The Handsome Road

by Gwen Bristow

  The Negro man who had brought the sherry passed them again. How well-dressed he was, she thought, and how contented he looked. None of that frowning strain that could be seen on people’s faces in Rattletrap Square. She’d love to have somebody like that to wait on her. But that was absurd even to think about. A trained butler like him was worth about three thousand dollars.

  Something clicked sharply in Corrie May’s head. Mr. Larne’s fields were full of Negroes. Even a fieldhand cost five hundred dollars at the market. Two dead white men cost Mr. Larne a hundred dollars. Two dead slaves, even cheap ones, would have cost him a thousand. It was less expensive hiring white men for dangerous work than sending slaves to do it because if a white man died nobody had lost very much but his folks.

  Corrie May turned around and went out. She couldn’t look at that man any more. She had crossed the gallery and reached the back gate before she remembered she hadn’t drunk more than half of that nice sherry and heaven knew when she’d get any more like it.

  Some Negro boys were lounging around the door of the kitchen-house, hopefully awaiting a handout from the cook. None of them came forward to open the gate for Corrie May. She opened the gate herself, and walked past the cotton storehouses. Outside the storehouses were some platforms for cotton, where several Negroes sat resting after their day’s work. They were singing to the music made by one of them who plucked a banjo. They were having a fine time, singing plantation songs. They sure could sing, too. All Negroes could sing. They seemed to do it just naturally. But when Corrie May drew near enough to hear the words they were singing, something turned over inside of her and she stopped short.

  “Nigger pick de cotton, nigger tote de load,

  Nigger build de levee foh de ribber to smash,

  Nigger nebber walk up de handsome road,

  But I radder be a nigger dan po’ white trash!”

  Corrie May stood around an angle of the storehouse and the Negroes had not noticed her. They were repeating the refrain, and the little boys were shuffling on the cotton-platforms while the others sang and swung with the rhythm, so familiar with the words that they scarcely thought about them at all.

  “Oh Lawd, radder be a nigger,

  Radder be a nigger, Oh my Lawd,

  Nigger nebber walk up de handsome road,

  But I radder be a nigger dan po’ white trash!”

  Corrie May started to run. She ran through the cottonfield as though something were behind her trying to catch her and crush her to death.

  “Lawsy mussy!” Budge exclaimed as she reached the big road. “What you running so for, Corrie May?”

  She stood by the wagon, panting too fast to answer. Budge’s face suddenly became grim.

  “He didn’t throw you out, did he?”

  “No, no,” panted Corrie May. “He was nice to me. He said he was sorry.”

  She put up her hand to shade her eyes and looked back at the columned palace of the Larnes. “He said he was sorry!” she repeated.

  “Well now,” said Budge soothingly, “that was good of him. I told you he was a fine fellow.” He got out of the wagon. “Here, honey, lemme help you in. There now. If we hurry up this lazy mule we ought to get to town before dark. Giddup, Nellie!”

  Corrie May sat by him on the driver’s seat, her mind reaching desperately for words. Budge was talking and she began to hear him. He was saying how fine it would be when they got married, living in their own cabin in their own cotton-patch.

  “You have to work mighty hard in that cotton-patch of yourn, don’t you?” she asked suddenly.

  “Sho, honey, you can’t raise no cotton if you don’t work. But I don’t mind. Ain’t everybody can make enough crops to pay rent for a piece of ground.” Budge spoke complacently.

  “It’s mighty tough,” said Corrie May, “for you to have to work every day from can’t-see to can’t-see just to pay rent. And me too. Married to you, working all the time with nobody to help me—”

  “Say, baby,” Budge protested in a hurt voice. “Honest, there ain’t such a lot to do. Just two rooms to be cleaned up.”

  “And cotton to be picked,” said Corrie May, “and corn to be hoed, and young uns to be raised—”

  “Oh there now,” said Budge. “You and me might save up enough to buy a nigger, even.”

  “A nigger?” she flung back at him scornfully.

  “Well hell,” exclaimed Budge with sudden indignation, “is it my fault I ain’t rich?”

  She answered more gently. “No, honey, it ain’t your fault. I know you does the best you can.”

  “You better quit talking about things you don’t know nothing of,” Budge advised her sternly.

  “All right,” she answered wearily. “I’ll quit.”

  “That’s right, sugar.” He patted her hand. “Now me and you’ll get married this fall and we’ll get along fine.”

  Corrie May felt her back stiffen. Her hands curled over the edge of the seat and held it so tight the board hurt her fingers. Her feet got stiff too and she felt her toes turn under as though with cold.

  “I ain’t gonta marry you this fall,” she said.

  “That ain’t too soon,” pled Budge. “Course if you’d rather wait, till Christmas, say—”

  “I ain’t gonta marry you no time,” said Corrie May.

  “You ain’t—what? You done said—”

  “Yeah, but I’m saying it over. I been thinking. I ain’t gonta have to work hard and mess around my whole life. I’m gonta be somebody, Budge Foster, you hear me? I’m gonta be somebody and have me some clothes to wear and have folks speak to me on the street.”

  “After all you done told me—”

  “I take it back.”

  “Me loving you and hanging around all this time for you—”

  “Oh Lord, I’m awful sorry, Budge.” There was a quaver in Corrie May’s voice.

  “Say, you look ahere,” said Budge threateningly. “You’ll get in a peck of trouble if you start carrying on like that.”

  “No I won’t,” she retorted. “You just see.”

  “You think you’s too good for a man that wanted to marry you honest and look out for you—” his words caught and he became hurt and pleading. “Corrie May, honey, I been loving you so much. Don’t you start going on.”

  “You shut up,” said Corrie May.

  “Say,” he exclaimed, “you talk to me like I was a nigger!”

  “Lord no,” said Corrie May vehemently. “You ain’t no nigger! You’s so white you wouldn’t touch a nigger. You’s a heap sight different from a nigger, you are!”

  “Sho I’m different from a nigger. What do you—”

  “I’ll tell you how different,” she cried with sudden fury. “You get up at the bust of dawn and work cotton, like a nigger; you wear overalls with a patch in the seat of the breeches, like a nigger; you waddle home so tired you can’t see, like a nigger; and when you dies you ain’t got no more’n you had the day you was born, like a nigger. But you ain’t a nigger. You’s white. You get sick one day and can’t tend to your cotton and who takes care of you? Your crop fails one year and who feeds you just the same? Who keeps your roof patched so the rain can’t come in? Who cares if you starve to death? Nobody. And that’s the difference in you and a nigger, Mr. Budge Foster, and you can’t tell me nothing else.”

  Budge was too astounded to form an answer. Corrie May rushed on.

  “Suppose I got married to you. Suppose I worked my hands off, cooking and picking cotton and raising young uns. Then suppose a mule kicked you and you died. What would I do? I couldn’t pay rent so I’d get turned offn that piece of ground. And could I work for somebody? Could I sew or scrub or take in washing? Who do you know that’s gonta pay a white woman for doing them things when there’s niggers doing ’em for nothing? I ain’t gonta marry you. I’ll be double-damned if I
am. I’d rather be a nigger than po’ white trash.”

  Chapter Three

  1

  Denis privately suggested to Jerry that he would like to see Ann home after supper, so Jerry, who had more wisdom in these matters than one would have guessed from his gargoylesque face, good-naturedly invented an errand in town. As they drove toward Silverwood Denis asked Ann for the fourth time if she would marry him. For the fourth time Ann lowered her eyes enough to let him appreciate the length of her eyelashes, and answered, “Honestly, Denis, I don’t know. Please give me time to think. I can’t dispose of my whole life in five minutes!”

  Denis was both amused and exasperated. He was wise enough in the ways of women to be fairly sure Ann was going to tell him yes, but he was inordinately in love with her and wanted to be sure. He turned and looked at her. In the dusk of the carriage she was like a warm shadow, provokingly scented with vetivert.

  “Ann,” he said, “why do you keep teasing me so?”

  “But I’m not teasing you!” Ann protested. “I really don’t know.”

  It was too dark for him to distinguish the full expression of her face. He could not tell whether she was in earnest or not.

  The carriage stopped before the steps of the Silverwood house. “May I come in?” Denis asked as the coachman opened the door.

  “Don’t be a goose,” Ann retorted. “Of course you may.” They laughed at each other and went up the steps.

  The house had a white sheen in the darkness. It looked like a Greek temple; ten Corinthian columns supported the pediment, and beyond them a great double door led between two pilasters into the main hall. As they went in Ann gave her bonnet and shawl to a servant and led Denis into the parlor. Like all the rooms to the left of the entrance, the parlor had a black marble fireplace, while the rooms on the right had fireplaces of white marble, a conceit characteristic of the romantically-minded Sheramys, who liked variety in all things. The doorknobs and hinges downstairs were silver, but the doorknobs on the second floor were made of Dresden china decorated with little pink and blue flowers. It was a lordly house and a beautiful one, though Denis had always preferred his own—a preference doubtless caused by the fact that he had been born at Ardeith and expected to die there.

  Colonel Sheramy came into the parlor to greet Denis. He was a tall, reticent man in his fifties, with white hair and a grave face. Most of his acquaintances stood somewhat in awe of him. After a few moments he left them alone again, and Denis turned back to Ann. She had spread her great skirts about her on the sofa and was chattering about nothing in particular—how hot the weather was, and how dull it was at home this time of year. “I was so mad,” she went on, “when father made us come back from Saratoga.”

  “Had you meant to stay there all summer?”

  “I’d hoped we were going to. But father hired a new cotton overseer by mail, and said he wasn’t going to trust an unknown to supervise the crop. And he wouldn’t let me stay there by myself.” She looked down, lacing her fingers in her lap. “Denis,” she said.

  “What, honey?”

  The corner of Ann’s mouth flickered, but she spoke demurely. “Maybe I ought to tell you—I behaved very badly at Saratoga.”

  Denis laughed softly. “I doubt it.”

  “Oh yes I did. I got talked about. The ladies called me that fast young person from the South.”

  “My dear,” said Denis, “I’ve observed that when old ladies say a young lady is fast it generally means only that she gets more attention from gentlemen than their daughters do.”

  Ann chuckled. “You’re very understanding. But I did think I should tell you. What have you got?” she asked, for Denis was picking up something from the carpet.

  “This fell out of your pocket.” He held out her smelling-salts, a little bottle in a filigree holder. His gray eyes were on her teasingly. “What’s it for?”

  His candor was disarming. “A stage-prop, Denis,” Ann returned truthfully, and he laughed aloud.

  “I thought so. Ann, you’re immense.”

  “You’re terrifying. I never dare tell you fibs.”

  “You shouldn’t. You’re not very good at fibs.” He bent nearer as though about to kiss her, but she drew back.

  “No. If you’re going to behave like that you’d better go home.”

  “Can’t I stay long enough to say you look enchanting?”

  “Anybody can look enchanting by candlelight. Go on home.”

  Denis regarded her thoughtfully. With her great skirts billowing around her Ann looked like a big flower upside down. She had a luscious figure, small waist, sloping shoulders, high round breasts. The breasts were obviously real; Denis wondered if any men were really deceived when flat-chested girls sewed ruffles inside their chemises. He was not sure if the waves in her hair were natural, but the hair itself was genuinely golden-brown and abundant, and made a silky frame for her cheeks. His eyes went to her face. Doubtless intended by nature to be classic, it was a face as far from Greek serenity as the bayou-hyacinths from asphodel: a straight, disdainful nose, a mouth stubborn and voluptuous, and large eyes several shades darker than her hair. The chin was too abruptly square for beauty, but it was dimpled, and there was the other dimple that appeared under her right eye when she smiled. She was smiling now at his scrutiny, and the dimple was so delightful that he unconsciously smiled back at her.

  “Now do you know exactly what I look like?” she challenged him.

  He nodded. Then, in the casual way in which he often told startling truths, he answered, “You look, my darling, like a girl who’s always fed on the roses and lain in the lilies of life and who’ll be damned if she’ll consider doing anything else. And I promise,” he added, “if I can help it you’ll never have to.”

  “Good heavens,” said Ann. “No young gentleman should analyze me like that. Roses and lilies—is that why your mother doesn’t approve of me?”

  Denis laughed. “She doesn’t approve of anybody of our generation. She always says modern young people have no modesty and no manners.”

  “She likes you,” said Ann. “Still, though, you’re her firstborn, and besides—you know, Denis, I think she has a lot of respect for you because you’ve never had a pain. She’s always been delicate, hasn’t she?—and she seems to think there’s something awfully clever about you, never to have been sick.”

  “You’ve never been sick either, have you?”

  “No, not particularly, but—but really, she does dislike me and I wanted to ask you if I’d ever done anything to offend her. She’s so dreadfully polite, as if I’d forged a check and had repented and people had agreed not to refer to it any more.”

  Denis took both her hands in his. “Ann, she has mighty serious views of life and she prefers girls who are very thoughtful and dignified. But there’s no reason why that should come between you and me. I prefer you.”

  “Thank you very much,” Ann said. She smiled up at him frankly. “I do like you, Denis. You’re so honest—and so sure of yourself. I wish I were as certain of everything as you.”

  Denis stayed half an hour after that, until Colonel Sheramy sent a servant down to remind him of the time. Ann would not kiss him good night.

  2

  To tell the truth, Ann found his kisses so thrilling that she was afraid lest they befuddle what she intended to be a long conference with herself after she went to her room. But mammy took so long brushing her hair that she got drowsy, and dropped off to sleep before she had squeezed out more than a thought or two.

  She woke up to a day so hot and still that it produced a feeling of annoyance while she was yet half-conscious. She wished she were back at Saratoga, and she hoped the new overseer would turn out to be a model of efficiency, for if he did the colonel might be prevailed upon to take her to a watering-place for September. Ann pushed up the mosquito bar and pulled the bellcord. “Good morning,” she
said as mammy appeared with the coffee-tray.

  “Good evenin’,” said mammy accusingly.

  Ann chuckled. “What time is it?”

  “It’s mighty nigh bedtime. Not much use gettin’ up now.” Mammy set the tray on the bedside table and as Ann sat up to pour her coffee mammy plumped up the pillows behind her. “Miss Ann, you got business to be up befo’ de day is half wo’ out.”

  “If you scold me,” said Ann, “I’m going to set you to picking cotton and let Lucile dress me.”

  Having heard this awful threat before, mammy paid no attention and kept on scolding. No matter how hot the day mammy always looked crisp, in her starched blue calico and her tignon wrapped smartly around her head. “Is you gonta get up, Miss Ann?” she demanded finally.

  “Right this minute. Get me a cold bath.”

  “Humph,” said mammy, and waddled out.

  Setting down her coffee-cup, Ann thrust her feet into the slippers that stood waiting on the bedstep and crossed over to the washstand, where she tossed up a handful of water to clear the cobwebs out of her eyes. She stood a moment looking at herself in the glass. Jerry said she spent half her life before a mirror, an accusation that Ann laughed at without troubling to deny it. Undoubtedly she was a nice-looking person; even in a rumpled nightgown and with her front hair in curl-papers she looked well enough to believe Denis’ admiring eyes. Ann drew back from the minor. She really ought to be making up her mind. Next week she would have her twentieth birthday. Twenty was a horrid age, so final; it put a period to one’s girlhood and dragged one across the line of being entirely grown up. She ought to get married. In her lifetime Ann had had very few decisions to make, and these she had made in whatever fashion seemed at the moment likely to cause the least trouble for herself. So far life had dealt with her very pleasantly, and certainly a marriage to Denis would be the best possible insurance against having to trouble her mind about anything whatever. As she stood before her mirror considering, it seemed an inviting prospect.