Mandingo

by Kyle Onstott

  Blanche was flustered, caught. ‘This Cousin Hammond, Charles, Cousin Hammond Maxwell. Maxwell right, ain’t it? I disremember. It all right fer cousins to kiss some, ain’t it?’

  ‘Papa know you out alone with this man?’

  ‘Course he know. You didn’t keep your promise to come home an’ carry me to church meetin’, and Cousin Hammond say he carry me.’

  ‘Papa don’ know you out kissin’ him and lovin’ him, I reckon,’ said Charles. ‘You crawl outn that carriage and I git down offn this hoss and thresh you.’

  Hammond made as if to comply and Blanche pulled him back into the seat. ‘Don’t pay no ’tention to him. Who he think he goin’ to whup, anyway? Couldn’t whup a pup.’

  Blanche was probably right. Besides being young, Charles was frail, long of leg and of arm, narrow of shoulder, hollow of chest, anaemic. His eyes were crossed and it was impossible to be sure just where he was looking. Despite his boniness and the stoop of his shoulders, he was at home in the saddle and sat his horse well.

  ‘I don’t hanker fer no fuss, Cousin Charles,’ Hammond said, ‘but ifn we fights, we fights. Your sister and me, we goin’ to git married, and I craves to be friends.’

  ‘And if you tells Papa about us kissin’, I tell whut you do to me,’ Blanche threatened.

  ‘That two or three years back; nobody ain’t goin’ to do nothin’ about it now. Besides, you as much to blame as I was,’ Charles replied.

  ‘I’s a-warnin’ you, don’t tell.’ Blanche knew her blackmail would be effective as it had been before. ‘Don’t you tell nothin’ either, Wash.’

  ‘Ain’t nothin’ to tell. I drivin’ this team,’ replied the coachman. ‘Ain’t got two sets of eyes.’

  ‘Well, drive ahead, and trot them hosses,’ ordered Blanche. ‘We already late fer that meetin’.’

  The carriage moved forward and Charles wheeled his horse towards Crowfoot.

  ‘This road——’ began Wash.

  ‘Never mind, nev’ min’. No back talk. I said trot ’em,’ said Blanche peremptorily.

  Some two hours later the tired horses drew the carriage up the avenue of elms and halted in front of the Crowfoot mansion. As Hammond and Blanche alighted, they saw upon the gallery Major Woodford in hearty conversation with a big, moustached man of middle age and authoritative, ponderous manner. A Negro led a heavy saddle-horse toward the stable.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ urged the Major. ‘You remember Blanche, Colonel Butler. Her and her cousin ben to church meetin’.’

  ‘Course, course, I remember her. How she growed up. And purty, too. An’ I was younger——’ flattered the large man.

  ‘This is my wife’s cousin, Mista Hammond Maxwell, come a visitin’. Colonel Jim Butler. Colonel Butler is speakerin’ around some about electin’ Gen’al Jackson again, come next fall. Goin’ to speak over Centerville tomorrer night.’

  ‘I hopes you goin’ to vote the Gen’al in agin, Mista Maxwell, suh,’ said Colonel Butler. ‘Course, there ain’t no question about it.’

  ‘I cain’t vote—yet,’ answered Hammond, blushing for his youth.

  ‘Well, support Gen’al Jackson, in that case; ’lectioneer fur him. Jest as good.’ The Colonel dismissed the subject closest to his heart. ‘Maxwell? Maxwell? Ain’t no relation to ol’ Warren Maxwell, over by Benson, I reckon?’

  ‘Warren’s own boy,’ interposed the Major. ‘Wouldn’t suppose Warren would git a boy like this one, would you?’

  ‘Kindly see a resemblance now. Well, I declare. I didn’t know you two war a-kin.’

  ‘Run in and take off your bonnet and git ready fer dinner. Dinner nigh ready,’ the Major prompted his daughter. ‘Us gents will santer about.’

  ‘Mighty purty, mighty purty,’ said the Colonel, watching Blanche depart. ‘Kindly sweet on her yourself, ain’t you, Mista Maxwell? Come a visitin’? Sparkin’, I’d call it.’

  Hammond wished that he didn’t blush so readily.

  ‘Let’s us go over to the spring house and git us a drink of corn before we eats,’ suggested the Major. ‘Wife don’t allow me to drink it in the house. She’s temp’ance.’

  ‘Maybe we better not offend Miz Woodford,’ Colonel Butler objected.

  ‘No offence at all. She knows I keep it. Jest won’t have it in the house, that all. Damned preacher idy. Her jurisdiction don’t go as fur as the spring house.’

  ‘A swallow would taste right good. Jest a swallow,’ said the Colonel as they walked along.

  ‘Colonel Butler callin’ means you got to bed with your Cousin Charles,’ the host explained to Hammond. ‘Reckon you don’t mind. Bed wide and Charlie clean. Washed all over yestiday to go to Centerville.’

  ‘Pleasures me all right, an’ Charles don’t gainsay,’ declared Hammond.

  ‘Kindly caught us off balance, so many visitors at oncet. Gen’ally plenty of bedrooms, but old Mista and Miz Satherwait coming by fer the night. They church cronies of Beatrix’s, goin’ to Mobile, I believe. Mighty pious.’

  ‘I do not wish to intrude,’ said Colonel Butler. ‘I kin go on toward Centerville.’

  ‘Won’t hear on it. Won’t hear on it,’ said Woodford. ‘Plenty of room. Jest means them boys doublin’ up, they and their wenches.’

  ‘Don’t reckon I need no wench,’ said Ham.

  ‘Course you do, course you do, after your trip. Unlessen your pappy ain’t broken you in yet,’ urged the host.

  ‘ ’Lessen Warren Maxwell changed a lot, I reckon his boy know whut a wench is fer,’ said the Colonel, downing his second whisky.

  ‘Don’t know ifn Charles knows or not. He has hisn, but don’t seem to git her knocked. Charles kind o’ puny,’ the Major said. ‘Backward like,’ he added. ‘His grandpa died of gallopin’ consumption, an’ Charles is made fer it. Coughin’ around all the time.’

  The whisky sharpened the appetites for dinner, which was served in a room which impressed Hammond as much as the parlour. The dining-room was in daily use, however, while the parlour was reserved for occasions. Here, too, the Empire motif had degenerated in its excess of ornament. The heavy white napery and the flowered borders on the thin china contributed a festive note to an otherwise solemn occasion.

  An immature yellow girl swung the peacock brush and kept her eyes fixed on Charles. Colonel Butler, the oldest guest, invited to pronounce the blessing on the food, lowered his head and mumbled something that wound up in an ‘Amen’. The servant in command in the handing about of the food was a brown man of middle age. He was assisted by old Wash, the Negro who had driven the young people to church.

  ‘Whut did Brother Ben Jones talk about in his sermon this mornin’?’ Mrs. Woodford wanted to know from the end of the table and raised her horn to her ear.

  ‘Somethin’ about gamblin’ and things. Had a text about casting lots fer a coat with no rent money in it. I don’t know. Didn’t make no sense,’ said Blanche in a loud voice directed towards her mother. ‘And,’ looking towards Charles, ‘Brother Jones say that them as keeps fightin’ niggers goes straight down to the bad place, ’cause you cain’t fight niggers unlessen you gam’les on ’em.’

  ‘Jest whut I always sayin’—whut I said this very morning. Bless God,’ Beatrix nodded.

  ‘I don’t see how as fightin’ two niggers together do no harm, so long as you jest bettin’ niggers. Don’t need to bet no money,’ objected Charles.

  ‘Seem like all the young men wants fightin’ niggers these times,’ interposed the Colonel. ‘Reckon it only natchel to want to do whut everybody doin’.’

  ‘Reckon Hammond don’t mess in that kind of sportin’?’ Major Woodford angled for an opinion.

  ‘I ain’t had no fighters my own self, but I been into Benson and look at ’em. Right takin’. I don’t see no harm.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Charles, looking gratefully towards Hammond.

  ‘Course, the fightin’ in Benson ain’t like the trained niggers they gotten in New Orleans,’ said Hammond.

 
‘You ever been in New Orleans?’ asked Charles.

  ‘Yes, but I never seen no fightin’ there—only at Benson.’

  ‘See, Papa. Cousin Hammond ben places, mos’ ever’ place. And you won’t let me go nowhures,’ whined Charles.

  ‘An’ you ever had a fightin’ nigger, I’d never speak to you agin, Hammond Maxwell,’ declared Blanche.

  ‘Now, daughter,’ cautioned her father.

  Hammond merely lowered his head and raised his eyes in a confident smile across the table.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t,’ pouted the girl weakly.

  ‘We’d still be cousins, I reckon,’ Hammond bantered.

  The conversation shifted to the cotton market, the Negro market, General Jackson, fried chicken, bad roads, and Texas. Beatrix wore a fixed, uncomprehending smile and followed each speaker with her face, but she gave up any effort to hear what was said. The other members of the dinner party soon tired of shouting and talked in a natural tone.

  Colonel Butler, when the diners had risen, walked over to his hostess and at the third try made her understand his appreciation of an excellent meal.

  Major Woodford took Colonel Butler into the parlour, ostensibly to talk to him, but really to exhibit the room’s grandeur, which the Colonel dismissed as ‘mighty fine, mighty fine.’ The Major was already converted to Jacksonian democracy, and the Colonel, knowing no other subject, agreed with the Major’s comments until he could no longer control his desire to sleep and dozed off, sprawled in his chair.

  Major Woodford, chafed at his guest’s lack of interest in his house and conversation, wandered into the sitting-room and interrupted the flirtation between Blanche and Hammond, who shouted intermittently at blank-faced Beatrix.

  Blanche rose and said pointedly, ‘I reckon you and Papa wants to talk.’

  When she was gone, Hammond cleared his throat, which was dry with doubt. He stared at the Major and summoned at length, ‘Cousin Blanche and me, we likes each other right well.’

  ‘Ain’t gittin’ ideas so fast, son, air you?’ smiled the Major. ‘Ain’t knowed her more than three, four hours.’

  ‘Well, we cousins, you know,’ countered Ham. ‘Real sweet girl, seems like, and real purty.’

  ‘Raised good. One thing I say, Beatrix is good mother—strick but good.’

  ‘To tell true, I kindly lookin’ around to marry me a wife. Papa think I ought to marry and settle down an’ sire me a son.’

  ‘Good advice to a young man. Stops ’em from runnin’ wild,’ agreed the Major.

  ‘An’ I sweet on Cousin Blanche. I wants your leave to spark her a little,’ said Hammond tentatively.

  The elder man had his fish on the hook and proceeded to play it. ‘Reckon you didn’t spark none this mornin’, goin’ to church?’

  ‘To tell true, I did say that I liked ridin’ with her. Kinder ast her ifn she liked me,’ admitted Hammond, who was unsure of what Charles might have said about encountering them on the road.

  ‘That gal raised so innocent-like, she don’t know who she like. She like anybody young-like who wear britches.’ Her father by his intonation turned his sarcasm into a boast.

  ‘I wants to marry her, all right. I loves her. Knowed it first thing when I seen her in that purty dress.’

  ‘Didn’t ast her?’

  ‘Well, kind of sort of like. She say ast you. She say she like to marry me, but I has to ast you.’

  ‘I hardly knows whut to answer,’ meditated the father. He grew gravely sentimental. ‘I knows Blanche old enough to marry, but she sech a baby, seem like. Innocent and pure as a baby.’

  ‘Sure is,’ agreed Hammond.

  ‘An’ I don’t know nothin’ about you—’ceptin’ your breedin’. A good mamma, an’ a good enough papa, I reckon. Not very religious, but a good man. I ain’t got no religion either, ’cept fer the women folk. I don’t know how you treat my little gal.’

  ‘Treat her good. Best in the world. Good as I knows how.’

  ‘Don’t know how she like livin’ so fur away from her mamma and all. You ain’t got a very fine house at Falconhurst, has you?’

  ‘Aims to build a new place, soon as I marry.’

  ‘Kin you? Whut I mean, kin you afford it?’

  ‘Shore kin. Papa kin. Ever’thing hisn, but I runs the place; has whut I craves.’

  ‘Doin’ real well, eh? Makin’ good crops of cotton?’

  ‘Not cotton so much; niggers. Falconhurst dirt, like all Alabama dirt, is purty much niggered out. Whure Papa gits his money at, his cash crop, is in buyin’ strong young niggers an’ raisin’ ’em fer the New Orleans market.’

  ‘Mor’gage on Falconhurst?’

  ‘Oh, no ’um.’

  ‘An’ the niggers. No mor’gages on them neither?’

  ‘Naw, suh. Don’t owe a cent on any nigger we got, nor on anythin’.’ Hammond was shocked at the idea of debt. ‘An’ ever’ nigger we got is sound and healthy, better than two hundred of ’em.’

  ‘Well, I have to think about it—talk to my wife some. I reckon we goin’ to give you a yes about our daughter. Serious matter, marryin’. Reckon we might as well chance you as any of the rest.’

  ‘I sure thank you, suh.’

  ‘Remember, I ain’t said it yet, but I reckon I will,’ and the Major paused. ‘I reckon, an’ I helps you out, you goin’ to help me out, too.’

  ‘Any way I kin, anythin’,’ Hammond pledged.

  ‘I purty bad pressed fer money, the bank a-pressurin’ me an’ all—jest until after the crop is sold. That’s all. I pay you back after the cotton crop.’

  ‘That ain’t planted yet,’ said Hammond.

  ‘But it goin’ to be, and it shore to be good this year. Had three bad years a’ready. Time I was havin’ a good crop.’

  Hammond was unable to follow the reasoning but was unwilling to lose the girl. ‘I understand you wants my papa to borrow you some money. I ain’t got none, my own self.’

  ‘Well, yes. That is kindly it.’

  ‘How much you want?’

  ‘I needs about five thousand dollars—to pay the in’erest on whut I owes the bank, an’ to ready Blanche fer her marryin’, that is.’

  ‘A heap of money, five thousand dollars. I doubts Papa got that much in cash to spare.’

  ‘He kin borrow, cain’t he? Credit’s good. You say he don’t owe nothin’.’

  ‘Reckon could. But he won’t. Afeared of owin’.’

  ‘It jest till cotton pickin’,’ the Major emphasized.

  ‘Whyn’t you loan from the bank your own self?’ asked Hammond. ‘You got a good plantation and a passel of niggers.’

  ‘It plague me to tell it, but Crowfoot already blistered fer more ’n it worth, and ever’ hand I got is mor’gaged fer all they will fetch. Jest a-holdin’ on by my teeth. Bank liable to smash down on me any day. Seem like your papa could help out an old friend and a cousin-like to boot,’ the Major whined.

  If Hammond had but known it, Crowfoot hospitality, open and freely offered as it was, always was accompanied by its owner’s solicitation of a loan. Not that Woodford wouldn’t have accorded a loan to another as freely as he asked one from a guest, if only he had been more affluent. Frugality he did not know. Stinginess, or even caution, he was unable to comprehend. To beg had become a habit. Every guest was evaluated as to the size of the loan which could be extracted from him, and Hammond Maxwell seemed like fair game for a sizeable touch. Moreover, he had Hammond on the hip; he was in a position to refuse him the hand of his daughter.

  The Major had no intention to withhold his consent to the match, which was just what he had been hoping for. What he misjudged was the depth of Hammond’s infatuation with Blanche, which he mistook for passion. The boy wanted a wife, or rather his father had talked him into taking a wife, and he was drawn to Blanche because he knew no more suitable candidates. He had fallen in love not so much with the girl as with her challis frock, a garish house, a glamorous life, and, above all, with Hammond blood, which
he had heard extolled the whole of his life.

  Already Hammond had given a passing thought to what imperfections might lie beneath the gay challis. The house and the life had lost some of their allure for him in the knowledge that the house was mortgaged and the life was steeped in debt. All this graceful living was a bubble about to burst. And, as for Hammond blood, here sat his deaf, sallow, brown-toned Cousin Beatrix, and he had observed the pimple-spattered, hollow-chested, squinting Charles across the dinner table, both Hammonds.

  He had not changed his mind about marrying Blanche, but if his suit should be rejected he would suffer no anguish. He had not contemplated a marriage by purchase, but that is what Woodford’s proposal implied, since the debtor would have neither the desire nor ability to repay a loan. That was clear, even to Hammond.

  Five thousand dollars, the price of four or five strong bucks. He wondered whether he wanted Blanche so badly.

  Hammond temporized. ‘Five thousand dollars. Couldn’t you git along with less? Pay part?’

  ‘I figures I needs that much. Mayhap could shade it a little, but it would pinch me,’ conceded the Major.

  ‘Papa might hap advance you half that much. I’ll have to ast him. Reckon he will. Does most whut I ast him.’

  ‘I could give him my note of hand. That had ought to be good.’

  ‘Had ought to be, yes; till cotton harvest,’ Hammond joined in the pretence that the negotiation was a loan.

  ‘Then I kin reckon on it?’ Woodford sought finality. ‘When s’pose he send it?’

  ‘Soon as I gits home, an’ I kin git him to do it.’

  ‘I reckon as how you kin marry my daughter, then,’ the father blatantly reverted to the previous theme. ‘Seem like a fine, gen’rous, upright young man, that kin take good care of a gal.’

  ‘I take care of her, you kin lay to that.’

  ‘Blanche and Hammond goin’ to marry,’ the Major shouted at Beatrix, who was lost in her own contemplation.

  She cocked her trumpet and asked, ‘How?’

  ‘Blanche and Hammond goin’ to git married,’ her husband screamed again. ‘They in love.’