Amélie, in the meantime, had bought a more presentable outfit to replace the one she had worn since she had been imprisoned at Gratiot. For a gold piece she had persuaded a farm wife to part with a plain, russet gown, shift, petticoat, bonnet, cloak, shoes, and stockings. The gown was ugly, shapeless, and rough to the skin, but Royce declared she looked sweet and womanly in it, as suitably dressed as any of the ladies aboard ship.
The Lady Faire, once a luxurious grande dame of the river with plush velvet upholstered furniture and mahogany paneling, had fallen on hard days. The wealth of the Mississippi plantations had vanished and the people who now sailed the large paddle wheelers were harried and ill-mannered. Amélie was told by a little widow on her way to Memphis of the disgraceful scramble for the first choice of staterooms, the first seat at a table, the first drink at the bar.
“Why,” she said, “men take possession of ladies’ chairs and think nothing of it.”
Amélie spent most of her time at the rail, watching the panorama of the Mississippi slip by. Its muddy waters carrying bobbing debris swirled in eddies or ran with little chopping waves. Sometimes the river would wind in great bends, its turbulent course separated by islands and cutoffs of its own making. The little widow, whose husband had been a river pilot, explained to Amélie that the whirlpools were caused by the unevenness of the river’s bottom.
“The less depth the greater the current,” she told Amélie. “A pilot learns to judge them.”
Seated with the little widow on deck on the fourth afternoon Amélie watched as they came abreast of a wooded island. She was about to remark on it when a shattering explosion sent her heart skittering wildly. Looking up she saw that part of the pilot house had come away. Immediately from the direction of the island there came the stuttering crackle of gunfire.
People ran from their cabins and from the salon, milling about in panicked confusion.
Another explosion tore part of the rail away. “Guerrillas!” someone shouted.
Amélie sprang to her feet, her first instinct to take cover. The little widow said—very calmly, as Amélie was to realize later—“Get down flat on the deck.”
A shot whistled over their heads. A woman screamed. Another called hysterically, “Abner! Abner!”
A volley of deafening rat-a-tats shook the sides of the ship and a spume of water rose over the rail.
A ball passed to their right, whistling, shrieking, ending with a loud thud. The cries and shouts grew in volume. Smoke poured from a stateroom.
A frightened Amélie, feeling vulnerable as she peered out from between the legs of the deck chair, watched the stampede of hurrying feet.
“Why not take refuge in a cabin?" she whispered.
“Because a pound shot can go through a cabin wall like a knife through butter."
Amélie hugged the deck, her heart pounding violently. If she wasn’t struck by a falling beam, pierced by splinters of flying glass or scalded by steam, she would surely drown in the river as the boat foundered and sank.
But the Lady Faire managed to evade her tormenters, sailing out of range. Except for a few holes in the cabins and the damaged pilot house (where both pilot and captain had miraculously escaped being hit) the sidewheeler was intact. None of the shells had struck her below the water mark. A fire in the lounge had been quickly extinguished. But a man on the foredeck had been killed, three others had been wounded, and a woman had hurt herself when she fell in a faint. Amélie was helping revive her when the steward came up to her and said, “Miss Hobbs, your brother . . ."
Startled, a little confused, she had momentarily forgotten that they had come aboard under an assumed name.
“What? I . . . I . . ."
“Your brother, Miss Hobbs, has been hurt."
But of course. Royce. “Badly?"
“I don’t know. Perhaps you’d best come and see."
Chapter
❖ 21 ❖
Royce was lying on a lower deck strewn with fragmented wreckage. One of the boilers had been hit and steam hissed as it escaped in condensed clouds, giving the battered scene and the figures moving about in it a ghostly aspect. Someone had placed a blanket under Royce’s head and stuffed a towel—already turning red— beneath his shoulder. He was conscious.
“Are you in great pain?” Amélie asked anxiously, kneeling at his side. “Has a doctor seen you?”
“The doctor is tending the passengers. Lean closer, Amélie.”
She bent her head.
“I’ve only been nicked. Nothing serious, just a scratch. But we must leave the boat at the first opportunity. One of the passengers, a Mr. Booth, is a Unionist judge who was at Gratiot when I was brought in. He saw me only for a minute or two and that in passing but I can tell he’s trying to place my face.”
The next morning when the Lady Faire docked at Vidalia, Royce and Amélie, mingling with passengers who also wished to debark, went down the gangplank. Royce carried his arm in a sling.
“Don’t hurry,” he advised Amélie. “Mr. Booth is at the rail watching us. Just appear calm as if we, like the others, are quitting the Lady Faire because we don’t wish to continue steamboating down the river under rebel barrage.”
They walked the length of the town’s main thoroughfare, making a sharp turn at the first cross street, where they paused under a swinging sign: room and board cheap!
“I think we’re all right now,” Royce said, slipping out of his sling and tucking it inside his coat.
“How far is it to New Orleans?”
“I don’t know exactly. We’re several miles above Natchez. It’s in Yankee hands as is Vidalia and both banks of the Mississippi all along the way.”
“What shall we do?”
“Take a chance with the next steamboat, though I'm told they don’t make frequent stops here.”
“Perhaps we ought to consider a barge.”
“No. I can’t take you on a barge. The men are a savage lot. It’s no place for a woman.”
“But—”
“No.”
They were still arguing when a man wearing a tall stovepipe hat and gray cape emerged from the boarding house.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, stopping short. “Are you Mr. Hammet, come to fetch the wagon and ox for Bay’s plantation?”
“Why—yes,” said Royce after a slight, almost imperceptible hesitation. “I’m Hammet and this is my wife.”
“Good, good,” the man replied, blowing a whisky breath at them. “You took long enough. The rig’s at the stable.”
Not until they were well out of town on the road heading south did Amélie dare speak. “We’re full-fledged thieves now.”
“Yes,” said Royce. “But we’ve got transportation. Besides he’s obviously a Yankee, probably an agent for lessees.”
“For what?”
“Lessees. The United States government has confiscated many of the abandoned plantations—or those belonging to planters who refused to take the oath—in this area. Now they are leasing the land out to Northerners.”
“Then I don’t mind stealing the wagon,” Amélie said, settling herself more comfortably on the seat.
The road followed the river for a short while, then wound inland, still continuing on a southern course. They passed stands of live oaks interspersed with sweet gum, cypress, and poplar. Skirting a bayou from which swamp elm and mangroves rose, they came out again within sight of the river. Amélie had managed to slip a few rolls and an apple into her reticule before disembarking the Lady Faire, and now she and Royce shared it as they rode.
Late in the afternoon it began to rain, a heavy, sluicing downpour. Without cover, they were drenched in minutes, water soaking through their clothes and puddling at their feet.
“We’ll have to get out of this,” Royce said.
The road had quickly become a swamp of red mud. The ox plodded on, pulling the wagon, which threatened momentarily to sink to the hub and bog down.
They passed a field where cotton had once been culti
vated. A few white balls still clung to withered stalks, poking burst heads above a wilderness of joe-pye weed, chickweed, and creeping vetch. A half mile further on they saw a house set back and half hidden in a grove of pecan and live oak. Turning the wagon up a long drive shadowed by trees hung with Spanish moss, they caught a glimpse of white columns and a deep veranda. Not until they were clear of the arching trees did they see that the house had been fired. The blaze either had been quenched or had stopped of its own accord, but not before the western portion had been reduced to a mass of blackened timber and fallen masonry. The remaining building, though smoke stained, still had its railed gallery and windowed attic under a pitched roof intact.
Royce drove up to the front steps. “Hallo!” he called. “Hallo there!”
His voice echoed eerily, rebounding from the white Ionic columns and blackened ruins.
“Anybody at home?”
There was no answer, only the tattoo of rain beating relentlessly around them and the ox snorting as it moved its head from side to side.
“Anybody at home?” Royce shouted once more, water streaming from his hat.
Amélie looked up at the house. One window had been left open and its curtain billowed in the wind. “Hallo there!” she called.
“It seems to be deserted,” Royce said, lifting Amélie down. “Let’s see if the door is locked.”
They went up the steps and under the portico. The door had a fanlight above it. Royce turned the knob and the door swung open.
“Hallo!” he called again into the tile-flagged entryway. He turned to Amélie. “You go in. I’ll unhitch the ox and see if I can rustle up something for him to eat.”
She hesitated, peering past him to a gilt framed mirror that hung above a marble topped table. “Are you sure it’s all right?” The eerie silence was disquieting.
“Yes. Do you want me to go in with you?”
“No,” she said quickly. She wasn’t going to turn weak and silly now. Except for that first night when she had fainted she had faced danger and hardship with fortitude, determined not to lean on Royce if she could possibly help it.
“I won’t be long,” he said. “And get out of those wet clothes quickly, Amélie. We can't risk pneumonia.”
She went into the hall, leaving the outer door opened behind her. A gracefully curved staircase disappeared into the second story. To her left was a shambles and a gaping hole where the fire had burned through and to the right a door. She crossed the hall and, opening the heavy door, entered the dining room. The table was laid for five with china, silver, cruets, wine glasses, and a decanter still half full, as if the inhabitants were about to sit down for a meal. What had happened, she wondered, to drive them so precipitously from the house? Yankees? But if so, why had the Yankees abandoned it, too?
She turned and swallowing her uneasiness went up the staircase. The odor of burnt carpets and varnished timber followed her. There were four bedrooms, all facing the gallery. None, as far as she could see, had been rifled. No looting in a country that had been pillaged by both sides time and time again offered a further mystery. Why had this house been missed? Too far off the beaten path? But no, a road ran right past it.
The last bedroom, a large one with a double four-poster and splendid oaken furniture, would have done Arbormalle proud. A fire had been laid on the hearth. Apparently someone had been about to bathe, for a tin tub had been drawn up before the fireplace and a bucket, still holding water, sat on the hob.
Amélie went to the carved oak wardrobe and opened it. Women’s dresses of silk and satin and a gauzy peignoir of finest muslin, ruffled and inset with bobbin lace, hung on hooks.
She moved back to the fireplace and searching for a tinder box found one in a gilded casket on the mantel. It took her some time before she could get the damp kindling to spark, but at last she had a fire going. The leaping flames quickly dispelled the chill, filling the room with a crackling warmth. Feeling easier now she lifted the bucket from the hob, deciding to get fresh rainwater, heat it, and have a bath. She hadn't bathed properly since their overnight stay at the Hollis plantation in lower Missouri. Pleased with her decision, she opened the jalousies and French windows that led to the gallery.
Throwing the clouded water over the railing, she secured the bucket tightly with both hands and held it until it was full.
While the water heated she got out of her wet clothes, tossing them over a chaise lounge. Soap, towels, even a fragrant oil had been placed on a low table near the tub. She thought briefly about the woman—or young girl— who had planned a bath before dinner, wondering where she was now. Safe, she hoped, unharmed, waiting somewhere for the war to be over.
The water was scarcely hip deep, but it would do. The perfumed oil heightened her feeling of luxurious enjoyment. She lolled in the bath, forgetting for a few minutes that she was an intruder, her stiffened limbs relaxing, a sensation of pleasant well-being fanning out to her fingertips and toes.
She was toweling herself, her face muffled in its soft, fluffy folds, when she heard a knock on the door.
“Amélie, may I come in?”
“No, Royce, not yet.”
But apparently he had not heard for when she turned, the towel stretched out in either hand away from her shoulders, he was standing in the doorway.
For a few moments she was too surprised to do anything but stare at him. He had changed into formfitting cream colored breeches and a silk shirt that was only partially buttoned. His hair, still damp, hung in unruly curls over his forehead and he had obviously found a razor for his face was smooth again. He was carrying two glasses and the wine decanter Amélie had seen below.
She had never really considered him as a man, not in the sexual sense. She had been too preoccupied with flight, with her own thoughts, with intermittent spells of brooding over Babette and Damon, and had looked upon Royce as a friend or a brother. The fact that they had spent most of their nights either in separate quarters or in a state of exhaustion helped augment this feeling. But now something stirred in her, a sensation she had not experienced for a long time. The flicker of masculine approval in Royce’s eyes signaled his own thoughts and she wondered if he too felt the same.
If she could have read his mind she would have known that he had been aware of her as a lovely, desirable female almost from the first. Whether she was wearing ugly black mourning or homespun he had noted the curve of her breasts, the slender waist, the tender mouth. It had taken all his restraint to keep from taking her in his arms, from drowning her with passionate kisses. The nights she had slept close to him in haystacks had been sheer hell. If it had been another sort of woman he would not have hesitated to make advances. But Amélie was a lady, an aristocrat, a respectable young woman who had been given into his care. She trusted him and he dared not betray that trust by letting his baser instincts triumph. But now seeing her in that frozen moment, the firelight flickering on her bare, rosy skin, the full, white breasts made to fit into a cupped hand, the tiny, pink-budded nipples that would grow and flower under a lingering caress, he felt a surge of lust that stiffened his manhood. He had thought of her nakedness those nights she had lain next to him, her clothed buttocks carelessly pressed against his thighs, thought of the smooth belly, the curve of her hips, but the reality was even more exciting than his fantasy.
She lowered the towel, draping it about her torso, her face red with embarrassment and confusion. “Royce!”
“I—I’m sorry, I thought you said, ‘Come in.’ ”
The breeches were tight and she saw that he was aroused. It excited her, gave her heart a strange lurch. “If you will step outside. I’ll put something on.”
“Yes, of course. I'm sorry.” He made a hasty retreat, clicking the door shut behind him.
She stepped to the wardrobe. She stared at the gowns of cerise, blue, brown. She would need underthings, stays, petticoats. They were probably somewhere in the room—in the bureau perhaps—but it would take too long to search for them. She
snatched the peignoir, telling herself it was the quickest thing to hand, that it wasn’t as if Royce were a stranger, that she had traveled with him for over a month, and that under the circumstances it would have to be acceptable. What she didn’t tell herself was that a woman appearing in dishabille before anyone except her husband, no matter what the situation, was breaking a cardinal rule of respectability. Nor did she wish to examine too closely her sudden awareness of Royce as a man and of her own desires. “It’s all right now, Royce.”
He entered, still carrying the decanter and glasses. Looking at her shyly, he said, “You look lovely, Amélie.”
“Thank you. And you look very elegant.’’
“The coat didn’t fit. I hope you don’t mind my shirtsleeves?’’
“Not at all.”
The formality did not help to bridge the sudden awkwardness that had come between them.
“I thought you’d like some wine.”
He glanced around, his eyes alighting momentarily on her carelessly tossed clothes on the chaise lounge, skimming over her drawers. She resisted the impulse to dash across the room and hide them. Pulling a small, scrolled table from the wall she said, “Put the decanter here, Royce.”
The wine was sour and made a burning path down her throat, touching her chest with points of fire.
“Not the best,” Royce said. “Here’s to New Orleans!” They both drank, her eyes looking away from the burning light in his.
“I got the ox bedded down for the night in one of the barns,” he said, forcing his mind from the rise of her breasts under the lace. “Found some hay, too. There are no animals about—not even a chicken. Beats me what happened. The kitchen is burned to the ground.” Like most Southern plantation houses, the kitchen was separate from the main building. “I have a hunch that’s where the fire started. But what put it out? No way of telling. Not a clue.”
Honor's Fury Page 26
