by Kyle Onstott
‘He all right—goin’ to be.’
‘Any fuss? Everythin’ all right?’
‘Ever’thin’ all right,’ answered Hammond briefly.
‘Bleed much?’
‘Not much.’
‘How are you, Son? Had ought to a done it myself.’
‘I all right, Papa. I tired is all. I reckon I tender. I reckon I wasn’t cut out fer threshin’ niggers.’
‘It got to be done—sometimes.’
Hammond climbed the stairs, Meg at his heels. He sent the child away, entered the room, threw himself upon the bed face down, and found relief in tears.
7
‘Well, I swan! Warren Maxwell’s boy. I’d a-knowed you anywhures. Look jest like yo’ papa,’ said Major Woodford genially and shouted: ‘Beatrix, come and see Sophie Hammon’s boy. She don’t hear me; don’t hear right good. She’ll be in later. You ain’t been here in years? Guess not. Kindly neglectful, ain’t you? Whut do we owe the honour of seein’ you now to? You right welcome, mighty welcome, any time. But whut do we owe the honour to?’
‘Well, I over in these parts to borrow an old Mandingo buck offn Mista Wilson over at Coign Plantation. Papa got two prime Mandingo wenches, an’ he want Mista Wilson’s buck to mate up with ’em. Papa Mandingo crazy, seems like. Thinks they no niggers like Mandingos.’
‘They good, all right. Not many pure ones around. I guess they purty hard to ketch in Africa. Didn’t many ever come to America. Plenty in Cuba, folks say, and Jamaica.’
‘But no way to fetch ’em in.’
‘Not now. Fool law. I recollect that big buck of Mista Wilson’s. Must be old though. Goin’ down to Coign to borrow him, eh?’
‘An’ rode by Crowfoot to call—sorta. You my nighest of kin—that is, Cousin Beatrix is.’
‘That’s right, I reckon. You an’ your papa the only Maxwells left. Used to be a big family of ’em; and the Hammonds have sort of petered out—one thing and another, I reckon my wife and children are your nearest blood. Married?’
‘Not yet.’ Hammond blushed.
‘Ought to git married. Keep the blood from running out,’ argued Major Woodford.
‘That whut Papa say. I lookin’ around. Don’t know many white ladies.’
‘Woods full of ’em, and you kin jest about take your pick. Steady young man, and next in line to heir a good plantation. Quite a ketch, an’ I knows anything.’
Hammond was ill at ease as he talked. The elegance of the Crowfoot parlour, the ornate American-Empire suite of walnut, the imitation Aubusson carpet, the great square piano with its massive legs, the curtains of yellow damask at the long windows, although they were worn, the muddy portraits in heavy, gilt frames, impressed the boy so much that his diffidence increased. His host, after so many years of living with it, still counted the cost of the house and its furnishings, which he had acquired when cotton crops were good and when his Negroes were young and before it was necessary to mortgage both the plantation and its slaves. His taking Hammond into the elaborate room had been by design and it had brought about the effect he intended.
The Major rose from the pink sofa and stuffed his thumbs into the pockets of his vest, thus throwing open his tail-coat and revealing the heavy, gold chain with its seals that hung across his well-rounded stomach. ‘Let’s go and find Miz Woodford, your Cousin Beatrix that is. She’ll shore be right glad. Won’t tell her who you air; let her reckon.’
He bustled on his short legs, with a show of haste but no speed, toward the sitting-room, his hand on the arm of Hammond, limping beside him. They found his wife reading a Bible in which she traced the lines with her forefinger and moved her lips. She failed to notice their approach until they came near to her and started when she saw the unexpected guest. She looked Hammond up and down and then looked questioningly into the face of the Major, closing her book and raising her ear-trumpet with a single gesture.
‘Who you reckon this is?’ shouted the Major into the funnel-like contraption.
The woman looked Hammond up and down with what to him appeared like hostility, indifference at best. ‘I don’t know. Should I ought to know? Ain’t ever seen him before as I know of,’ she finally said in a loud voice without resonance.
‘Sophie’s boy, Hammond—Hammond Maxwell,’ explained the Major.
‘How? I cain’t hear,’ she said, searching the Major’s face.
‘Hammond. Hammond Maxwell. Your Cousin Sophie’s boy,’ the Major shouted.
A smile spread slowly over her face as she rose, dropping the book from her lap. ‘Well, I declare. Hammond, Cousin Hammond. I’m glad to see you, right glad,’ she exclaimed, throwing her heavy arms around his shoulders and planting a kiss upon his embarrassed mouth. ‘Whure did you ever come from?’
‘From home,’ Hammond answered.
‘I declare!’ she said, standing back a step, but keeping a firm grasp on his shoulders with her outstretched hands. ‘I jest declare! Sophie’s boy. I had ought to have knowed. The very image of Uncle Theo. Ain’t he like Uncle Theophilus, Major?’
‘More like his pa. Jest like Warren,’ the Major said in a loud voice.
Beatrix made a face and shook her head in disagreement. ‘He’s a Hammond, pure Hammond. Ain’t nothing Maxwell about him as I kin see. Pull up a seat and talk,’ she gestured towards a chair and resumed her own, kicking the Bible aside.
Hammond was disappointed in his cousin. She was a heavy-made woman of indefinite middle age, her dull, dark chestnut hair combed severely back from her sallow, moth-patched face and amber eyes. Her thin upper lip, short and covered with dark down in which no stiff hairs had yet appeared, drew back to reveal wide-spaced teeth which were also brown, and which protruded over her lower jaw. Her brown woollen dress, well stayed, was neat and severe.
She held her instrument in Hammond’s direction, but he at first talked around it rather than into it. She picked up only half he said, even after he had repeated, but it made little difference, since she was bent more upon what she herself had to say than upon what Hammond said.
‘How’d you leave Cousin Warren?’ she asked, and Hammond explained the state of his father’s health.
‘When did you come?’
‘Jest rode in. Slept last night at the tavern in Centerville.’
‘Too bad. Might as well of found Richard and slept with him. He’s in Centerville a-readin’ law,’ she gloated. ‘Goin’ to be a lawyer. Whut are you a-aimin’ fer?’
‘Don’t know. Jest a planter, I reckon,’ Hammond said.
‘Ought to be a lawyer and go into politics, like Richard. Reckon he’ll be governor or somethin’ someday.’
‘More likely to turn out a gam’ler or a nigger stealer,’ interposed Major Woodford in a normal tone.
‘Whut say?’ His wife turned her horn toward her husband.
‘Nothin’,’ the Major shook his head.
‘More ’n likely somethin’ about Richard. You got a grudge agin poor Richard. Richard ain’t real strong. Got to make allowance. Always did favour Charles. Charles is my second boy,’ she explained to Hammond.
‘Charlie ain’t a nigger thief—yet,’ the Major said in a voice Beatrix couldn’t hear.
‘Charles is younger ’n you. Richard older ’n you. Sophie had you jest between ’em.’
‘I know,’ Hammond shouted.
‘And Blanche, Blanche is younger yet. Jest sixteen. She my youngest. Whure is Blanche? She ought to be ready fer church.’
‘She about ready, I reckon. Prob’ly a-primpin’ extry if she know Hammond here,’ laughed the Major.
‘The kerriage ready?’ asked Beatrix.
‘Will be,’ the Major nodded toward her.
‘Charles come to go with her?’ the mother inquired.
‘Cain’t count on him. He promised to be back in time, but you cain’t never depen’ on him. Don’t like goin’ to church, nohow.’
‘Somebody got to go with Blanche. Cain’t have her go alone with jest that nigger coachman.’
‘Why not? She safe with ol’ Wash.’
‘Don’t look right. Church would talk,’ declared Beatrix. ‘Don’t see whut Charles have to go to Centerville to see Richard fer ever’ Sat’day, and cain’t git home to take Blanche to meetin’ on Sunday. Them boys cain’t git along together at home.’
‘To Centerville to see Dick?’ Major Woodford scoffed. ‘Charlie don’t care no more ’bout Dick in Centerville than he do at Crowfoot. He go to Centerville to see the nigger fightin’ ever’ Satiday.’
‘You hadn’t ought to let him,’ complained his wife. ‘Leads to gamblin’.’
‘Gamblin’. Whut he got to gam’le with? Few dollars pocket money, mayhap. Cain’t keep a boy from gam’lin’ a little,’ said the Major with complacence.
‘Gamblin’ is a sin, jest like dancin’ and playin’ cards and carryin’ on. Brother Ben Jones say so the las’ sermon I could hear him preach,’ she quoted her authority. ‘I don’t go to church no more. Ain’t no use. Cain’t hear right good, so I jest sets at home and reads the Bible and lets the chil’ren go. But gamblin’s a sin. Don’t say nothin’ in the Bible about nigger fightin’, but the gam’lin’ shore is bad. Whure they is nigger fightin’, there sure to be gam’lin’, an’ I don’t want my boy Charles corrupted. Charles is sich an innocent, good boy, but you’ll git him wil’ like Richard an’ you don’ keep him home away from them fights.’
‘I cain’t keep him home withoutn I put him in spancels. Always cravin’ I give him a young buck to make a fighter out of. I don’t do it, do I? I don’t want my hands ruint, chewed up and scarred and blinded. Give him a nigger to fight, have to have another to bet—maybe lose. You cain’t say I aids and abets him in his lowness,’ the father excused himself.
‘Charles don’t come, whyn’t you go to meetin’ with Blanche?’ the wife suggested.
‘You know, well as I do, I got to go to that nigger meetin’. You know the law that you cain’t have no nigger church, ’lessen a white man there to hear that they don’t preach no risin’.’
‘Mayhap, Cousin Hammond would crave to carry Blanche to church meetin’?’ Cousin Beatrix suggested.
‘Hammond tired,’ objected her husband. ‘Ridin’ all day yestiday, and up early this morning to git here.’
‘I not tired hardly. I be right charmed to go, an’ I knowed how to ack,’ volunteered Hammond.
‘Ack jest like in any church. We’re Babtists.’
‘Whut I mean, I ain’t ben to church sence Mamma die,’ confessed Hammond.
‘Course, you got to stay and look after your nigger meetin’,’ Beatrix sought an excuse for him. ‘Jest as good. God sees you in nigger meetin’.’
‘We don’t have nigger church at Falconhurst. Papa think it keeps the hands all stirred up,’ Hammond explained.
‘He right,’ agreed Woodford. ‘I’d sell that preacher and stop that foolishness if it wasn’t fer her.’
‘Why, you usen to hold meetin’ fer your servants,’ Beatrix remembered.
‘Not sence Mamma die.’
‘Had a good meetin’ house an’ everything.’
‘Use it now to sleep niggers in. Got to be so many,’ said Hammond.
‘Whut the use of slavery an’ it ain’t to save pore heathen souls, to bring the niggers to Jesus and learn ’em to lay their burdens at His feet? Ain’t right, ain’t right, I say, to keep ’em from learnin’ about the Lord.’
‘Warren always was a free thinker,’ the Major sighed in a low voice. ‘I got to have religion, women about.’
‘Whut you needin’ is a good Christian wife, Cousin Hammond,’ Beatrix prescribed. ‘Make you go to church. Save your soul an’ bring you to Jesus.’
‘Whut the matter with that Charles? We late a’ready. He cain’t ever do nothin’ he promise,’ complained Blanche as she entered the room, tying her bonnet with ribbons beneath her chin. Seeing Hammond, she stopped short and expressed her surprise with ‘Oh!’
‘Come here, darlin’, and kiss your Cousin Hammond, Hammond Maxwell, Cousin Sophie Hammond’s boy,’ her mother bade Blanche. ‘Ain’t seen him sence he was a little tad an’ you was a baby. Come to visit us from Falconhurst Plantation. Goin’ to carry you to church. Come here an’ kiss him welcome.’
The girl blushed but was without reluctance. She advanced and the boy encircled her stays and pecked an embarrassed kiss upon her small petulant mouth. ‘Never knowed I had no cousin like you,’ she said.
‘There’s Wash with the team,’ Major Woodford said, looking out the window. ‘Better git along, don’t want to be late fer the meetin’. Reckon Charlie ain’t comin’. We’ll talk some when you gits back.’
Blanche kissed her mother, who did not rise. The Major led the way through the wide hall to accompany the pair as far as the front gallery, where he stood watching Hammond awkwardly hand the girl into the wide back seat of the surrey and get in beside her. The old chocolate-hued coachman, in his dilapidated livery, appraised the newcomer with approval without turning his own head or appearing to look. He noted the affability of his master and the animation of the girl, and he surmised in them the hope to bring the visitor into the family.
For Hammond, sitting so close to a white girl was a fresh experience. He thought Blanche pretty, in fact beautiful. He wanted to think so. She was indeed fresh and she was young, and her costume emphasized what allure she had. Her flowing dress of cream-coloured woollen challis with a painted pattern of small moss roses was held in at the tightly laced waist by a sash of pink ribbon and enveloped her from neck to ankle. Her stays forced her bosom upward and there was a hint of copious and upright breasts beneath the folds of her frock. The wide brim of her flowered hat was bent against the sides of her face by streamers that tied beneath her chin.
What Hammond could see of Blanche herself satisfied his inexperience. He approved the smallness of her mouth. He thought her small, pinched nose precious, her light blue eyes divine, although their narrow spacing annoyed him. How was Hammond to know that the curls that showed beneath the hat were made with a curling-iron? That the alternate blanching and blushing of her cheek was occasioned by his own presence? He failed to note the bulbous fingers with the bitten nails that protruded from Blanche’s short, fingerless black lace mitts. He was allured by a fresh scent, something like rose geranium, and wondered whether all white ladies smelled so sweet.
But he would have to get used to whiteness of female flesh. Its pallor seemed to him not quite healthy. He knew the beauty of blondeness, but failed to appreciate it. He knew, moreover, that if he was to have a wife he would have to tolerate that she was white.
‘Folks won’t believe that you-all my cousin,’ observed Blanche.
‘Why won’t they? I am.’
‘I knows you are, but I ain’t never talked about you, didn’t know nothin’ about you at all.’
‘Thought everybody knowed we cousins. I did. Papa been talkin’ ’bout you and Cousin Beatrix ever sence I was little boy.’
‘Reckon Mamma disremembered how good-lookin’ you-all are, and all.’
‘I jest a little puke last time she seen me. I don’t remember you at all. All I remember is your brother Richard an’ his billy goat hitched up. Let me ride in the little cart,’ reminisced Hammond.
‘You remembers a billy goat and disremember me. You think that nice?’ the girl pouted.
‘You jest a baby, that time. How I know you goin’ to grow into the beautiful lady you are? I won’t never fergit you again,’ Hammond essayed gallantry.
‘You-all jest sayin’ that. You doesn’t really think I purty.’
‘Shore do. Awful purty an’ awful sweet,’ Ham avowed.
‘Folks at church will think we aimin’ at gittin’ married,’ Blanche suggested.
‘Why will they think that?’ Hammond asked, relieved to find Blanche was easing his talk for him.
‘Us coming to church together. Won’t know we jest cousins. Young man carry a girl to church, everybody reckons they goin’ to
git married. That’s the way it is.’
‘Mayhap we is,’ Hammond declared.
‘Is whut?’ pressed Blanche.
‘Mayhap we is goin’ to git married. How you like to?’ Hammond buzzed nearer the web.
‘You got a nice plantation? Big house?’
‘House ain’t much. Leastwise ain’t fine like Crowfoot, but we got a big passel of niggers. Ain’t nobody got finer niggers than my papa,’ boasted Hammond.
‘Niggers!’ Blanche scoffed.
‘I kin build a house, any kind of house you craves. Jest been a-waitin’ until I marries to build a house—a fine house. House we got is good enough fer jest Papa and me. Papa was gittin’ ready to start buildin’ when my mamma up and die.’
‘I ain’t thought about gittin’ married—much,’ said Blanche, reverting.
‘How’d you like to?’
‘Is you-all askin’ me? Is you proposin’?’
‘Shore am. Don’t know how else to do it. I’m bashful, kindly.’
‘We ain’t knowed each other long, seems like, but——’
‘We’re cousins, ain’t we? That makes a difference.’
‘I reckon it do,’ she agreed. ‘Did you ast Papa? He say it all right? Or did you aim to run off?’
‘Ain’t asted him yet. Ain’t had no chanst; but I will. Hadn’t thought about us running off—unlessen he say no.’
‘Papa purty choozy. I don’t know whut he say.’
‘Ifn he say yes, do you say yes?’
‘I reckon I do.’
Hammond made no move, and Blanche added, ‘But don’t kiss me yet. Ast Papa first. Unlessen it jest a cousin kiss. Guess that all right.’
Desire in Hammond was not absent, but it was to embrace, not to kiss. However, when he placed his arm about the girl’s body she glued her lips to his and refused to let him go. And they were locked in each other’s arms, oblivious of the swaying of the carriage over the rutted roads, when they rounded a wooded corner and met Charles, returning, horseback, from Centerville. They failed to see him until he was upon them.
Charles grabbed hold of the bridle of the off horse and Wash stopped the team. ‘Whut this mean—you a-huggin’ o’ my little sister? Right out fer everybody to see, too.’
