by Gwen Bristow
“My notion is,” said Philip, “that she’ll like us better if we don’t try to find out.”
Josh returned from Silverwood with the news that they had seen nothing there of Dolores. By that time Judith was in a state of wrathful exasperation. Dolores had taken Judith’s purse with her shopping money, three gold-lined silver goblets belonging to a set brought at great expense from France, some gold toothpicks from the dining-room, and various other articles of less value. Judith exclaimed to Philip that it was a judgment on him for founding his fortune with stolen treasure from a pirate boat, and he said maybe it was.
Chapter Nine
The keels and flatboats were crowded against the wharf and big-muscled slaves were loading them with produce of the plantations. Negroes and white men lounged about on the bales piled up near the waterfront, with here and there groups of soldiers who were shooting dice or basking in the sunshine. Dolores stopped and set down her box. Already the sun was hot and she was very tired. The box was heavier than she had thought it would be and her arms ached from carrying it; if she had not met that wagon on its way to the wharf with a load of indigo she didn’t believe she could possibly have brought her things all the way here. It must be six or eight miles from Ardeith to the wharf, or maybe further, though she had been so tired and unhappy by the time she got a ride on the wagon that she hadn’t taken much notice of the distance. She had asked the driver about boats to New Orleans, but he was a field-slave who didn’t know anything about boats.
A girl was walking about selling fruit. Remembering that she hadn’t had anything to eat since dinner yesterday, Dolores beckoned the girl and bought a banana and a bunch of grapes. She had put a few coins into a little knitted purse and tucked it into the bosom of her dress. The rest of the money she had taken from Ardeith she had tied into a bag and hung under her petticoats, cross that there was not more of it. The Larnes lived in such luxury that they must have a lot of money about somewhere, but she hadn’t known where to look for it last night. At any rate, this would be enough to take her to New Orleans, away from these people who had made her so miserable. She hated them all—Caleb, who had taken away her baby when it was six days old, and Caleb’s stern old father who thought she was an abandoned woman, and the Purcells with their constrained politeness, and Philip and Judith who had been so kind they had made her feel like a stray cat. Sometimes she had wished they would put her to work in the fields, or anything, if they would only stop being kind. She would have run off before now except that as long as there had been any chance of getting her baby back she couldn’t leave. But now that they had taken him completely she could not bear the sight of the Dalroy bluff any longer, nor any of those people who could go to see her baby whenever they wanted to. It had been six months now, and even if she saw Roger she wouldn’t know him.
She had heard Philip’s reading of the court order with despair. It could not be that anything so awful could happen in the world, and yet here it was happening. Her English was not inclusive enough to grasp the long words, but she understood that Caleb had dismissed her from his house and was never, never going to let her see her own baby again. The first she had expected, and by this time she did not mind very much, though she had been fond enough of Caleb in the beginning, but that any bunch of judges with wigs on their heads could fail to know that her baby belonged to her as surely as her own hands and feet—that was impossible, yet it was happening. And here she was, a healthy woman who could walk and talk and go anywhere she pleased, and yet she was helpless to make them stop doing this to her. Even when she had taken a horse out of Philip’s stable and had tried to get her baby, all that had happened was that she had put a bullet into Caleb’s side and they had carried her off to the guardhouse. If she had just seen that damn little nigger in the dark she could have put a pillow over him so they wouldn’t hear him cry and held the nurse back with her gun until she had got away with Roger. She hadn’t really meant to try to kill anybody. But when she saw Caleb it had all rushed over her that he was going to take the baby again and that she hated him like the devil and when she fired she did want to kill him.
Probably, Dolores reflected as she bit the grapes, she ought to be grateful they hadn’t had her hanged for that, but she wasn’t; they might as well break her neck as kick her around like this. And probably if they found her here on the wharf with all these things she had taken from Ardeith they’d have her hanged anyway. But the Larnes could get plenty more where these came from, and she had felt so defenseless. Possessions provided a sense of safety when one was alone, and she had to get away. It would have been too horrible to wake up one more morning in the room where Roger was born.
And as for Caleb’s saying he would support her—could he possibly think she was going to take his charity? Maybe he would like to hear people say how good he was to keep his worthless wife from starving. Like folks who boasted complacently of how kind they were to nigger slaves too old to work. Holy Mary mother! She’d steal or live on the docks, but she wouldn’t give that crew any more chance to be kind.
Her legs ached, and her back too. A man dawdled past and spoke to her. “Oh, hush your mouth,” said Dolores wearily. She looked around the swarming wharf and called a Negro boy who was idling on a fruit-crate. He had a badge on his shirt, which meant his master had sent him down to the docks to pick up odd jobs, having no use for him at home today. Dolores told him to watch her box while she went to ask about boats. Did he know of any going down to New Orleans?
The boy rolled his eyes around and told her it wasn’t so easy to get to New Orleans these times on account of the American war. Dolores rubbed the toe of her shoe over a knot in the board floor of the wharf.
“Oh Lord,” she said, “don’t that be over yet?”
No ma’am, it wasn’t, the colored boy told her, and the boats were being used mostly to carry soldiers. But there was a boat down the river a piece, the Cienega, that was going down to New Orleans tomorrow.
Dolores wandered along the wharf looking for the Cienega. She had a hard time finding it, for the wharf was so cluttered with boxes of freight and soldiers and stevedores and Indians selling furs that it was hard to walk around at all. There weren’t very many women about, and she heard herself being accosted in all the three languages she understood and one or two strange ones. Sometimes she didn’t answer and sometimes she turned around and swore in whatever language came first into her head.
At last she found the Cienega, a big flatboat being loaded with indigo, tobacco and furs. A lady and gentleman were talking to the captain, arranging passage for themselves and four slaves. Dolores waited till they finished and asked the captain if he would take her too. He told her curtly that he didn’t give passage to ladies traveling alone.
She protested eagerly that she could pay for a bunk. He returned, “You heard what I said. I don’t run that kind of boat.”
“Damn you,” said Dolores, but he wasn’t listening to her; he had turned and was giving orders to one of the crew. Dolores turned away helplessly, watching the lady and gentleman who had just been arranging for the trip. The lady was being assisted by her husband into a carriage that waited above the wharf. Dolores sighed. That was what you had to have, a male protector with you, or at least a couple of genteel-looking slaves, and if you didn’t have either you got nothing but trouble. The more you needed protection the more folks kicked you around. She tried another boat, but it was going upriver toward Baton Rouge, where there was an English garrison. The next boats were dirty things laden with furs and bear-grease from Illinois, and didn’t take passengers. After that she passed boats with guns and soldiers. They were busy with the war and didn’t want women around, not as passengers anyway. There was a Spanish boat heavily gunned, staying close to another gunboat flying a curious but very pretty flag with red and white stripes and one upper corner blue with white stars on it. Dolores wondered where it came from. Some foreign country. A soldier in a nut-colored s
hirt was coming down the plank, and she asked him what kind of boat it was. He said it came from the Free and Equal United States of America, whatever that was, and they were bringing some important diplomats down for a conference with their friends in New Orleans, and the Spanish boat was escorting them past English Louisiana lest the Tories here make nuisances of themselves.
“Can you take me to New Orleans?” asked Dolores.
He looked her up and down, grinning. “Well ma’am, I sure would like to say yes, but it ain’t allowed, ma’am.”
“I don’t go making any trouble,” she urged desperately. She was so tired she was almost ready to take any kind of boat under any conditions, if only they would let her lie down in a bunk and get some rest. She had slept only an hour or two the night before and wouldn’t have slept even that if she hadn’t drunk such a lot, and this morning she had pled with captains and crews until she was dizzy. The sun was blazing on the river and her head felt big and heavy. “Please take me to New Orleans!” she begged.
He chuckled and took her by the arm. “No woman ain’t allowed up that there plank, lady, but let’s you and me get over to the King’s Tavern or whatever they call it and we can get a drink.”
She shook her arm out of his grasp. “Oh, let me alone, can’t you?”
“Hey,” he said, “who started talking, me or you?”
“Go to hell,” said Dolores. She turned around and ran, and tripped on her skirt and fell down. Two or three Negroes laughed at her as she got up. The sun was making her blind and her throat was blistered with thirst because of the liquor she had drunk last night. She was afraid if she didn’t lie down soon in a cool dark room she might faint and then only the good God knew what would happen. Any room, any place, if she could find the Negro boy who was supposed to be keeping an eye on her box, if only he hadn’t gone off with it. The wharf was so crowded that it took her a long time to find the place where she had left him. The boy was still there, sitting on the ground ogling a black girl who was waiting with a coffle of slaves to be led from the riverfront to the slave-market.
“You come with me,” said Dolores.
The boy got up lazily. “You want de box, miss?”
“No, you tote it,” said Dolores, feeling if she had to carry anything besides her own aching head it would be enough to kill her.
“Yassum. Where we goin’?”
“I got to get me a room to stay,” she murmured. “The—the King’s Tavern.”
It was the only place she could think of and she didn’t know where it was, but apparently he did, for he ambled off, lugging the box, and she followed him, praying the Lord she’d hold out till they got there.
Caleb would never have dreamed of letting her come down to these places on the riverfront, but from her recollections of New Orleans Dolores knew what the King’s Tavern would be like. It made her want to giggle with hysterical triumph to think how bewildered Judith and Gervaise would be in a tavern like this and how sure she was of what to do. The front room was low and big, with kegs of ale and beer around, and long tables with benches by them. A man with pock-marks on his face was behind the counter with a slatternly fat woman, and behind them were shelves holding bottles of liquor and plates of bread and cheese and meat. Flies buzzed around the food and the splashes of liquor on the counter. Groups of men sat about drinking, one or two of them with girls. There were not many here now, but it wasn’t noon yet. By night the taproom would be packed.
Dolores went to the counter and rested her elbows on it.
“I want a room,” she announced to the fat woman. “Tonight, but I move in now.”
“Huh?” said the fat woman.
Dolores heard a man’s voice speaking to her from behind her back, but she didn’t pay any attention. He was saying, “Hey, pretty thing.”
She pulled her purse out of her bosom. “I can make pay for it,” she said curtly. “How much?”
The woman eyed the money and looked mollified. She was putting up the price, Dolores knew, but she was too exhausted to argue. She pushed over a shilling, then remembered something else.
“A clean sheet for twopence?”
“Fourpence.”
“I give threepence,” said Dolores. “Oh, never mind. Here you are. Take it. I said a clean one. Not one somebody slept on and you folded up again.”
“This your nigger?” asked the woman, pointing at the boy carrying Dolores’ box.
“Yes. He’s not staying here, though. Say, wait a minute. I want the key.”
“What you want with a key? It’s got a bolt.”
This time Dolores was stubborn in spite of her fatigue. “I got to have the key.”
The woman rummaged around in her apron pockets and several cubbyholes, but she found a key, and Dolores remembered to give her a penny for her trouble. At last she was following the woman along the hall to a bedroom.
The room was dark and smelt like onions and tobacco and stale sweat. The shutters were closed, and a broken place in the window had been stuffed up with a rag. There was a bed with a grimy quilt on it and a pillow with no case, still bearing the depression made by the head of the last sleeper. At one side was a chair with a broken bottom.
“Give me the sheet and the key,” said Dolores. “And you look here. I paid good for this room and don’t you let nobody bother me.” She spoke to the boy, who was setting her box on the floor. “Here, you. Get me a bucket of water, then I’ll pay you and you can go.”
The fat woman promised Dolores that she would be undisturbed. Dolores smiled crookedly. She had paid cash for everything, and was all right so far, but much more of this and she’d never get to New Orleans. The Negro boy brought a tin bucket of water, received his wage and departed. Dolores shut the door and locked it. A cockroach was crawling on the floor, but she was not even interested enough to step on it. Getting down on her knees she put her face into the bucket and began lapping up water like a dog. It cooled her as it went down, and eased her throat.
When she opened the window she could see a back yard with chickens and a couple of pigs in it, and two or three sloppy children, but the air that came in was less sickening than what had been in the room. Her clean sheet lay on the chair. Dolores threw the quilt on the floor and searched the mattress as well as she could for bugs, but as she found nothing but one or two ants she counted herself fortunate. The sheet was grayish, but it was cleaner than the mattress, and she threw the pillow on the floor after the quilt. Over the roofs of the neighboring houses she could see some clouds gathering, and it occurred to her that if it rained the room might be alive with ants. The legs of the bed stood in cans, but they were dry. Using one of the silver goblets for a dipper Dolores filled the cans with water to keep ants off the bed, then at last she took off her shoes and dress and stays and lay down, pillowing her head on her crossed arms; but she remembered she had left the window open, and anybody who wanted to could slip in and take the bag of money or the silver goblets. Relaxation was so delicious that it took all her will-power to get up and close the shutters, but she managed to do it, and tumbled across the bed again.
She was too tired even to cry. Vaguely, in disconnected pictures, she saw the manor at Silverwood and the long dinners of spiced meats and European wines and herself facing Caleb across the table, and she remembered the gardens of Ardeith and the fields of tobacco and indigo as she had seen them through the windows of the room where her baby was born, and her tiny little baby lying in the crook of her arm. But they seemed hazy, like some remembered pleasure of childhood, too remote to cause anything but a nostalgic pain. How misunderstanding those people had been, turning that period into the sneering triumph of a wanton instead of an interlude granted by a happy-tempered God. But she couldn’t think vehemently enough now even to hate them, or to tell one sensation from another; she felt like nothing but a huddle of misery and aching bones. But she was too tired even to feel like t
hat long. It was only a few minutes before she went to sleep.
When she awoke it was nearly dark. She drew a long breath and turned over on her back. For awhile she lay where she was, her eyes following a crack in the plaster wall, while she wondered what was going to become of her. She could get back to New Orleans eventually, no doubt, but when she got there what? Aunt Juanita might let her serve in the tavern again, and heaven knew it was a better place than this, or again Aunt Juanita might not; the chances were she’d say Dolores was a bad ungrateful girl for running away. Or she might try selling fruit on the docks, but anybody with half a head on his shoulders could foretell where you ended if you started hawking things on the docks, unless you were an ugly old hag sailors bought from out of pity. She could always jump in the river, if she went down below the wharfs where there weren’t any well-meaning folks to fish her out. And she might as well be dead as have a baby she wasn’t allowed even to look at, or try to go on living among this cruel human race that hadn’t let her have any peace since the day she was born.
Oh, she did want to be decent, Dolores told herself bitterly, but everything she tried to do was wrong and got her into trouble, and whether it was her own fault or other people’s she was too fuddled with unhappiness to decide. And in the meantime it was beginning to be night, and she couldn’t stay in this hole without a candle. She got up shivering, thinking it must be going to rain soon. There was some water left in the bucket so she took another drink and washed herself as well as she could. She had no soap, and she had to use a chemise out of her box for a towel, but cold water on her face and arms was refreshing. When she had washed her face she took off her stockings and sat with her feet in the water, for they were aching with so much walking on the road last night and on that sun-baked wharf this morning. At last, when she put on fresh stockings and another pair of shoes, and dressed and combed her hair as well as she could without a mirror, she felt almost well. Not having a glass was annoying until she remembered sardonically that it was safer here not to look attractive. She wrapped her discarded clothes around the pieces of silver she had taken from Ardeith, made sure her bag of money was safely tied under her petticoats with only a few necessary coins in the purse, re-corded the box and went out, locking the door behind her.
