by V. J. Banis
“No, you go ahead. You did say you wanted to be alone, didn’t you?”
Although she had not said that exactly, it was true, Jennifer did feel like being alone. She was surprised at Liza’s perception.
“Yes, I think I do,” she said aloud. “If anyone asks, I will be back soon.”
She set out following the path as Liza had indicated, walking at a leisurely pace. Once she glanced back over her shoulder and saw Liza still standing in the same spot, staring after her. She waved, and Liza waved back.
A moment later, the swamp had swallowed her up.
* * * * * * *
From the window of the kitchen, a worried Bess watched Jennifer disappear into the swamp.
“That’s not good,” she said to herself, giving her head a shake. “That is no place for her.”
For a moment she wondered if she should say something to someone else in the house—Mr. Walter, for instance.
She liked the new girl. Like everyone else, Bess had to suffer Alicia’s sharp tongue from time to time, but with a difference. The others could say something back if they wanted. Not that they ever did, but they knew that they could. It rankled with Bess to still be treated like a slave—like the Deres had never treated their slaves. And by a woman who had no right.
But the new girl had stood up for her. Alicia had spoken sharp to her one day when the lunch Bess had brought in was not as hot as she seemed to think it ought to be.
“You’re stupid, that’s the trouble,” Alicia had almost shouted at her. “No white person would serve food this way.”
“I’ve never noticed that any race had a monopoly on stupidity,” Jennifer had said, very quietly but very cuttingly.
“Wait until you have spent a little more time with our blacks,” Alice said scornfully.
“They are no longer ‘your’ blacks,” Jennifer said. “They are free now.”
To Bess’s surprise, Alicia had said nothing in reply and had concentrated instead on eating the soup that a minute before had been too cold for her. Of course, Bess herself said nothing but she had admired the new girl for standing up to Alicia, as the others usually did not.
Now, she wondered why she was going into the swamp, but she was in the process of making candles and if she stopped the wax would harden and she would have to start over.
She decided to see if Miss Jennifer did not get back all right, and if she didn’t return by the time Bess was finished with her candles, then she would tell someone else.
* * * * * * *
It was amazing, Jennifer thought, how very thick the growth was. Certainly there was nothing like this in the woods of Tennessee. It was daylight outside but in here it was nearly dark.
The thick trees blotted out the sun and created a gloom that was warm and damp and musty smelling. The leaves stirred and rustled, move by unfelt breezes or perhaps by the movements of birds and animals, and all about was thick vegetation and profuse flowers such as she had never seen before, and the huge trunks of trees entwined with clinging vines.
The path that she followed, however, was wide and worn smooth, and easy to follow. She looked to the right and down, and realized that only a few feet from the path the land swooped downward and was covered with water that gleamed darkly in the semi-gloom and was thick with tall grasses.
A careless traveler could wander from the path and suddenly be in water knee-deep or even deeper. There was no telling how deep that water was, nor what lay beneath the brackish surface.
She thought of traveling this path at night. For that you would need a sure knowledge of the lay of the land. Certainly now she would be careful to stay on the path.
Once she thought she heard someone call and she paused to listen, but it did not come again and she decided she had imagined it. Or maybe it had been a bird, she told herself, and went on.
She came to a fork in the path, with a trail going off in each direction. “Stay to the right,” Liza had told her. She veered to the right.
This path was narrow and not as well worn. In places the grasses and the vines clung to her skirt, and the low hanging branches ran leafy fingers across her cheek.
I won’t go much further, she told herself. She felt confident that she was in no danger of getting lost. Liza had told her quite clearly that the path would eventually lead her back, but she did not want to face too long a walk home.
The walk had served one purpose, though. She felt calmer than before, her troubled thoughts at last settled into some sort of observable pattern. Here in the swamp, cut off from the sight of other people, from any sound of civilization, she felt truly alone and as if her problems were distant. She could face them now with ease and she took her thoughts out as she would take clothes from a trunk, shaking them and holding them at arm’s length to examine them.
What a strange situation she had walked into. Driven by necessity, she had come to this little backwater town expecting to be nurse to an ill woman. Instead she found herself part time companion to a woman who, so far as she could see, had nothing wrong with her physically but who was insanely possessive of her husband.
But was she being quite fair? For the most part, Alicia’s problems seemed to be more hysteria than anything else, but at other times, it did seem as if she were in actual pain. Or could the mind simply play that kind of trick on the body. She wasn’t educated enough to know the answer to that.
As for Walter...if only her heartbeat did not quicken when their eyes met. If only she did not thrill so to the sight of him, to the sound of his voice. He was only a man, after all, and not the first one she had ever met. She’d had a beau, whom she had fully intended to marry, had he only come back from the war.
And there was another soldier, a gallant young defender of the Confederacy, who had come back and she had dressed his physical wounds and tried to salve the other, deeper ones.
And a Northerner briefly, arrogant, cocksure...but what did any of that matter now? She was here, and Walter Dere was married, however unhappily.
Did she only imagine that light she saw in his eyes when he looked at her? Or did he feel something for her, too?
“And if he does?” she asked herself crossly, speaking aloud because there was no one here to overhear, “what of that? What good could ever come of it?”
Perhaps she ought to go away from here, leave Darkwater and the temptation that he had come to represent. This was not what she had bargained for in coming here. There was nothing here for her but increasing confusion and perhaps, if she did not guard her thoughts and her actions very carefully, if she should ever give in to the wild desire that had begun to tremble within her at the mere sight of him—why then there would be shame and great unhappiness for everyone.
It was no use to tell herself how it had all come about, how this had happened to her. Her loneliness after her mother’s death, her feeling of desolation. Caring for her mother these last few years had left her no time for romance. Perhaps, looking back, she would have been wiser to have become that Northerner’s mistress as he had so obviously wanted. Money would not then have been the problem it had become for her, that had driven her here.
All of that was behind her, though. She was hundreds of miles from home, with no ties, no responsibilities except to herself. She had met a man, handsome, soft-spoken, intelligent, charming. A man who shared her love of books, with whom she could discuss things. A man of strength and purpose. For the first time she felt the desire to be able to lean on someone else, she on whom others had always leaned. Suddenly she wanted to be a woman, and belong to a man. She was tired of being strong, of being wise, and most especially of being independent.
It would never do, though. She could never give in to the urge she had begun to feel, to put herself in his arms, to lean her head against his powerful chest, and abandon herself to his will, however briefly. They were wicked thoughts, but she could not help thinking them.
Suddenly the path she had been following widened and she came into a clearing. Here t
he trees did not meet overhead. She could see the sky, blue and deep, and the hot sunlight fell in a golden cascade. A dragonfly darted past her face, gleaming green and silver.
She paused for a moment, and was surprised to discover she was not alone. Since entering the swamp she had seen no one nor even heard the sound of a voice, so it was something of a shock to see a woman standing not far away. She was withered and very old looking and barefoot, her toes with their long, yellowed nails looking like the talons of some bird of prey. Her gray hair was tied up in a bandanna, the way the blacks used to do at home and her dress was little more than a rag.
At the moment she was bent over with her back to Jennifer, gathering some sort of herb from beneath a spreading tree. She had not yet become aware of Jennifer’s presence. Had she been able to, Jennifer would have gone on without intruding, but the path went directly by where the old crone was kneeling.
“Good morning,” Jennifer said to be polite.
The reaction to her simple greeting was swift and startling. The woman leapt about with amazing agility for one so obviously old. It was plain that the unexpected sound of a voice had alarmed her, but what was especially surprising to Jennifer was that the woman seemed angered as well. The look she gave Jennifer was threatening.
“Who are you?” she demanded, her eyes gleaming with a dark light. “What are you doing here?”
“Why, I....” Jennifer was so astonished by this unfriendly behavior that for a moment she could not think what to say. “I am Jennifer Hale. I am from Darkwater, and I was just taking a walk....”
“You were spying on me,” the old woman said in a savage whisper. “You were trying to see what herbs I pick for my potion.”
“No.” Jennifer was not only bewildered but actually frightened by the woman’s wild manner. “I was quite surprised to see you here, in fact. I thought I was alone, you see, and then when I saw you....”
“I’ve warned everyone.” She came closer with a threatening look on her face. “Warned them and warned them. My secrets are my own. No one can steal them from me. I’ll kill anyone who tries to steal them.”
“I have not tried to steal your secrets, whatever they are,” Jennifer said, indignation momentarily overcoming her fear. “I have no interest in them, or in you.”’
“Liar.” The woman suddenly raised her large walking stick as if she would strike Jennifer with it.
Alarmed, Jennifer tried to step backward but her foot caught on a vine and to her horror she went sprawling into the mud and the tall grass alongside the path. Her hand came down in the greenish-black water of the swamp.
“Sneaking around, spying on me, I’ll teach you,” the crone shouted, striking out at Jennifer with her stick. Her blow was wild and the stick struck the ground instead, an inch or two from Jennifer’s face. Jennifer screamed in terror.
“Don’t,” she cried, but the woman raised the stick to strike at her again.
“Think you’re so clever, sneaking around, sneaking up on people....”
Desperately Jennifer kicked out with her foot. Her skirts prevented her from kicking with any real force, but it was enough to trip her attacker. The crone stumbled too and fell into the muddy grass alongside Jennifer.
Jennifer was young and agile and in a moment she had managed to scramble to her feet. She ran away before the old woman had recovered herself, along the path and back the way she had come, holding her skirts high. She sobbed and gasped as she ran. She had never suffered such a senseless attack before, not even in the heat of the war.
She came around a turning in the path and gave a little cry of alarm as she saw there was someone in the path, directly in front of her. He was too close and she was running too fast to avoid him.
She was in his arms before she realized it was Walter. Not even thinking of what was right or wrong, she threw herself against him, sobbing into his chest.
“What is it, what happened?” he demanded, holding her close.
“An old woman. She tried to hit me with a stick,” Jennifer sobbed.
“Mrs. Hodges. Wait here, I’ll go....”
“No.” She grabbed his arm and, taking a deep breath, managed to quiet her sobs. “I’m all right now, truly I am. She did not harm me, she only frightened me.”
“She didn’t strike you?” he demanded, looking down into her face anxiously.
“No. She swung at me with her stick, but I don’t know if she really meant to hit me or if she was just trying to frighten me. Truly, I am all right. I was just terrified, that’s all.”
She suddenly thought of how she must look and gave a little laugh that combined relief and amusement.
“I am a sight, though,” she said. Her dress, already wrinkled from a night of sleeping in Alicia’s chair, was even more so by now, and in addition, it was torn slightly and stained from grass and mud. Her hair lay in damp strands and she knew there was mud on her face as well as on her hands.
“I think you look very beautiful,” he said in a changed voice. “I think you would always look very beautiful no matter what the circumstances.”
Her heart skipped a beat as she looked up into his face, so near her own. Only a few minutes before she had been thinking of him, of his dark eyes boring into hers, of his strong arms, that now held her close.
For a moment neither of them spoke. She could not. She could only feel as if she were fainting, her legs going weak. She stared with wide eyes as his face came closer, closer, his lips parting to close over hers. His countenance blurred as he came too near to see him clearly, and she could only feel the heat of his body, the power of his arms locked tight about her, and his own heart pounding against her breast in a crescendo that matched her own.
Suddenly the world, that had faded from them, came back to her in a rush, and she cried, “No,” and turned her face away, so that his lips only brushed her cheek.
The moment was gone. His arms grew slack and fell away from her. She swayed as if she would fall, but she caught herself and stood firm.
“I think we had better go back,” she said, her voice quavering.
“Of course.” He took her arm again, but this time it was only a polite gesture, to help her onto the path. She went by him and began to retrace her route. Had it only been a few minutes ago that she had come this way? It seemed an eternity.
Because the silence between them grew so heavy, she asked, “How did you happen to come this way, anyway?”
“I was looking for you. I looked out the window and saw you, and then when I came outside later, you were gone. I asked Liza what had happened to you and she said you had gone into the swamp, so I came after you right away. You really should have been warned, it is not safe to be wandering around in here by yourself.”
“But Liza assured me it was quite safe.”
He smiled indulgently. “I suppose in her mind it is. She has lived in the swamp and she knows it like the back of her hand. She just didn’t think that it would be different for you. I will speak to her about that.”
But as she walked the narrow path, Jennifer found herself remembering how confidently Liza had reassured her, and she recalled Liza standing looking after her, lifting her hand to wave.
Had she meant that gesture to be a last goodbye?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jennifer was surprised to learn that something so simple as her taking a stroll could have caused so much excitement. When she and Walter returned to the house, Helen and Bess were waiting in the yard. They looked Jennifer over as she walked up, as if expecting to find limbs missing.
“Liza told us you were in the swamp and that Walter had gone looking for you,” Helen said. “Are you all right? You look a fright.”
“I am all right,” Jennifer said, trying to make light of the incident because her own emotional state was anything but calm just now. She found she could not look directly at Walter’s mother without a sensation of guilt. “I took a fall trying to get away from some mad old woman with a stick who accused me of spying
on her.”
“Mrs. Hodges,” Walter said in a grim voice.
“The swamp witch,” Bess murmured.
“Thank God I came along when I did,” Walter added. “There’s no telling what she might do when she’s riled up.”
“And she is only one of the swamp’s dangers,” Helen said as they came into the kitchen. “You must be wary of going there alone.”
“Only us local people go into the swamp,” Bess said. “Me, I know what to expect, and no self-respecting snake would bite me anyway.” Her comment made the others smile and some of the tension in the air was dissipated.
* * * * * * *
Even as she was speaking, though, Bess watched the others with a keen eye. She looked from Jennifer’s face, where not even the mud smeared across it could hide her confusion, to Walter’s, that glowed with a new, inner light, and she knew without a doubt that these two were in love, although maybe they did not yet know it themselves.
And Lord knows, he deserves some happiness, Bess thought. Aloud, she said, “I better fix you some tea, sweet and cold. What are you doing out anyway without having had a decent breakfast?”
“I think I would like to change into a clean dress and freshen up a bit,” Jennifer said.
“You go right ahead, dear,” Helen said. “And you never mind about the children today. You’ve had quite enough to do staying with Alicia all night. A day off won’t hurt and the children will probably enjoy a holiday.”
“I don’t want to set the children a bad example.”
“I’ll hear no more about it,” Helen insisted. “Go on, clean up now, and come back down and Bess will give you a real breakfast.”
Jennifer did as she was ordered and Walter left the kitchen in her wake. As they went out, Bess and Helen exchanged glances. They had known one another many years. Each of them knew just what the other was thinking.
* * * * * * *
For her own part, Jennifer would as soon have been occupied today of all days, but she did as Helen insisted. When she came downstairs a short time later, the others were waiting breakfast for her in the dining room.
