by Frank Yerby
“Well,” Paul began doubtfully, “I’ve never painted in miniature but for you . . . and ‘Tienne . . .”
“Thank you, sir. I knew you’d do it. You always seemed so kind . . .”
Paul smiled.
“If Mademoiselle will sit over there . . .”
Ceclie started across the room.
“I haven’t much money,” she began.
“Mademoiselle wishes to offend me? From so dear a friend of ‘Tienne’s the price is not one cent. Besides, I shall thoroughly enjoy this. ‘Tis always the keenest sort of pleasure to paint such a rarely lovely girl.”
“You say nice things . . . nicer than ‘Tienne does. He barks at me something awful!” She walked over to the easel, at which she had been throwing quick glances since she had entered the room. Now she studied the painting at length. She whirled on her heel, facing Paul.
“You didn’t make that up!” she accused.
“Of course not,” the artist laughed, “I had a very beautiful model.”
“You mean a woman sat here naked . . . and let you look at her all that time?”
“But yes! Of a certainty. You see, Mademoiselle, that which I find beautiful—I paint: a sunset—or a woman. And I look upon one as impersonally as the other.”
Ceclie looked at the painting again.
“No man,” she said finally, “could be impersonal around a woman who looks like that. I wish I were so beautiful. But then I couldn’t bear you looking at me so; I’d be too embarrassed.” She looked at Paul and a mischievous little smile played around the corners of her mouth.
“All the same,” she said, “I wish I had a picture of me like that. I’d give it to ‘Tienne!”
“And have him shoot me? No thank you, Mademoiselle! Now if you’ll turn your face a little more to the right . . .”
His fingers flew over the paper, making his first rough pencil sketch.
“Twill not be easy,” he sighed. “Your beauty is as much of the spirit as of the flesh.”
He worked diligently for a half hour.
“Mademoiselle is tired?” he asked.
“A little. ‘Tis the smell of the paint, mostly. I think I’ll go out upon the veranda and catch a breath.”
She got up and Paul walked with her out upon the gallery. They looked up and down the narrow Street. Suddenly Ceclie took hold of Paul’s arm.
“Look!” she said breathlessly, “isn’t that ‘Tienne?”
Paul turned his head in the direction that she pointed. A ray of sun fell between the houses and gleamed upon the palamino’s satiny coat.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes it is.”
They stood there waiting for Etienne to ride closer. As he neared, Paul leaned over the wrought-iron balustrade. But Ceclie caught at his sleeve.
“No, no!” she whispered. “Don’t call! I want to surprise him.” Etienne did not look up. His eyes were clouded with thought, so that what he saw made no image upon his brain. Then, at last, his vision cleared.
“Ceclie’s horse!” he whispered, gazing at the short, ugly animal. “Oh, my God! I don’t want to see her now—tonight will be soon enough. Well, I’ll have to forgo talking this over with Paul. Later perhaps . . .” He pulled his horse up sharply and cantered away down the street.
Up on the gallery, Ceclie turned her great brown eyes upon Paul.
“He didn’t stop!” she whispered. “Why, Paul—why?”
“I don’t know,” Paul began, but Ceclie was already gone, flying through the little studio, dipping gracefully to pick up her hat without even slackening her speed.
“Ceclie!” Paul cried. “Mademoiselle! Wait! Don’t follow him. Please, Mademoiselle!”
But Ceclie’s booted feet were already clattering upon the stairs going down.
“Name of a name of a diseased pig!” Paul said. “No good can come of this! No good at all!”
Ceclie flung herself into the saddle and thundered down the muddy street behind Etienne, but at the corner she pulled the mustang up abruptly.
“No,” she whispered, “I musn’t overtake him. I’ll let him go wherever it is that he’s going . . . and then I’ll know why he stays away from me so long . . .”
She started out again, holding the vicious tough-mouthed little beast to a walk. Etienne rode on ahead, without even turning his head.
Then Etienne was turning the horse into Dumaine Street. Quietly Ceclie followed him as he crossed Burgundy. A block further on, at Rampart Street, he pulled the palamino up for a moment. Ceclie reined in instantly. But Etienne sat for a moment without moving, then he rounded the corner into Rampart. Ceclie waited a long time before she followed him.
As she cautiously turned the little mustang around the corner, she drew in her breath and held it. Then it all came out in an explosive rush, for Etienne had already dismounted. He walked firmly to the door of the little house that sat flush with the street and knocked. Ceclie was so close she could hear the knocking.
Then the door was opened, and a woman stood there, smiling a little at Etienne. Ceclie’s brown eyes widened.
That woman! The woman of Paul’s painting! She who had sat all day unclothed before a man’s eyes . . . “No, ‘Tienne,” the girl whispered. “No!”
But Etienne had stretched out his arms and drawn the woman to him, his face alight.
“Here in the street?” the woman said clearly. “Monsieur is impetuous!”
Ceclie yanked the mustang around in a tight semicircle. Then she was slashing at his shaggy hide with all her force, hurling him through the cool, sunny streets back in the direction that she had come.
It took only a few minutes for her to cover the few blocks back to the studio. She leaped from the saddle and, pushing open the door with the broken lock, she ran up the stairs. Paul was not in the studio. He had stepped for the moment into his pantry to get a tall bottle of wine. It was better to get drunk, he had decided, than to sit and brood over the inevitable catastrophe.
Ceclie stood in the middle of the studio staring at the painting of Desiree. Her breath came out from her nostrils, loud in the silent room, and she trembled all over like a tormented animal. Then her eyes fell upon the short flat-bladed knife that painters use to scrape off excess paint. Quietly she bent and picked it up. She stood looking at the picture for a long, long time before she pushed it slowly through the painted figure at the exact spot that the heart would have been had it been alive. She drew it up and down then across, and again across at a diagonal.
When she had finished, the painting was a mass of tattered shreds hanging from the frame.
“Mademoiselle,” Paul said softly.
She whirled, facing him.
“You realize,” he said sadly, “that you have destroyed what to me was priceless? A thing I can never replace?”
He walked over and fingered a shred of canvas, stiff and heavy with paint. Tears sparkled in his eyes.
Ceclie looked at him.
“Yes,” she said fiercely, “yes, I’ve ruined it! But I’ll give you another. Set up another canvas, Mister Dumaine!” And already her fingers were busy with the buttons of her riding habit.
“No!” Paul said. “For God’s sake, no!”
But the jacket fell softly to the floor. Ceclie sat down, tugging at her boots.
“Ceclie!” Paul said, “you don’t know what you’re doing!” A long moment later, Ceclie stood up, making no effort to cover herself.
“Now,” she said, “I’m as beautiful as she! Aren’t I, Paul? Aren’t I?”
Paul bent swiftly and lifted one of the largest of the prepared canvases that stood in a row against the wall.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes. Oh, yes!”
In the little house on Rampart Street, Desiree stood very quietly facing Etienne.
“I shan’t come again,” Etienne said harshly. “This is the last time I’ll trouble you.”
Desiree smiled, the little golden flakes swimming in the deep green of her eyes.
“I’
m sorry,” she said. “I’ve enjoyed your company.”
“So much that you’ve driven me half mad!”
“About that, I am more than sorry; but monsieur asks the impossible.”
“Why?” Etienne demanded.
Desiree looked at him and her eyes were wide and grave. “Because I don’t love you, monsieur. I am not innocent, as monsieur knows; but my body is not a thing to be given lightly, lovelessly because monsieur wills it so. And then I cannot help but make comparisons . . .”
“Between me and my father?” Etienne demanded.
“Yes.”
“And in this comparison, I suffer?”
“Yes.”
Etienne’s blue eyes blazed in his dark face.
“Yet I shall have you,” he said. “Now!”
He caught her by both her arms and jerked her to him, tightening his hands around her waist until the slim body ground against his. Desiree stood very quietly looking up at him, and her face was still and unfrightened.
Etienne kissed her, driving one hand in at the small of her back, bending her over backward until her lips broke against her teeth. She made no struggle. Her body was like an inanimate thing: utterly without response.
Suddenly he pushed her away from him, holding her at arm’s length.
“Well,” he growled, “aren’t you going to beg for mercy!” Desiree shrugged.
“No,” she said. “If you have so little shame . . .”
“Shame!” Etienne said. “Shame!” Then he lifted her as lightly as if she were a leaf and strode through the door into the bedroom. He tossed her upon her high, canopied bed. She lay there looking up at him, her green eyes very clear. Then as he bent to her she closed them as if shutting out his face, and her right hand swept up under the great silken pillow.
Etienne caught her by her shoulders and shook her.
“Damn you!” he said. “Damn you!”
But she did not even open her eyes.
It was over in an incredibly brief time. Etienne sat up, his pale eyes somber. He felt weak and sick, his victory ashes and dust in his mouth.
“Desiree,” he whispered.
Slowly the green eyes opened. Her hands came out from under the huge pillow—holding a knife with an eight-inch blade that gleamed bluely in the dusk.
“Desiree!”
She sat up, holding the knife and looking at him. Then ever so slowly her fingers loosened until the knife fell to the floor. It landed point down, and stood and quivered in the planking.
“Go,” she said, and her voice was throat deep and husky.
“My God!” Etienne whispered.
“I’ve had that a long time,” she said. “You see, monsieur, my brother never reached France. He died aboard ship from the internal injuries your Negroes gave him.”
“Then why. . . why?”
“Because I couldn’t. You were Stephen Fox all over again . . . in walk and tone of voice and small arrogant gesture. So many times I planned it . . . if ever you touched me . . . if ever you mentioned my brother’s name . . .”
“I see,” Etienne said. Then very quietly he walked toward the door. In the doorway he turned and looked back at her. She was still sitting there in the same position. Not even her eyes had moved.
Etienne turned then and went out into the street. He moved very slowly, like a man already old.
XXVI
THE packet Thomas Moore pushed her way upstream against a four-mile current. The smoke stood up from her high twin stack in stiff, hard pants and her engines labored. Here, where she rode, the river was so broad that the opposite bank was but a dark smudge upon the horizon. The nearer bank slipped steadily backward, levee and quays and rude river towns dotting the shore at intervals interspersed by mile after mile of cotton lands. Only now and then could the passengers see a cane field; Louisiana had made her choice: Cotton was King.
Down upon the lowest deck where the bales were piled high and the hogsheads of sorghum and molasses crowded every available foot of space, Inch stood gazing back down river. He was quietly dressed, after the fashion of a white, complete to stovepipe hat, black broadcloth coat, white shirt and waistcoat, huge flowing black bow tie, and black boots that had been polished till they shone. He was smoking a cigar as he gazed, and the fragrant blue smoke wreathed his face in a cloud. His eyes were narrowed into a squint by the glare of the sun on the water.
Behind him at some distance two white men were standing, studying his back.
“So that’s the nigger you’re talking about,” one of them said.
“Yes, Cap’n. An’ he jes don’t look right to me. I seed his papers when he come aboard, still . . .”
The captain frowned. Then deliberately he walked over to where Inch stood, turning sidewise to get his great bulk through the narrow lane between the bales of cotton. When he was close, he touched Inch with a horny finger.
Inch turned, his black face expressionless.
“Yes, sir?” he said.
“Lemme see your papers,” the captain growled.
Without any hesitation Inch drew them out and passed them over. The captain studied them briefly and passed them over to his first officer.
“This—is—to certify,’” the officer read aloud, “thet Pierre, my Negro manservant, is granted his freedom upon my death. Provided he emigrates to some free state within three months of my demise . . .”
“My master died two months ago,” Inch put in smoothly. “Now, under the terms of his will, I must go.”
“Your master was of the plantation Stillwater near Baton Rouge, wasn’t he?” the captain demanded.
“Yes,” Inch said, “sir . . .”
“But you come aboard in Nawleans. Why?”
“I was visiting relatives. And I had to buy some new clothes—” again the barely perceptible pause—“sir.”
“That was where you was wrong, nigger,” the captain said heavily. “You hadn’t oughta bought them duds. Nobody woulda noticed you then.” He turned to the first officer.
“Why didn’t you check up on him when we stopped in Baton Rouge?” he demanded.
“To tell the truth, Cap’n,” the first officer said, “I didn’t think about it.”
“You never think,” the captain growled.
“Lock him up?” the first officer said hopefully.
“Naw. Ain’t nowheres he kin go. Besides, he just might be tellin’ the truth.” He turned to Inch. “Look, boy,” he said, “you stay in plain sight. I wanta be able to lay hands on you if I find out you’re lying about being free.”
“Yes, sir,” Inch said. The captain turned and went forward. The first officer followed him at some little distance, looking back over his shoulder at Inch.
Inch’s heart beat a snare roll under his ribs. What was to be done? It was just now the beginning of the Spring of 1854 and the water was still icy. He looked toward the nearer bank, slipping backward slowly as the Thomas Moore’s powerful engines drove her upstream. Ashore, he had a chance. There were people—white people—who would help. Grandmère Caleen had known about them, and even the passwords. Thank God now for that knowledge. Still the Underground Railroad was but a poor substitute for his bolder plan of traveling upriver in style. It would have been something if he could have done it, but now . . . now . . .
The fields a little way ahead were green with the first small shoots of cotton. In them, as far as Inch could see, a few Negroes worked. They were widely scattered and almost out of earshot of one another. Now it must be done, while there was yet a chance.
“I’ll have to wait till we’re a quarter mile upstream,” he mused, “maybe a half. Then the current’ll land me just about here. I’ll swap clothes with one of the field hands. He’ll be glad to get these things, even if they are wet.” He looked around. No one was in sight. He took the stub of cigar out of his mouth and flicked it into the water. The current caught it and whirled it away down stream. Slowly he loosed his cloak and laid it gently upon the deck; then he took off h
is hat. The boots cost him a keener pang—they were soft calfskin, made by the best bootmaker of Paris; but what must be, must be.
Now it was time. He stood on the rail, staring down at the water. A wordless prayer trembled upon his lips. Then he was gone over the side. As the icy water closed over him, he remembered to seek depth, because near the surface the great paddle wheels created a murderous suction. Down, he went, down—swimming downward, forcing himself toward the muddy bottom. The great shadow of the Tom Moore was above him; then he was shooting upward like a meteor, his lungs bursting, his head pounding with the pressure of the water.
He broke water some yards behind the packet, and the great tidal waves from her sternwheel broke over him, hurling him downstream like a chip. When he had recovered his breath, he struck out strongly for the shore, turning his eyes backward at every stroke toward the steamboat.
Half a mile downstream, his feet touched bottom. Slowly he crept ashore, trembling from head to heel from the cold. There, not twenty yards away from him, an old Negro worked, singing softly to himself. Inch lay on his belly amid the low cotton stalks and studied the man. If only I could see his face, he thought, then I’d be able to tell whether or not to ask him to change clothes with me. For a long time he waited, then, at last, the old man turned. Inch shook his head regretfully.
No, he decided, the risk was too great. The old man’s face was serene with contentment. Ten minutes after the exchange was made, Inch knew, such a one would be on his way up to the big house to report the matter. It was such blacks as this that had brought down failure on nearly every insurrection that had been attempted in the South. One day, a way must be devised to handle these traitors, but now—how on earth was he to move on? He’d be spotted in a minute in these clothes.
Despairingly, he stretched out his hand. Then he was very still, and his eyes glowed in his black face. There at his fingertips was a stone—a large stone. Quietly he grasped it, and started crawling forward on his hands and knees, toward the old man.
A scant five minutes later, he was moving forward through the fields, barefooted, the hoe slung over one shoulder, and the battered hat drawn far down over his face. As he went, he was singing, softly, in tune to the rustle of his ragged osnaburg jacket and linsey trousers.
