It was a damned tall order and depressing prospect, and I had a grand old curse that night at my folly in being bullied into this fearful fix by Crixus. My one hope was that Mississippi was such a big place, where I assumed news travelled slowly and uncertainly, that I ought to be able to find a bolt-hole; I reasoned that itinerant strangers must be commonplace in the western states, so I might escape remark if I was careful how I went.
I slept that night among the cottonwoods, and struck due east before sunrise, as I wanted to get away from the river as quickly as possible. And so began three of the most dam’ dismal days of my life, in which I skulked through woods and along by-roads, living the life of a vagrant, stopping only at the loneliest farms and places I could find to buy a meal out of the few dollars I had left. The one thing that cheered me was that none of the people I saw paid me any close attention, which confirmed my belief that they were used to all sorts of odd fellows trudging about the country; I tried to speak as American as I could, when I spoke at all, and must have made a passable job of it, for nobody appeared to take me for anything else.
However, I realised that this could not continue. Soon I would be destitute, and since I’ve never been any hand at petty theft or highway robbery, I came to the reluctant conclusion that I must try and find work. It’s a last resort, of course, but it seemed to me if I could get some employment in an out-of-the-way spot I could lie up and save money for my eventual flight at one and the same time. I made one or two cautious inquiries, without success beyond an afternoon’s labour splitting logs for my supper, and I was in despair by the fourth morning, when by sheer chance I lit on the very thing I was looking for.
I had slept in the woods, and spent my last few cents on bread and milk at a run-down store, when a burly chap on a grey horse comes cantering up, roaring for the storekeeper that he had come to settle his debt.
“What’s the row then, Jim?” says the storekeeper. “Where you off to?”
“Headed west,” cries Jim. “I seen my last load o’ goddamned cotton, I can tell you that. It’s Californey for me, my boy, an’ a pisspotful of gold. There’s your four dollars, Jake, an’ much obliged to ye.”
“Well, that beats all,” says the storeman. “Californey, eh? Wisht I could go myself, by thunder. Say, but what’s Mandeville goin’ to do without a driver, in the middle o’ pickin’ time?”
“Do his goddamned drivin’ his goddamned self,” says the other cheerfully. “I guess I’ll worry about him, won’t I, all the way to the diggin’s. I’m off to see the elephant! Yeh-hoo! It’s Californey or bust!” And he waved his hat and thundered away, leaving the storeman scratching his head in wonder.
I didn’t inquire at the store; the less said the better. But I met a nigger up the road, found where Mandeville’s place was, and after a four-mile walk came to his imposing front gates. They were made of granite, no less, and the place was called Greystones, an impressive spread of cotton plantation with a fine white colonial house at the head of a tree-lined drive. It looked a likely spot for me, so I strode up and presented myself as a driver in need of work.
Mandeville was a broad, bull-necked man of about fifty with heavy whiskers on a coarse red face.
“Who told you I needin’ a driver?” says he, standing four-square on his verandah and squinting down at me suspiciously. I said I had met his former employee on the road.
“Huh! That fool Jim Bakewell! Ups an’ off in the middle o’ pickin’, cool as you please, to go to Californey. Ifn he ain’t any better at diggin’ than at drivin’ he’ll finish up cleanin’ out privies, which is all he good for anyways. Triflin’ useless bastard.” He cocked his head at me. “Reckon you kin drive?”
“Anything that moves,” says I.
“Oh, my niggers move,” says he. “They move, ifn someone on hand to make ’em skip. You driven cotton-hands befo’, I guess, by the look o’ you.” In the surprise of realising what “driving” meant, I overlooked the doubtful compliment. “Where you from, an’ what your name?”
“Tom Arnold,” says I. “From Texas, a while back.”
“Uh-huh, the Texies. Well, no denyin’, gotta have a driver. Dunno where I get one, this season, ifn I don’t take ye. Ain’t no slouch of a job, min’—you be th’ only white driver on the place. Thirty dolla’s a month, an’ yo’ keep. Satisfy ye, Tom?”
I said it would, and at that moment a nigger came round the house leading a fine white mare, and a lady came through the pillared front door, dressed for riding. Mandeville hailed her eagerly.
“Why, Annie dahlin’, there you are! Fine, fine—jus’ off a-ridin’, I see. That’s fine, fine.” And then, seeing her eyes on me, he hurried to explain. “This here’s Tom Arnold, honey; jus’ hired him as a new driver, in room o’ that no-good Bakewell. Right piece o’ luck, I reckon, him turnin’ up. Yes, suh.”
“Is it?” said the lady, and you could see she doubted it. She was one of the tiniest women I’ve ever seen, somewhere under five feet, although well-shaped in a dainty doll-like way. But there was nothing doll-like about the sharp little face, with its pointed elfin chin, tight lips, and cold grey eyes that played over me with a look of bleak disdain. I became conscious of my bedraggled appearance and unshaven face; three days in the woods make a poor toilet.
“We may hope he is a better driver than Bakewell,” says the lady coldly. “At the moment he looks as though he was more accustomed to being driven.”
And without another word or glance at me she mounted her mare, Mandeville fussing to help her, and cantered off along the drive with the nigger groom trotting at her heels. Mandeville waved after her, his red face beaming, and then turned back to me.
“That Mrs Mandeville,” says he, proudly. “She the lady o’ my plantation. Yessuh, Mrs Mandeville.” Then his eyes slid away and he said he would show me my quarters and instruct me in my duties.
As it turned out, these were easy enough; slave-driving is as pleasant an occupation as any, if you must work. You ride round the cotton rows on horse-back, seeing that the niggers don’t let up in filling their baskets, and laying on the leather when they slack. Greystones was a fair-sized place, with about a hundred niggers working the great snowy fields that stretched away from behind the house to the river, and they were a well-drilled pack by the time I’d done with ’em, I can tell you. I vented the discontent I felt at America on them, and enjoyed myself more than I’d done since my Rugby days, when lacing fags was the prime sport. Although I had a couple of black drivers to help me, I became quite expert with my hide—you could make a sleepy nigger jump his own height with a well-placed welt across his backside, squealing his head off, and if any of them were short-weighted at the end of the day you gave them half a dozen cuts for luck. Mandeville was delighted with the tally of cotton picked, and told me I was the best overseer he’d ever had, which didn’t surprise me. It was work I could take a hearty interest in.
After the first few days he left me alone to the job, for he frequently had business in Helena, about fifty miles away on the other side of the Mississippi river, or in Memphis, over the Tennessee border, and would stay away for nights at a time. He always went alone, leaving his wife in the house, which seemed damned indiscreet to me. I didn’t realise, fortunately for my self-esteem, that while a Southern planter wouldn’t have dreamed of leaving his wife unchaperoned in a house while there was a white man there, he’d never think twice if that man was a hired servant living in a cottage fifty yards away. However, she kept out of my way in those early days, and I out of hers.
Knowing me, you may think that strange. But all my thoughts at this stage were on my own plight; Greystones seemed to be just the kind of out-of-the-way spot I required; it was isolated in the woodland and marsh, and was seldom visited, but even so I had my heart in my mouth every time hoofbeats sounded on the drive, and I kept well out of sight when one of Mandeville’s neighbours called. It didn’t seem likely that if there was a search going on for me, it would reach this far from the r
iver, and there was nothing to connect the steamboat fugitive with Mandeville’s new driver, but even so I kept a sharp eye open at first for any hint of danger. As the days passed, and none appeared, I began to feel easier.
Another reason why I kept out of Annette Mandeville’s way was that I disliked her, and she me, apparently. I had guessed two things from our first brief meeting: one was that she was an unpleasant, arrogant little piece, and the other that she had her big, powerful husband on a string. He was more than twice her age, of course (she couldn’t have been above two-and-twenty), and I’ve noticed that there are few things that a middle-aged man will go in such awe of as an imperious young wife; he’ll face a wounded buffalo, or go headlong into a sabre charge, but he’ll turn pale and stutter at the thought of saying, “I’d rather not, dearest.” Well, I can understand it, when the wife holds the purse, or is bigger than he, or can get the law on him. But even without these things Mandeville went in awe of her.
And she knew it, and enjoyed using her power to torment him. She wasn’t just spoiled and petulant—she was cruel, in a subtle way, and I say it who am a recognised authority. I saw enough of them together to judge the pleasure she took in fretting and hurting him with her ready sneers and icy disdain; the more eager he was to please her, this man who was so coarse and masterful in other things, the more she seemed to delight in making him uneasy and bewildered.
Much of this I learned from Mandeville himself—not that he dreamed he was instructing me. But he loved to talk, and there not being another white man on the place, he took to inviting me up to the house at night, after his wife had retired, for a booze and prose; he was a decent enough fellow, I suppose, in his rough way, and greatly given to foxing himself on corn toddy, and nothing pleased him more than to yarn away about his niggers and his horses, and—when he was well maudlin—about his wife. And this most often after she had set him down, which she did most days.
“Yes, suh,” this infatuated idiot would say, smiling blearily at his glass, “I’m a lucky man, an’ she a won’erful li’l lady. Yes suh, ’deed she is. Well, you kin see that, Tom; you a travelled man, I guess, you kin see she is. Course, she git a li’l short, time to time—like today, now—but it ain’t nuthin’ at all. My own fault, I guess. Y’see, the truth is, although this here’s a pretty fair spread at Greystones, tain’t altogether what she bin used to. No-suh. She come from one o’ the best French families in N’Awlins—the Delancy’s, likely you heard o’ them, gotta tre-mendous big estate out to Lake Pontchartrain. Trouble is, ol’ man Delancy, he a bit stretched, an’ I helped him out over a couple o’ deals. Five years ago, that was, when I married Annie. Here, Jonah, light a see-gar for Mist’ Arnold; fill your glass, suh.”
By now he would be well launched, convincing himself for the thousandth time, against all reason.
“Ye-es, five years ago. Happiest day o’ my life, suh. But I’ll admit—you take a gel who’s bin brought up a real lady, who’s got real blood, bin to convent, had a half-dozen yaller maids waitin’ on her, an’ who’s used to livin’ in the top so-ciety in N’Awlins—well, I do her pretty good here, I reckon, but it ain’t the same. Not much society, even in Memphis, an’ the local folks ain’t ’xactly the kin’ o’ bucks an’ belles she used to meet at home. So it’s natural she gits these fits an’ starts now an’ then. But you ’ppreciate that, Tom. An’ no denyin’, either, me bein’ older’n she is, a little, she get kinda bored. I don’t talk quite her way, you see, an’ I ain’t got her—tastes, so to speak. So she get a mite res’less, like I say. An’ boy, don’ she dress me down then!” And he would giggle drunkenly, as though at some good joke which he thoroughly enjoyed. “Say, you oughta hear her when she got a real head o’ steam. My stars! Course, tain’t often.”
Not more than twice a day, and three times on Sundays, I would say to myself. Serve the clown right for marrying out of his class.
“Say, but don’ get me wrong! Here, have ’nuther drink. Don’ get me wrong—she a real lovin’ gel. Yes-suh. She the lovin’est little creatur’ you ever did see. When I say she sometimes bored, don’ think I mean she goin’ short! Ho-ho, I guess not!” And he would nudge me, winking ponderously, with a lewd leer. “I tell you, I’m ’bout wore out pilin’ inter that li’l darlin’! Fact. She cain’t seem t’get enough o’ me. ‘Do it again, Johnny lover, do it again. That what she say. An’ don’ I do it? Oh, I should say not! I should jus’ ’bout reckon not. An’ don’ she know how to rouse a man on, hey? Why, I see some men—like Parkins, down at Helena, an’ young Mackay, who got the Yellowtree place—they jus’ itchin’ for her, jus’ at the sight of her. Why, I could see you fancy her you’self—no, don’t fret you’self, don’t fret. I don’t mind one li’l bit. It’s only natural, ain’t it? I don’t take no offence, cos I know she never think o’ no one but me. ‘Do it again, Johnny lover.’ That what she say. Talk ’bout your nigger wenches—pish!”
It was from drunken meanderings such as this that I formed my conclusions about the Mandevilles—an obvious one being that they didn’t bed together, and probably never had. Well, that could explain a lot about Madame Annette’s behaviour, and in other circumstances I would probably have set myself to supply her want, for she was a trim little half-pint, bar her shrew face. But she was so damned unpleasant that the thought didn’t cross my mind; when we met she either looked straight through me or treated me as though I were no better than the blacks. If I hadn’t needed the work I’d have taken the rough side of my tongue to her, and as it was I gave her back sneer for sneer as far as I dared, so that before long we hated each other as cordially as man and woman can. And mind you, I don’t like this sort of thing; it ain’t usual to find a woman who isn’t prepared to be civil to me, and I’d grown my whiskers long again, and a rakish little black imperial, too.
However, I had my own affairs to attend to. I was working quietly away towards the day when I’d have enough to be able to move off north again. I reckoned two or three months would see me set and ready, and by that time all the haroosh caused by my flight from the Sultana would have died down, and I’d be able to take the road in safety.
So I laboured away, whopping niggers, mounting the occasional black wench in my quarters, and counting my dollars every fortnight, and never gave a thought to Annette Mandeville. Which was foolish of me; equally foolish was the way in which I allowed a sense of security to grow on me as the weeks passed and no hue and cry came to disturb the peace of Greystones. Picking time passed and with less to do I got restless, and impatient to be up and away for England; I suppose that made me more thoughtless and short-tempered than usual, all of which was to lead to my undoing.
It was the approach of Christmas that finally broke my patience, I think. I suppose everyone’s thoughts turn home then, whether they really wish they were there or not. I had only Elspeth to miss—and the baby I’d never seen. Not that I’ve any use for brats, mind you, but any excuse will do for a self-pitying weep when you’re alone in your quarters in a foreign land, with two inches left in the bottom of the corn bottle, and the rest gurgling in your belly and making you feel sick and miserable. I imagined Elspeth, fair and radiant, bending over a crib and shaking a rattle at its occupant, and looking adoringly across at me with that lovely pink bloom in her cheeks, and myself toasting my arse at the nursery fire with my coat tails pulled back, and a fine helping of duff and brandy inside me, quite the proud papa, while waits sang in the street outside. Instead, here I was, half-foxed and croaking to myself in a draughty shack, with no Elspeth, but a black slut snoring open-mouthed in the corner, and in place of waits the eternal caterwauling of the field hands as they sang one of their morbid chants. I sat there blubbering boozily, trying to put the home picture out of my mind, and telling myself it was all a sham—that Elspeth would be back in the saddle with one of her gallants by now, and old Morrison would ruin Christmas anyway by whining about the cost of geese and holly. It was no good; I was homesick, bloody homesick, and the thought of Morri
son was an added incentive. By God, I’d make the old scoundrel skip when I got back and flourished Spring’s papers under his ugly nose. The thought cheered me up, and when I had finished the bottle, been sick, and thrashed the nigger girl for snoring, I felt more like myself again.
But I was still chafing to be away, and with only two weeks of my enforced sojourn to go I was in a thoroughly ill humour and ready to take my spite out on anyone—even Annette Mandeville or her soused clown of a husband. Not that I was seeing much of either of them by now, for Mandeville was absent more and more, and Annette kept to the house. But she had her eyes open too, as I was to discover to my cost.
I mentioned a black girl in my quarters; she was the least ugly and smelly of the field women whom I had taken as a carnal cook—a bedfellow-cum-housekeeper, that is. She was little use as either, but one has to make do. Anyway, it happened that one evening, after a long day down by the river where the slaves were cutting a ditch, I came home to find her whimpering and groaning on her mattress, with a couple of nigger girls tending her and looking mighty scared.
“What’s this?” says I.
“Oh, massa,” says the wenches. “Hermia she pow’ful sick; she real po’ly, she is.”
And she was. Someone had flogged her until her back was a livid mess of cuts and bruises.
“Who the devil’s done this?” roars I in a great rage, and it was Hermia herself who told me, between her wails.
“Oh, Massa Tom, it the Miz—Miz Annette. She done tell me I’s ins’lent, en she’d trim me up good. I don’ done nuthin’ Massa Tom—but she git Hector to whup me, en oh I’s hurtin’, hurtin’ suthin’ awful, massa. Hector he lay on ’til I’s swoondin’—en ain’t done nuthin’. Oh, Massa Tom, whut ins’lent mean?”
The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection Page 157
