AFTER BREAKFAST I consulted with my aunt, who agreed with me that Mr. Roget knew exactly where Sarah was and intended to make an offer pending her return. “He may seem sure of himself,” she said. “He has established some means of contacting Sarah quickly and he thinks she is so well hidden no one can find her. But he must know Mr. Leggett has been commissioned to apprehend her. This is a desperate measure.”
Mr. Roget did not appear in the least desperate when he arrived at my door that afternoon. As he followed Rose into the parlor his eyes darted confidently over the cornices, the mantel, the baseboards, then settled upon me with much the same quality of appraisal and assurance. He was neatly dressed, though not elegant in any part, except for his walking stick, which had a silver knob. He took the seat I directed him to, set his hat upon the side table, and held the stick between his legs. His hands, I noticed, were large, chapped from the cold and the dry plaster of his trade, the nails neatly trimmed. One was bruised black at the quick. He was light-skinned, though not so light as Sarah, and his features were pleasing, especially his eyes, which were wide, dark brown, the lashes thick for a man. He began almost at once, offering his condolences for my recent losses and apologizing for having taken the liberty to disturb me in my mourning.
“It is for just that reason that I must ask you to come directly to the point of your visit,” I said.
He compressed his lips in a tight, self-satisfied smile that suggested he had not expected to be treated courteously, and was now justified in that expectation. I leaned forward over the arm of my chair, giving him my close attention.
“I have come in hopes that you will accept an offer for the purchase of your servant Sarah.”
“Sarah?” I pretended surprise. “But she is not for sale. Are you in the habit of offering to buy servants who are not for sale?”
He raised his eyes to mine. “No,” he said.
“Then I wonder what has driven you to such impertinence in this case.”
“I made Sarah’s acquaintance when she was with her former owner, and I have long been desirous of purchasing her.”
“You know, of course, that she has run away.”
“I do,” he said. “My offer is made in the event of her return.”
“What makes you think she will return?” I asked. “She has eluded capture for over a month now.”
He looked down at the knob of his cane, making no reply. After a moment he rubbed at a smudge on the silver with his palm.
“How soon after I accept your offer might I expect her return?” I asked.
Still the infuriating man did not speak. His eyes wandered over the objects on the side table, stopping at the portrait of my father. How Father would have detested him, I thought, and seen through his despicable game. He wanted a wife lighter than he was, but no free quadroon would have him. In spite of his fortune, which I didn’t doubt was considerable, he was a laborer. Sarah was perfect for him. They could raise a houseful of yellow brats, one more useless than the next. But what, I wondered, would he do with the baby Sarah already had?
“You know that Sarah has a child with her,” I said.
He looked up from the portrait, his expression candid and businesslike. “I do,” he said.
“I assume that your offer would include that child. It is too young to be separated from its mother.”
“Of course,” he said.
“You have figured that into the offer, have you?” I said.
He frowned at my persistence on this point. “I have,” he said.
“Did you know that Sarah has another child?” I asked, watching his face closely. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly. She didn’t tell him, I thought.
“No,” he said. “I didn’t.”
“A boy,” I said. “A healthy child. She left him behind.” I stood up and pulled the cord for Rose. “He is eight years old.” Rose came in at the dining room door. “Send Walter to me,” I said. She looked past me at Mr. Roget, then turned back hurriedly. She and Delphine were probably huddled together over the kitchen table in a fit of jabbering. I turned, smiling, to my guest, who had not moved, though his shoulders drooped. The interview was not going exactly as he had planned. “Walter is old enough to be separated from his mother,” I observed, “but that is a policy I have always abhorred. It is a cruelty to sell a child away from his only protector. My father, that is his portrait”—I lifted my chin indicating the picture—“was strongly opposed to the unnecessary breakup of family connections among our people, and I have tried to follow his example.”
Mr. Roget listened to these sentiments absently, his eyes focused on the dining room door. I kept my back to it, as I knew exactly what he was about to discover and I felt a great curiosity to see his face when he experienced what I imagined would be a series of hard shocks to the foundations of his scheme. We listened to the patter of bare feet as the wild creature charged across the dining room. Then with what amusement I heard the gleeful bark with which Walter is wont to greet new faces! His hand brushed against my skirt as he hurried past me to clutch the knees of the astounded Mr. Roget. I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. “It was too bad of Sarah not to tell you about Walter,” I said solemnly. “I expect she feared you might be disappointed in some way.” Walter was working up to a scream as he attempted to divest Mr. Roget of his walking stick. “You can’t have it,” Mr. Roget said. “You might hurt yourself with it.”
“He can’t hear you,” I pointed out helpfully. “He is deaf. He has been examined by a physician, and I’m afraid there is no hope that he will ever be normal.”
Walter gave up the stick and held out his arms to be picked up. When Mr. Roget did not respond, he turned to me, stretching his arms up and mewing. He persists in this behavior, though I never touch him if I can avoid it. He was wearing only a slip made from sacking, his face was smeared with what looked like dried egg yolk, his hands and feet were filthy, and his hair was a mass of knots. I looked back to see Rose watching from the far door. “Come take him,” I said, and she came in quickly. As soon as he saw her, the boy ran to her arms. He was carried back to the courtyard, simpering and patting Rose’s cheek. “He is much improved since our move here,” I observed to Mr. Roget as I resumed my seat. My guest raised his hand and commenced rubbing the corner of his eye with his finger, evidently thunderstruck. “But the truth is,” I continued, “as you can see, he will never be worth anything to anyone.”
“No,” he agreed. He left off rubbing his eye and gave me a look of frank ill will mixed with grudging admiration, such as one gives a worthy opponent. This gratified me, but his lips betrayed the faintest trace of a smile, an habitual insolence, I thought, which made me want to slap him.
“Perhaps you wish to reconsider your offer,” I suggested.
“No,” he said. “But as you say yourself, this boy has no value. If I were to agree to take him, I would not offer more.”
“Well, I am curious to hear the figure you have in mind.”
“Two thousand dollars,” he said coolly.
It was twice what Sarah was worth. I allowed the notion of making such a profit and getting rid of Walter in the bargain to tempt me for a moment. I’ve no doubt I gave Mr. Roget the same adversarial scrutiny he had just given me. “It is a generous offer,” I said. “You must be very determined to have her.”
“I am,” he said.
What possessed the man? He had already gone to the expense of financing Sarah’s escape. He was probably paying someone to hide her as we sat there. If I agreed, he would have to pay to bring her back, then take on two children not his own, one ugly and dark, the other no better than a mad yellow dog. Then he would have to go through the long, expensive process of manumission, applying bribes all round, as the laws are strict. He leaned back in his chair, bringing his stick to the side and stretching his legs out before him, nonchalantly examining his trouser leg. He found a bit of plaster stuck to the seam and flicked it away with his fingernail. It fell onto the c
arpet near his shoe. I focused my eyes and my mind upon this small fleck of white plaster. The fact of it enraged me, but I counseled myself to remain calm. Mr. Roget was waiting for my answer, having no idea that a bit of plaster had sealed his fate and Sarah’s as well.
“I fear you are improvident,” I said. “And that you will regret your offer.”
“That will be my lookout,” he said. “My offer is firm. I am prepared to write you a check for half the amount today.”
“Let me propose a counteroffer,” I said. “I think it might prove a more practical solution for us all.”
He glanced at the mantel clock, reminding me that he was a busy man.
“I have no intention of selling Sarah,” I said. “It’s that simple. She is not for sale. However, I would have no objection to a marriage between you. I think that is your object, is it not? She would continue to live here during the week, but she could come to you on Sundays and she would be free to visit one or two evenings a week when I am dining out.”
“You aren’t serious,” he said flatly, leaving me to imagine the extent of his outrage. A free man married to a slave! His children would be mine, to do with as I pleased.
“I’m afraid that’s all I can offer you,” I said. “In the event of Sarah’s capture, of course, which I firmly believe can only be a matter of days.”
“Then we have nothing more to discuss,” he said, leaning forward upon his cane.
“There are laws against harboring a fugitive, Mr. Roget,” I said, “as I’m sure you know. Assisting Sarah in any way is strictly unlawful. The fines are heavy. Once she has been returned to me, it is my intention to prosecute anyone who can be proved to have aided her in her flight. I don’t think of her as having run away, you see, I think of her as having been stolen. She would never take such a risk had she not been encouraged by someone who has no respect for the law, who is so morally derelict that he fails to comprehend the difference between purchase and blackmail.”
Mr. Roget stood up, frowning mightily. As I spoke, he drew his head back, as if to dodge the thrust of my argument. “It is a mystery to me,” I continued, “how you could find the nerve to come here and offer to pay me for what you have stolen. You seem to think I care for nothing but money. I am going to considerable expense to recover what is mine, by right and by law, and recover her I will.”
“Good day, Mrs. Gaudet,” he said, making for the door. I got up from the chair to watch him go. There was the usual bite of pain in my shoulder as my arm stretched down at my side. I didn’t expect him to stop, but he did, turning in the doorway to deliver an interesting bit of information. “You will never find her,” he said. “She is no longer your property nor anyone else’s, and you will never see her again.”
“IT ALMOST SOUND as if he means she’s dead,” my uncle said. “Or else in Canada.” He was stuffing papers into a leather portmanteau.
My aunt picked at a knot in her embroidery. “Or England,” she suggested.
“Where is Mr. Leggett?” I asked.
“He should be in New York by now. His last report was surprisingly confident. He had what he called ‘a solid lead.’ I won’t tell you how long it took me to figure out the spelling of that one.”
“So he thinks she has not left the country,” I said.
“I think not,” my uncle said. “And I trust Leggett on matters of this kind. Roget’s remark may well have been braggadocio. He meant that she would leave the country if you refused his offer. But it could take him weeks to arrange a passage for her.”
“He wouldn’t send her out of the country and then make his offer,” my aunt agreed. “What would be the point?”
“Two thousand dollars,” my uncle observed, not for the first time. “Walter included.”
“I was sorely tempted,” I said.
“How could you accept?” my aunt said. “He was holding you up for ransom.”
“Not exactly,” my uncle said. “But it would set a dangerous precedent.” He closed the case and addressed a demibow to my aunt and me. “Ladies,” he said. “I must leave you.”
My aunt followed him to the door, then rang for the maid. “Will you have something?” she said. “Some cake and coffee?”
“Just coffee,” I said, touching my waist. “Delphine’s cooking is making me fat. She says she can’t cook for one person.”
“It’s best to give little dinners twice a week and live off what is left for the other days.”
“I don’t seem to know anyone anymore,” I said.
“Well, you are in mourning. It’s to be expected that you don’t circulate. But when you come out, I’m sure you will receive invitations to various parties, and then you will have obligations to your hosts.”
“You are always optimistic,” I said. “You’re more like Father than Mother.”
“Your mother had trials to bear,” she said. “As you have.”
The coffee arrived. I thought over this remark as my aunt poured out a cup and passed it to me. Was I like Mother? And then it struck me that I had actually turned into my mother. My husband was dead, I lived in her house, I was getting fat, and my hope for the future was that soon I would be giving little dinners for people who pitied me. “At least she had the memory of a happy marriage,” I said. “I don’t even have that.”
“No marriage is perfect,” my aunt said. “Your parents’ was no more so than any other.”
I thought of Father’s diary, of the “failing” he confessed to, which was so important to Mother that she had kept the record of it until she died. “Mother was not easy to please,” I said.
My aunt sipped her coffee. She didn’t like to hear me speak against Mother. “She was very gay when she was young,” she said. “ ‘High-spirited’ our father used to say, until she made up her mind to marry your father, and then Father called her ‘mule-headed.’ She was madly in love with him, enough to make the best of it when she had to go live in a shabby little house with no neighbors but Irish and American upstarts. When you were born, she was overjoyed; you were so like him, so blond and healthy. You were a beautiful child. Even my father came round and invited you all to stay at Christmas. After the two baby boys came, one right after the other, and your father was actually turning a profit on the farm and adding to the house, your mother felt vindicated in her choice. She had two or three happy years. Then the boys both died within days of each other. You probably don’t remember that; it was a terrible epidemic. You were barely six.”
“I remember the funeral,” I said. “At least, I remember that it rained and Father wept.”
“He was devastated, of course,” my aunt said. “What father would not be? But he allowed his grief to affect his reason.”
This puzzled me, as I remembered my father as the most rational of men. “In what way?” I asked.
My aunt took another morsel of cake and chewed it thoughtfully. When she had swallowed, she dabbed her lips with the napkin, her eyes fixed upon me solicitously. “He became obsessed with the negroes. Your mother said it was because he’d not grown up with any. He wrote treatise after treatise on the management of the negro, and he tried to have them published. The Planter did take one, but it was by way of a joke, to elicit letters, which your uncle said was quite successful; they got a bundle. He was always talking about what was wrong with the big plantations and how if his system were applied it would be heaven on earth. And of course he was always being disappointed when his own people ran away, or got drunk and sassed him, or pretended to be sick, or fought among themselves. Then he’d make some adjustment to his system, which was basically the same one we all use, the carrot and the stick, but he thought . . . well, it’s hard to say what he thought. He seemed to think somehow he was going to make the negroes believe he was God and his farm was Eden, and they’d all be happy and grateful, which, you know, they never are. I remember one night he was going on about the negroes and your uncle became so impatient with him he said, ‘Percy, they didn’t have negroes in Paradise.
That’s why it was Paradise. They didn’t need them.’ ” My aunt laughed at this recollection, which I didn’t find particularly amusing.
“All the planters are obsessed with the negroes,” I said. “Unless they’re like Joel and don’t think about them at all.”
“That may be,” my aunt agreed. “But your mother came to feel your father cared more about the negroes than he did about his family.”
I shrugged. “Father was always attentive to her,” I said.
My aunt studied me a moment, perplexed by my indifference. “There was something more,” she said hesitantly, though I knew she had every intention of telling me.
“Yes?” I said.
“I think it may be best if you know,” she said. “It will help you to understand your mother.”
“Then tell me,” I said.
“Your father decided to have no more children,” she said.
I considered this statement. It struck me as rather more sensible than not. As I made no response, my aunt offered a revision to assist my understanding.
“It might be better to say that he lost all desire for more children.”
“He couldn’t bear to lose them,” I offered in his defense.
“Yes, that was his reasoning, or so he said. But your mother was still a young woman. She wanted children, as what woman does not, but more than that, she wanted her husband. He was loving, kind, dutiful, affectionate to her in every way, but no matter how she pleaded—” my aunt paused here, searching for a delicate way to describe an ugly scene and allowing me a moment to imagine my mother’s entreaties—“in their marriage bed, he turned away.”
I sipped my coffee, thinking over this revelation. If this was Father’s “failing,” for which he could not be forgiven, it didn’t seem so momentous to me, especially in comparison to my own marriage. I felt perfectly dry-eyed at the thought of Mother weeping to her sister because her husband turned away from her in bed.
“It seems to me it might have been as much her fault as his,” I said.
My aunt gave me a sad look. “If you had children of your own, you might understand,” she said.
Property (Vintage Contemporaries) Page 15
