“By Jove!” ejaculated Philip Whiteoak.
Elihu Busby expanded. “I’ve wanted to do something to show that I have only kindly feelings towards her. This morning my chance came. That letter from her husband was intercepted and brought to me to read.”
“Nice teamwork,” said Philip.
“I had guessed it to be a letter of farewell written when he was condemned to be hanged, but when I discovered the good news, I thought I’d bring it straight to her myself.”
Philip’s bright blue eyes rested on Elihu Busby with no expression whatever.
The deliberate voice went on. “However, when I got here I felt sort of shy about coming in. Mrs. Whiteoak has avoided me for months.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” said Philip.
“The trouble with you,” said Elihu Busby, “is that you don’t take a proper interest in the affairs of this young country. A man like you could be a real power for good but you concentrate on your own affairs. You’re more interested in your Jersey cows than in the fate of those poor helpless slaves.”
“Their fate is none of my business.”
“Do you or do you not think Lincoln is a great man?”
“I never give him a second thought.”
“Do you ever think, Captain Whiteoak?”
“Not if I can avoid it. I leave that to my wife.”
“It would be easy to quarrel with you, sir. But I didn’t come here to quarrel. I came to deliver a letter to Mrs. Sinclair. On the way I met Titus Sharrow and gave it to him with instructions to put it into the lady’s hand. Now I want to know whether he did this.”
“He did indeed.”
“That’s good. I gave him a York shilling for delivering it. I consider he was well paid, so don’t let him wheedle anything more out of you.”
“No, indeed,” said Philip.
“I guess Mrs. Sinclair is overjoyed by the news.”
“She is indeed — and so are the slaves overjoyed.”
“Perhaps you will tell her that it was through me she got the letter?”
“I’ll see to that,” said Philip laconically.
They parted. At the same time the half-breed returned to Wilmott’s house, along the winding moist green path.
Tite was in good spirits and remarked as he entered, “I hope you’re as glad to see me, Boss, as I am glad to be back.”
“I am indeed,” said Wilmott, “for you left a confounded mess here. Nothing in order — every pot and pan dirty — no kindling for lighting the fire. Where have you been?”
“I have been visiting my grandmother, Boss. I should have come sooner but I found her very sick, with no one to wait on her. Then, as I was coming back, I met Mr. Busby who confided to me that he had a letter for Madame Sinclair, telling her that her husband is still alive. Mr. Busby was afraid to bring the letter to her.…”
“Why?” interrupted Wilmott.
“I do not know, Boss, but he was afraid. He gave me a York shilling to deliver it for him.” Tite drew the coin from his pocket and looked at it pensively. He said, “It is not much but enough to buy me a good notebook for my lectures which will soon begin. I think I had better lay it here on the clock shelf for safe keeping. Then I will make your lunch. I’m afraid you don’t eat enough when I’m not here.”
Wilmott’s voice cracked with self-pity. “I have not had one decent meal,” he said.
Very soon the rattle of dishes being washed came from the kitchen, and after that the smell of sausages frying and the aroma of coffee. Tite spread a clean cloth on the table and laid places for two. Wilmott drew up a chair, his mobile face expressing both annoyance and hunger. “This is an enormous meal you’ve given me,” he said, eyeing the six sausages and the mound of fried potatoes.
“The sausages are pure pork, which are the only good ones,” said Tite, “and the potatoes are this season’s. Let me help you to some of these ripe tomatoes that I lifted from the tomato patch at Jalna as I passed. Let me pour you a cup of coffee. The cream is thick as pudding, Boss.”
Wilmott’s sense of well-being returned. There was no doubt that Tite spoilt him, as he, in spite of suspicions, tolerated Tite. Now the half-breed remarked, “I have a very interesting life, Boss. Every day something curious happens to me. I am never dull. I always find something to do. Right after lunch I am going to pluck the fat goose I see hanging in the kitchen.”
Some time later he came to Wilmott carrying the goose. He held it close to Wilmott’s nose.
“Would you say, Boss,” he enquired, “that this goose smells high?”
Wilmott sniffed, then shouted, “Take it away! It’s horrible.”
Tite sniffed the carcass, it almost appeared, with relish.
“It is,” he said, “pretty high.”
“Take it away and bury it,” ordered Wilmott.
Yet when, a little later, he came into the kitchen, Tite was sitting on a low stool plucking the goose. “It would be a pity, Boss,” he explained, “to waste these fine feathers. As for the stink, it’s surprising how one can get used to it.”
“I can’t,” said Wilmott and slammed the door.
In a short while the two were seated amicably in the flat-bottomed boat that always was tied waiting at the little wharf. Tite leisurely rowed, while Wilmott lounged on an old faded cushion in the stern. He was trolling with bits of the goose for bait. The river was glassy smooth. The ripples left by the boat were enough to rock the painted leaves of the willows that floated there. A mysterious birdsong thrilled the air but the little singers were unseen. They congregated among the fading foliage to presage their perilous migration to the South. But the blue jays and other birds that were to remain here spread their wings and swept in unconcern above the river, casting their reflections on a glassy surface which before long would become ice.
“I still am thinking,” said Tite, “of what an interesting life I lead, Boss. Something unexpected happens to me almost every day. Though I may have problems they are always somehow solved for me. Do you find it so, Boss?”
“I ask no better life,” said Wilmott.
XIII
Departure
From the hour of receiving the letter from Curtis Sinclair, Lucy was almost visibly quivering in a state of high excitement. She could not settle down to anything, not even to make any real preparation for the journey southward which she looked on as imminent. She would command Cindy and Belle to lay out all her dresses, her flounced petticoats, lace-trimmed chemises and nightgowns, that they might be put in order, but when she beheld this array of finery she became utterly confused and bade the women put it out of her sight. She constantly worried about money and would count over and over what she had left, quite forgetting the sum she had given Tite Sharrow. She slept badly and would wake sobbing from nightmares in which she saw her husband with the halter round his neck. Cindy now slept on a mattress on the floor in Lucy’s room. When the sound of her mistress’s grief woke her, the Negress would join in her lamentations. Belle, in the next room, would be roused and the loud talk, the noisy weeping of the slaves would wake the children. Adeline and Philip, in their room on the ground floor, would not be woken, but Nero, who slept on the mat outside their door, would stalk up the stairs and look in on the visitors with dark disapproval. He would utter a deep-throated “woof” of protest and then return downstairs.
The life of the three elder children was strangely coloured by the unsettled state of the household. Now they were under very little supervision. They did what their erratic wills prompted them to do. They wore what clothes they chose, ate when and what they chose. They (that is to say, Augusta and Nicholas) had invented a game, a kind of serial play, in which they had the roles of Elizabethan adventurers, discoverers of new lands, sometimes pirates. Nicholas was known as Sir Francis Drake, sometimes as Sir Walter Raleigh, but Augusta was faithful to the role of Sir Richard Grenville. There being no special character for Ernest to play, he was made to represent all the coloured peoples of the strange land
s discovered, or even the Spaniards of the Armada. He threw himself into these various parts with the greatest enthusiasm, executing war dances or bartering his lands for a few beads, or being converted to Christianity, as was demanded of him.
Now Sir Richard Grenville was captured by the Spaniards. He, in the person of Augusta, stood upon the deck of their flagship. “Old Sir Richard caught at last!” Nicholas quoted in his best manner:
And they praised him to his face with their courtly
foreign grace …
Reverting to ordinary speech he said to Ernest:
“You are the Spaniards. Go ahead and praise him.”
Promptly Ernest declaimed, “You done well, Musha.”
“Listen to him,” Nicholas said in an aside to an imaginary audience. “You done well! That’s not the way a stately Spaniard would speak.”
“He’d speak broken English, wouldn’t he?” Ernest defended himself.
“You done well isn’t broken English. It’s just bad grammar. Besides, no Spaniard would say Musha. Musha’s French. A Spaniard would say Señor.”
“Señor, my eye,” Ernest said crossly. He felt that he was too often criticized.
During this altercation Sir Richard had stood noble and aloof on the deck of the Spanish galleon.
Now Ernest brought out with clarity (he knew that if he did not give satisfaction in his parts they might be taken from him) “You did well, noble Señor.”
At last Sir Richard was able to continue.
I have fought for Queen and country like a gallant man and true;
I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do.
With a joyful spirit I, Sir Richard Grenville, die.
With these words Augusta fell at full length on the floor. Her long black hair lay spread on the Axminster carpet. Ernest examined her prostrate form with some concern.
“She’s dead,” he announced.
“You silly little duffer.” Nicholas regarded his junior with scorn. “She’s just acting Sir Richard properly. Now it’s up to you to lower his body ‘with honour down into the deep.’”
Ernest manfully laid hold of Augusta. He gasped: “Where is the deep?”
“At the edge of the carpet. Heave ho, lads!”
Augusta lay with her hands crossed on her breast. Try as Ernest would he could not lower her into the sea. His face flushed with the effort. His mouth trembled. In a sudden burst of temper he shouted, “I can’t do it! I can’t — and I’m damned if I’ll try!”
Up from the deep rose Augusta. She took him firmly by the hand and led him away, into her own room.
“Give him a good smack!” Nicholas called after her.
Inside her bedroom Augusta closed the door.
“Why will you persist in using bad language?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Is it because you like bad words?”
“No.”
“Who did you hear saying he’d be damned?”
“Mamma.”
Augusta looked thoughtful. “Grown-up ladies sometimes use language that is not suitable when they’re excited. But that is no reason for a small boy to use it.”
“I wasn’t a small boy when I said it. I was a Spaniard.”
“But you can’t deny,” said Gussie, keeping her face stern, “that you have a leaning towards bad language?”
“Mr. Madigan said it was better to deny everything.”
“Ernest.”
“Yes, Gussie.”
“Do you consider that Mr. Madigan is a better man than our rector, Mr. Pink?”
“I’d rather listen to Mr. Madigan’s talk.”
“Talk is not preaching. Sermons are not talk. They are meant to be listened to solemnly.”
Nicholas now came pounding on the door. He called out, “It’s stopped raining! I’m off for a walk. Coming?” They heard him rattling down the stairs.
“Ernest,” said Gussie, “do you promise to try hard not to use bad language?”
“I promise,” he said fervently.
She flew down the stairs to join Nicholas. Before Ernest followed her he went into the room once occupied by Lucius Madigan. He opened the smallest drawer in the chest of drawers and peeped in at a little pile of linen handkerchiefs. Each had an M embroidered in the corner. He had been told not to touch these, but he now decided to take one, because his nose was dribbling a little as it had a way of doing. He examined the initial in the corner. If it was turned upside down the M became W, his own initial. He carried the handkerchief into Augusta’s room and dosed it liberally with scent from a bottle Mrs. Lacey had given her on her birthday. He could hear Nicholas calling to him from outdoors. He ran lightly down the stairs. The tiny Philip was toddling through the hall, dragging a small toy horse on wheels. He at once toddled to Ernest.
“Me go too,” he begged.
“No. You’re too little. I’m going for a walk.”
“Me walkee too. Me big boy.”
“Big boy, my eye!” said Ernest.
But the little one insisted, clinging to Ernest. “Take Baby too,” he begged, his pink hands surprisingly strong.
“I’m damned if I will.”
Realizing the language he had been using, Ernest clapped his hand over his mouth and ran out of the house.
Little Philip stared after him a moment, then raised his infant voice and shouted, “Lucee! Lucee!” He began laboriously to mount the stairs.
Lucy Sinclair ran down to gather him into her arms and carry him up to her room. The truth was that she doted on this tiny boy and did everything in her power to spoil him. Yet so sweet was his nature that in spite of all he retained his endearing ways. Of all people in the house, the one he liked best was the piccaninny, Albert. The very sight of Albert was enough to send him into happy laughter. He would rapturously hug Albert, press his flowerlike face to the chubby black face. If Albert cried, he would put on an act of crying also.
He loved the supreme disorder of Lucy Sinclair’s room where he was allowed to handle all he chose, where he hid under the bed when his nurse came in search of him. This nurse was a bouncing country girl, constantly at odds with the three Negroes. She had other duties besides looking after little Philip, whom she often neglected. Yet it angered her to see how he preferred the blacks to her, and she sometimes gave him a smart slap when he showed this preference. She would do this right in front of the Negroes, who would burst into abuse of her and even strive to take him by force from her.
This girl, Bessie, was now in search of him. When Philip heard her in the passage, calling his name, he delayed not a moment in scrambling under Lucy Sinclair’s bed. Bessie now appeared in the open doorway.
She had no manners and blurted out: “Have you seen anything of Philip?”
“I have not seen him,” answered Lucy pleasantly.
“I’ll wager,” said the girl, “he’s followed them other young ’uns outdoors. He’s no sense and they’ve no sense. They’ll all be as wet as rats.”
When she had left, Philip crept from under the bed, ran to Lucy and hugged her. Well he understood that she had lied to protect him. “Lucee — Lucee,” he repeated, hugging her. “Give Baby toffee.” She popped a toffee drop into his mouth and he ran to the window to see Bessie going in search of him.
Now Jerry came into the room. “Ah’ve been thinkin’ about all that money Massa left,” he said. “Don’t you want me to count it over, Missus, and see if it’s all dere?”
He made straight for the drawer where the wallet was kept. Lucy cried out, “It’s all there! I counted it yesterday!”
But she could not stop him. He took out the wallet.
“Missus,” he cried horrorstruck, “dere’s two hundred dollars gone! Oh, my Lawd — it’s been stole!”
“Don’t make such an outcry,” she begged. Then added calmly, “I gave it to Tite Sharrow for bringing the letter.”
Jerry broke into noisy weeping. “Lawd ha’ mussy! What’s gonna happen nex’? We nebber go
nna git home!”
“We shall have plenty of money,” said Lucy.
“Oh, dat Injun,” shouted Jerry. “Why didn’t I rip him up wid mah knife! Ah’ll do it yet — you just wait!”
Little Philip toddled to Jerry. “Don’t cry, man,” he said. “Take Baby walkee.” He clapped his hands in anticipation.
“A very good idea,” said Lucy. “That nurse of his is searching for him and he doesn’t want her to find him — do you, sweetheart?” She fondled the little one.
“Oh, how Ah hate dat Bessie! She’s mean to dis li’l’ boy. We won’t let her catch us, will we, Baby?”
Jerry snatched him up and shortly might be seen marching in the direction of the stables with the child on his shoulder, Philip grasping a handful of Jerry’s kinky hair.
Lucy Sinclair tried in vain to achieve order in her belongings. She felt that at any moment she might be sent for to join her husband. The greater the energy put into the preparations for departure, the greater the confusion. Cindy and Belle constantly washed, ironed, mended, carried bundles upstairs and downstairs, packed and unpacked portmanteaux, increasing day by day the dire confusion. Quarrels in the kitchen became so frequent, so noisy, that they could not be ignored. Cindy was subject to attacks of weeping, for she was becoming convinced that her family in the South had been murdered by the Yankees or that her husband had taken himself a new wife. Jerry was doggedly urging Annabelle to marry him, and she as stubbornly putting off the day. To put it mildly, things were at sixes and sevens at Jalna.
Like a thunderbolt, word came from Curtis Sinclair that his wife was to join him. He wrote from his father’s plantation. She and her servants would be met at the border by a reliable escort who would have money for travelling expenses. The jubilation that followed brought sheer chaos in its train. Then Adeline took matters in hand. With promptness and exactitude she supervised the packing, set Cindy and Belle to washing and ironing Lucy Sinclair’s intricate and much embroidered lingerie. The basement reeked with the smell of steaming suds, the rub-a-dub of the washboard. Their backs bent over the washtub, their knuckles fairly skinned from rubbing over the corrugated surface of the washboard, they lifted their voices in songs of rejoicing. Lucy Sinclair gave, in spite of Philip’s protests, extravagant presents to all the family. To Adeline a string of pearls. To Augusta a moonstone ring which she insisted the young girl should be allowed to wear at once. To Nicholas a gold watch and chain. To Ernest a gold pen. To baby Philip a pin set with turquoise, to hold his bib in place. She lay awake for hours trying to decide on a present for Captain Whiteoak. Finally she offered him a ring belonging to Curtis Sinclair set with a splendid carbuncle.
02 Morning at Jalna Page 13
