

Into the chair at the foot of the table he was put, a mere skeleton, and as he could not sit upright, bound to it with sashes of silk. Then the slave Reginald, who seemed a very artist at all this, lifted the man’s chin as he could not hold up his head on his own.

At once the female cousins began to chatter at him, that it was good to see him so well. But they were amazed at him, and so was the doctor, and then as the old man began to speak so was I.

One hand lifted off the table with a floppy, jerky movement and then came crashing down. At the same moment his mouth
opened, though his face remained so smooth that only the lower jaw dropped, and out came his hollow and toneless words.

“I am nowhere near death and will not hear of it!” And again, the limp hand rose in a spasm and came down with a bang.

Charlotte was studying this all the while with narrow and glittering eyes. Indeed for the first time I perceived her concentration, and how every particle of her attention was directed to the man’s face and his one flopping hand.

“Mon Dieu, Antoine,” cried the doctor, “you cannot blame us for worrying.”

“My mind is as it ever was!” declared the old creature in the same toneless voice, and then turning his head very slowly as though it were made of wood and grinding away in a socket, he looked from right to left and then at Charlotte and gave a crooked smile.

Only now as I bent forward, escaping the dazzle of the nearest candles and marveling at this strange performance, did I perceive that his eyes were bloodshot, and that indeed his face appeared frozen, and the expressions that broke out upon it were like cracks in ice.

“I trust in you, my beloved daughter-in-law,” he said to Charlotte, and this time his total lack of modulation resulted in a great noise.

“Yes, mon père,” said Charlotte with sweetness, “and I shall take care of you, be assured of it.”

And drawing closer to her husband, she gave a squeeze to his useless hand. As for the husband, he was staring at his father with suspicion and fear.

“But, Father, are you in pain?” he asked now softly.

“No, my son,” said the father, “no pain, never any pain.” And this seemed as much a reassurance as an answer, for this picture was surely what the son saw as a prophecy. Or was it?

For as I beheld this creature, as I saw him turn his head again in that odd way, very like a doll made of wooden parts, I knew that this was not the man at all speaking to us, but something inside of him which had gained possession of him, and at the moment of recognition, I perceived the true Antoine Fontenay trapped within this body, unable to command his vocal chords any longer, and peering out at me with terrified eyes.

It was but a flash, yet I saw it. And in the same instant, I turned to Charlotte, who stared at me coldly, defiantly, as if daring me to acknowledge what I had realized, and the old man himself stared at me, and with a suddenness that startled everyone gave forth a loud cackling laugh.

“Oh, for the love of God, Antoine!” cried the handsome female cousin.

“Father, take a little wine,” said the feeble eldest son.

The black man Reginald reached for the glass, but the old man suddenly lifted both hands, bringing them down upon the table with a crash, and then lifting them again, his eyes glittering, took the wineglass as if between two paws and, bringing it to his mouth, slopped the contents onto his face so that it washed into his mouth and down his chin.

The company was appalled. The black Reginald was appalled. Only Charlotte gave a small steely smile as she beheld this trick, and then said, “Good, Father, go to bed,” as she rose from the table.

Reginald tried to catch the glass as it was suddenly released and the old man’s hand thumped down beside it. But it fell to one side, the wine splattering all over the tablecloth.

Once more the frozen mouth cracked open and the hollow voice spoke. “I weary of this conversation. I would go now.”

“Yes, to bed,” said Charlotte, approaching his chair, “and we will come to see you by and by.”

Did no one else perceive this horror? That the useless limbs of the old man were being worked by the demonic agency? The female cousins stared at the man in silence and revulsion as he was drawn up out of the chair, his chin flopping down on his chest, and taken away. Reginald was now quite completely responsible for the old man’s movements and took him towards the door. The drunken brothers appeared angry and petulant, and the old doctor, who had just downed another entire glass of red wine, was merely shaking his head. Charlotte quietly observed all this and then returned to her place at the table.

Our eyes met. I would swear it was hatred I saw staring back at me. Hatred for what I knew. In awkwardness I took another drink of the wine, which was most delicious, though I had begun to notice already that it was uncommonly strong or I was uncommonly weak.

Very loudly again spoke the old deaf woman, the insectile one, saying to everyone and no one, “I have not seen him move his hands like that in years.”

“Well, he sounds to me like the very devil!” said the handsome female.

“Damn him, he’ll never die,” whispered André and then fell to sleep, face down in his plate, his overturned glass rolling off the table.

Charlotte, watching all of this and more, with equal calm, gave a soft laugh, and said, “Oh, he is very far from dead.”

Then a horrid sound startled the entire company, for at the top of the stairs, or somewhere very close to the head of it, the old man gave forth another loud terrible laugh.

Charlotte’s face grew hard. Patting her husband’s hand gently, she took her leave with great speed, but not so much speed that she did not look at me as she left the room.

Finally the old doctor, who was at this point almost too besotted to rise from the table, which he started to do once and then thought the better of, declared with a sigh that he must go home. At which moment two other visitors arrived, well-dressed Frenchmen, to whom the handsome older female cousin went immediately, as the three other women rose and made their way out, the crone glaring back in condemnation at the drunken brother, who had fallen into the plate, and muttering at him. The other son meantime had risen to assist the drunken doctor, and these two staggered out on the gallery.

Alone with Antoine and a host of slaves cleaning the table, I asked the man if he would enjoy with me a cigar, as I had bought two very good ones in Port-au-Prince.

“Ah, but you must have my own, from the tobacco I grow here,” he declared. A young slave boy brought the cigars to us and lighted them, and this young man stood there to take the thing from the master’s mouth and replace it as he should.

“You must excuse my father,” said Antoine to me softly, as if he did not like the slave to hear it. “He is most keen of mind. This illness is a very horror.”

“I can well imagine,” I said. Much laughter and conversation came from the parlor across the hall where the females had settled, it seemed, with the visitors, and possibly with the drunken brother and the doctor.

Two black slave boys meantime attempted to pick up the other brother, who suddenly shot to his feet, indignant and belligerent, and struck one of the boys so that he began to cry.

“Don’t be a fool, André,” said Antoine wearily. “Come here, my poor little one.”

The slave obeyed, as the drunken brother rampaged out.

“Take the coin from my pocket,” said the master. The slave, familiar with the ritual, obeyed, his eyes shining as he held up his reward.

At last, Reginald and the lady of the house appeared and this time with the rosy-cheeked infant son, a blessed lambkin, two mulatto maids hovering behind them as though the child were made of porcelain and might any moment be hurled to the floor.

The lambkin laughed and kicked its little limbs with joy at the
sight of his father. And what a sad spectacle it was that its father could not even lift his miserable hands.

But he did smile at the lambkin, and the lambkin was placed upon his lap for an instant, and he did bend and kiss its blond head.

The child gave no sign of infirmity, but neither had Antoine at such a tender age, I wager. And surely the child had beauty both from its mother and father, for it had more than any such child I have ever beheld.

At last, the mulatto maids, both very pretty, were allowed to descend upon it, and rescue it from the world at large, and carry it away.

The husband then took his leave of me, bidding me remain at Maye Faire for as long as I should please. I took another drink of the wine, though I was resolved it should be my last, for I was dizzy.

Immediately, I found myself led out onto the darkened gallery by the fair Charlotte, so as to look out over the front garden with its melancholy lanterns, the two of us quite alone as we took our places on a wooden bench.

My head was most surely swimming from the wine, though I could not quite determine how I had managed to drink so much of it, and when I pleaded to have no more, Charlotte would not hear of it, and insisted that I take another glass. “It is my finest, brought from home.”

To be polite I drank it, feeling then a wave of intoxication; and remembering in a blur the image of the drunken brothers and wishing to get clearheaded, I rose and gripped the wooden railing and looked down into the yard. It seemed the night was full of dark persons, slaves perhaps moving in the foliage, and I did see one very shapely light-skinned creature smiling up at me as she passed. In a dream, it seemed, I heard Charlotte speaking to me:

“All right, handsome Petyr, what more would you say to me?”

Strange words I thought, between father and daughter, for surely she knows it, she cannot but know it. Yet again, perhaps she does not. I turned to her and began my warnings. Did she not understand that this spirit was no ordinary spirit? That this thing which could possess the body of the old man and make it do her bidding could turn upon her, that it was, in fact, obtaining its very strength from her, that she must seek to understand what spirits were, but she bid me hush.

And then it did seem to me that I was seeing the most bizarre things through the window of the lighted dining room, for the
slave boys in their shining blue satin appeared to me to be dancing as they dusted and swept the room, dancing like imps.

“What a curious illusion,” I said. Only to realize that the young boys, dusting the seats of the chairs and gathering the fallen napkins, were only cavorting, and playing, and did not know that I watched.