Benton's Row

by Frank Yerby

  “I’ll take Buford back with me,” he said to Clinton, “and you, young fellow, can ride alongside. Sarah’s expecting you for dinner.”

  “Doctor Randy!” Mary Ann said sharply, “Mister Dupré has accepted an invitation to dine with me!”

  Her voice, Randy thought, was odd. A trifle high, and a little breathless. Too many worries, he decided; maybe she needs a sedative.

  Then he saw her face.

  “Very well, child,” he said slowly, “I’ll explain to Sarah. Where is that burr-headed black jackass?”

  “Out on the back steps talking to Cindy,” Mary Ann said. “I let him, Doctor Randy. The poor boy is sure love-sick.”

  “All right,” Randy said, “I’ll go get him.” He paused, looking at them.

  “Good appetite, children,” he said. “Can we expect you for supper, then, Mister Dupré?”

  “Yes, Doctor,” Clinton said, “thank you very much.”

  The two men shook hands. Doctor Randy looked past the tall young man to where Mary Ann stood. She was turned half away from them, staring out of the window. He sighed.

  Then he went out to the back and found Buford sitting there holding Cindy’s small brown hands in his own enormous black paws, looking for all the world like a moon-sick calf.

  “Come along, Buford,” Randy said.

  “Aw, Doctor Randy!” Buford protested.

  “Take him, Doctor Randy, suh,” Cindy laughed; “he sure is one pest!”

  “Buford, you heard me!” Randy said.

  “Aw, all right then,” Buford groaned, “I’m coming.” The two of them walked round the house and stood before the veranda.

  There is a fatality about this house, Randy thought. It was born out of the whirlwind and destruction, and built upon violence. I think that happiness will always be a stranger here.

  “Marse Tom’s boy,” Buford muttered; “his spittin’ image!”

  Randy didn’t answer him.

  “You poor bastard,” he said aloud. “You poor, poor bastard. God help you now.”

  Buford stared at him.

  “He might be a woods-colt, all right,” he said. “But ain’t nothing poor ‘bout that boy of Marse Tom’s, Doctor Randy. He’s mighty fine.”

  “I wasn’t talking about him,” Randy said. “Damn your black hide, come on!”

  5

  “LORD God, Oren,” Wade Benton said, “ain’t you never going to be satisfied? We got stores in Gahagan, Coushatta, and Pleasant Hill as well as here. A cotton-seed mill, too? Lord God!”

  “Told you I aimed to get rich,” Oren said, “and when I said rich, I meant rich—not half-way.”

  Wade looked at him. Randy’s right, he thought. I should shoot this son of a bitch. Only I ain’t built that way. Lord Jesus, why wasn’t I born with a little guts?

  “Fastest-growing industry in the state,” Oren said blandly. “Use the pressed seed for fodder and fertiliser. Two dozen uses for the oil, and more being found out every day. Hell, Wade-boy, we’ll be millionaires!”

  “If you want to be a millionaire,” Wade said dryly, “you ought to turn scalawag and go round kissing niggers. Get yourself elected, and then you’d have the whole blamed State to rob blind, ‘stead of just me.”

  Oren opened his dark eyes wide.

  “Now looka here, Wade,” he said, his tone the perfect counterfeit of injured innocence, “how come you think I’m robbing you? Fact is, it’s my ideas what’s made us all the money. I runs the plantation good, bringing you a fair profit. I talked you into opening them supply stores, which have made you a mint. You know damned well wasn’t for me you wouldn’t have a pot to do you know what in. Ain’t that so?”

  “It is and it ain’t,” Wade growled. “I do all the work in the stores: buying, selling, book-keeping, supervising the managers in the other towns, and you don’t do a damned thing, yet you collect half of the take—before expenses, Oren. You’re getting rich all right, but I ain’t. After I pay off those thieving managers and the Yankee supply-houses, I do just a little better than breaking even. Same thing with the plantation. These days, a man can’t get rich growing cotton. But I could live, wasn’t for you. Broad Acres don’t even break even most of the time. I have to keep it going with the little bit I get from the stores. Wish to hell you’d go into politics—get you off my back then.”

  “No,” Oren grinned. “I take a long view of things, Wade. Them folks up North going to git tired of sending down troops ever’ time we kill a couple of dozen niggers and whips a carpet-bagger. And no party based on nigger support can last in the South. Man what gits rich that way is going to fall that way, too, when them carpet-baggers is drove high-tailing it back to their stinking mill towns up North, if he ain’t lynched to boot. ‘Sides, I’m for the white man, first, last and always. But owning a cotton-seed oil mill would be a mighty fine thing. Me and you would be partners as usual. Hell, I’d even be willing to share the expenses.”

  “That way,” Wade mused, “there might be a chance. Only there is one thing you don’t seem to have figured, Oren: where in hell-fire would I get the money to build a factory? It would cost a hundred thousand dollars if it cost a cent—maybe more.”

  Oren grinned.

  “Your sister, Stormy,” he said, “spends that much money a year for clothes. Last time I was in New Orleans, folks wasn’t talking about nothing else but that ball she gave at the Saint Louis Hotel. Hundred and fifty invited guests, two orchestras, sixty waiters, damn near a ton of food, and enough wine to keep even the Republican legislature drunk a year. Know how much it cost her, Wade-boy? Twenty-five thousand dollars, folks say, what with every lady getting a piece of expensive jewellery as a favour, and every gentleman a bottle of sixty-year-old brandy brung over special from France. For one ball, boy. And she gives them regular.”

  “Stormy wouldn’t give me a red copper,” Wade said. “Always has been bad blood ‘twixt the two of us.”

  “I know that. But that there old Yankee general she’s married to—seventy if he’s a day—has got control of the lottery. Lord God, Wade, that there Louisiana lottery takes in twenty-eight million dollars a year! And, bad blood or no, that old pirate is hauling away a sight too much folding money for us not to git our fingers on a part of it.”

  “I agree with you there,” Wade said, “but how, Oren? You tell me that?”

  “I don’t know yet. All I know is I got to be introduced to your sister. She is one cool-headed woman, from all I hear tell. Gal like that, I kin talk to. Show her a point or two for mutual benefit.”

  “Look, Oren, I have never been inside my sister’s door. So how in hell-fire you expect me to introduce you to her?”

  “Well, now, there’s your ma. She’s been pining to see your sister, but she’s too proud to call first. Suppose we fix something up. The twins’ birthday ain’t far off. Be two years old some time next month, won’t they? Give a big shindig and invite your sister. I’ll kind of rally round as master of ceremonies till I see my chance.”

  “She won’t come,” Wade said. “You don’t know Stormy, Oren.”

  “Then I got another idea. I’m going down to New Orleans next week-end—how about your writing a nice, sweet note to your sister, and letting me deliver it, personal? Then I could try persuading her. I’m right smart good at persuading folks.”

  “Don’t I know it!” Wade groaned. “All right, Oren. Maybe if this scheme of yours works out, I might have a little something to leave my boys.”

  “Sure you will, Wade-boy. A mighty heap, too. Yessir, a mighty heap,” Oren Bascomb said.

  The mimosa was in bloom in the yard. Two bluejays scolded there, making the air raucous with their ugly voices. Mary Ann looked up at them. It was no use trying to drive them away and she knew it. Jays didn’t know what fear meant.

  In their double perambulator the twins slept. They weren’t much trouble. Except for their habit of smashing everything they could get their hands on, toddling over and pulling the cloths off tables laden
with dishes, tearing pages out of books, upsetting ink-wells, and wiping intricate designs on the walls with their smudged fingers, they were no trouble at all. They never cried or were sick. Except the one time that Stone hit Nat on the head with a hammer, she had never had to call Randy for them. They, she thought fondly, are completely bloodthirsty little savages; but they aren’t like their father. Nat didn’t even cry much when Stone hit him. Nothing weak about my monsters, no sirreebobtail!

  She saw Oren walking away from the house, and sat very still, trying not to attract his attention. But it was no good, and she knew it. He came over to her.

  “How are you doing, honeybunch?” he said in his lazy drawl. “How about you leaving them two cannibals with their over-stuffed pa and taking a li’l’ run down to New Orleans with me this week-end?”

  I ought to go with him, Mary Ann thought savagely. It’s a pity I despise him so—because it would serve Wade right if I did something like that. It sure Lord would!

  “How would you like for me to tell Doctor Randy that you’re still pestering me?” she said.

  “Wouldn’t like it a-tall,” Oren grinned. “That man sure got himself one bad temper! But it’s kind of sad to have to go running to your pa-in-law, your step-pa-in-law at that, with something your husband ought to settle hisself—now, ain’t it? Lord God, it ain’t even no fun for me to make love to you in front of old fat boy’s face no more, ‘cause he don’t even bat an eye!”

  “Go ‘way from here, Oren,” Mary Ann said sullenly.

  “Sure, ma’ am,” Oren mocked; “but one of these days you gonna see the advantage of having a man instead of a nothing. I mean permanent, not on and off like that pretty bastard half-brother of Wade’s.”

  “Oren, I’m warning you!”

  “Yes’m. One of these days you’re going to shoot me with that pretty little toy you totes. Only, you ain’t. ‘Cause I don’t aim to force you, honeybunch. I’m just going to wait around for one of them hot June nights, with a big moon shining through the cheniere, and the whippoorwills a-calling, and you a-lying there trying to sleep and can’t ‘cause you’s a natural woman and ain’t no good woman can do without—that. Listening to that fat hog in the guest-room where you done put him, laying there snoring, whilest you toss, and turn, and twist.”

  “Oren!” Mary Ann grated.

  “I’m going, ma’am,” Oren said; “I’m going right now!” He’s not human, Mary Ann thought bitterly. How could he know so much? But I couldn’t have put into words the way I spend my nights any better myself. The Good Book says that as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Reckon that applies to women, too. If that’s so, I’m going to bust hell wide open when I hit it, ‘cause what I think about every time I catch a glimpse of Clint would scorch the paper if anybody tried to print it! And a glimpse is all I catch. Lord Jesus, how come those Hendersons had to come back from Mississippi just now?

  Wade came round the house leading his horse. He had not mounted, because he always stopped to look at the twins before riding back to the store. Whatever the relationship between him and Mary Ann now, this one bond held them. They both adored the twins. Since their birth Mary Ann had slept in the nursery with them, not even pleading ill-health or making any excuse whatsoever. She had said very simply: “I just don’t love you any more, Wade. And that’s one thing that requires love. When the boys are big enough, I’m going to leave you. In the meantime, I’d thank you to forget all about me. I’m just a stranger in your house. You’re free. You want another woman, you have her. Believe me, I won’t lift a finger or say a word. I just don’t care—that’s all.”

  Wade had stood there, staring at her a long time. But in the end all he said was: “As you like, Mary Ann.”

  It had been two years now; but he hadn’t taken another woman. He was cursed with a certain gift for introspection—even for realism. Though he knew quite well it would not have been difficult to find a mistress, he also realised that, being what he was, both physically and morally, it would have been his reputed wealth and undeniable social position which drew a woman to him. Since he had neither vanity nor self-love, he realised the obvious impossibility of anyone’s loving him. In all those two years he had not so much as sought out a prostitute to relieve whatever natural hungers he might have had. And he did not even pride himself upon his chastity, for, as one of the inevitable results of his obesity, the fires of sexuality flickered but feebly within him. He never recognised his gluttony for what it was: an attempt to substitute an immature pleasure for a mature one. He made fitful efforts at self-control, but, given his lack of anything remotely resembling will-power, these forays at exercise and diet seldom lasted two full days.

  He was one of the most completely unhappy young men who ever drew the breath of life. He thought often and darkly of suicide, but his physical cowardice, his horror of blood and pain prevented his doing anything about it. He thought much more frequently of killing Oren Bascomb, and thus ending the perpetual threat under which he lived. He devised numerous schemes for murder in which the deed itself would be disguised as accident; some of them almost brilliant and having, in his rural world and the then infantile state of the science of criminology, a real chance of success. But they all required the things he lacked: courage, force of character, firmness of will. So he did nothing, existed rather than lived, held on, endured, suffering all the time that marvellously exact duplication of hell which is forever the lot of the weakling born into a world requiring, above all other things, strength.

  “How are they?” he asked.

  “Just fine,” Mary Ann said.

  He peered at her curiously.

  “You don’t look happy,” he said.

  “I’m not,” Mary Ann answered him.

  He stood there as though considering her statement. Then he smiled a little.

  “That there Jane Henderson’s a mighty pretty girl, ain’t she?” he said. “Heard down in town that her brother Ashton’s done withdrew his objections to her and Clint getting hitched.”

  Mary Ann didn’t answer him.

  “ ‘Bye now,” he said, and climbed into the saddle.

  “Oh,” he said, “I nearly forgot. We’re giving a party on the twins’ birthday. I’m inviting my sister, Stormy, and General Rafflin. Ma and Randy, of course. Think I’ll stop by the newspaper and ask Clint to bring Jane.”

  He touched his crop to the brim of his hat and rode off towards the gates.

  Mary Ann sat there without moving. Her eyes stung suddenly. They felt as though she had sand in them.

  “Oh, damn you, Wade!” she whispered. “Damn you to hell and back again! God damn your nasty, cruel soul!”

  Stormy reached for the bell-cord above her bed and gave it a vigorous pull. Then she sat back against the silken pillows and surveyed her bedroom. The furniture was all gilt Louis XVI, delicate and fine, brought at great expense from France. On the walls were a Corot, a Fragonard, and a David—authentic works of the masters, and she had the papers to prove it. The crystal chandelier which tinkled in the breeze from the open windows was an exact duplicate of those which hang in the hall of mirrors at Versailles, and had at one time graced the salon of a villa belonging to a mistress of Louis XV. The wall-paper of this so very French bedroom of hers was a deep, vivid green, and had, additionally, the curious property of killing any insect which reposed too long upon it, since the colour was achieved by a chemical combination having a strong base of arsenic.

  A very pretty mulatto girl came in and stood there waiting. She was clad in a uniform of light grey, with a stiffly starched and ruffled white pinafore apron and cap. One of the advantages of General Byron Rafflin’s great age was that Stormy could indulge her love for beauty even in the selection of her domestics. All servants in the house were the lightest-coloured mulattoes, quadroons, even octoroons, that Stormy could find, and the handsomest. There was even in this madness much method. The servants added to the attractiveness of her house—at least among the younger men, whose wiv
es prudently sought out the ugliest negroes available in order to limit the natural proclivities of the Louisiana male, who, over the years, has consistently produced more mixed-breed offspring than the inhabitants of any other State in the Union.

  “Take these things away, Seraphine,” Stormy said, waving an indolent hand towards the breakfast set of finest Meissen.

  “Yes, madame,” Seraphine said. “But you sure don’t eat nothing, you. You ain’t hardly touched your brioche, yes.”

  “I know,” Stormy said. “I’m never hungry in the morning; you know that. Besides, I like having the finest figure in New Orleans.”

  “You sure have that, yes!” Seraphine laughed. “You look like a girl. How old you really are, you, madame?”

  “That,” Stormy said, “is none of your affair, Seraphine. If I were to tell you that, it would be all over New Orleans before dark. Now get out of here and draw my bath.”

  “Yes’m,” Seraphine grinned. “I do it right now, me.”

  The minute the girl was gone, Stormy leaped from the bed, throwing back the brocaded silk coverlets so that the heavy silk sheets showed, and crossed to the mirror. She bent close to it, examining the corners of her eyes, the flesh at her throat, seeing the tiny, almost invisible lines that were beginning to form.

  Damn that girl, she thought. Why did she have to remind me? Nearly thirty Lord God, I wonder—

  She stepped back and yanked the gossamer wisp of a gown over her head and stood there naked before the mirror. She looked at her reflection slowly, and with great care. Then she smiled. Her body was perfect. Except for the fact that her breasts were a trifle fuller, it had not changed since she was seventeen years old.

  She picked up the gown and put it on again. Then she frowned.

  Lord God, but I’m bored! she thought. I have everything: all the money that old brigand I married can wring out of human hopes and desperation, pretty clothes, servants, the finest house in town, lovers.