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“I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house. . . .” Ann was dreaming that Aunt Anabel was at her favorite scripture. But Ann shook off the dream and waked up.

Today was the tenth of May—a day that held totemic rite and implement; today was young Henry’s birthday—and it was morning.

Ann, the niece of Anabel Ashe and her namesake—Ann Overley—lay in the big bed upstairs—high posted and high up—in valleys and hills of deep feathers. On the tenth of May she no longer crouched in the spot left by the hot-water jug and the warming iron; she could reach her arms above her today and feel no chill. The red glow was gone from the big log fireplace; gone the jets of ruby light; Milly’s head no longer stuck close to the blaze; Milly had moved her pallet to the farther corner, her head still tied up in old Rooshan’s crimson head handkerchief.

Today was the end of winter; the end of the curse of cold; it was yes to everything—to everything good.

“Thank God for the tenth of May!” said Ann out loud.

“You betcher!”

Milly scrambled up and started making the pallet that she moved out every morning and brought in every night.

Ann peeped over her high-bed feather tick. “This is Henry’s birthday, Milly!”

“Quit your skylarkin’! Don’t I know it? Look what we got on the day-bed today!”

Ann sat up and pretended to be surprised. There on the day-bed were laid crisp summer underthings: linen petticoats, fluted ruffled drawers, a cambric chemise. This was to be the day of change from cocoon to butterfly.

“This is the day you git yo’ freedom from the sours—from sweat and itch and general misery.”

“Oh, Milly, it’s good to be alive on the tenth of May!”

Milly flung up the tight sash. “World’s unlocked at last!” The hemp fiber she stuffed in last winter, to keep out the cold fell to the floor in dirty strings. Milly brushed them up and threw them away.

“It’s good to be alive, Milly; to breathe the same air with Henry, though you know he may be miles and rivers and mountains away.”

“Yeah, child, yeah! He’s closer than you think!”

Ann knew the frontier held space in its rough hands now to be shaped to purpose; space, so long a danger, now outdone by thoughts of horses and stagecoaches and rafts and ferries; made simple by words of nearer and farther.

“There’s no ocean now, Milly. He’s past that now.”

“He’s comin’!”

“Henry, I love you!” Ann whispered. Milly looked at her.

“You better heish that talk.”

This was the second spring Ann Overley had spent at Stoneholt; two years since father died in the same year that mother died and Aunt Anabel Ashe had asked her to come to Stoneholt to live. You could forget sorrow after awhile, and it was easy to feel at home in Stoneholt; Ann had spent her summers here for years and she had loved young Henry almost as long as she could remember.

Ann drank in the air from the window.

“The locusts bloomed this morning, Milly.”

“I ain’t seen none yet.”

“They are on the breeze, Milly. They are leaning over the rock fences! I can smell them; I can taste them!”

The locust bloom was the third wave of spring Ann counted—over the hillside, into the ravine, to the rocky border of the creek below. In April it began. At Stoneholt Ann watched spring happen—in April—before the leaves were born, a green mist forming over everything; a mist that gave off light; green light; then the redbud blazed on the crest of the hills quenched by white dogwood. She saw it foam into the valley—a seventh wave of a seventh wave—to the rock bedded stream below. All day, all night, the creek made a pleasant murmur that came up to your hearing almost without your knowing it: water over rocks; rocks everywhere, under limestone earth and over the land, rock fences, dug out by slaves, piled by hand, rock on rock, dividing, subdividing—acre from acre—the germinal, rich fields of the new world.

“Milly, I claimed the redbud for Henry—and then the dogwood.”

“Honey, travel takes a stretch of time.”

Ann ran to the window and looked out. “The locusts, oh, the locusts! Gold against the sun—frost white in the shade—dropping snowflakes of sweet air. Henry shouldn’t miss the locusts.”

“He won’t. I got it plain. All niggers is got a seein’ eye; some’s got more and some less; but all’s got it. He’ll be here for his birthday.”

Milly flopped downstairs and Ann climbed the three bed-steps and got back into bed. She would slip off again in the good feathers. Henry! Would he ever lie here beside her in that occult secret they call marriage? She warmed and shivered and had to call her thought back. She would drop off now before the rising bell, in just a sliver of time. She would think of Henry’s eyelashes that made a shadow under the long and narrow blue eyes.

“Henry I love you!”

The shriek of the rising bell sounded. Ann cringed under it; raw and savage, it killed sleep and passionate moments. Ann heard Milly on the stairs where her feet flapped each step. “I’ll pretend I’m asleep; she loves to wake me.”

Milly came in with a bang and a clatter and made as much noise as she could. From a small tin pitcher she poured hot water in the bowl in the dressing-room. The little three cornered stand with the minuscule bowl sunk in the center held enough water for any washing. Ann felt Milly’s hard grudge as she poured extra water into the slender pitcher on the shelf beneath. Milly could tell you the way she felt by the way she did things. All this fuss about washing was plumb foolishness. That was what Milly told Ann by the way she flung the towels on a chair and stomped to the bedside; by the way she stood listening to the regular breathing. She scented a trap. No one could sleep through the vicious noise of the bell.

“Is you deef or dumb-dead? You know how long it takes you. Nobody can be late for the prayin’!”

“I’ve never been late yet.”

“And thanks to who?”

Milly would not let you forget her household importance; knew her power and used it—how expertly and how well. She threw back the bedclothes—the coverlet, the curiously worked quilt, the heavy linen sheet. “Gawd, that’s a pretty thing a-layin’ there!”

Ann ate Milly’s favor greedily. It fed her love hunger. She wanted everyone to think her good to look at; everyone—on the tenth of May.

Milly was a daily need. The day without Milly would be robbed of its practical relevance. Milly was a soft buffer between Ann and life, unknown; vaguely feared. Milly was part of life itself, a kind of warrant of fulfillment. Ann loved her with devotion not openly said but felt. Some slaves might suffer; there was always cruelty in the world; but Milly was a serene apology for the System.

“Stick your feet in these here.” Milly held out fur-lined moccasins.

“They are too hot today.” Ann skipped the bed-steps and jumped out on the Turkey carpet, barefoot. She unbuttoned her gown. “No more flannel after the tenth. I get a linen shift, tonight, thank God!” She whirled off the hot garment under Milly’s eyes and stood naked and slender, high breasted as a young grouse.

Milly looked her over.

“Red hair makes pretty body hair.”

Milly began scrubbing with a big towel, head to foot. “You is thin as a shingle but you’re plump enough where you otter be.” Ann could feel Milly’s eyes on the soft curves of breasts and hips.

“Why didn’t you bring the tub?” Ann kept her face straight.

“This is a good enough wash for any gal. Why you ever want to git in a tub I can’t see. Havin’ me tote up two green pitchers steader one.”

“I like to feel clean; to smell clean.”

“Think I’m goin’ to let you stink like old Rooshan? No sirree! And what’s your perfumery for?”

“Henry says the English tub themselves—cold water—every day.”

“We don’t want to be like them. Here’s your shimmy. Hurry! Put your arms up!”

“Now he’s coming, Milly, I’m scared. I’ve no courage.”

“You’ll have plenty when he comes.”

“He kissed me good-by. Just a cousin kiss. Didn’t mean a thing to him. I nearly died of it.” Ann put her hand on her breast. “I felt—”

“You are smoochin’, now; heish that talk.”

Milly drew in Ann’s stays and over her head slipped the first petticoat. “Haccum you never tolt me nothin’ about that delicious kiss? Did it taste like oystures? I ain’t never tasted none—but they’re good some say.”

“It was too quick to taste. It didn’t mean anything to him. He was twenty, I was only fourteen. But I’ve lived on that kiss for two years.”

“You is talkin’ like a female; but no use to call you names. Set down now—here’s your stockin’s. You better turn your thoughts to the young beaux of Fayette and leave Henry be. He’s been concubinin’ with the British and the Yankees. Watch out.”

“You think he’s found someone to love?”

“Mighty likely. Your mornin’ slippers is gittin’ scuffy.”

“But would they follow him to the backwoods?”

“They’d follow that young squire most any place. He’s too good lookin’ for his own good. You set your cap on somebody that ain’t had all that schoolin’.”

Milly opened the bureau drawer and took out a sprigged dimity, ruffled at shoulder and hem, and squeaked the drawer shut. “You’ll have to go to Clemence’s to git yo’ dress and stop by Miss Pringle’s to fit you.”

“Yes—”

But Milly went on with her parable. “All the womens here was after him—after yo’ Henry. Even puny little Madamozel. How she run him; little Frenchy—callin’ him ‘Mon petit élève,’ till I learn’t French myself, most. Ole Miss put a stop to his lessons when she saw how things was.”

Milly tied a blue velvet ribbon around Ann’s waist.

“After all she ain’t the only one and she’s quit town now.”

Milly gave the ribbon an extra twist. “How about beauin’ with Tom Gaitskill? There ain’t nothin’ wrong with him.”

“He’s got a lot of talent. I’ll let him paint me; but I’ll never marry him.”

“He wants you to.”

“I can’t help that.”

Milly stood Ann at arm’s length. “What you think of them twin boys?”

“Milly, they are gorgeous looking but they scare me.”

“I reckon you are better off to be shet of them.”

A thin scream cut the morning. Ann ran to the window and leaned out; Milly looking over her shoulder.

“Might a-knowd it! It’s that dirty little stinker, Lobelia! Her daddy’s chasin’ her with a stick.”

“Old Grubb’ll never catch her.”

“Naw. She runs like a lizard. I bet she’s been peepin’ again. Little po white! Old Miss told Grubb she wouldn’t stand for that no more. Every time you turn around there’s Lobelia peepin’.”

But Ann’s thought was not with Lobelia.

“Henry I love you!” she kept saying in her mind. “I love you, Henry,” she said out loud. She knew Milly was just part of herself, and wanted to hear her talk and get her thought.

“It might be dangerous to let your lovin’ out in the air befo’ he’s ready to burn you up! Menfolks is funny.”

“I’m talking to myself. He’ll never love me. He loathes red hair.”

“Has he told you so?”

“No, I know it.”

“Well Gawd give it to you. He can’t git around that.”

“He is so fair himself; he’ll want a woman dark.”

Ann was asking for denial.

“There’s Esmeralda, made to order.” Ann watched Milly as she quietly lighted her fuse.

“What about her?”

“Don’t mention her name—not now!”

“You is skeered of her. And you better be! That gal could spoil most anybody’s lovin’ and do it to keep her hand in.”

“If I don’t get him, I’ll die, Milly.”

“Don’t let Ole Miss hear you. She might send you to Virginny after that passel of yo’ kin down there.”

Ann, at the window, flipped the ruffle of her bodice as Milly buttoned her. Underneath the locust air came up the warm smell of Lucinda’s cooking; the kitchen draft, far enough away to blend goodness with almost anything; good eating smell; coffee on the air; crisp bacon in the wind; and bread smells; kind, household air; homely oven smells mingling with the upper perfumes.

Milly sniffed through her wide nostrils. “Lucinda’s cookin’ her head off, and Sam’s putterin’ and scratchin’ like an old hen; gittin’ out the silver; fussin’ with the epergne.”

“I’ll have to dress up that big thing. Aunt Anabel trusts it to me.”

“It’s a ancestor, all right; that and the old punch bowl and the tureen; come from England for big parties. It’ll be a big blow tonight. All the high-tones!” Milly looked out over the trees with a long look.

“We’ve had a party on the tenth of May most ever since little Henry was borned on that good day.”

“We’ll celebrate whether he comes or not.”

“He’ll be here. I got it clear as a whistle. It’s most time, too, for Ginral Jackson to come polin’ along on his way to Olympian Springs—good for his gizzard and his liver.”

“He can’t pass by Stoneholt without stopping.”

“Him and yo uncle and yo pappy too—cabined together—fit Indians—old days. He favors us and Sam’s fidgety toddies.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Too bad he got beat. Hurt Ole Miss where it hurts.”

Ann often heard the talk of border fights and wilderness ways—the times when Uncle James and the General staked out a claim on the bluff, down river—Memphis they call it now—and a fair sizable boat landing.

Milly wrinkled her nose. “Yo Uncle James and Aunt Maria is back home from New Orleans. They bought a white nigger down there at a sale—a blue vein. I done seen her. Ole L’Hommedieu will be sniffin’ around there I’ll bet.”

But Ann was thinking thoughts of herself. “I want to be dazzling tonight, Milly.”

Milly pushed Ann to the bureau to give her hair another brush and twist. “Your hair is sprangly and not too fine, honey, but it curls to the roots. I bet Sam’s gettin’ the whiskey out. He told Ham to drag in slabs of ice out of the icehouse to crush up in the glasses. I’ll fix you a tablespoonful. That’s enough.” Ann looked in the mirror. “Milly, I’m frightened. I believe I’d do anything to get him; to keep him. I’d steal; maybe—I’d kill, almost!”

“Heish your foolin’. You wouldn’t do nothin’ like that; not for no man; they ain’t worth it!”

“Love ought to get some answer.”

“Maybe it will. You can’t never tell what’ll catch menfolks. Sometimes they likes you comin’ toward ’em; and sometimes they likes to kite out after you same as roosters. Come on now, hurry up. We got to go down.”

But Ann had a keen pain inside her—she couldn’t be hurried just now. Love was a troubling thing—a void that seemed to be you; a void that ached to be filled. She stood at the window and looked out—she had to wait awhile.

Henry coming home! After two years; two years of learning. That was dangerous, Aunt Anabel said. How could it be dangerous? Two big years of learning and of all there was to know of manners; of politesse. Oh yes, he went to Paris; he would go; savoir faire! How could she meet it; she who had never rubbed off the scuff of the frontier?

“Oh, Milly, if I could only get that social poise; that éclat, Mademoiselle talked about.”

“Squawked about, you mean.”

“That dernière touche!”

You done took all she was teachin’, I reckon; you learnt the French language and how to be a lady.

“Hardly, Milly.”

Henry, with all his learning—what would he think of her—brought up in the backwoods! Of course Miss Catherine helped—Miss Catherine who came from Dublin and stayed a year and was Ann’s governess. She had smooth-made words too, different sounding words from those Ann heard every day. Ann wished she could have stayed longer—she helped so much.

“Her words would shine, Milly! They were like moonstones you could wear around your neck or hang in your mind when you walked under the trees.”

“Sounded high-falutin’ to me.”

“The ladies of Dublin speak the most perfect English.”

“Well it was different from our’n.”

“She taught me to love words better than ever before. I wanted to speak words like hers. Henry would love them—I know.”

“You talked them good enough anyway.”

“Milly, I’ve just finished reading a play full of good words all about love. I read it yesterday—out loud.”

“Honey, you got enough lovin’, already. Come on, it’s time to go.”

“This is the way it begins, listen:

Isn’t that beautiful?”

Milly shook her head. She pushed Ann away from the window. “Sounds like dirty doin’s to me. Come on.”

After prayers and breakfast, Sam brought the carriage to the door and Ann armed with Aunt Anabel’s list, and with Milly on the front seat, went off to town.

Sam reined up in front of Mr. Clemence’s store. The dust, inches deep in the street, rose in clouds as the carriage slowed to a stop. It was hot and the horses sweated freely after their quick drive of two miles. Sam pulled up to the curbstone and here came Mr. Clemence to the carriage door, fussy and deferential. Ann was sure Mr. Clemence was glad her Aunt Anabel was not by to order him with the arrogance she reserved for the shopkeeper. As landowner, Aunt Anabel had no patience with the like of tradesmen. “Men, forsooth! Sycophants! Godalmighty, no one but a eunuch would lend himself to such petty, crawling labor!”

Ann often watched Mr. Clemence suffer in silence. If he didn’t overhear the words he gathered their import. Today he seemed relieved as he opened the carriage door and greeted Ann alone; as he looked upon beauty, breeding, money; as he bowed low his bald head, smeared with a long lock of sticky hair arrested at his neckline and pomaded tight to his scalp.

“Miss Ann, I have opened the consignment. It is sumptuous!”

“My size came?”

“Exactly!”

“Last year they were too big.”

“These are right. Philadelphia mantua makers are almost up to the Parisians!”

“Hush, Mr. Clemence. Nothing can equal the chic of Paris!”

Mr. Clemence coughed. “Wait till you see these.” He disappeared into a back room and came out with a trailing cloud of tissue. He carried it high at shoulder level. Ann thought of the Arabian Nights—a merchant displaying to his caliph priceless treasure. “Blue silk gauze; pink satinet.” He laid two ravishing garments on the counter. “I wondered about the pink with your hair.” He paused and seemed to time his speech to her answer.

“Mr. Clemence, sometimes I’m in doubt. I’m such a mixture—brown eyes and . . .”

Mr. Clemence looked sad and sympathetic. “Yes, yes. You’re pretty anyway, Miss Ann. Make the best of it, I say.”

“I try, Mr. Clemence.”

He approached his face toward hers. “With your skin, the color of cream and your big brown eyes, I believe you can wear the pink. It’s the palest pale bud color, this dress. You can wear it.” His loose teeth moved uncomfortably close. She drew back.

“I believe I’ll take the pink, if Miss Pringle can fit me.”

“She’ll bust a thumb to fit you. You know that. And, Miss Ann, say to hell with red hair and wear what you please. You’ll skin ’em all.”

“That’s a pleasant thought, Mr. Clemence.”

“Now wait a minute.” He dived into the rear and came out with a Leghorn bonnet. He smoothed the blue velvet bows and touched the forget-me-nots under the brim. “This hat has a soul,” he said, “a soul.”

As Ann received it from his damp hands avoiding contact, she was breathless with approval. “It’s lovely—I’ll take it.”

“Miss Esmeralda Dawes has bought a bright scarlet dress for the party.” Ann turned her head from the scabrous lips that parted with sly gusto.

“Her soul hasn’t expanded enough for bud pink and she claims she’s laying for Mr. Henry when he comes back from Oxford.” Mr. Clemence offered the tidbit softly. “She’s been laying for most every man in town, I guess.”

“Layin’ with ’em, maybe,” Milly spoke under her breath.

“Hush, Milly.”

“I don’t know why Ole Miss ever ast her to the party. Might aknowed she’d . . .”

“That’s enough, Milly!”

“Ole Miss’ll laugh on the other side of her mouth if Esmeralda takes after yo’ Henry. She looks like a woods-colt, to me.”

“Yeah,” said Mr. Clemence, “they tell me she’s got Indian blood in her and she gets tantrums. When she’s mad . . .”

“Don’t wrap anything, Mr. Clemence. I’m going straight to Miss Pringle’s. Lay the things in the carriage.”

That dreadful Dawes girl! She took everything she went after. Push and shove, that’s what you’ve got to do to get what you want. But there was more to Esmeralda than mere greed; mere grab. There was that irreparable thing! She had it—she had it. Call it anything you please. She entered a room; the air was alive. Useless to defame it, Indian or not; with it you could have the world, take away anybody’s lover. No girl was safe from Esmeralda. Ann felt pallid, breathless. The air was charged with Esmeralda. She could suck you up like the east wind. God, why did Esmeralda have to be?

Mr. Clemence brought out his goods and laid them on the carriage seat. Neither Sam’s nor Milly’s touch should profane them.

“You’ll look pretty as a skimmer, Miss Ann. Esmeralda will have a hard time besting you!”

“Good morning, Mr. Clemence! You have a cheerful spirit.”

Ann touched her handkerchief to her nostrils as Mr. Clemence bowed low his greasy pate and closed the carriage door.

“He looks like a garfish,” said Milly. “Macassar oil, pugh! What good will oil do him? He’s bald as his own . . .”

“Hush, Milly.”

Deep in dust the carriage drew up at Miss Pringle’s little wooden house with its door on the street. Sam knocked—and there was Miss Pringle in her blue checked apron; little and scrawny and ugly, Milly said, as a mud fence. Her voice was scrawny too and squeaky.

“Come right in, Miss Ann!”

Sam and Milly each carried a dress high above the dust of the street. Miss Pringle’s house, dark and mildewed, smelt of cabbage, mouldy, decayed. Milly said it was rat-stink; but Ann held out for cabbage; rats were not always dead and Miss Pringle’s air was always stinky. Ann held out her hand and took Miss Pringle’s small cold hand, clammy as a coon’s paw.

“My party dresses, Miss Pringle.”

“Yes, honey darlin’; put ’em on the bed, just lay ’em down.” The bed, with its grey sheets and pillows, looked unpromising. “I’ll run a quilt on the floor under you, so you can keep ’em clean.”

In the dim and meagre room, Ann made out the vivid splash of Esmeralda’s evening dress lying across a chair. It made her jump.

Miss Pringle’s body gave off the odor of age. How many old people stank. “God, let me die early; let me go before my teeth crumble, dear God.”

“You want these right away, I reckon.”

“Yes, I’m in a stampeding hurry, Miss Pringle. The party, you know.”

“Yeah heard about it already. Esmeralda’s just left.” Ann wilted. “She says Mr. Henry’s comin’ home and she’s goin’ to give him the run-around. She says she ought to be named Philomela. I wonder why. She’s bought a red dress, a come-hither red dress.”

“It’s beautiful!” Ann couldn’t examine it; she left its challenge where it lay. She slipped off the sprigged dimity; mute and vapid and desireless it seemed in the glare of Esmeralda.

Miss Pringle chattered on—gossiping. “That woman the doctor cut open is gettin’ along fine—she’s havin’ a new outfit made. She used to be the size of a barrel—you remember. . . .”

“Ain’t it the truth,” said Milly. “I seed her yestiddy and she’s now flat as a flounder. Spry too.”

“My,” said Miss Pringle, “you certainly is got a pretty shape, honey darlin’!”

Ann saw Miss Pringle’s eyes take on a faint lustre as she pinned and pinched the crisp fabrics. “You don’t look so good, though, honey. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. It’s a little close in here.”

“Dust comes in if I leave the door open.” Miss Pringle’s mouth was full of pins. Would she swallow one? Her shallow eyes, flat, neutral discs, wide with sexual curiosity, looked into Ann’s. “Philadelphia shops come mighty nigh fitting you.” Miss Pringle talked and breathed too near; her little pointed tongue, pins and all, darted in and out. The silky garment slid down to the quilt and Ann stepped from the nest of film, thankful to be freed at last.

“I’ll have these ready in a half hour. There ain’t nothing hardly to do,” said Miss Pringle.

“I’ve a few errands for the party. I’ll be back.”

Milly buttoned up the dimity. Ann was tired. So much dressing and undressing. In heaven she hoped there would be no more buttons, no more pins.

Ann seated herself in the carriage, Milly followed; Sam closed the door, flicked the horses and they plunged into the dust. Esmeralda swung around a corner. “She’s going into Miss Pringle’s. She’ll see my dress. She’ll put a curse on it! She’ll have evil powers.”

“She’s got ’em, and you can’t he’p it! She’s in!”

“Milly, I’m wretched!” Ann put her hand to her throat; a bubble of pain swelled and burst.

“Maybe he don’t go for strong meat. Some men don’t—and she’s strong.”

“Milly, I’ll die if she gets him. He ought to belong to me!”

“Why, baby?”

“I’ve loved him always. Ever since I can remember. Oughtn’t that to count for something?”

“Hit ought. But love’s a funny thing. Never know where it’s going to strike. Worse than lightnin’. You love somebody; somebody loves somebody else; and that very somebody don’t love him. The way it takes ’em; just that way!”

“It seems hopeless! I’m ready to fight for him, though!”

“Heish, now. You better be careful. Best plan is to aim high but lay low, and watch your chanct. You got a fat chanct bein’ on the ground. Don’t set like a little frozen turd and do nothin’. You watch Esmeralda how she works, and be just opposite from her. But be it good and plenty.”

“I’m not going to let her have him. I’ve thought out that much.”

“That much is good.”

Ann performed her errands in low mind. She stopped at the confectionery and told the musicians to be on time; the two negro fiddlers who were loaned out from neighboring farms, their dance rhythms famous in the county.

When Ann returned to Miss Pringle’s the flame of Esmeralda was gone from the back of the chair and Miss Pringle was confidential as she picked at her nose with her dirty little finger nail; as she twisted her skinny neck, rough and wrinkled like a turkey-gobbler’s.

“She’s going to have yeller slippers too—and yeller flowers in her hair. I tell her she’s gone color crazy,” said Miss Pringle, “but she says no; it’ll take just that much color to catch Henry Ashe. She’s bound she’ll finish the job; she never starts a seam she can’t sew up; though God knows she never started a seam in her life. I done it all for her.”

Miss Pringle looked at Ann keenly; she was testing her, Ann knew.

“We aren’t sure Henry will be here.”

“Some traveler told Esmeralda he seen Henry Ashe restin’ on the road and Henry said he’d be here for his birthday.”

Ann put her hand to her heart. It was beating too much. Miss Pringle would surely hear it and have a scandal to repeat: “Ann is in love, Ann is in love! Ann is jealous. I heard her heart slipping.”

“You’re lookin’ mighty white, child.” Miss Pringle bit off her basting thread with her snaggled teeth.

“I often look that way.”

“Well, you won’t have to try on the dresses again. Sometimes, standing too long, if it’s your wrong time of moon, will make you dizzy. I know the things is all right.”

Miss Pringle’s fishy eyes seemed to pierce Ann’s secret, seemed to peck at it as a crow pecks at the eye of a baby lamb.

“Thank you, Miss Pringle. How much do I owe you?”

Miss Pringle shook her head. “Oh, t’want nothin’, nothin’ at all.”

Ann took a silver dollar from her purse. “You’re too generous, Miss Ann. Esmeralda didn’t give me a copper. People don’t pay nothin’ much for sewin’—take it out in barter, mostly.”

“Good-by, Miss Pringle. There’ll be other things.”

The carriage was hardly on the turnpike before a shower blew up, mixing odors of dust and damp. The dust, inches deep on the pike as in the town, was thick on the greenery along the roadside. Rain on dust; smell of the drinking meadows; the veil of humidity lifted and Ann breathed refreshed. The leaves, silent and inert with heat now stirred and trembled and spoke together the language of leaves. The air was good. The rich earth spread before her in squares and oblongs and rolling triskelion patterns. It paid its tribute to the dark hands; strong bodies that tilled it.

Ann loved the Negroes. There was always something that ached inside her when she thought about them except when she kept the thought on the top surface of her mind. There she saw them as happy and contented and well cared for; they were the warm, earth design under her feet that gave richness to her world. To be without them was unthinkable, to be without the slurring, soft voice, the kindly office; without them life would be robbed of proportion and value; would become a bald existence, rigid and bitter; without them she could see the easy, flexible house shrink to a nub of hard, indurated living. She turned her thought away from the picture; away from Abolition as she always turned it when she could. “I hope Henry will like us.”

“Oh, he’ll like us!”

The drenching rain blurred the sky and blent with the earth. “Milly, will he think I’m good to look at?”

“How could he he’p it, honey? You’re pretty as a pup.”

“When he left he rumpled my hair and said, ‘Good-by, sorrel; maybe you’ll be a real bay two years from now!’ ”

“Shucks, he was teasing. You know how he is.”

“But I’m not a bit darker.”

“Gawdamity, when you’re eighty years old, your head will be as red as ever.”

“Oh, Milly!”

“When they were handin’ out hair somebody got mad and give you thishere.”

“You make it worse each time you tell it.”

“But look what they done to me. Look what I got. How you goin’ to explain that?”

“I don’t know, Milly. I’ve often wondered.”

“Wool don’t seem to be a fair dealin’.”

“No, Milly, it doesn’t.”

“But whatever Gawd give you, take and thank-you-kindly, and no questions ast. Now don’t cry on a day like this. You don’t want a red nose because you got red hair.”

Ann dabbed with her handkerchief.

“Daytime you can wear a hat and bedtime you can wear a cap.”

“I won’t!”

“And evenin’s and parties there’s always flowers and fixin’s. What you been to town for?”

“I don’t know, Milly, I don’t know. For something, maybe, I’ll never get.”

Through wet lashes Ann looked at the rain-washed fields. In a dim empathy she identified herself with the drinking, thirsty meadows. Love was a thirst unsatisfied—a hollow want unfilled. She watched the furrows drinking, drinking, always thirsty—limestone earth never satisfied, never quenched.

The horses slowed for the gate. Ham, waiting, shoved it wide and the carriage rolled on to the front door.

Milly swept into her arms everything she could carry, and staggered up the front steps, while Sam threw the door open for her and withheld spiteful words.

Ann waited until he swallowed them in his throat. She gave Milly time to puff up, without his help, to the second floor and lay the burden in the middle of the bed. Ann looked at it dejectedly. Joy had gone out of her.

“The dog’s foot, honey, take off that muggin look! No good to pull yo mouth crooked. Your hair is just a mark of Gawd’s displeasurin’ with humans. Sometimes he must git huffy as all git-out, like the Good Book says. . . .”

“Oh, no, Milly—no!”

“You’ll come thu, honey. Give ’em a squint at them little titties tonight. Don’t cover up too good; see how that works on ’em.”

“Why can’t a woman have the man she wants—instead of the man who wants her? It isn’t fair. She ought to be the one to choose.”

“Some of ’em gits ’em, gits up and goes for ’em, like I said; and some sets back as mooch as a mouse and lets the other woman git him.”

“I won’t. I’m ready to fight for him.”

“But you got to be keerful. You know that old word about serpents and doves. Now put on thishere wrapper and take a good nap before dinner. Here’s Ole Miss comin’ to see what you got.”

Aunt Anabel Ashe rustled in.

“Everything on your list, Aunt Anabel! And, oh, we heard that Henry spent last night on the road, resting, so we’re sure he’ll get here.” Ann tried to keep the brightness out of her eyes.

“He will. I’ll go down and see about Sam.”

“Let me help you, Aunt Anabel.”

“After dinner; but take your beauty sleep now. Milly, tell Aunt Jett to come and sit in the kitchen. She can help with the dishes. How’s her rheumatism?”

“It’s better, but her insania ain’t no better.”

“She’s getting so old; no wonder.”

Aunt Anabel hastened out and down the stairs.

“Is Old Jett still talking out of her head?”

“Constant. She’s my own mammy, but she does have strange idees.” Milly was busy with the dresses—hanging them in the wardrobe.

“Maybe you’d have them, too, if you were nearly a hundred.”

“She’s got to thinkin’ she’s a king’s child.”

“Maybe she is. Who knows?”

“She’s rememberin’ now how she come over in a big boat. ‘Crowdin’ ’em, crowdin’ ’em down,’ she keeps asayin’ it.”

“Maybe she does remember. Maybe it was so.”

“She says they laid wait for her out in the jungle; they put a chain on her and took her to the boat, down in the dark and the stink, where there was moanin’ all night and moanin’ all day; day and night, day and night. It kinder curdles up your blood to hear her of midnights. She never used to talk about it. She says it’s just come back to her.”

“Tell her she can come to the party. Maybe that will cheer her up.” Ann took off the dimity and put on her wrapper.

“Won’t nothin’ cheer her up no more. She says she’s rememberin’ she had a man over there. But I think that’s the insania.”

“A lover?”

“Musta bin. She says they kilt him right befo’ her eyes.”

Ann thought, too, that might be delusion. “But, oh, Milly, there’s so much sorrow in the world! No one seems to get the one she wants.” Ann slowly buttoned the wrapper. She felt her heart beating under it; beating hard.

“Here, quit yo’ worry. Kick off yo slippers and lay down and have yo rest.” Milly folded a light coverlet over the foot of the day-bed.

Ann closed her eyes to the world outside. Her blood raced; she felt it in her wrists and throat and like swift blows on her body. Love hurt. It was a kind of agony. “Oh, Henry, come soon!” The heat bathed her in a light sweat; a breeze blew in and stirred the damp curls on her forehead as she fell asleep.

Milly stood and looked at her, at the long black lashes fringing the petal-shaped lids. “She sho is a pretty thing, layin’ there,” said Milly. Ann heard, in her sleep, what Milly said.

Henry Ashe was on his way home. He had crossed an ocean and he had now only a continent to deal with—a wilderness in retreat. He might reach home by the tenth of May—a day his mother loved to celebrate and the servants loved to make holiday. Even though he rested on the way he might reach Stoneholt in time—might reach it by the tenth of May.

Henry’s ship sailed into Boston harbor at dawn. At last the voyage was over! Six weeks from Liverpool, six weeks on the water, England vanishing in time and space, slipping into the nimbus of dream; six weeks on the moving water of the high seas, suspended in vacuum, detached from existence; already the two years at Oxford showing the faint tarnish of time, dimming with each league of water. Hold those years—keep them bright.

Swiftly they went by. A Gothic pilgrimage: so much to see, to learn, to do. Contact with seminal minds at the University; echoes of the past all about him; great ones gone before pressing on him in the quadrangles: Swift, up from Dublin, only thirty years ago and Dryden: “Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet.” The breach of barely fifteen years since Shelley shook the dust of Oxford off; Hogg shouting: “If Shelley is an Atheist, then I am an Atheist”; a saturnine Don: “No sir, you are only a fool!” Echoes—echoes in the grey fog—hollow with distance! The past, the whisper of copious, weightless centuries to which he, Henry Ashe, owed his breed and blood; the tradition he absorbed with comfort to his inward parts.

Weeks of confinement to the ship, bad food, fetid air, ill smelling human cargo, the nothingness of water, the tossed and vagrant course of the vessel centered life to a pin point; stressed its transience, its meagre size and content. There were moments when a sense of unreality fell on him, when he vaguely doubted his own validity and being.

Never did he doubt, love for the older land; for the rich sludge and deposit of his race felt in his own bone and loins; kinship. On his inward ear fell again the pleasant modulations of gentle breeding; again he sanctioned the acceptances, the delicate evasions of a social order a world away from frontier life at grips with need—the immediate—the now. His bowels yearned upon Oxford, arcaded and ancient; even the homilies of the classroom took on legend, adumbrations of Milton, Gibbon, Donne.

He must face a crude world in the making, worried problems unripe, unresolved. He must face them without Father, dead these two years. He must wrestle with the problem for two years buried in the deepest rut of his heart, the problem of the Peculiar Institution; he must face it now, solve, settle or disallow it; the dark, unholy source of his wealth. Slavery! He saw it at last as it was; loathed it in his soul. Though he strained against it, the stinking coils were about him; he felt their revolting slime and power, their paralysing control. Two years of absence created in his mind engines of inward resistance. Father gone, he, himself, Henry Ashe, became a slave owner. He must face the matter.

Slavery his father allowed at the level of his head, at his heart’s level he was rooted against it, but he was helpless; he was in the toils of the thing; he knew blood and bitter inward strife but Father couldn’t battle with his people.

Henry loved his father; between them there was a passionate tenderness his mother resented. They were aligned against her; she knew it; they were two of a kind, soft slave lovers at heart.

Henry’s ship sailed into Boston harbor at dawn. It was late April but cold as March. The wind swept out of the east with vigor that made him clutch the lapels of his coat. Surely it was being ripped from his body; his flesh from his bones. God, it was cold, ruthless! No wonder the Northerner was hard-bit, blue nosed, a crusader for reform, for narrow creeds. He had had to do with the east wind, to deal with it since the days of the Puritans; only the sturdy survive in so crabbed an air. They grow to be tight-lipped Abolitionists, hypocrites at the core, the frozen core.

Henry hated slavery but he distrusted the movement rising in the North like an east wind; he knew it was bred of envy, of a cold and poisonous hatred of his people, bred of quintessential self-righteousness! It was an attack on his father and his father’s gods and goods. Henry did not justify himself—or his cause. He was a Southerner; the distrusts of a Southerner were his. The problems and sins of a Southerner he would settle for, but after his own fashion; by God, not under compulsion.

Boston harbor in the light of a snowy April dawn was not a sight to warm the heart; overhead the gulls veered and swam in the ocean of thick cloud. Henry felt dizzy from the sea, his legs unsteady; the land rose and fell under his feet; moved under him. Here, on land, a faint smell of fish in the air, of cooking fish; land smell. Aimlessly he walked through the crooked streets of the little city.

As he walked he noticed a tall figure in front of him. The man went with vigor of purpose, with tight inflexible joint and muscle. Tall, narrow in flank and thigh, he held his neck stiffly erect as the wind whipped and snorted. A typical Yankee, hard knuckled, chicken breasted. Henry noticed the grip of the man’s hands, fiercely grasping hands! Henry watched him; gauged the vigor of his nervous energy.

Suddenly the man crumpled and fell—a stone, flung from behind a wall had hit him square in the chest. At the moment no one was in sight. Henry was alone with a man wounded, perhaps dying. Henry drew out a pocket flask and put it to the man’s lips. He gasped, opened his eyes, put the liquor from him. “Drink,” said Henry.

But the man pushed the flask away. He looked up—his lips twisted “Someone doesn’t like me!”

“He got away, quick as a shot!”

“Yes.”

“Drink this,” Henry believed a flask was dedicated to emergency.

“No. No liquor. I’m hard to kill. I’ve work to do.”

“Have you no watchman here?”

“I am used to these matters. They come without warning.” He struggled up, still weak and shaking. The east wind whined about them; overhead the gulls—close overhead—dived and rose and balanced.

“May I help?”

“Thank you. This was planned.” The man put his hand to his forehead.

“You know?”

“Oh, yes, I know! At my doorstep. They follow me home—my coat saved me—and you!”

“An outrage!”

“If you hadn’t been here, they might have—. Well, some day you may be glad—or sorry—you were here.”

“I hope glad.”

“Come in!”

“You may need more help!”

“No. I heal quickly. They find it hard to finish me. I’ve powers they don’t understand.” Henry looked at the man sharply. “Come in.”

Henry followed up a dingy flight of stairs into a dingier upper room. Fire burned in a small stove but the room was cold, the air dead. A printer’s press stood in a corner, a mailing table near by; on the floor was spread a pallet; a loaf of bread and a pitcher of milk were ready on a smaller table—pine chairs set against it. “Will you join me? I drink nothing stronger than milk. My father died a drunkard. I’ve not forgot.”

Embarrassed, Henry smiled—his forehead reddened. The man thawed a little under Henry’s smile, cut several slices from the loaf and poured two cups of milk. “I shall be glad of food,” said Henry, as they sat and ate the frugal meal. “I’ve had nothing since dawn when I left the ship; I wandered through your town and forgot to eat.”

“I should be glad to offer you a roof, a bed. But you see how I live.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“Thank you for the wish; I am on my way home.”

There was something in Henry’s smile that seemed to warm the man—to make him want the smile to happen again.

“By your speech you are a Southerner.”

“Yes.”

“You hear of Abolition?”

Henry’s smile faded. “Yes.”

“I am Abolition.”

Henry started, looked at the man and changed the subject. “I am just home from England.”

“But you are a Southerner—a slaveholder?”

“I hardly know what I am. I’m groping for—for an answer.”

“Your home?”

“I live on the fringe, the ragged edge, of the South.” The man looked Henry over.

“Not too ragged, I judge. You own slaves?”

“Yes, now. My father died while I was away.”

“Slavery!” The man’s jawbones showed white through the skin of his face.

Henry felt a desperate need to explain—to justify.

“My father—”

“He never joined us?”

“Of course not. He couldn’t turn against his country, couldn’t pull up the roots of two hundred years.” The snow blew against the windows; the sky thickened and closed in. The darkening clouds seemed to gather a sense of doom. Henry drew his coat about him.

“Couldn’t fight the wilderness with his two bare hands?”

“Slavery is the economic need of the South. You know that.”

“Sodom could have been saved by—.”

“There are men in the South who strive against this thing, in their hearts.”

“On that we depend.”

“Do not.” The window panes shook with the force of the wind. Henry breathed a long breath.

“The Institution is the South.”

“I shall alter that. I shall change it.” Henry looked into the man’s face. “There should be Southerners who are humane men.” Henry felt tears burn his eyes.

“My father, you should have known my father.”

“How could he—?”

“You know nothing of us. How can you judge?”

“You permit slavery. You live on it. That is enough.”

Henry felt no anger as the harsh words fell on him. He pushed back his chair and walked to the window and looked out. The snow fell thick on the small window panes, the light was feeble. Street noises came up dully, hollow noises—horses hooves on the stones of the street—voices of peddlers. Henry felt his throat tighten.

“What of our agony—the strife we can’t throw off!”

“You would? You mean there is a fringe who would if they could?”

“They think so, but at a price they’ll never pay.”

“Minorities win in the end, if—”

“Yes, if—”

“If they have one flaming thought to drive them. I am that thought.” The man got up and pushed some sticks into the stove. The light from the open fire caught his eyes.

“Would you call that fanatical?”

“Why not? I am ashamed of my country—our cant of unalienable right.”

“Slavery was taken for granted.”

“Sacred institution?”

“Not for me.”

“There are signs, straws in the wind—”

“Social revolution?”

“Ominous signs. Yes, you are a fine gentleman, sir, a disarming argument for the benefits of slave labor! It has made you what you are, released you from toil, given you charm, wealth, leisure, amenity.”

“Too costly. I know it.”

The man paced the floor. “Come out on our side.” He stopped in front of Henry. “Leave all—follow Abolition.”

“What of our agrarian life—our fields, our bread?”

“Rousseau is your prophet; but yours is a bastard Rousseauism! You’ll die for it some day!” The man drove across the room—came back—stood again close to Henry.

“You hate us.”

“Yes.” The little stove began to roar and shake. Henry’s heart beat hard; he felt blood throb in his temples. “But we have here in the North a clash of hatreds as poisonous. The Southerner is rich. He buys in the North. Our merchants and lawyers fight Abolition as you do. They mean to put it down, fair or foul. Their dialectic is business interest, no conciliation—with business in the balance. Here in New England there is contempt, more bitter, opposition more stubborn than among slave owners themselves.”

“You fight a desperate battle.”

“Come, join us! Come!” The man leaned forward; reached out his hand. Henry almost took it. The man waited.

For one tense moment Henry was with him in thought and purpose. There was a pause of heartbeat, in the talk. But Henry shook off the spell. He caught his breath. “You have moved me but I cannot. It is impossible!”

The man went to the door and held it open, wide. “Good-by! I have sown the seed! Go back to your people, but you will not forget. My name—but never mind my name. It means nothing to you now. Good-by!”

Henry went through the door, bemused. He too had been set upon. Wounded. He passed down the street, unsteady; he hadn’t his land legs yet; the earth still swayed under him, moved as he walked. He bargained with the stables for a horse. He would return it by some returning traveler. His leather trunk would go by coach. Better horseback and his own thoughts—better than the close-shut stage. He passed the night at the inn and early next morning set out on the road to Fayette. Home! Home! Perhaps he would reach Stoneholt by the tenth of May; perhaps they would be looking for him—his mother, the servants, and little Ann, a scrawny cousin, would be there, raw-boned and gangling; red-headed little runt; always underfoot. Tagging after him ever since that day when he thought he heard a puppy whimpering down in the greenhouse and found the gawky child—her head stuck between the lower steps of the ladder-like stair. She had pushed her head in and turned it and couldn’t get it out. She was bawling as if she knew she would die down there with her head cut off—all alone down in the greenhouse. Her head gone! He turned her head clockwise and got it out. It was a tight squeeze. “Little Silly!”

He sent her spinning up the ladder to the good air—to gratitude and life itself. She had run after him ever since—a nuisance; a long-time nuisance—and yet her last kiss lingered in his mind. The childish lips were so full—so eager—so warm; smiling lips—curved and generous; he had never really looked at them before—not till then. Her red-gold curls shone in the morning sun—alive. The child was growing up. She would be a woman now—his cousin.

Father waving to him as he rode away. Dear Father! That was the last picture—but where was Mother? She didn’t appear in the pattern of memory. She didn’t figure there—but of course she was in it—somewhere.

Henry left the inn at dawn, glad of the open sky—the forest trails. The stagecoach passed him lumbering, closed tight against the cold, choked with travellers, jolting on its way. Horseback was better—far better. Above him the gulls made wing noises low over his head; noises of soft wing and feather, noises of small gull talk; the sun glinted on their bright eyes as they turned their heads from side to side. Soon they would be gone forever from his skies as he made his way inland. He stopped at windowless cabins, refreshed by mighty draughts of buttermilk, at crude taverns for lodging and rough fare, to push on next sun-up over trails a horse could travel; on with his thoughts for company.

One morning as he neared the river boundary of his world, Henry spent the night in a log house close to the water. He was awakened by a movement—a noise under his straw bed. He got up and found a man hidden there, hoarse-choked and gasping; breath, fierce and shallow, whistled from his throat; ribs shuddering against bloody rags. A Negro. The man turned over on his back—his mouth wide open.

“Why it’s old Jim; the slave-jail Jim!” Henry had often seen Jim slouching about the gate of the slave jail. He knew him.

“Yassir, I’m Jim. Don’t send me back!”

“What are you doing here, Jim?”

Jim spoke in rasping whispers, broken for breath. “I run off—don’t send me back.”

Henry leaned over him. “But you’re an old man. How did you get across?”

Jim drew a ragged gasp. “Run—hid—swum. Don’t send me. . . .”

“No, Jim! Tell me if you can.”

Jim tried his best. Henry leaned closer to hear. “I cleaned out the coops and cages down cellar.” Jim halted. “You don’t know nothin’ about them.” His eyes turned toward Henry as he tried to tell. “I left a cage door open—a nigger got a-loose. Jailer told overseer to whup me. He did.”

“Can you drink something Jim?”

He shook his head. “Can’t swaller.” Jim turned his back, blood-crusted. There was blood still on him though he had swum the river—blood stuck his shirt to his bony ribs. Jim made a noise in his throat and his legs seemed to get longer and stiffer. Henry sat in the hickory chair and watched Jim die. By morning he was quite dead. Nothing for Henry to do but leave him there.

“They are forever slippin’ thu!” said the woman of the house. “Runaways! Hidin’ everywhere—even here in the house; even under the bed.”

Black shadows seeping through the forest! Runaways! Bloody bodies dying on the way; live bodies slinking into the river, drowning, or swimming if they could . . . swimming the wide river, brown and bloodied, lapping at its shores.

The horror of it all when you got the raw side! Slave jail! Cages, coops!

Nothing like Jim; nothing so merciless, would ever happen on father’s land—oh, no; but that it should happen anywhere—anywhere. . . .

The man in Boston would never understand. How could he—how could any free man understand us? What could a Southerner do but hold on to the ghastly business he couldn’t let go of? Hold on to his slavery—his own! Father understood our hopeless state; bound, chained. Covert fears creeping over the land! Runaways! God alone knows how it will end.

“Slave owner! Slave owner.” The word named him; echoed to his hoofbeat as he rode.

“Be quiet, be quiet! I’m going home! Perhaps I’ll find an answer—a solution, there!”

He crossed the river by ferry and into Fayette at last. Beautiful, bountiful land! His land.

Anabel Ashe went about the busy round of her duties with the energy and concentration that gave joy to every detail of life as she knew it. Each day she interviewed Grubb, the overseer. No item of the routine of Stoneholt was so small as to seem to her unimportant. This was her work, her farm, her servants, her monies—all hers.

The overseer met her at the door of the back porch. As he approached her, Grubb spat out a quid of tobacco. His salutation never varied, “All right around about again last night, mum!”

A dirty, frowsy haired girl darted across the yard toward the garden gate. “Why don’t you control that brat of yours, Grubb?” His eyes shifted as if he knew what was coming. His mouth puckered to protest the verdict that followed. “She’s a filthy little sneak.”

“Lord, mam, that gal is the consarn of her mother. She’s just plumb wild.”

Anabel watched Lobelia as she straddled the high gate, as she gave a crazy laugh, jumped down on the other side and ran off, her skirts over her head.

“If you can’t or won’t restrain her, keep her at home. I don’t want her here.”

“I beat her onct in a while, but it seems to make her more deceitful.”

“Can’t you use moral suasion?”

“I don’t know the meanin’ of no such thing and she ain’t got no morals nohow.”

“She’s your problem. Look to it.”

“Yassum, I do.”

Anabel saw Grubb’s eyes shift as he turned the talk and said, “Have you heard your Aunt Maria got a white nigger on her place?”

“Since when?”

“Since she went down to New Orleens.”

“That’s just like Aunt Maria.”

“This nigger they say is well favored—a light, blue-vein. She can speak French, too, whatever that is. Ole L’Hommedieu’ll be after her.”

“Well Aunt Maria can have her and keep her! I want mine black—and staying black—all my negroes!”

“Wait ’till ole L’Hommedieu gets a glimpse at her. Yo Aunt Maria’ll sell her.”

“Not likely. She’s a softy—a chicken heart.”

Grubb laughed, “Haw! Haw!”

Grubb slouched off thinking his thoughts. Lobelia was his own flesh and blood even if she didn’t seem right in the head. She’d be hanging around, looking in on the party. Grubb’s gaze travelled toward the cabins. He looked up at the crows overhead that quarreled and screamed in the locust trees; their black feathers shone against the white blossoms—he’d have to get his gun.

Grubb cleared his throat noisily; he often mumbled to himself; liked to think out loud. Someway he could think better half out loud or just under his breath. Oh, no, they wouldn’t want Lobelia anywheres. Poor white trash! He knew. No wonder she was getting sly and sneaking. No wonder. He rubbed his spiky jaw. There was no such thing as milk of kindness, no such thing. Grubb would take it out on the next nigger he had to whip for laziness or for petty theft. “Their skins is so tough they don’t feel nothin’, no how; a nigger is tough as a mule and as stony-headed. They need a tight rein.” The old master had watched too close, so skeered some nigger would git hurt; but the mistiss was kinder flinty minded. She made ’em stand around; no foolin’ with her. Still she might let little Lobelia alone, and stop ridin’ her all the time. Maybe the child would be more like a human. She’s thirteen now. She ’minded him of a kildee! Grubb chuckled and popped a dry quid into his mouth, loose at the corners, oozing a trace of tobacco juice which he wiped with the back of his hand when he thought of it. Anyways ole Miss is got a rocky heart.

Grubb shot a keen glance over his shoulder as he slank away. Grubb knew he was a necessary part of life at Stoneholt. He felt it and held to it.

Anabel picked up her skirts and ran over the wet grass to the stables. Today old Daisy had to be put to the stud—she couldn’t trust Grubb with everything.

Twenty years ago when John Ashe bought the farm in Fayette, the house—built by an earlier settler—built of the rough stones of the field—he wanted to name it Ravello; but Anabel Ashe said no. No fancy names for a farm in Fayette.

She pushed back the black curl behind her ear, with her forefinger. “John, it’s too silly to name a farm on the frontier for a village in Italy! I’ll have none of it! Even if there was a moon—and vineyards ran down to a purple sea.”

Little Henry winked his long lashes and looked up at his father and slipped his hand inside his father’s hand. His mother eyed the gesture. She drew in her chin.

“I’ll name the place if you can’t, John Ashe! The man who built it never named it—too busy fighting Indians I suppose. I’ll name it!”

John murmured something.

“And no quotations from Plotinus, please. I’ll name the farm Stoneholt—plain Anglo Saxon. Stone house on a wooded hill—that describes it. Built of limestone dug out of its own earth!”

She breathed in the warm breath of the planted fields.

“Stone house strong enough to bar the Indians—and has barred them in its day!”

Her thought travelled back to a dark time she herself could remember. She looked at the stone fences—slave built—stone on stone—to wear out the centuries. She looked into the years ahead. Stoneholt would be more than a farm or a mere house or a household. Stoneholt would be a principle; part and parcel of the System—the Peculiar Institution—Anabel’s world.

Anabel liked the up-and-down of her household tasks, the free out of doors, the challenge of stairways; they were not yet a burden to her. In her body was strength to last nigh a century. She felt the clutch on life her mother had, before her.

When John Ashe died he left a loneliness and a wanting in her heart. Anabel sorrowed. It was then that she sent for her niece, Ann, her favorite niece. Ann, fatherless and motherless, would be lonely too; they would help each other fill the vacuum of finite departures. Anabel missed her husband, his amiable way of life, the small, sweet courtesies, the tender considerations. Hiatus and crisis were identical. Here ended the first lesson.

Loneliness eased after a while. Now that her husband was gone, life for Anabel took on new meaning; vistas opened, a new time supervened upon the old: freedom; untried powers, unexplored possibilities. Authority was born in her. She breathed deep, put on new strength. She should have been a man, she told herself; she had an epicene genius for administration, for enlightened economies, for commanding a domestic situation. Here was the good life: Stoneholt; control of landed property; adjustment of the worker to the soil, wise and humane governance, a hundred slaves busily employed in toil that healed idleness and reaped, even for them, satisfactions.

She felt peace, amplitude enfold her; gracious living, opulent living, more forthright if less ancient than that of England. Hate, wing-tipped with envy, brushed Anabel’s thought. England, the two Henrys loved so well, the Anglo-Saxon archetype, should be outshone, outclassed; if not outclassed, outdone; all in time, in due time. “We are sui generis. We are not derivative. We are individualists, hoeing our own.” Let the curtain drop on England, forget her sneer, her lifted eyebrow. We are born of adventure, of strength. So be it! We bide our day, confident!

Anabel’s mind worked while her fingers worked. She liked to believe her decisions were as right as they were unalterable. She found Ann a good listener; she assumed that Ann agreed to everything.

“The slaves, the traffic, the Peculiar Institution, ours! We leave it out of our talk but we stand by it, all of it! Slaves! What did they know but cannibalism, animality? Slavery was their portion, underacinated, cruel slavery beyond any sin or act of the white man. Would one of these creatures the Yankees bemoan, leave our humane tolerance to return to what they left behind? Not one! Their naked savagery is canalized now, put to use, put to purpose.”

“Sometimes they do escape, Aunt Anabel.”

“Runaways, Oh, yes—Northward, to follow will-o’the-wisps hanging out in Boston!”

And then Anabel would let loose: “Taunting abolitionists, bent on cutting the throat of the Bill of Rights! Damn them, damn them to hell!” It was strong talk but that was the way Anabel felt.

The whole structure of Anabel’s world was supported and buttressed by the Institution, a plan of God himself. You had only to turn to Holy Writ. She liked to run through the Old Testament and the New and make note of passages to refute the stabbing insults of the Yankees and the British. The system was as perfect as the human mind could devise. Governing hand, guiding intelligence, muscle and brawn subservient. There was never a doubt, never a flicker; Anabel knew. The Peculiar Institution was engined and integrated for the white man’s good; it was a biblical mandate, articulated with the oldest wisdoms of earth. This axiom she wrote, one day, in her Bible. Set it down in her own hand-writing.

Grubb was a fool; but he knew the farm, controlled the Negroes, was fair material as overseers went; they were an untrustworthy lot, let Negroes escape, slip through—disappear across the river. Grubb had never lost one yet, slipshod though he was. Yes she could do worse. Her eye was peeled and he knew it.

She turned and went into the house and looked about her. “Sam, get out the silver tureen and set it in the hall here.”

“Yassum.”

“The hyacinths look well in it.” White hyacinths contesting the wilder perfumes of the upper air. She had carried them at her wedding. The heavy scent brought back far days: love, now only a memory, almost too faint to recover; she was no longer in its bondage. Freedom was more than a symbol, a word, an abstraction. Freedom was a plateau of deliverance from the servitude of sex. She was free—Anabel Ashe herself, free.

She had loved her husband. She believed it. With reservation, she had bent her will to his. She had let him have his way with Henry. Fighting in her soul she had sanctioned with silence the journey to Oxford, the English breeding, both Henrys set such store by, and God knows what foreign and disruptive ideas. She had let the boy go. His father wished, ordered, ordained it; and so he went.

“Sam, send Ham to the icehouse. Get big slabs for the icebox. Have enough on hand, and plenty of silver cups for the juleps, and mint.”

“That’s my job, Mistiss. I know it by heart.”

“I never take things for granted.”

“Naw’m. That’s right. Be on the safe side.” Sam’s mellow voice eased her.

“I’m going out to the garden. Have the tureen ready, and extra vases. Hyacinths and lilacs mix well, and tulips.”

“Want me to help you, Ole Miss?”

“I like to do this myself.” She took the sharp garden shears lying on the porch table. Sam had given them an extra edge at the grindstone.

He came into the hall, now, with the great silver tureen, Georgian silver, brought from London for Anabel’s wedding. In it the minister, Mr. Craig, dipped his hand to christen her baby son, Henry. She had pride for him, for his curls, his curving lashes, his changeful eyes. Henry early and eagerly preferred his father’s arms to hers. His father had a way with children, even with Negroes and dogs. All loved him, just as they love Henry. She didn’t care, wouldn’t care a jot. If they didn’t like her ways, they needn’t. It was all one, to her. She pulled out the sliver of hurt and denied it.

Would Henry’s return bring her peace or a sword? Men tried to rule you. Even sons tried. She would not be ruled ever again; she had served her time and that phase was past. She would let him know from the start that her word must stand in matters of the farm.

Henry would take up the study of the law as his father had done. Legal knots and tangles, complication of claims on the new land; work was laid out for him. Henry would add to his father’s fine fortune, perhaps be governor some day. No holds were barred. The prospect was clear enough. Still, at her heart gnawed an unease. That son of theirs was really his father’s child, not hers. Ann seemed more like her child than Henry. Ann was amenable; she could do what she liked with Ann. She would accept Ann for a daughter-in-law; that would be suitable; cousins of good stock and fine constitution, bred well; moderate inbreeding was not a bad thing. Marriage would hold Henry in place, keep him from the neighborhood of the slave jail where young mulattoes awaited their rich purchasers. It would keep him, also, out of fence corners. She thought of the family across the pike, the near-white children running wild. Anabel did not want that. Ann should be a decoy, a deliverer.

Anabel had kept a keen eye—a tight rein—on old John in the neighborhood of the cabins and around the outhouses. She was vigilant. She had never caught him; not once. “You might say,” murmured Anabel, “that John Ashe was a good man. He passed for one—anyway.”

Ham sauntered to the icehouse with the wheelbarrow. His big feet padded the brick walk, now moist and smooth in the May weather. The sun was coming warm again. Ham loved the sun; it made his guts feel good. Nearly always Ham was sorrowful in his heart; he had a mournful heart, he couldn’t help it. But today Ham was happy. Henry was coming home. Old Master gave Ham to Henry when he was seven for his very own; Ham was Henry’s boy. Young Master was good to work for and when they were bigger it was more like what you wanted to do than real work—hunting, fishing, riding about the country at top speed after the dogs, fox hunting, coon hunting, ’possum hunting on bright moonlight nights. He knew Henry enjoyed the chase and the racing; he never wanted to kill nothin’, though; and that sorter spoiled the fun. Ham liked to watch the dogs tear the varmints wide open; made him bubble inside with excitement.

Ham plunged into the cool depths of the icehouse. The coolness caught his breath, was like a jump into the pond on an April day. He wrestled with a big chunk of ice, eased it up to the door and out to the waiting wheelbarrow. The ice was covered with straw and he could hold it, but it was so heavy to heave up to the door that he dripped with sweat. Hot and cool were funny things and sometimes you couldn’t tell ’em apart. He looked at his load. It would be enough, maybe; you couldn’t ever tell. They take a passel, freezing things and icing them; maybe he’d better get another slab. They melt quick, better get another one. He jumped down into the icy depth and came up again.

There was always plenty of work. Ham wiped his beaded forehead with his forearm. Better wrap the slabs good in the cold moist straw. That icehouse felt right on a hot day, and smelt of coolness, but Ham liked hotness better for when it was hottest he felt best. He trundled the heavy barrow to the house, flip-flopping his feet as he went along, singing under his breath. He passed his gramma Jett’s cabin where she was wras’lin’ with her insania. “Night and day, night and day,” she was saying. The stone walk bordered by the tall white lilacs; the scent was heavy. When Ham breathed it he was reminded of the day he stole Henry’s pennies. “Gosh, don’t remember that on a good day!” He struggled up to the back porch and delivered his burden to Sam.

“Now git busy in the kitchen, boy, helpin’ Lucinda. Make a good houseboy, else you’ll be nothin’ all yo’ days but a field nigger.”

“Yassir. But I’m Henry’s own boy. I’ll never be a field nigger.”

“Don’t be too sure. Put on them clothes he gave you when he went away. Get yosef lookin’ smart. No hangdogs around here moanin’ and groanin’.”

“I’ve got to wash Murk so she can come in the house.”

“Git her good and dry.”

“Yassir, yassir.”

The day was advancing. Anabel gathered an armful of hyacinths and lilacs and placed the most opulent sprays in the silver tureen in the hall. She arranged vases for mantels and bowls for tables. With her sharp pruning shears, extra whetted, she returned to the garden for tulips—chalices of flame along the rock fence between garden and lawn.

When she stooped, with the shears in her hand, a copperhead reared up its mottled length and the long, curved fangs darted at her wrist but she was quick. She must have touched the snake as it lay inert, brown barred, in a crevice of the rocks.

Quicker than thought she thrust out the sharp blades of the shears and with both hands cut off the head, the blunt head with its fangs and beady eyes. It fell, heavy, in the long grass at her feet, where the two-foot spiral trembled and lashed. Anabel’s mind raced and though her face was ashen her thought was clear.

Snakes in the grass! Copperheads in rock fences, hiding like the damned abolitionists! She would kill one of those as quick as she’d kill a snake. Let them keep out of her land . . . keep out of the South, if they know what life is worth!

She looked again at the writhing slime underfoot—at the blunt, heart-shaped head, heavy in the grass, and spat with sick disgust. She staggered a little as she made her way to the house—and again she spat. She handed the tulips to Milly. “Put them in water. Sam, go down to the end of the walk and get that copperhead I killed. Look sharp to see if there are others; take a hoe or something. They may be nesting in the rocks.”

“Yassum.”

“Milly—a cup of coffee.”

“Ain’t you goin’ to eat yo dinner?”

“No. That snake turned my stomach. I’ll lie down for a while.” Anabel put her hand on the stair rail.

“Old Miss, it ain’t right to see you layin’ down, even for a spell.”

Anabel gave a dry laugh. “I, too, need a beauty sleep.”

“You can do with a snooze. You’re lookin’ kinder greenish.”

“Milly, I never did like snakes,” said Anabel with a dry mouth as she mounted the steps to her room.

Anabel lay on her bed—half asleep. . . . Slave sales—auction sales! Even the drivel of old Snails the auctioneer, was agreeable to Anabel. She loved horse racing too and political embroilment. She sometimes cast her eyes across the fields where Henry Clay roosted on his evasions and his platitudes: “Rather be right than be president. Pugh!” She knew her son, Henry, liked and greatly admired their brilliant neighbor and partisan adversary; but anyone hostile to Jackson stirred Anabel’s scorn—her wrath and derision. “Pugh!”

Andrew Jackson was Anabel’s political idol.

A coffle of slaves chained and clanking did not disturb Anabel’s mind or conscience. It was all part of life—hard and raw and sometimes bloody but Anabel was armed and engined for her office. The deadly reek of the trade did not turn her sick. It was all part of God’s will to be worked out humanly. Inscrutable as life was inscrutable, cruel as life was cruel, who was she to question God’s plan?

She was a woman of good feeling but she was conditioned to the air—she had to breathe—whether sweet or sour or very bitter. Her own laws were humane. She saw to that. The coffles of passing slaves did not disturb her rest—did not alter the set of Anabel’s mind. If other people were brutal and depraved it was their sin for which they would suffer. To his own master he standeth or falleth. There was the Bible answer right out of the Book—God himself likened to a master.

Of course you had to use the whip. Slaves were savages under the skin—savages at heart; they had to be disciplined, tamed. And what about the white slaves in the North. Workers bled to death—the pot and the kettle. There was plenty of sin and blame everywhere.

Bloody stories the Yankees told—some might be true—but who would destroy valuable property! It was possible that Negroes somewhere were sold, when puny, to die down river, and the Yankee hyenas slank about howling their lies. It was a thick air Anabel had to breathe but she could breathe it. Her own slaves lived and died protected. She saw to that.

The sun had begun its slant toward the west when Anabel awoke. Shadows began to lengthen over the dense sward that stretched to rock fences on either side. The murmur of the creek in the ravine came up to her, clear, disturbing. She awoke with the sense of gaping hours. Anabel could gauge time almost to the second; by the tick of her blood she knew how the sun stood. “Here it’s five o’clock and I’m losing count, pretending to be flabbergasted by a snake in the grass. God knows they’re plentiful hereabout; I’ve got to be vigilant.” She hoisted herself out of bed and began to put on clean underthings, practical linens, made for service and duration; the corset strong and heavily boned; she drew it in with precision over her linen chemise. As she smoothed, at the mirror, her carefully parted hair she noticed that her neck was beginning to string. Well, what of it, why should she care? A woman couldn’t keep her looks forever. Her lips smiled but not her eyes as she slipped on her best black silk, full skirted and long sleeved, open a little at the throat beneath a fichu of point lace. She would not expose her bones or hang them with jewels as the dowagers of England did. She would wear her diamond brooch and earrings, however, and put on her rings for Henry’s sake; he liked to see her wear them. Her fingers were getting knuckly after so much work in cold weather; they didn’t become her rings so well now. She gave a parting glance at the mirror and drew out of the bureau drawer a large white apron which she tied with care about her slender waist. She was thankful that she was not growing fat like the doctor’s wife. That would be godawful.

As she left her room, Ann met her. “What can I do, Aunt Anabel?”

“Nothing now. Look to little things later on. The servants know their work—not much to do except to have plenty of drinks for the men and sweet stuff for the women. If I knew Henry would get here, I would have a big dinner first and the dancing after; but it’s only a chance, an off chance.”

“Milly says he’s sure to come.”

“There’ll be plenty of men. Look your best and don’t trust Milly’s second sight too far. It doesn’t always work.”

Ann ran down the stairs in her wrapper and looked over the cool rooms smelling of lilac and hyacinth. She loved the place. Stoneholt seemed to bless the land it rested on. It was nearly forty years old now, old for Fayette, built for Indian surprise at any hour of the day or night. The great thickness of the walls made for coolness in summer, for warmth in winter—rough stone walls dug out of the earth on which they stood. The two stories of the central part were framed by wide wings of one room height. It was not the front of the house Ann liked best, though wisteria was heavy blooming over the low porch, it was the back with its flagged terrace and its walk of smooth stones that led to the ravine. Into this valley, descent was made by rough stone steps. Ann spent many summer afternoons there listening to bird calls against the undertone of running water. With a book it was perfect, while Aunt Anabel was busy elsewhere. Sometimes the book was from the library in Fayette; for a trifling sum she could bring one home to read. Many of Uncle Henry’s books were serious, difficult; like Bacon, Locke, Hume. There were theological books a-plenty, books of Uncle Henry’s father’s, now too dull to read, books of casuistry, hair drawn polemic, dead as closed tombs. She let them be. Education must be her own problem, now Miss Catherine was gone. Plato helped—the Greek doctrine that man has eternal truth abiding within him—already present in the soul—and all Knowledge is a Recollection. Something from within to be drawn outward—forward—to be remembered. That made the process seem easy and natural and good.

Ann tried to strengthen her mind, to discipline it with the concision of Gibbon with the tempered intemperance of Swift. Fielding and Sterne were easy for summer afternoons; winter evenings, Milton and The City of God, a huge tome on the top shelf with yellowed leaves. Firelight was good to read by and Sam brought candles and whale oil lamps—plenty of light. Scott and Jane Austen any time were pure enjoyment. Henry must not find her so scant-minded that he would count her with bores and flippant women. One day at the library she discovered a new poet who spoke of the Frontier in his latest poem of lampoon, passionate romance, ribald wit. Ann was fascinated. Here was a gift of verse-making easy on the ear; here was bawdy laughter, godless, defiant laughter, daring and revolt. She would learn more about him when Henry came home. Henry would know.

Ann ran out to the garden to look for valley lilies; early for them but searching she found a small cluster to pin at her waist. Restlessly she passed across the lawn to the servants’ cabins. She would see old Aunt Jett. Aunt Jett had been Uncle John’s nurse and she could tell your fortune as she looked at you with her witch-like eyes. Today she sat on the doorstep of her cabin, smoking, meditative. She was too old to be alive; but her eyes still shot flashes of reason, and her mind still held to lucid moments.

“Come here, child, let Aunt Jett look at you. You are waiting for your man.”

“How do you know, Aunt Jett?”

“Honey, you get as old as I am, you’ll know like I do. You is just ready to breed.”

“Aunt Jett, that has a bad sound.”

“Ain’t nothin’ bad in that.” The earthy old voice thrilled Ann. “I can tell by your mouth look, by your eye look. Gimme your hand. Didn’t I say so? Your hand’s a-sweatin’. That’s a shore sign.”

“Shall I marry the man I love?” The question trembled, pushed into the open.

Aunt Jett beat on her knee, meditative; her gnarled fist like contorted mandrake her eyes a sinister gleam. “You better be keerful. He’ll be slippery-minded.”

“What do you mean?”

“Watch out for gals, black-headed gals.”

“I knew it!” Ann was breathless. “But you said I’d get him?” The old woman must be pressed while she would speak.

“Who said you’d keep him?”

“When, oh when?”

But Aunt Jett’s eyes retreated into their dim, orbital caverns. She began to mutter, “Day and night, day and night.” Ann’s thought couldn’t reach her where she was; Aunt Jett’s insania took over.

“Oh, God, I want him, even if he is slippery-minded; whatever he may be, I want him. No other.” But she must hurry back upstairs. Hurry! She must go.

Milly dressed Ann with the care of the perfectionist. Ann could feel Milly’s delight in her—in her lovely look—her white body—a kind of super-elemental possession of Milly’s own. “Now which’ll you wear tonight, the blue or the pink?” Milly held the gowns on either arm.

“It’s my hair, Milly, that is the crux.”

Milly’s brow wrinkled. “The which?”

“Does the blue or the pink make it less red?”

“The pink makes it less red; but it don’t go good, somehow.”

“You are right Milly, maybe the blue is the thing. No, Milly, I’m going to wear my last summer’s apple green silk. Green is a color to soothe his mind.”

“After that whore-house garmint of Esmeralda’s! That must have been boughten for the slave jail. But old Clemence would sell a-body a shimmy to wear to a party if they didn’t know no better; all he wants is a nickel in his fist. That old buck would skin a flea for its hide and taller.”

With the lilies of the valley tucked in her belt, her green silk billowed about her, Ann looked at her reflection in the mirror, knew intuition had served her well. She was prima vera, spring in symbol, not Fayette. Maybe Henry would see her with an Italian background instead of the scuffy outland.

“The fiddlers is come,” said Milly, “and Ole Miss is got out all the glass and china and silver. Sam looks spry as a goat in them evenin’ clothes of Old Marse John’s. That satin weskit fits him to a T. The britches is a little tight around the bum and Old Miss took off the buckles—they were too good for Sam—and the coat don’t quite stretch acrost his belly, but he just leaves it ajar like them heavenly gates and he looks like a picture out of a book.”

“I got a peep at him; he’s splendid! I’m proud of him. Now that Henry’s coming, we’ll have to call him a butler.”

“And what is that?”

“A manservant who has charge of the wines.”

“We got somethin’ friskier than wines! My Ham, too is goin’ to hep serve. Sam’s been practicin’ on him. He says Ham does the servin’ like a old hand. I can’t help thinkin’ what a wastage of a mornin’ we had, buyin’ them dresses and then wearin’ the one we got at home.”

“Milly, they’re tuning up. I must go down.” Ann looked over the banister. There were Alice and Jane and Flora, her cousins, with their escorts, coming in. How lovely the girls looked, brown haired, and golden. Ann put a hand to her vivid hair with a groan. “Well, it can’t be helped.”

When Ann looked in the mirror now she liked what she saw there. When she was little it almost hurt her eyes to look in the glass; she didn’t like what she saw—but now—suddenly—she had seemed to bloom out. It was wonderful—the change. It must have come from up in the sky; come from God who was blessing her.

She saw what pleased her sight. It seemed strange to have a harmony made of brown eyes that were almost gold colored—some might even call them yellow eyes with black feathered eyelashes—and eyebrows black and curved as though they were meant to go on a brunette but were changed at the last minute.

Her mouth, she admitted, was a little too full at the lower lip but was a cherry color and she liked it. Only the hair spoiled the picture—red—nobody wanted red hair. Milly said maybe Judas had it; anyway it seemed to set you apart; it was overdone—loud. As though it were calling out to everybody, “Here is something different!” She didn’t like that kind of publicity.

All the cousins from the town and county would be in tonight—the young ones, their mothers and fathers and supporting servant background streaming along. “How do you do, Cousin Mary? How do you do, Cousin John?” All cousins kissed of course, even the remotely connected, kisses not of passion but of appurtenance, relationship, blood. “She is common,” was a word of searing reprobation; it opened a chasm of social distance. “Cultivated,” was a condition of mighty esteem; “she is refined,” was tender acceptance of gentle breeding—these comparisons counted.

The young men drifted in. As Ann leaned farther over the banister, she gave them qualified approval. They were products of their land. Maybe the boys lacked elegance; their evening clothes were from Philadelphia, not from London. Ann admitted the cut was on the provincial side, but they wore it rather well. Some were without benefit of barber, their hair long enough to touch the soft collars. They were gentlemen, even if they were born in the backwoods; sons and grandsons of Virginia gentlemen.

Of course Ann knew there was rowdyism on the Frontier—but this element would not find its way to one of Aunt Anabel’s parties—not to Stoneholt; however, she had sent an invitation to the Meredith boys, twin brothers with a dark reputation for sinful living. Wild things were said of them. The boys were well born, distant cousins, and Aunt Anabel didn’t believe the talk she heard. All a lie, maybe. She sent them an invitation, perhaps as a rebuke to scandal. There were the Merediths now—coming in. She looked down at them, black-browed; of sinister air; rather magnificent, though, their six-foot-six of brawn, their defiant curls flung back from hostile brows. They seemed to wear the bad name with a challenge. Their startling likeness to each other gave them dramatic emphasis. Ann felt a shock each time she saw them—a reluctant admiration. Wherever they went, the Merediths seemed to take mental payment in the stir they made, perhaps knowing the envy they excited among the young men of their class who dared not do what the Merediths did openly.

Tonight they bowed over Ann’s hand with mocking courtesy. Ann shivered a little and was glad when Gaitskill, the painter, eased them away, reminded her of her promise for the first square dance.

Henry alighted from his horse; hitched him at the stile. Here was the great elm tree guarding the gate. Here was Stoneholt; the rock fences, the rolling fields. Home!

Henry ran over the fresh-cut grass and looked through the window—the old-time picture; lights, dancing—his birthday party in full play.

The nostalgic force of the celebration, its meaning, caught him full in the breast. His heart ached with love for his people—his homeland—for the father he would never see again. He drew his hand across his eyes as he looked in—the scene dimmed.

With caution Henry made his way to the back porch. He would not appear in travel-stained garments. He would climb the outer stairway, change and come down and surprise them all.

Upstairs in his room he found Ham poking into the wardrobe. Some impulse—some intuition, must have sent him upstairs.

“Marse Henry!”

Tears rolled down Ham’s black face, streamed from his eyes; eyes that said he would like to fall down and kiss Henry’s feet.

“Now Ham, old boy, hurry! Get me a bath quick.” That would stop the crying. “Put out everything! I’ve got to make a decent appearance. Quick!”

“Yassir, yassir—double quick!”

Ann and Gaitskill danced out the first square dance and were returning to the side-lines when Sam opened the door to admit Esmeralda. Ann was sure Esmeralda planned the late entrance; she swung into the hall with a rush of greeting.

Instantly the eyes of every man within sound of her voice turned toward her. Ann felt the jar of Esmeralda’s entrance.

Ann felt rising envy boil inside her. I will fight for him if I must. Her teeth clenched as she saw the men gravitate into Esmeralda’s orbit; a force cosmic, Ann supposed, not to be dealt with on the relative plane.

Ann felt helpless, bereft. Esmeralda would win almost any bout of sex; she had the power, the equipment. Her stance, her gesture, her breathing harmonized with planetary chords.

Ann’s mouth was dry. She sank on a low step of the stairway; felt her flesh quail and shrivel. How could she cope with something deep as Earth? She panted to get out of the house. The fight was useless—Esmeralda was on her ordained way.

“It takes the starch out, doesn’t it?” Maxwell Meredith sat down by Ann, too close for comfort or decency.

She moved to get up but he held her. Should she make a scene? No, that would be silly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean Esmeralda. She makes all women wanly sad, as you are now—and all men ferociously glad.”

“Why don’t you follow her then?”

“My tastes are varied—I like you, too!”

“She means nothing to me.”

“Don’t deny it. She’s put an arrow straight through you.”

“I’m not interested.”

“You lie.” His arm, expert and hidden, went around her waist. His play was completely secret, slyly fraudulent.

Ann felt herself trapped by his stealthy readiness; angry at him and at herself; a thrill denied her denial. She felt distaste; but her body responded to his body, responded to his passion. She tasted the vexed provocation of danger acrid but exciting. This man wished her no good; his was the astringent accost of evil. But she was safe, formidably safe. She let his arm lie for a moment undisturbed. The thick brew of emotion she would taste without danger. In spite of his dark, tempestuous beauty, she rather hated him. He would like to wither a woman with his fleering jibes; but she let the arm linger.

He tightened it. “You give no signal, but I know! I’ll come to see you some day—ride over on horseback and give you a sign and we will talk about some things.” Without waiting for reply or dismissal he left her.

She could still feel his arm about her waist. She leaned against the stair, inwardly shattered. She knew her cheeks were flaming.

She heard a step above and looked up. At the head of the stair stood Henry. He dashed down, two steps at a time, and swept her into his arms. His kiss on her lips was no cousin kiss—it was more than kin; less than cousinly. Again he kissed her. “Is this Ann or Undine? You dazzle me. Is this little Ann Overley?” He held both her hands and looked at her. “How long,” she asked, “were you there on the steps?”

“Not a minute!” She searched his eyes. He had seen nothing. “I came in the back way, half an hour ago. Ham unpacked me; dug up an old coat, got me a bath in a tearing hurry.”

“You look wonderful!”

“Heard music and dancing, knew the fatted calf was ordered.”

“Your birthday, of course.” Ann looked at Henry, pitted him against Maxwell. If Maxwell was like Lucifer, Henry was Gabriel. Thank heaven he had missed the action on the bottom step. It should never happen again.

“Where is Mother? I must look her up.”

“She is in the dining room.”

“Wait for me here. We’ll have the next waltz.”

She watched him as he went—one hand thrust into his trouser pocket, the other free and relaxed at his side. Henry is love; Maxwell is carnality. She would not move from her place; she would wait forever if need be. So many greetings, he’d be long getting back.

But at last he came toward her. As they swang into the waltz she was at home with his heartbeat. The dark power of Esmeralda would never tear him from her. Nothing could dispel the warm ambience that encircled them. “I can never be so happy again.”

But Esmeralda’s ear was to the ground. For this moment she, too, had waited. “He’s gorgeous! I like the dimple in his chin.” She smiled obliquely as she watched the manifest harmony of the dancing couple. “I can take him from her with one hand.” Yet she hesitated; she waited.

She loved his looks, his smooth manner. Rather too elegant; but fascinating.

Esmeralda knew that the girls in town were afraid of her, and yet sometimes she felt their hostile looks were undeserved. What had she done? If men liked her she couldn’t slap them down. She couldn’t keep them away—when they liked her.

Of course, the girls were jealous; but they needn’t make their meaning so plain.

She got along very well with people unless she had a tantrum and then something wild in her broke loose—something that must have come from somewhere way back yonder she reckoned—not from Papa or Mama. But it was in her blood and when she got very mad it had to come out.

She was going after Henry Ashe in earnest. She liked him—he was so handsome with his narrow blue eyes and the way he held his body—his head high.

She would get him as she had got every other man she went after. She hadn’t failed so far.

Of course Ann Ashe was crazy about him and she’d have to cut her out—but all was fair in love and war. She would marry Henry Ashe and go to live in Stoneholt. It would be to her taste to live in the finest house in Fayette with the handsomest man. Yes, she would like that.

The waltz was over. Ann and Henry walked out of the hot room smelling of the flesh of men and women and on to the terrace and into the moonlight—into the cool night. The night air was a draft of perfumed element, rarified, delicious. Henry drew Ann’s arm through his. “Let us have a look at the ravine by moonlight.” Under the spell of the hour would he try another kiss? She hoped, she feared he would. The copper disc of the moon’s face lifted above the trees on the farther slope. “God, it is beautiful! I had almost forgot!” He looked up. “Locusts by moonlight—trees of heaven! ‘The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations!’ What do you make of that?”

Ann heard running steps and Esmeralda rushed up behind them. She laid a clutch on the shoulder of each. Her vigor parted them. “I’ve never seen the ravine by moonlight. Henry, take me down. You’ll wait for us, Ann. Only two at a time can make the steps, they’re steep. Come, Henry; you are host, you know; you can’t refuse.”

“Shall I go, Undine?”

“Undine?” Esmeralda laughed. “Of course she’ll say yes. The guest comes first.” Again she laughed her hot, eager laugh.

Ann knew she was trapped. Esmeralda had won the skirmish; worse than useless to make a scene, and set herself in the wrong, spoil the evening. Let them go. Tears burned her eyes; her throat ached with them. Love was fated to end like this; why had she hoped. Esmeralda would get him, if not now, she would get him. Laughter grew warmer on the rough steps. He would hold her, of course, to keep her from falling in the darkness. All sound ceased. Ann knew they were sitting together on the steps. Danger! The quiet edged Ann’s nerves more sharply than the laughter. She might die but she must look; amort, she must know. She leaned over the rock coping, far over. Esmeralda’s arms were tight around Henry’s neck, her head on his shoulder. Ann breathed hard. A stitch of pain under her ribs cut her breath, jerked her body. She drew back. The sharp movement raked a stone lying free on the coping. From a parapet of rock it fell into the void of the ravine. “It was my wish that loosed it, not I.” Ann heard a scream from below and another. “She isn’t dead, anyway!” Ann turned and ran. “I’m a coward! I’ve no courage! Let Henry see to her!”

As she ran she could hear the screaming. Esmeralda’s voice echoed in the ravine. “I saw her up there! I know she did it! Let go of me!”

Esmeralda got to her feet and ran unaided up the steps to the terrace level.

Henry followed, protesting. He took her arm. “Ann couldn’t have done it. The stone was loose and fell. Stones often fall there.” She paid no heed and her screams continued unchecked. “Control yourself.” Henry caught her shoulder. “Don’t behave like a fish-wife.”

“Shut up!” She slapped him in the face and ran to the house.

The dancers gave way, the fiddlers quieted, the dancing stopped. Henry watched as everyone crowded forward to know the worst; evidently delighted to be at the core of a social malignancy—to see Esmeralda in one of her tantrums.

“Order my carriage Sam!” Esmeralda swept out.

Sam shot through the door and came back in a hurry. Esmeralda’s carriage wheels underscored her going.

“Sam,” said Henry, “get me a drink. I’ve been pawed by something feline.”

“Yessir—that gal’s got claws like her old cat Beelzebub.”

“Well she won’t get another chance at me.”

“What was the matter Henry?” said his mother.

“She thought Ann threw a rock at her.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Of course—but she thinks she believes it. Here, take my glass, Sam. Where is Ann?”

“She’s coming,” said Sam.

Ann stood in the door, white, shaking.

Henry went to her and drew her out onto the terrace. “I want balm. I’ve had a taste of brimstone.” She turned to him; he held her close for a moment. “My poor baby, did she terrify you?”

“I terrified myself. My thoughts were not good.”

They walked under the lilacs. Above them the locusts were dusky pale against the sky. The moon was setting and stars beginning to shine low and brilliant. From the distant ground beyond the cabins came the throb of Negro singing. Henry stopped to listen. “It is jungle.”

“It makes me ache inside,” said Ann.

“Slave thought longing for freedom.”

“Not one of the Negroes was born free, none except old Aunt Jett, nearly a hundred years ago.”

“All remember in their singing.”

“I suppose so.”

“It’s a moving sound. Disturbs complacency. Shakes it.”

“When the moon is full and the night hot, then they sing.”

“This must be one of their jubilees.”

“Yes, they are cooking cabbage in the big pot and cornpone in the ashes. I’ll see that they don’t forget Aunt Jett. She would rather have her pot-licker than our cake or custard.”

Henry put his hand to his inner pocket. “I’ve got something in my flask; I’ll give her that.”

“She’ll love it.”

They walked to the door of the cabin. The stars hung very close in the purple sky. The cabin door was open and the last rays of the moon shone in an oblong on the rough boards of the floor. In the wide fireplace burned the embers of a never extinguished fire. Aunt Jett sat by it, her piercing, ancient eyes turned toward the light reflected it in gathered points of steel, savage, gleaming. “Aunt Jett, do you know who I am?”

“You’re my little Henry, my little boy-baby. Where you been all this time?”

“Far away, Aunt Jett, but I’m home for good now.”

Aunt Jett’s eyes shone with artful secrecy. She nodded her head and showed her ragged teeth. “Yes, she’s ready. You come in time.”

Henry turned the talk. “I’ve brought you a drink. Where’s your cup?”

“On the shelf, honey. Pour me out a good swig. Effen I had a good one, I could tell you things.”

“I’m sure you could.”

“Wouldn’t you like some cabbage and pot-licker?” said Ann.

“Honey, when I get a dram that’s all I want. And maybe they’ll bring me cabbage someway.”

“I’ll get yours. Hand me her bowl, Henry.” Ann took it and ran off toward the wood smoke and the singing.

“Aunt Jett,” said Henry, “are you comfortable? Have you a good bed?” He went to it and pressed it with his hand. “It seems all right.”

“Thankee, yassir good and soft. Deep feathers. Feathers is good things. And there ain’t a chinch in ’em though effen there was they couldn’t make no eatin’ on my old carcass. It’s thick as a alligator’s hide.”

“Not quite, Aunt Jett.”

“Ain’t you heard tell about that white man that built his cabin over a alligator’s hole?”

“No, Aunt Jett.” Henry lied readily; he’d heard it all his life. “That must have been before my time. What happened?”

“He and his wife and his chillen was asleep one night when he was woken up by a little screechlike.”

“An alligator?”

“The old sow alligator done farrowed a passel of young alligators and they were eatin’ one of the chillen.”

“Good God, Aunt Jett, that’s a terrible tale. Rough as Red Ridinghood.”

“Worser’n that.”

“Steady now!”

“The man jumped out the window and run for help.”

“Brave fellow!”

“When they got back and busted down the door, there warn’t nothin’ in the cabin—not a foreign thing—but alligators, little and big!” Aunt Jett wiped her mouth, turned to Henry. He cheered her on. It was a good story, a true story; everybody knew about it.

“Ann you’ve missed something,” said Henry as Ann came in with the cabbage, which gave off its pungent smell in the close air of the cabin. “No, it wasn’t baudry—this time.” He saw Ann’s face flame. Henry read the signal plain; the flag of shame;—embarrassed torment. Aunt Jett had surely told him something bad while Ann was gone. Aunt Jett’s talk was hard for a girl to bear—low talk. Henry smiled as he looked at Ann; he understood.

“I got hold of Big Tom,” said Ann. “He dipped into the pot with the iron spoon. The others didn’t see me; they were holding hands and singing. Tom rooted out a slab of cornpone too; you’ll have a grand supper, Aunt Jett.”

“Thank you, honey; thank you kindly. Set it on the shelf. It can wait.” She took a long drag on the whisky flask and wheezed with the rank strength of the liquor. When she got her breath, she said, “You young ones now be busy. Time is short. Life is short. Enjoy your ruttin’ season.”

“Aunt Jett, stop your lewd talking. Enough cousins have married already in Virginia and in Fayette. Some long heads say it’s bad practice.”

“Effen they’s poor stalks, it’s no good; effen they’s ripe and sappy, it’s the best thing goin’. You’re both ripe and you’re both sappy. So git goin’.” The old woman laughed and choked and Henry had to beat her on the back. Tears of laughter ran down her cheeks and settled in their leathern hollows. Aunt Jett was in a high mood; the whiskey had warmed her bones.

Henry took the flask and poured out the last drops into a cracked cup.

“Good night, Aunt Jett.”

Ann wanted Henry more than anything on earth yet Aunt Jett could fill her with disgrace, make her miserable and ecstatic in the same moment.

The locusts shook down white flakes; the nearer lilacs were heavy with scent.

“She’s ripe, Marse Henry. Take after her,” squeaked the old woman, still gasping with laughter. “Get goin’,” she called after them as they hurried through the darkness.

“What will Aunt Anabel think of our running away like this.” Ann panted as they ran side by side toward the house.

“She’ll never miss us; they’re still dancing.” He caught her to him. “Do you think Aunt Jett is right. Do you think. . . .?”

Ann’s knees gave under her. Her breath shortened. “Henry!” she sobbed, and went into his arms, her lips on his.

“Can you love me?” he whispered. “Enough?”

“All my life all my life. I’ve never loved anyone else.”

“I wanted you the minute I saw you in the green dress, like sea water.” There was a little moonlight left and she could bear to look into his eyes.

“You wear color like an oriflamme. Your lovely hair! I adore it!”

“You’ll kill me, Henry, you’ll kill me!”

She buried her head in his shoulder. “I’m dying this minute.”

He held her tight; almost too tight to breathe.

And yet Henry hadn’t come right out and asked Ann to marry him . . . even after he knew—after she admitted she loved him. No further word. Had she been too eager? Did he really love her or were those love words said under the lilacs evoked of moonlight and her own compliance or stirred by Aunt Jett’s bad stories.

These were days of exquisite torture. Each day that she was with him she loved him more. He must know—even if she hadn’t admitted it—he must understand; yet he said no further word. If he sat near her she trembled. If he touched her she felt an agony of joy.

Some days she thought he cared—and again she wasn’t sure. Would he speak—would he ask her?

And there was always Esmeralda—he might forget her tantrum and fall again under her spell. She was dangerous to Ann’s love as a lurking panther on the prowl.

Each day was a thousand days—each night wakeful and unending. “Oh Henry, love me, love me!”

At last he spoke—he told her; he asked: “Will you marry me beautiful being?” Late night it was—thick with spring perfume—heavy with desire. At last!

She thought all her senses would leave her. Love declared and demanding—seemed like a body blow. She gasped—but she said, “Yes!”

Next morning Ann opened her eyes upon creation as it was in the beginning—when God saw everything that he had made and behold—it was very good.

Ann opened her eyes. For this morning she was born; for the evening and the morning were the first day. Henry was hers; Henry, the handsome, the unapproachable, the adored. And here was the sunrise streaming in through the window over the gilded hills of the ravine.

“Oh, Milly, look! A sunrise sent to me out of time and space!”

Milly was busy with her bedclothes. She didn’t even look up. “Shucks, that old sun’s riz every morning just like this.”

“Never like this, Milly; never like this!” But Milly was gone after her water cans.

Ann lay still and let the glory spread over her; geysers of molten gold; volcanoes of flame; cataracts of liquid chrysoprase. Ann closed her eyes; love was a fearful joy; She flung her arms above her head; she spread her bright hair on the pillow. She wished Henry could see her now, dewy with sleep; flushed with waking.

Milly came in with the towels and with pitchers. She found Ann wide-eyed—her black lashes moist with tears.

“Oh, Milly, he’s mine!”

“Yeah! He told me last night you was as peart and sassy as a little shote.”

“Oh, Milly, he didn’t! You made it up!”

“Yeah, them was his very words.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Well if he didn’t say ’em he thought ’em.”

“He didn’t.”

“Anyways you throwed and tied him spite of that spitfire.” Ann buried her head in the pillow, “Milly, he likes my hair. I’m so happy I could die!”

“Don’t get that happy. It’s dangerous; and men ain’t worth it.”

In the sitting room, before the dim fire for cool spring mornings, they told Anabel. The keen smell of hickory logs mingled with the shine of the morning.

They had not told her last night; love was too fledgling to leave the nest of the unsaid. How would she take it—this marriage—mothers were sometimes jealous—oh, let us not be star crossed!

But it was plain that Aunt Anabel was pleased; that she had guessed. She even gave off a wintry smile and offered her cheek to be kissed. The matter had worked out as she wished.

Anabel took a key from her basket and handed it to Henry.

“I want Ann to have your grandmother’s engagement ring.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“You’ll find a velvet case in the top drawyer of the highboy in my room. Even you can’t miss it.”

“Thank you, Mother.”

“Besides the ring there are also a necklace and a bracelet. We’ll leave those for the wedding. Your grandmother wore her emeralds in the portrait over there your father set such store by.”

Ann looked up. “She was beautiful!” Ann walked across the room and stood looking at the portrait. “To think that I shall wear her jewels now—and she—.” Tears filled Ann’s eyes—life seemed so short, so strange. Henry left the room and Anabel stirred the fire and sat down.

“Youthful marriages are best.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“They help to keep a man from the fence corner.”

Ann bore it; there was nothing else to do.

“Aren’t they best for women?”

“Of course. A woman fades early. Morning is the time for mating.” Ann didn’t like that word; too astringent for her mood—too harsh.

“Aunt Anabel, love seems wonderful to me—the most wonderful thing in the world!”

“Of course.”

Anabel got up to look for something to do. There was always something.

“Love, you’ll find, is not everything it’s cracked up to be.”

“Yours was a love marriage!”

“Yes. But there are some things about that blessed estate I never liked.”

How could Aunt Anabel be such a blight! “I hope I shall like everything.”

“Don’t be too hopeful. Take this from me; all men are vile.” Anabel applied the phrase impersonally; as a flail to a field.

Ann was silent but resentful. Old women could spoil a day! First Milly, and now Aunt Anabel. To hear them talk you would think men were a lower order of creation. But love was not to be tarnished; not today.

Henry brought back the ring, a square-cut emerald set with old-mine diamonds. The ring fitted Ann’s slender finger; the jewels set off the tapering hand. Ann forgot her wound. “It is exquisite, Henry!”

Henry leaned down and kissed the hand, pressed it in his warm palms; laid it against the rough comfort of his sleeve between his arm and the full beat of his heart. Ann felt the strong pulse drive the blood into her own throat and up into her cheeks and forehead.

The lovers, their bodies pressed against each other, went out over the shadowed lawn, arm in arm, under the lilacs.

Noontime and Ham was cutting grass in the front yard. His sickle moved like a Bible song. It was a pleasant task and the sun on his back was warm and friendly. He loved the smart scent of the cut grass that filled his deep lungs; he liked to see the cropped sward spread under his gradual inroad; it was something like the goodness he felt in a slow dance. At times he would kneel to get a more easy swath. Ham was almost happy. The grass forced its way between his toes and felt soft and moist even to his thick soles. Today Ham was harmonious inside. His young master was home.

When Old Master gave Ham to young Henry—long time ago—he said: “He’s to be your boy, Son, and you are to see that he never suffers harm.” Ham heard him when he said it. Ham loved, he reckoned, most as a dog loves; humble-minded—trustful. He would never suffer harm—he knew. Old Master had said so.

Ole Miss often gave Ham cold chills; shudders ran up his backbone when she spoke sharp. He felt small and quick like a scuttling field mouse that skids by you.

“I feel like runnin’ fast when her grindstone eye gets on me; I feel like swivellin’ up; but Henry’s eye is different. His voice, too, is somethin’ you listen for and love; it goes into your ears and settles down around your heart and makes you safe-like.” Henry and Ham had played together through daytimes that seemed, those days, to cover the every-place and the no-place.

Today, Ham had a thought—without meaning to have it—for he always pushed that one way back in his mind—far back: the time the devil tempted him to steal two of Henry’s pennies. Ham saw them lying on the porch, shining bright. He picked them up and slipped them into his britches pocket just as Grubb came around the side of the back porch and caught him. Grubb had been watching—waiting.

“What’s that in your pocket?”

Ham pulled out, slowly, the two pennies—warm from his skin.

“I’ll teach you to steal, you young varmint!” Grubb swished the black snake whip out of his belt and gave Ham a slash about the skinny legs. Ham shrieked. A second swish came and the air shivered with screams.

Henry dashed out of the house; he fell on Grubb and caught his awful arm and held it. Ham could see him now. . . .

“Let go o’ my boy! He’s mine. You shan’t touch him! You shan’t, you shan’t!”

“All right, all right! Git offen me! This boy’s a thief; he stole your pennies. Here they are.”

Henry looked white; water in his eyes. “Here, Ham, you can have these.”

“I don’t want ’em!”

Grubb’s loose mouth said nothing.

“Take them, Ham.”

“No.”

Ham knew better. He moaned and rubbed the skin-and-bone of his legs where the welts were. “I’ll never take nothin’ no more!” And Henry said he knew Ham wouldn’t.

“Come on, we’ll get Aunt Jett to put her salve on your legs; she knows how to heal.”

Today Ham saw, like yesterday, Grubb sticking the whip in his belt as he left them. Push that thought way back—way back!

Ham had always lived with his grandmother, Aunt Jett, who was too old to work. When he was a baby he slept with her in the deep feather bed; but since he was six he had slept in the little lean-to at the side of the cabin. He had some feathers to sleep on and Aunt Jett pieced him many quilts, so that he was warm enough, though the wind came in and he could see the light through the chinks of the logs. Sometimes, on bright moonlight nights he would lie and watch the chinch-bugs scoot along the logs in the narrow strips of moonlight. Ham would dart on them and crush them in his strong fingers—and smell them. The chinches never hurt him; his hide, like Aunt Jett’s, was too thick to take note of a chinch. Its death was oblate, bloody, and good. Ham was glad when it happened; he enjoyed it. Henry wouldn’t like it. Henry wouldn’t tie a string around a June-bug’s leg!

That afternoon Henry went to town. He would be away for hours. Ann knew everybody in Fayette would want to hear about the far distant articulate lands; old world, so far away. He would be a long time telling his story; a long time sufficing Fayette.

Ann hoped Maxwell Meredith would forget his promise—his threat—to ride over to Stoneholt to see her—to talk about “something.” She never wanted to see him again—never.

Ann moved through the house—head in the clouds; heart beating hard. She looked at Anabel, cool and controlled; would she herself ever be like that—cool and controlled, she, who today was so keenly tense. She couldn’t keep still; restless; she went through the house with its mingled odors of lilac and woodsmoke; she ran upstairs to be soothed by Milly’s warm earth way, earth nearness; it comforted.

“Milly, I wish I could see the ocean today; it’s like love. I could float in it; swim in it!”

“Love might make you a floater, but you ain’t no swimmer, nohow; you ain’t learnt to be one—yet.” Milly snickered faintly but Ann caught the implication; she disregarded it.

“I’m an inland dweller, Milly, and I’ve a great longing for the sea.”

“Yeah you got lots of longings just now.”

“Milly, did you ever hear of the sea-island they called Atlantis?”

Milly scratched her head and screwed up her wrinkles. “The which?”

“That was where the flood happened and old Noah and Ham got in the ark and were saved.”

“I never heard tell that was the place.”

“It was the richest land in the world; great mountains shielded it from the north, and every kind of fruit and tree grew there. Some think it was the garden of Eden.”

Milly was big-eyed, now—open mouthed. “Shucks! Where was it?”

“In the Atlantic Ocean somewhere.”

Milly loved to be fed strange tales. “I ain’t never heard tell of it.”

“You are hearing now. One black day the whole island sank into the sea with everybody on it and only a few got away, like Noah and his wife and the rest.”

“Where you know all this learnin’, out the Bible?”

“The Bible tells about it and a man named Plato, too, he tells. Almost all the learning and the riches of the world perished when that island sank into the sea.”

“Good gracious alife! I’m glad I wasn’t there!”

“Milly, I think I’ll take a dip in our small water; I’ll go wading in the creek.”

“That’s more onderstandable. It’ll cool you off, maybe. You’re feverish with your lovin’.”

Ann kicked off her kid slippers and her stockings and Milly searched out the clogs under the bed. “Wear thesehere to the waterside; and you go mighty keerful; some of that creek’s deep water and you ain’t no swimmer, yet.”

Ann clattered downstairs and whistled to Murk who circled her with joyful barks.

“Ham, leave your sickle and come along. You can keep off the Indians.”

Ham lifted his sad eyes. “Lordy, Miss Ann, there ain’t none of them no more.”

“Come on, come on. You can dig wild flowers in the ravine.”

“Yassum, I’ll be along some time; but I gotter finish this swipe of lawn or Old Miss’ll wear me out.” He wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead.

“Finish it today was the word; and you know how she is.”

“All right. Murk and I will wade in the creek down by the willows.”

“It’s pretty deep down there some places; keerful you don’t git in over your head.”

“I know his creek from end to end. I’ll wade in the shallows where the smooth rocks are.”

“I’ll be along soon’s I kin,” moaned Ham. “I’ll be a-comin’.”

When he looked at Murk his eyes told Ann he wished he was a dog himself, frisking around with nothing to do but be happy. He wiped his nose where the sweat trickled down.

Ann stepped carefully on the rocky steps of the ravine. “Come Murk!”

Esmeralda’s shriek seemed to linger in the valley. Was it only days ago such danger threatened her love! It was like remembering purgatory in paradise.

The day had worn sultry; unseasonable for mid-May. Ann threw off her clogs under the willows and tried the water with her bare feet. It was delicious the descent into the warmish water; tepid on the surface, cool underneath. The flat rock of the bottom was slick with mossy smoothness; spinning, small insects made dimples on the rippled water; minnows darted, brushed her legs in skittered flight; a dragon fly sailed near, with no bad purpose though he looked dangerous; dangerous as a Lucifer of the insect world gorgeous and sinful.

After splashing at a distance Murk lay in the sun to dry herself and then dashed after a rabbit and disappeared.

Ann took off her morning dress and threw it on the bank under the willows. In her shift she felt free. The flat rocks with their growth of moss were softer to the foot than velvet. Here in the ravine she could move about untrammelled in the pleasant water.

There came to her ears a soft recurrent beat; somebody was coming; someone on horseback. They were hoof-beats she heard—hooves on soft earth, now close by.

She shielded her eyes with her hand. There was Maxwell Meredith—coming as he said he would come—on horseback. He was riding through the ravine to Stoneholt; the banks were lower farther on; a sharp climb to the terrace. He could make it.

Maxwell saw Ann. He waved and shouted; dismounted and hitched his horse.

What a sight she was! She must get to the willows where she threw her dress but she stepped from a ledge of slippery rock into deep water.

A long arm pulled her out; she had swallowed some creek mud and was choking a little.

“Trying to drown yourself Ophelia?” Maxwell threw his arms around her. He was very drunk.

“You want me—don’t deny it.”

“No—no! I’m going to marry Henry Ashe.”

“Maybe I’ll change your mind; here—now.” He swung her off her feet but she fought him with panic strength.

Murk on the hillside, must have sniffed trouble—smelt trouble. With incredible speed—without a sound—without the stir of a twig—she crept up on Maxwell and sank her teeth into his thigh. The attack was so sudden, the impact so sharp that Maxwell cried out. He loosed Ann and whirled on the dog with his heavy boots; got to his horse and sprang into the saddle.

Murk let him go.

Ann struggled up and Murk stayed by her side—close by—and bared her dog’s teeth in savage defence.

Although Maxwell was sodden drunk he held himself straight in the saddle—high up. Sullen and handsome and dangerous he looked down at Ann. With meaning he tore a pistol from his holster and took steady aim. Ann shut her eyes.

The shot reverberated in the ravine—the echoes repeating it; taking it up; throwing it back. Murk sprang into the air; fell, and lay still.

Maxwell raced down the creekside—black-browed and furious. He flung an obscene word over his shoulder as he smashed through the tall weeds, out of sight.

Ann heard Ham on the stone steps, flat-footed scrambling down. He broke through the heavy thickets. “For the good Gawd’s sake! What’s the matter?”

“It’s Murk—somebody shot her!”

With shaking fingers Ann put on her dress. “I think Murk is dead! I’m afraid to look—afraid.”

“She’s breathin’ Miss Ann.”

The jaybirds cursed each other in the tops of the willow trees. Ann’s mouth was full of the taste of creek water, her nostrils full; the grass and weeds smelt of mud. “Take Murk up; be careful!”

Tears ran down Ham’s cheeks. He lifted Murk in his arms and struggled up the rough steps. Ann followed. With desperate strength she fastened her clogs and climbed to the garden level.

“Keep quiet about this, Ham.”

“Yassum, yassum.” He staggered under the dog’s weight.

“We’ll take Murk to Aunt Jett; slip around to the cabin behind the lilac bushes.” They reached the door, unseen. Aunt Jett was waiting for them.

“Aunt Jett! Murk has been shot.”

“I heared it and I knowed. That shot wasn’t meant for no dawg.” Aunt Jett’s old eyes shone with knowing.

“Lay her here on the grass till I see if the slug’s still in her.” The old woman turned the dog with practiced fingers. They shook with age, but they were healing hands, Aunt Jett’s.

“The shot went thu’ her; clean thu’ her haunch.” Under Aunt Jett’s touch Murk quit moaning. She licked the black, twisted fingers. “It’s a blessin’ she ain’t full of pups.”

“Yes! She may have some before winter,” Henry says.

“She’s got gratitude; she’ll be all right.”

“Thank you, thank you, Aunt Jett. She’s Henry’s dog; he loves her.”

Ann threw herself on the grass by Murk’s side and sobbed.

“Don’t you grieve none, honey; Murk will be friskin’ same as ever in a few days. She’ll have to stay with her Aunt Jett for a spell. We’ll get along fine. Ham, you fix her that old quilt I got for my feet. The bleeding’s most stopped now. I’ve something to put on her that will make her feel fine.” Aunt Jett’s eyes were sharp.

“And don’t you do a lot of miratin’. This dog got shot accidental. That’s enough! And don’t you stray far from home these days. It ain’t healthy.”

“I won’t. I won’t. Henry will be coming here to see Murk. You tell him. I can’t tell him.”

“Don’t you try. Murk’s been hurt. Ask Aunt Jett; she knows, maybe. I’ll tell him rightly what he ought to hear. No more, no less.”

“Aunt Jett I love you.” Ann threw her arms around the old riven neck.

If Aunt Jett was touched she gave no sign. “Sneak upstairs before anybody sees you and get yourself straight. You can come see Murk this evenin’.”

Ann trailed up the back stairs, but Milly, on the alert, spied her and was big with question.

“I fell in the creek, Milly.”

“You look it!” Milly asked no more but washed Ann and dried her and tucked her into bed. “You is still shiverish. I’ll get you a toddy and I’ll tell your Aunt Anabel you got a headache.” Milly closed the door.

Ann pulled up the light coverlet under her chin. Her teeth chattered. Maxwell was drunk of course—drunk. Perhaps he wouldn’t remember. Except for Murk, he might not remember.

She loved Henry—only Henry. She would rather die than yield to Maxwell, but he was dangerous—provocative.

She and Henry would be married at once. There would be no more of Maxwell Meredith—no more.

The best saddle horse Esmeralda’s father owned was a fine-gaited black mare, Zenobia. The old man was proud of her. Esmeralda’s father seemed to think mainly of his horses and his growing fields, but above even these, of his quiet, his peace of mind; of this he had little: Esmeralda saw to it. She smiled indulgently on him but gave him painful and constant uneasiness. She looked at him as he pottered about and wondered if he had really been responsible for her being; if he had really begot her on her mother, a quiet nobody, or if, peradventure her timid mother had strayed too far from home some black night on the border of the Indian forest—and conceived there. That would explain things.

Today, while her father sat on the high porch, smoking to ease his mind, he gave a startled look as Esmeralda came down the steps ready for a ride on Zenobia—ready in her new riding habit.

Esmeralda knew she had lost both Henry and Stoneholt by her crude violence but she licked her wound with a rough healing. She confided often in Miss Pringle between dressing and undressing. “The Ashes think my family ordinary; common; I’ve heard the servants talking.”

“Yas,” said Miss Pringle, “I’ve heard ’em say so . . . . but you ain’t, Esmeralda. You are on-common and extry-ordinary. You got style and smash; more’n some of ’em’s got!”

“They even think I’m vulgar; my clothes don’t suit them. Well, let Henry go to the devil. With a hundred men hereabout—I should have enough.”

Miss Pringle sucked her tongue—her flat eyes widened, “Yes, there are plenty of men in the world.”

“I hate them! I loathe them all! But the Merediths, at least, are good to look at.”

Miss Pringle’s eyelids quivered, “Yes, the twin boys are buck size all right.”

“Maxwell’s got a shady name with women; but what do I care?”

“That’s right!” Miss Pringle’s little sharp tongue shot out of her mouth. Esmeralda knew Maxwell’s name cut her prying mind to the quick.

“I hear he throws a woman over mighty easy.” Miss Pringle’s eyes were sly.

“Leave that to me!” Miss Pringle panted and swallowed. Her little wattles reddened. “What are you laughing at Esmeralda?”

“At you.”

“Who, me?”

“Yes.”

She liked to tease Miss Pringle. “What do you think—one of those louts at the tavern threw my Beelzebub into the creek last night—tied a horseshoe to his tail—tried to drown him.”

“Maybe Beelzebub got too noisy on the back fence. I can hear him of damp nights.”

“Why shouldn’t he tell some kitten he’s crazy about her?” Esmeralda crossed her legs. “I can almost take the words out of his mouth. He’s like that preacher of Blandy’s who loves the ladies.”

“What an awful thing to say!”

Esmeralda stretched and yawned. “Well, I’m liking the Merediths these days—Maxwell—I can manage him . . . easy!”

“How do you do it Esmeralda? It’s your looks—and maybe it’s your ways—but how do you do it?”

“I don’t do anything!”

“That ain’t so—you know it.” Miss Pringle’s pointed tongue moved against her upper teeth. The teeth moved.

Esmeralda cringed and made for the door. “Look out, you’ll lose something! Goodbye!”

Miss Pringle felt of her teeth.

Although Esmeralda hinted at complaisance, Maxwell Meredith paid her no heed.

“We’ll fix that presently.” Esmeralda watched the Merediths dash by on their horses; they appealed to her intransigence and they were good to look at; no one could deny it.

“Beauty is what I want in a man; beauty and power; beauty to please me; power to fear—perhaps. I live as a fire lives; I hope there’ll be no flame when I’m gone—no ember.”

Henry had escaped. He could have qualified on all counts she felt sure. Now, the Merediths would be fair prey. She would meet them on their own plane and level; she had a plan. It must work speedily for the wound of Henry’s words still ached sometimes in the dark when her defenses were low; the hurt of that moonlight night in the ravine was not scarred over yet. Wounds were not to Esmeralda’s liking; the plan must work with haste.

Since the Merediths seemed to live on the hoof and rarely touch ground with their two feet, the first trial should be on horseback. Esmeralda called on Miss Pringle to cooperate and Miss Pringle was primed and ready. She cut and skin-fitted a riding habit of scarlet cashmere. Esmeralda was sure Miss Pringle imagined herself in those eel-fitting trousers that were hidden under a voluminous, trailing skirt. Esmeralda liked the riot of brass buttons Miss Pringle sewed in double rows that led the eye over the sumptuous curve of bosom and down to the slender rim of her waist. About her neck Esmeralda twisted a gold-colored India scarf that would billow in the wind when she rode; her riding cap of scarlet cashmere leaned at a discreet angle over the sleek hair and black arched brows.

“I’m a bird of paradise,” she hummed as she saw herself in Miss Pringle’s cracked mirror; as she turned to get a backward glance at the movement of her hips.

“They won’t resist me long!” It amused Esmeralda that she didn’t separate the twin brothers in her plan of attack; they seemed to hang together, self magnetized.

“They won’t hold out!” said Esmeralda, watching Miss Pringle’s eyes—she knew Miss Pringle imagined herself in those tight trousers riding to victorious love.

“I’m on my way!” Esmeralda shut the sagging door with a bang that shivered the hinges and seemed to send Miss Pringle almost to the verge of a fit.

Esmeralda’s father watched her as she came down the steps in her new habit. She blew him a kiss and ordered the groom to bring Zenobia to the stile. She mounted and sat in state poised for adventure.

“Be careful of my mare, daughter. Don’t break her gaits, she’s a fine animal.”

Esmeralda neither heard nor heeded. She curveted down the street, well content with the stir she made; excitement kindled her to high pitch and tension. This was life, charged, potent. She looked at the silly girls dawdling in afternoon frocks and gave them scornful pity. “They’re dead already; dead. Why do they take the trouble to breathe?”

Esmeralda rode like an Indian; fearless, provocative. She boasted that she used a saddle for looks and style; no horse could throw her though many had tried.

“I’ll canter around town till the boys start for home.”

She circled the tavern and put the mare through her paces. Men, on the sidewalk, smoking, made bawdy remarks. She half heard and definitely understood, but she did not care.

She veiled her black eyes to a narrow, gleaming line.

Half an hour later the Merediths banged out of the back barroom and mounted for their wild ride to the foothills. A negro groom held their horses; two matched roans hardly broken to the bit.

“They burn up the turnpike scandalous!” Esmeralda heard the boy mutter as she saw the Merediths shear down the road at top speed—the dust smoking over their heads. She knew they had few contestants for pace and no aspirants to intimacy. There came her clatter of hooves behind them. They peered over their shoulders to see the black horse and flaming rider bear them down. They drew rein with looks of disfavor while Esmeralda, like a puny afreet, flashed from the cloud of her own dust and pushed between them laughing and slant-eyed—audacious.

“Zenobia wants to meet her gentlemen friends!” Esmeralda gasped with excitement and smother, as Maxwell gave her a hard stare.

“Tell her to practice at the stud. The stud’s the place for females.”

“Take that, you cur!” Esmeralda swung her arm and struck his shoulder a hard blow. As she leaned over, Maxwell caught her off balance and with tremendous strength jerked her from the saddle and set her behind him. Her long riding skirt tangled her knees and her tight bodice held her like mail.

Although his nearness was a challenge, she felt the scorn of the man’s intention. She kicked and screamed and held to him with one arm while with her free fist she pounded on his back.

Without warning Maxwell gave his horse the sudden spur and Esmeralda slid off the sweating rump into the thick stifle of the turnpike.

“You should hold on! You shouldn’t let go! You did it, yourself!” Maxwell turned in his saddle and laughed and laughed again. At the curve of the road he laughed once more; he threw back his head and disappeared in the dust; loud laughing. Marion didn’t follow him.

Tears of range ran down Esmeralda’s cheeks; she swallowed dust; dust covered her from head to foot. She cried with her mouth wide open, panting for breath.

“The dog!” She could smell sweat under her arms; she didn’t like it; all Maxwell’s fault, ruining her riding habit. It would never be the same again. Maxwell’s fault! She was furious, but beneath her flare of hate she knew that Maxwell would not forget her; not now.

Marion got off his horse and brushed the dust from Esmeralda’s trailing skirt.

“Let me alone! You’re choking me to death!” All that dust in her mouth—down her gullet—she couldn’t breathe. Zenobia stood patient, waiting. Marion lifted Esmeralda by the waist and put her in the saddle.

“As though I couldn’t jump it myself!”

Damn Maxwell! He had even burst her riding breeches—torn them—raggedly exposing her, underneath; even if her skirt concealed—She didn’t like the feel of it. She settled her cap and straightened her bodice. She looked down at Marion.

“You do make amends for your brother’s brutality.”

“Maxwell shouldn’t have done that.”

“Ho, you think he shouldn’t!”

“You are in love with him.”

“In love! I’d like to break—”

“You are mad because he slid you off; would make any good rider mad.” Marion’s lips twitched; she knew he was trying to keep a straight face; he wanted to laugh too, but he wouldn’t.

“I hate him!”

“Maybe so; but you are in love with him; or beginning to be; I know the signs; women are wild to be manhandled by Maxwell; but it gets them nowhere.”

“O, indeed!”

Marion laid his hand on Zenobia’s sweating neck. The squirrels cavorted over the rock fences and up into the trees; little lizards stuck out their swift bright heads between the old moss-furred stones. Marion’s shirt was open at the throat; God was good to him when he made him; his smell was good, too, Esmeralda liked it; leather and pleasant body smell.

“Let me tell you something,” he said. “Maxwell has a cold heart; all he wants is a woman; and then he’s through.”

“Fine talk about your brother!” Esmeralda narrowed her eyes. “I’d like to cut his throat!”

“That’s only a symptom.” He patted the mare’s neck gently. Yes, Marion was good to look at; his curls were light brown and his eyes a soft azure; while Maxwell’s curls were black and his eyes hard and bright as obsidian.

“I own, I do like him. He’s good looking and masterful.” She took a long breath.

“Now you’re good looking, but you’re not masterful. Women want a man they can worship or murder with equal relish.” Marion stroked his cheek and looked away.

“Let him alone, Esmeralda; he’s better off without you.”

“Thank you Mr. God; and how about you?”

“I take care of myself.”

Esmeralda stuck her tongue in her cheek, “Yes—perhaps.”

“Maxwell and I understand each other. That’s enough for us. Together, we are more than two; separate—we are less than one. Don’t come between us, Esmeralda.”

“Perverse, that’s what you are.” She drew away from him.

“You are a beautiful woman, Esmeralda. I could love you myself, but I won’t; because of him—or maybe to save my own skin.”

Esmeralda looked toward him and laughed in her throat; good humor came back to her.

Marion’s eyes were grave. “You couldn’t be happy with Maxwell. Nobody can—nobody but me.”

“Ha, ha, let me try.”

Zenobia stamped with resigned patience. Marion smoothed her soft nose, and looked away.

“I love him—I suppose you’d call it that—I can’t think of living without him.” Esmeralda’s lips parted to show her white teeth.

“It’s nothing but your twinship; it’s blood, not love.”

“I don’t know how much he cares; he’s like an iceberg; but—you are right—twinship; we have it—one heart beat.” Esmeralda, listening, knew Marion was almost talking to himself. “I’d give my life for him any time.” He snapped his fingers. “Any minute—if he were in a tight place.” Marion half smiled and Esmeralda saw a shine of tears on his lashes. She flouted the soft moment.

“O, shut up, Marion, you make me madder than I was!” She remembered the Greek statue in her history book—Praxiteles made it—the archaic smile. Marion had that smile at the lifted corner of his lips. He laughed and looked up at her; his eyes took her fancy; handsome eyes; soft eyes; he was disarming—his forehead beaded with sweat—a grime of dust across his cheek. He had the same body frame as Maxwell, the same features Maxwell had; but they were Maxwell’s with a difference—and that big difference was Marion. He appealed to her as he stood there.

“I can’t tell now, which of you I want—since you won’t be separated—it’s hard to decide. Half of a man would hardly hold me; more than two might be enough.”

“Leave Maxwell alone; I can take care of myself.”

“O, you’re sure? And you think Maxwell can’t?” Esmeralda laughed; she knew her rich laugh stirred Marion; she saw his cheek flush. She gave Zenobia the rein; it was time—time to go.

“Take care of your twin!”

She flung Marion a dazzling smile and left him standing in her dust.

He would walk back to the tavern on foot—a dusty walk. His horse had followed Maxwell’s long ago.

Anabel Ashe went up into the garret at Stoneholt; a dim place, the receptacle of the overflow of things that might be of use in a land where things must be safeguarded against emergency and mischance. Anabel loved her things—her slaves—her power. Yes, she had knuckled to old John when he was alive; not because he demanded it but because of female status—and male rule—the mores—the sex-law. For her, that was all gone now—dead and done for. She was free. Free to live her life herself. She would live it to the hilt. And Henry was not to challenge that right—with a male claim to supremacy. She had now taken over.

Slaves! The foundation of her empire. The solid rock and bedrock of the Peculiar Institution. She looked out over the rock fences—divisive and binding lines; symbol of Stoneholt. The whole structure of the South would collapse without slaves—to pile stones. The whole system would disintegrate. The South would go to pieces; and neither Henry nor his father had the brain or the guts to realize it.

Abolition meant the wrath of God. Fooling with it was fooling with the thunderbolts of doom. One bolt might set off massacre—Stoneholt in ruins—the South a shambles. . . .

Anabel as landowner—of three rich farms—felt herself to be a guardian of the Gate. An angel with a flaming sword couldn’t have been more dedicated than she. Stand for the Institution she would; and having done all—she would stand. Her word would be the last word in matters of the farm.

Along the side of the attic walls were driven wooden pegs where clothing hung—too good to go to the servants; too good to throw away. Trunks and chests stood about, ready and capacious, lined with tobacco leaves, waiting for the woolens that would soon fill them. When she entered the close-shut room, the movement of air from the door set the hanging garments in motion and added a ghostly stir to her thought. She opened a leather trunk, locked for twenty years against memory. The old leather gave off a dry, dead smell of age and faded things. Anabel looked into the trunk as she might have looked into a tomb; within was the abstract of the cycle of a life. There was her wedding dress, the brocade taking on a patina of cream, the veil of lace her uncle sent her from Paris still holding its precious filaments, the futile heelless slippers—all visible signs of faded love; of time, defacer, destroyer. With sudden hurt she drew in her breath between closed teeth. “I am Anabel Ashe! I am myself! No longer half of a man; no longer dependent; weak willed. Let youth go; youth, forever longing! Longing for what—happiness—delusion! Longings would be sharp still if I gave them a chance!” She pushed back the curl over her ear. “Beauty and softness and youth aren’t the only potency of women; there are grit and gizzard to reckon with. The will to power is better than any feeble dependence on whims of men. Happiness! Delusion! There are compensations, thank God. And above them all, freedom! I am free at last!” She lifted the lovely length of the bridal dress and laid it over her arm. The veil clung to it. She took out the satin slippers, closed the trunk, and made the steep descent to her room. The bridal garments would await Ann’s return from town; they would surprise her.

Anabel did not know that Ann had gone to Mr. Clemence’s to look for wedding finery. Mr. Clemence was desolate, his apologies profuse. He hadn’t a length of satin or brocade to offer, not even to so lovely a bride as Miss Ann herself. Esmeralda had been in the day before and had bought every inch of satin he had on hand.

“Esmeralda?”

“Don’t you know? She’s to be married to Maxwell Meredith first day of June. She buys like a drunken sailor. It’s good her father is a rich, old man; she’d ruin him, else.” Ann felt that Mr. Clemence saw the shadow in her eyes; that it gave him subtle pleasure. “It’ll be the biggest wedding in these parts, they say.”

Ann turned to go. “I’ve no wish to compete with Esmeralda. Henry doesn’t want a big wedding.”

“His wish is law, I suppose?”

Ann edged away without replying. Mr. Clemence looked gleeful—it was plain to see he gloated—even the rich had troubles. Ann got into the carriage. “Sam, drive to Mr. Craig’s on the other side of town.”

“The preacher’s? Him that’s got that peart little rat-tarrier dawg?”

“Yes.”

Sam mumbled under his breath; Ann thought he caught the drift of things. She settled back on the cushions. It was like Esmeralda to measure her wedding against Ann’s; to measure the most pretentious show Fayette would ever see, against a quiet ritual on the terrace in the dew and sunset. Did Esmeralda still love Henry? Was this marriage her answer to his retreat? And Maxwell! Had he wilfully risked her own undoing or was that morning’s business the issue of unplanned chance and opportunity? Perhaps Maxwell was too drugged with drink to remember afterward what happened at the creek. At least Murk gave him a sharp authentic fang of fact. This marriage would remove, she hoped, two violent agents from the quiet authority of her life; she thought of Maxwell’s sultry beauty, the snare of appetence set for the unwary; she might have fallen plunder, prey, had it not been for Henry, and for Murk. The spell was potent, the enchantment lurid. She had escaped! Was her thanksgiving tinged with unease? Forget it!

As the carriage wheeled along Ann felt the fluid movement of time carrying her toward marriage with Henry; marriage, the sharp focus of her wish. She wished yet she feared it. Her struggle with Maxwell had been unsettling. And Aunt Anabel, did she know of secret, hidden disasters? Ann’s heart beat hard—soon she would enter the core of life, stand naked in the presence of Love Almighty; a rite solemn and terrifying, still invested with tribal veils of mystery and horror. Cold, shadowy fears trembled within her. She would like to rest on the verge of passion; each day her love for Henry seemed dearer—more precious. She wanted to want him—but not to give, or have, more than the want; the desire—any more was frightening. All this disquiet had been hers perhaps in eleatic ages past—in other marriages—in other lives—all this anxious wish that urged her on—on toward her wedding day—hurrying her, quickening her heartbeat.

Mr. Craig must be notified. Esmeralda would have her own minister of course, an Evangelical. Ann wearied of the continual wrangle of Northern Church with Southern Church over Slavery and Abolition, bad taste, disorderly, irreligious. She would have none of it. John Craig would have none of it. Religion on the Frontier was on many levels. Some of the camp meetings made Ann shudder. If that were religion, God help it! Crass hunger for excitement! Frenzy!

John Craig was in his garden when Ann drove in. He came down the path and opened the carriage door for her. “This is an honor, Miss Ann,” he said as he bent over her hand. What his life had been before he came to Fayette no one knew. Ann looked at his impressive figure. If he were in England now he would be robed and sacerdotal. In the pulpit his dialectic was striking. His talents lay fallow here, in the little church on the edge of the wilderness. The excesses of the evangelical sects, she knew, filled him with disgust. Had his taste been of a shabbier calibre he could have shone in the fire-and-brimstone oratory Fayette delighted in. Uncle John called him a Boanerges of the backwoods.

“It’s good to see you, Mr. Craig,” Ann smiled, “and how is little Midnight?”

He lowered his voice to a whisper. “She is in season and is lingering on the porch. At this time, when she is after the manner of women, I think she is jealous of lady visitors.” He called softly, “Come here, Midnight.” A small, black-and-tan terrier waddled down the steps. John Craig looked at her with tender eyes. “She loves me too much. To be happy one should be moderate in the affections. Sometimes I think she is not happy. Speak to Miss Ann, Midnight.” Midnight sat on her haunches and gave two sharp barks in greeting or reproof. Ann reached out her hand.

“I’ve brought her a sweetmeat!” Midnight smelt of it doubtfully.

“Eat it, Midnight,” said her master. “She has a suspicious nature.” With hesitation, delicately and morosely, Midnight ate it. “Ah, she takes it from you! Here is the hypostasis of faith! She does not eat from any hand but mine!” Midnight’s small jaws clicked viciously. John Craig, with a gesture of benediction, laid a tapering finger on her stony little skull. The immense ring he wore caught the light.

“Love is a wonderful thing, Mr. Craig.” His soft eyes sharpened for a moment, but Ann’s smile was warm and kind. “I’m going to be married on the tenth of June. I want you to read the service of course.”

“God bless you, my child! Who is to be your husband?”

“My cousin, Henry Ashe.”

“This is a marriage of good omen. Many marriages will be made in June. I have hope for them; this one has promise.”

“Esmeralda and Maxwell also this June.” She wanted to know what he thought.

“My judgment is hardly in suspension there. They are magnificent animals.” He paused a moment. Ann waited on his word. “The boy is reckless.”

“Maybe she’ll reform him, Mr. Craig.” Ann spoke the stock phrase without conviction.

He shook his head. “They are two frenetic natures; they will cause problems wherever they go.”

Ann felt it was time to turn the talk to her own plans. “We’ll send for you on Wednesday, the tenth. We’ll be married on the terrace at Stoneholt at sundown. I came today instead of Henry because I wanted to see you, and little Midnight, too.”

Midnight rumbled a growl. “She often does that when her name is spoken. She is psychic.” He looked at the little animal with concern. “Do you think she is a trifle too portly?” Ann hesitated. “For her own good, I mean.”

“I think she’s wonderful,” said Ann, claiming private reservation.

“You know how to please a parent.” John Craig smiled with serene joy. His eyes were moist.

Ann waved good-by from the carriage window; her mind still busy with Maxwell and Esmeralda. Frenetic, he called them. Could these wilful spirits blend their passionate ways and be at peace! Again she saw Maxwell, his black curls tossed in the wind as he dashed away after shooting Murk. The twin brothers, handsomest men in all Fayette; six feet six. Her breath caught at sight of them as they swung out of the inn yard or rode at breakneck speed on the pikes. The marriage would break up an inseparable partnership, a subtle blood bond. Ann wondered what Marion thought.

At Miss Pringle’s Ann stopped to see her trousseau, now in making, cambric nightgowns, chemises, linen petticoats, cotton drawers. Poor little Miss Pringle—Ann knew she stitched till late at night with needle thrusts impaling her thwarted desires.

Today Miss Pringle had a spate of gossip of Esmeralda and her coming wedding. “How’ll she like being tied to one man? Everything with pants on has been after her. How’ll she settle down to one?” Ann let the talk rattle on. There was no stopping it; and like all scandalous prate, it had a sharp tang Ann savored. “I hope he’ll stay sober long enough to get spliced,” Miss Pringle quavered. “He’s been in town today drinkin’ stuff that would eat the horns off a billygoat, swearin’ there are Abolitionists hereabout, helping runaways; bawlin’ that he’ll break their necks if they start any funny business here in Fayette, yellin’ his head off. Sometimes I think he don’t care if Esmeralda marries him or not. They do say she run after him scandalous.”

“I thought every man in town was in love with her.”

“You can call it love! The Merediths they say, let her alone.”

“Are you making many things for her?”

“Gracious yes! More than you could shake a stick at. They’ve mostly all gone home, but here’s the one she ain’t took yet—the big one.” Miss Pringle turned down a ragged sheet to show a gold-colored brocade of great elegance. “She looks gorgeous in it. What do you think—she’s goner git married in it! She says no white shroud for her. I tell her it’s too much color for a weddin’; but she can’t have too much; she gits drunk on color; she wallers in it.”

“Mr. Clemence told me he had sold her all his white satin.”

Miss Pringle threw back her head and laughed, showing her discolored teeth. “She’s usin’ that white satin to make underclothes, shimmies. Did you ever hear of such doin’s in your life?”

“No, never! I wonder if she will like life in the foothills?” Miss Pringle tore with her teeth a selvage edge. It made a screaming noise.

“Like it! The bull’s pizzle! Of course she won’t like it! They say,” she whispered, “the niggers out there are dead scared all the time! They do say. . . .”

“Don’t tell me, Miss Pringle, I can’t bear it! Cruelty in the South, or anywhere!”

“It gives them Abolitionists a chanct to spit their pizen.”

“I must go, Miss Pringle.”

“Hope you’ll like your things. They ain’t quite ready to try on. You’re goin’ to have some pretties, too. You’ll look lovely in ’em! You’ve got the whitest skin I ever seen undressed.”

Ann left with the spike of Abolition wounding her thought. She liked to rest on the warm, pungent cushion of slave labor, slave life, that absorbed the shock and brunt of hardship; she loved the Negroes and felt the injustice of human levels, codes, and practice. The matter was beyond her; beyond solution—one of those things for which there was no answer.

None of the Ashe clan was included in the invitations to the wedding of Esmeralda, who considered the omission a delectable snub. The Ashe family took the blow calmly. But after all, a wedding in church was a public affair and all the town went to Esmeralda’s wedding. Aunt Anabel said she wouldn’t miss it for a farm.

“Come along Ann, don’t be foolish! What do you care what she thinks? Sam, hitch up! We’re going!”

Of course Henry wouldn’t go; you couldn’t persuade him.

Ann’s seat was next to Miss Pringle’s; near the front. Miss Pringle with her blue checked apron off and a hat on, seemed irrelevant, unnatural. She kept whispering to Ann.

“I’m all in a swivet! I buttoned her up and then I run over. I’ll have to run back to unbutton her. I’m in a lather! She’ll never get out of that outfit, herself! And no nigger can undress her. Oh, look! Maxwell is sponge-drunk; and, for once, Marion is sober, bone sober. The preacher won’t know which one is answering.”

Burning with curiosity Ann watched; attracted—repelled. For an instant she caught Maxwell’s eye on her. It gave her a giddy feeling; afraid of him still. But surely not. Not now.

She knew Esmeralda, in her golden dress was enjoying the shock she gave society.

The bridegroom and his best man set the startled town girls whispering, their tongues wagging, their minds in a dither.

“Handsome! Oh—and six foot six—and you can hardly tell them apart!” Ann heard the whispering.

Maxwell was blurred in speech; Ann could see he wasn’t too well aware of what was going on. She heard Marion prompt him more than once—and even answer for him. The deaf old preacher didn’t notice.

At the end—the long-drawn end of the sacramental rite—Maxwell clutched the bearded, straggle-haired minister and kissed him. Esmeralda caught Maxwell by the arm and rushed him out a side door. She shoved him into her carriage and turned him over to the servants.

“Carry him home, Marion! Put him under the pump. Sober him up!”

Marion got in beside Maxwell and Esmeralda followed in another carriage, with Miss Pringle to unbutton her. Esmeralda sat straight and tense, in her golden gown, looking out into the night. Milly said Miss Pringle peeked from the carriage window, as mute as a mud-fish.

Ann heard gossip from the foothills; negro stories.

Marion came and went; Miss Pringle told Ann he seemed like a lost soul—but the bride and bridegroom hid themselves.

Marion made no report on the doings at the farm. The old man, Esmeralda’s father, looked at him wistfully but asked no questions as Marion gathered up Esmeralda’s black tom-cat, thrust him into a bag under his arm and carried him off scratching and howling like malignant hell until he escaped on the road and was never heard afterward.

Ann and Miss Pringle and the whole town waited; bided their time; a hopeful aspersion gathered; soaked up scandalous moisture. Scandal was accruing and scandal was the bloodstream of drama in Fayette; to dull adventure it gave life and vigor. Ann and Miss Pringle and all the town loved it.

Ann ran up the long stairway, her long train lengthening behind her; spreading down the stairs, making beauty of her slimness, her grace.

For this night she was born; for this night out of all nights of moon and earth; she was ready—almost ready—to meet it, all of it. Yes all! What did they call it in the great and ancient wise books of the world? Oblation—oblation of virginity? It would be right—with Henry—an offering, an offering up of everything she was or had been or could ever be—to Henry; to love. Of course Ann knew about animal life on the farm—but that couldn’t kill romance—nothing could.

Aunt Anabel said all the courting and the rainbow colors were only a snare, a lure. It wasn’t true of their love; theirs was different because Henry was different.

For a moment her mind slipped back into childhood—into the fog of long ago. Mother always ill; Father always worried; no happiness at home; only joy to run over to Stoneholt to dear Uncle John’s; to hero worship young Henry; to trot around after Henry and Tom Gaitskill—under their feet, unwanted. And now with a turn of the wheel of time, both Tom and Henry wanting her; she, the unwanted. Tom she liked; and if there had never been a Henry she might have liked Tom enough; but not now—never now. Henry was her own—forever. . . . Tonight was a bubble out of the pool of miracle. It almost couldn’t be true. . . .

Ann and Henry were married on the terrace at Stoneholt; the sunset was not quite gone and the birds overhead were busy with their muted twilight song. It was a golden hour with clouds and a pale moon-rising and no stars yet.

Ann wore Aunt Anabel’s brocade with the lace veil draped over her bright hair.

“Milly, it tones it down. . . .” Ann looked in the mirror, and Milly nodded and said yes.

Aunt Anabel brought out the family jewels—the necklace and the bracelet—grandmother’s emeralds. She said they became the child; looked well on the intense whiteness of her skin. If Aunt Anabel thought she knew the answer to romance, she would let them have it; would let them learn.

After the ceremony John Craig kissed Ann’s forehead. “You’re a fair bride, my dear.”

When Ann looked into his eyes she saw there something that sent the tears into her own eyes; a shadow of pain; but he must hurry home now, little Midnight would be lonely. Ann was glad that he smiled when he said good-by.

She was at the head of the stairs now; she leaned over the banister to claim Henry’s last approval. He looked up. In his eyes she saw reflected her beauty, flushed and shining and half fearful—her youngness and anxious love; she felt them catch at his breath—quicken his heartbeat—humble him. She saw tears in his eyes. Henry loved her. Everything was right.

Milly opened the bedroom door; held it wide; and the wedding was over.

“Milly, was everything right—was I. . . .”

“Right as a trivet and pretty as a puffin!”

“Oh, Milly, a puffin isn’t pretty!”

“Sounds pretty!”

“I hope Henry will remember. . . . I hope he’ll not forget.”

“I saw him rememberin’ right sharp.”

Ann laid away the gems in their velvet case. She thought of grandmother—long gone—long dust in the ground; her jewels bright and shining as ever—and she, Ann, alive and wearing them tonight—another bride—loving and being loved—living.

Milly lifted the lace veil and undid the tight bodice of the brocade and let it ease to the floor, rich and heavy, into the thick folds of the train. Then she carried the bridal symbols into the south room and laid them straight and careful on the big bed where Aunt Anabel could find them and carry them up to the garret and put them away in the leather trunk.

When Milly came back Ann had on her cambric nightgown—ready for bed. She was breathing very fast and her heart beat even faster. Milly turned the covers and Ann climbed up and Milly covered her with the cool linen sheet.

“Well, honey, I got to move outer here in a gawdamity hurry! I’ll sleep in the little room where you can call me. I’ll be in here early in the morning—but I’ll knock, good and keerful, and give you plenty of time to say come in.”

Ann caught Milly’s apron; tears were on her flushed cheeks, “Don’t leave me, yet, Milly!”

“Now, Honey, there ain’t nothin’ to be afraid of; thishere’s just nature—that’s all!”

“Oh, Milly!” But Henry was knocking.

“Good Gawd, I got to git away from here! Goodnight honey!” And Milly scrambled out and shut the door tight—just as Henry came in.

Next morning Milly had a big clatter of cans and heavy knocking at the door. Ann followed her into the dressing-room where Milly would sleep now out of respect for marriage privacy.

“Don’t wake Henry yet. Let him sleep a little longer.”

“Ole Miss will squeal like a pig under a gate effen he’s late for prayers.”

“Well, call him then; but he’s tired—after yesterday.” Milly grinned.

“Yeah!” Milly approached the bed and looked down at her young master.

“Wake up Marse Henry! It’s agoin’ on six.”

“Yes, Milly—just another wink!”

“That’s dangerous!” But she let him take it.

“He’s shore good to look at . . . but he ain’t so sleepy headed; he just gits kinder bored-like.”

A shadow crossed Ann’s mind. “I hate to think so, Milly; I’ve got to keep him happy; that’s my problem, now.”

“You got a hard row to hoe, honey. That boy-child was always a moody baby. Just like his daddy; you can’t never tell what he’s thinkin’. Even me—I can’t tell.”

Ann looked in the mirror of the bureau, her elbows on the coolness of the marble top. She looked long in the glass. She was still Ann; but no longer Ann Overley; she was now Anne Ashe. Her eyes would surely say it; shy eyes, this morning; her breathing would tell; even her heartbeat, full and strong.

“Milly, do I look the same?”

“Yeah, honey, I couldn’t know it on you.”

“I’m Ann Ashe, today, not Ann Overley any more.”

“You’ll never be ag’in what you was yestiddy. And it wasn’t too bad—like I said?”

“No, Milly.”

Ann’s eyes looked shyer than ever. Milly could always ease you when she wanted to; almost like easing a baby; she knew how to do it.

Ann was down promptly at six o’clock ready for prayers. Neither wedding nights nor mornings after could alter the routine of Stoneholt.

Ann slipped in and seated herself on the long sofa. Anabel offered her cheek but took no special notice of the newly married state. In the sitting room at six, Ann felt—as she always felt—the air thick with sanctimonious unction.

There were Milly and Sam and Ham and Lucinda in dark cluster, longfaced and solemn, their backs straight against unyielding chairs; stiff against the wall.

The room itself and its furnishing spoke to Ann with pleasant comfort; the slow fire in the cool room even in summer; the windows, deeply set, that dimmed the sunlight, the old furniture, mellowed by time—each piece from Virginia or direct from England, the widely framed gilded mirror over the mantel, the bridal portraits on the wall, the wide secretary filled with books whose mellow bindings blessed the light. Ann liked the comely and even humble objects of household purpose that lay about the room; all dealt with some interest of life at Stoneholt.

This morning Anabel wore a faintly martyred expression as she sat in the great wing chair, Bible open on her knees, waiting. Her finger tapped the page.

“Where’s Henry?”

“He’ll be down in a moment.”

“Late for prayers! Milly, ring him down.”

Milly got up grumbling under her breath, “Thesehere bridegrooms sleeps of mornings. . . .”

“Shut up, Milly! Ring him down!”

Milly shuffled into the hall, and two brazen crashes ripped the air. They would wake any bridegroom no matter how sleepy-headed. Ann shuddered at the harsh sound. Stoneholt demanded crude practice, sometimes hard to bear.

In a moment Henry entered, without word or haste. He was a royal being not subject to regulation. The room brightened at once. He kissed his mother and turned the light of his smile on her. She shifted her head with cool deterrence. Ann’s heart cried out: How can she do that? “Don’t let it hurt you, Henry!” How could she resist him!

Henry sat down by Ann on the sofa. Deep inside herself she felt her love for him; her fulfillment, her content. He leaned over and kissed her lips. His nearness warmed her, thrilled her; she throbbed and trembled when he touched her. It was strange, today, very strange; his touch, his nearness—new, wonderful, deep. Love was worth all its cost—worth living; worth having.

After a breath of slightly mitigated displeasure Anabel began the lesson.

“Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond maid and the other by a free woman.” Henry knew this was selected for his special case. His mother droned on, each word of equal weight and gist.

“Nevertheless what saith the scripture. Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.”

Henry had travelled far away by the time his mother took to her knees. Anabel wouldn’t waste her own words even on the Lord: “Heavenly Father, look down on us, both bond and free; pardon us and bless us and save us for Christ’s sake, Amen.”

Henry felt the merciful shifting of weight from the heart as the bond and free rose from their knees; as Milly lifted The Book from Anabel and laid it on its separate table; a plenary act that might have functioned in some hoary rite. The servants—unobtrusive, self effacing—filed out of the room.

Anabel looked at Henry with veiled reproach.

“Late for prayers.”

Anabel drew in her lips, “No one is late for prayers in my house.”

If Henry felt the chill he gave no sign. “You are getting on with your voyage through Scripture; Epistles; almost to port.”

“You should know that voyage by heart.”

“I know leagues of it but I’ve had a change of line.”

“Caused your thought to wander?”

“Why deny it.”

With her forefinger, Anabel pushed a curl to its place behind her ear. Henry knew, of old, the gesture: vexation—fret. “I hope it didn’t wander this morning.”

“It was fairly tethered. Of course you were aiming at me.”

Anabel’s knitting needles clicked hostilely as a stocking grew under her swift hands. Henry watched them. “Your social logic was fed me at the breast, Mother.”

“It’s upheld by higher logic. You know that.” The steel points jabbed her meaning, gestured for her. Henry deftly lighted his pipe with an ember from the dim coals. He sat by Ann’s side on the sofa, leaned back with his arm about her shoulder while she busied herself with strips of paper, twisting them into tapers. Her red-gold hair glowing in the firelight, her full generous lips smiling. It was good to be near her; to feel her close beside him. From far off came the call of a rain crow, toneless and recurrent. It reminded Henry of his mother’s voice—toneless—as she read the lesson. He lifted his eyebrows. “Bible scenes are set for slavery.”

Ann looked up. “Henry, that word rubs every Southerner the wrong way. Why do you use it?”

“Why? I’m tired of euphemies.” He blew a cloud of smoke high in the air. “Slavery! Hear it! Listen to it! Slavery! The thing might as well wear its own signature, bear its own blot!”

Anabel was silent but her nostril curled. Ann wedged in. “The people here will misjudge you, Henry.”

“Jealous of their weather-beaten evasions! I must mince words for them. ‘Servants!’ ‘Peculiar Institution!’ I won’t! God forgive us, we are afraid to face our trade and its end!”

Anabel pulled out a needle viciously and inserted it into another row. Her lips thinned to a pale line. Henry watched the firelight glint on the needles and burnish the farther andirons and the brass handles of shovel and tongs. “Well, I’m not afraid of it, or ashamed,” said Anabel. “Slavery is God’s will from Abraham to Paul!”

“Yes, even to Revelation! I’ve not forgot! Listen!” Henry knew his mother loved to quote her own scripture as though she were specially ordained. She didn’t like it quoted to her. It was almost a back answer and his mother didn’t allow that; but he would break rule today. Henry walked to the hearth and leaned against the mantel shelf; he saw Ann’s eyes yearn toward him; Anabel’s eyes were keen too, listening. He would let them have it; out of the Book itself, straight. “Hear it! ‘The merchandise of gold and silver and precious stones and of pearls and fine linen, and cinnamon and odors and ointments and frankincense and wine and oil and fine flour and wheat and beasts and sheep and horses and chariots and—slaves, and Souls of Men!’ ” He felt the blood mount to his forehead. “There you have Stoneholt, its riches!”

“You enjoy it as well as I do! You are just like your father, Henry—a hedonist at heart.”

“I don’t deny; but the record won’t let us off. Listen! ‘For in one hour so great riches is come to naught.’ That ends the story!” Anabel lifted her tight lids.

“Approve it or not, the Scriptures ordain Slavery.”

“A contingency then!”

Anabel didn’t answer for Sam came in to announce breakfast. She laid her knitting on the table and led the way into the dining room where they sat circled with ancestors and buttressed by sideboard and hunting board covered with old silver and glass.

Lucinda’s breakfast went well. Soup plates of clabber with heavy cream and brown sugar came first. A stout onset but Sam was serving now, from the sideboard and breakfast was only beginning. Sam padded back and forth with ringed tart apples, fried and sugared, and frizzled ham, sliced wafer thin, broiled over a shovel of live coals. He trotted to the kitchen and came in with guinea eggs on a covered dish, roasted in hot ashes; dust dry and mealy; and at the table he spread biscuits and waffles and quince marmalade. Over all hovered the aroma of Lucinda’s coffee, strong as poison, but tempered with mellow cream. Anabel poured the potion into thin cups with a look of pride for Lucinda and for her cooking.

After breakfast there came a wait in the sitting room. Henry picked up a topic he thought his mother would approve.

“Roads are pretty good, mother. Is General Jackson coming our way soon?”

“Not soon—I suppose.”

The general; that old friend of frontier days—a family friend of long standing; Henry’s father’s friend.

“Sorry he was beaten.” Anabel’s eyes snapped.

“The General is never beaten. It was shenanigan. They tricked him—the damned scoundrels! He’ll get there yet!”

Henry had missed the bitter political battle ending in Jackson’s defeat; a cause lost but not irreparable, rankling still in the bosom of Anabel, whose political god was Andrew Jackson. In Fayette it had been a riotous campaign—Henry got the echo even in England—scurrile, abusive; the General’s life torn to bleeding fragments, flung to the carrion crows. In the press or by word of mouth, over every dam of political restraint and decency roared the Party brawl, the crapulous outbreak; stories told of Jackson’s sins and hardships, wild life on the Frontier, Indian trading, quick killing, contumelious quarreling; of his harried, passionate and stricken romance, explosive end to all insult.

Defeat was bitter to Anabel, but it had been a great fight. The General was down; not defeated; never defeated.

Henry was glad he had missed it all; he knew mother had had the time of her life. He pulled out one of the drawers beneath the secretary. “I see father’s old pistols are where he left them—he wasn’t too pleased with my skill.”

“I’m a better shot than you are, right now,” said Anabel.

Henry stood at the secretary reading; he glanced up to say, “There are some visitors who don’t seem to like us too well.” He turned several pages.

“They trail out here,” said Anabel, “to watch our experiment in freedom.”

“Freedom!” Henry laughed.

“Damn them, if they don’t like us let them stay at home!”

“They have a tender interest; they go back and write a book about us; write a book and sell it.” Henry took his seat on the sofa, and Milly came in and began to fiddle with the duster.

“What did they expect to find on the edge of the wilderness?”

“Art, Mother, and letters and social amenity, perhaps bathtubs like the King’s at Versailles.”

“Well, we haven’t got them yet, nor indoor privies like the Romans.”

Milly, always ready for smut, clapped her hands above her head and gave out a high chuckle through her nose, “Uk, uh! Ole Miss, you don’t beat nothin’!”

“Milly,” said Henry, “I believe you are Rabelaisian.”

“Nawsir I am a plumb African.” Milly laughed and choked and ran out for air.

Anabel walked behind the sofa and looked over Henry’s shoulder. “I don’t know why I haven’t burnt that thing.”

“We’re not inquisitors yet, I hope. We can bear up under satire as the Romans did.”

Anabel went back to her knitting and Ann busied herself with handkerchiefs she was hemming for Henry. “Whoever wrote that book had the tongue of a rattlesnake.” Anabel tightened her lips. “We are naked savages if you take it from him—or her!”

“Disapproves, I see, of chewing and spitting.”

Anabel bristled. “There’s plenty of tobacco here and rich money in it. We raise it and chew it and damn well spit it if we like.”

“I notice, though,” Henry laughed, “our ‘Institution’ doesn’t offend.”

“Henry, please!” said Ann.

“Your Institution, Ann, is too much of a handful, too much of a mouthful, even for visitors.”

Anabel thrust in her needle. “You’ll keep your hand and mouth out of it if you are wise. This nonsense you learned at Oxford, I suppose.”

Henry looked into the red dissolving coals, whitening into ashes. “I got it out of my own heart or soul or bowels or wherever you get congenital things. When I saw Grubb thrash Ham for stealing my pennies. . .”

“I’d have punished you for thieving; why not Ham?”

“Mother, I hate this thing!”

“Well you’d better keep mute on the subject as long as you live in a slave-owning land.”

“As long as I live on the Traffic, yes.” Henry looked up at the ceiling where a mud-dauber busied itself about its dirty ways—looking for some unseen crevice in the wall where it could plaster its small nest—until Milly or Sam would discover its hiding place and the long-handled duster would reach out and get it.

“You’ve sneaking, Underground sympathies, I suppose,” said Anabel.

“I don’t deny them.” He thought of old Jim.

“Henry!” His mother took one of her needles out of its row and scratched her head with it, “Henry, you’re not a hero or a martyr, or a complete skalawag; they are the only ones fit to cope with this subject.”

Henry’s thought wandered; the Underground!

Yes, it was true; slaves were streaming north in a broken, jagged line. He found that out—early. Wheels were turning. All southerners had ears now for a feeble roar—a small sound that entered—forced its way into the labyrinth of the Southern ear—a rumble—faint and far off at first: The Underground!

Henry heard but he was not willing to lend aid to Northern hypocrites. Cooperation with such anarch forces seemed a dastardly act against his people; his home; against himself. No, he would not slink underground. He would come out into the light when he was ready to come—when the time was come to be ready.

The man in Boston had lifted the veil of custom from Henry’s eyes. Heretofore, without any personal stake in the business, the slave jail was a word of concealment. He passed the place without thinking—as he passed the block and the post. They were not on his mind or his conscience. They were father’s problem and mother’s—now they were his; his own. The high wall was a symbol of his guilt. The shadow of its stones fell full on his world.

Henry had never been inside the jail—held no business with its operation—never went by the place if he could help it. He might have known that things went on there that would not bear the light of day. Now it was in his thought constantly—sinister and menacing.

Old Jim—coops and cages. Old Jim—dying under the bed in the house by the river. “Coops and cages. I don’t go into those holes,” said Anabel, “but what would you do with a gorilla that has run amuck? We have a raw problem here and we deal with it.” Henry knew his mother took care of her own servants sick or well, living or dying. He knew that. They were her property—her sure stock. She would attend to them. “God!” said Henry to himself: “Coops and cages! We’ll burn that place down some day as they burned the Bastille.”

Henry had a few close friends in town of his way of thinking—friends—accomplices rather, they were; few but devoted; conspiratorial—biding their time—soft spoken.

He had seen or guessed many things before he went away but they now seemed etched on his skies in black blood—dried blood from the rags of old Jim. Henry sat in the rickety chair again, and watched old Jim die.

Henry looked with strange eyes on the once familiar outlines. It was as though absence had shifted the whole scene into the foreground—dramatized the tragedy of brother’s blood crying from the stones. Guilt everywhere. Guilt! His.

Henry watched mother stuff her knitting into its bag and take out her quilting; octagonal squares of colored silks; these she reinforced with a backing of old letters, now of no further use; old letters under the silk; letters with spidery hand-writing. Henry followed the small stitches as she put them in. The quilt was to be a grand piece for the south chamber. Old letters under the silks still serving a purpose—practical.

“Mother,” said Ann, “I know you speak for Henry’s good, but. . . .”

“Don’t worry, Ann, I’ve lived under Mother’s chastening rod a long time.”

Anabel gave a thin, astringent whinney. “You’ve survived!” She looked up, “You are like your father, Henry.”

“Thank you—thank you again.”

“Amiable and indurated and immovable.”

“You might as well know, Mother, the world is coming to one thought on the matter of Slavery—and it’s not your thought.”

Anabel bit off her thread. “Keeps it damn well to itself; slaves come over as usual; we give them a Christian land.”

“Christian!”

“Instead of their own bloody rakehell!”

“But they were free.”

“Yes, free to eat each other—torture, murder! We teach them to be human.”

“You’ve a point there.”

Anabel struck her heel to the floor. “It’s nonsense, Henry, this hogwash that slavery is inhuman as we manage it.”

Henry pushed his hands into his pockets. “Not on our farms, but what about the Merediths; cattle of that kidney?”

“I don’t credit Negro talk.”

Ann felt for Henry’s hand, it was tightly clenched. “Oh, Henry, please! Mother why do you jump into these quarrels that lead nowhere?”

“Shut up! Who’s quarrelling? We are beginning to be too prosperous for the Yankees; they envy us. We are by way of getting ahead in wealth and ease. It gags them.”

“I’ve known so few Yankees,” said Ann.

“You’ve known enough.”

Henry furnished a last straw. “I like them.”

“Oh, you would! Your father liked them—I thought, sometimes, to spite me. Son, you’ve returned to me every mark and trait of your father—except. . . .”

“Don’t say it, Mother, I know.”

“I will say it! It’s gumption! Your father was not a fool.”

Murk laid her head on Henry’s knee, her eyes said he was being ill used. He patted her and she pushed her head closer.

“Henry didn’t lag at Oxford.” But Anabel ignored Ann.

“You aren’t feeble in brain, Henry; but you lack liver, gizzard.”

“I’ve guessed it.”

“If you saw a nigger rubbing my back with a corncob, you’d fear the effort might tire her.”

“A crude rite, I’d say.”

“It’s a mighty good cure for the backache.” Anabel smiled grimly. “They don’t do the like of that at Oxford; inelegant, they’d call it.”

“Doubtless.”

“We’ll gain our culture in time.”

“On the slave trade!”

“Yes! I don’t see you ready, Henry, to plough the land; to build rock fences, barehanded.”

“They did that in New England. . .”

“Yes, and they slipped in slaves when they could, in their wicked climate. Don’t kick the rug! And look at those who couldn’t; look at them—frostbitten, hard favored. Go chew the cud of lone resistance to nature; see what it does for you. You get sharp practice, money-sucking ways.” She laughed sourly. “And how about your ease, Henry, your leisure? Slavery has brought it all to you.”

Henry walked to the window. The elm at the gate with its wide shadow darkened the sky. Yes, slavery had fixed his trend of thought, given him old clichés to put under the pillow to ward off nightmare. Yes . . .

His mother looked up. “Slavery has mellowed us all.”

“We grow bardic on that theme, Mother!”

“You are a damned sentimentalist, Henry.”

The talk was cut by wild barking and shouts from the gate. Sam ran out to see. He came back with the word that the Mister Twins were out there with their overseer and dogs looking for a runaway; there might be trouble. Ann paled and stood up but sat down again. Henry hurried to the stile. He saw that Maxwell was very drunk.

“We’ve lost a nigger! Had his trail till he got to the creek; then the dogs broke scent. They want to get in here.” The dogs yelped and barked and furiously scratched the ground. Murk whined at Henry’s heels.

“This nigger has his head tied up. My overseer beat him and he ran away.”

Hate blazed in Maxwell’s eyes and suspicion poisoned his thick breathing. But Henry would not let him in to stir up the negroes and start trouble. No!

“Grubb is on steady guard!” If any negro were hiding thereabout let him hide—let him get away if he could—out of the clutch of Maxwell; a frail chance—but let him hide.

“We traced him to your gate, a runaway!”

The dogs were scratching and scrabbling and making a tumult.

“Grubb keeps a sharp watch here,” said Henry quietly.

The Merediths blasted off, dogs yelping behind them. Murk whined at Henry’s heels and then ran on ahead to the icehouse door where she stood, sniffing and trembling. Henry followed and peered into the deep dim circle. He made out a black object clinging like a bat to the rough stones, flat stones, flattened to the curve of the wall, a bloody clout about its head; its big eyes fearful—rolling and fearful—in the glare of the open door.

“For God’s sake, Murk, don’t be a talebearer! Come!”

Nervous and whining, Murk followed Henry into the sitting room where she lay at his side, uneasy but obedient.

Ann was pale and quiet; only her hands trembled.

Anabel’s eyes still smoldered. “So that was the row; a runaway!”

“Yes,” said Henry.

“You see what we’re up against here.”

“I see.”

Henry let the pot of Anabel’s temper seethe a while, settle—and then cease to boil. Into it fell the cooling draft of household need; Grubb stood in the doorway. There were always domestic matters to cool you off, to set the breeze of necessity blowing.

Henry looked at Grubb across the haze of social distance that separated them; Grubb looked back at Henry. Grubb seemed to Henry to be of another race—of another world; his unallusive being hung suspended between black and white—between slave and owner: a kind of blundering Melchizedek without beginning or end: lone, forlorn, separate. Henry guessed the separation bred sodden hates, obscene envies. He knew Grubb had wished to be a preacher—once he told him so—a flaming evangelist, shouting hell.

It’s all because I didn’t answer the call when it come! If I’d have went I wouldn’t be here now, drivin’ mules and niggers; I’d be settin’ up above the mourners, bringin’ ’em to, when they threw their fits; layin’ with ’em out in the scrubbery! Gawd knows I otter went ahead and done what the Lord ordered me to do!

“Well Grubb,” said Henry, quoting his jargon, “all right around-about again last night?”

Grubb laughed, looked sheepish, twisted his hat in his hand, eyed Anabel; hesitated. “You know, Old Miss, I haven’t got ust, yet, to sayin’ that wordage to you stid of the Old Gentleman.”

“You should by now. I think I’ve taken hold pretty well.”

“Yassum, pears like; but sometimes them words stick in my throat; seems I otter be sayin’ ’em to some man.”

Anabel felt of her gold brooch and straightened her collar. “Grubb, I can air my views now and watch them flap in the breeze,” she glanced at Henry, “without the behoof of any man.”

Grubb scratched his head as the feather of inference drifted above him, out of his reach.

“Would you feel better if you were saying the words to Mr. Henry? Would that ease you?”

“Wellum, no’m. Mr. Henry’s been away so much, seem like he’s more of a onlooker, like he was a-watchin’ us from the outside—like peepin’ in the privy to see who’s there.” Grubb cleared his throat without apology.

“Well, I’m here to stay forever,” said Henry, “unless I’m reprieved.” He walked to the window; in rushed the air of the meadows, the warmth of the rich fields. “It’s a rewarding land. It brings in handsome returns.”

“You’re right, sir.”

Henry shook down the talk to Grubb’s level. “Was everything as usual last night?”

“Nawsir. Seemlike I heard somebody beatin’ on the smokehouse door from the inside. I don’t have no key so I come to get your’n.”

Henry lifted the huge smokehouse key from Anabel’s basket and handed it to Grubb; the smokehouse key that was rarely delegated; big key; symbol of vigilance; of Stoneholt—the lavish table, the rich farm, all maintained by thrift—Anabel on the watch; on the march; eye alert, ear all-hearing, swift feet on the run; slippered feet pattering everywhere.

Henry early learned the first commandment of Stoneholt: “Keep the smokehouse door locked.” Big key, weighting the key basket. It required little knowing—early knowing—to learn that the negro loved hog-meat with a savage inner craving; a vestigial cannibal hunger; hog-meat was the one thing he would steal if chance offered. “Keep the smokehouse locked” Henry knew well that law. Eternal vigilance was the smokehouse watchword.

From the time in autumn when he smelt the keener smoke smell in the air, when the first blue wreathes issued from the iron kettle sunk deep in the earthen floor where the green hickory logs smouldered and sent up their spice into the blackened rafters overhead where highest up hung the hams, next the shoulders then the flitches, the chines, the jowls, the sausages, all cured by the delectable blue incense—to that frosty time, full circle—in autumn again—Henry saw the negroes stop and sniff whenever they passed the smokehouse and heard them breathe deep belly-breaths when the iron key turned creaking in the lock and the heavy door rasped open to let loose the teasing aroma.

Anabel’s eyes flashed; thunder was in the air. “If you catch a black rascal in that smokehouse, give him what’s coming to him.”

Grubb’s face lighted up. “Yassum.”

“I’ll have no thieving!”

“I shore know that, mum.”

“If it’s a house servant, bring him in. I’ll judge the number of lashes. You can use my sharp little whip on him; his hide isn’t thick as a field hand’s hide.” She got up and went to the mantel where a tough whip hung; her own.

Henry’s eyes narrowed. “Bring forth men children only!”

“I brought forth one; a puny specimen.” She laid the whip on the table.

Ann caught Henry’s hand. “He’s not a puny specimen. He’s splendid!”

Anabel threw back her head and laughed; but her mouth tightened when Grubb came in dragging Ham by the wrist.

“Here he is!”

Anabel looked the boy over; eyes without pity. “How did you get into that smokehouse?”

Ham’s face was the color of zinc; he gasped, “You left the door open, Ole Miss when you heard Daisy nickering. I just went in for a minute, it’s so nice in there. You shut the door and I couldn’t get out.”

“I see!”

Under the stress of the ignoble moment, Ham coughed and stammered, “I reckon I had a curiosity, Ole Miss.”

“What impudence!”

“Mistiss, I ain’t. . . .” he choked, “I ain’t never took nothin’ since I was little. This here was . . . was . . . a accident!”

“You were tempted and you fell. Accidents are the Devil’s excuses.”

“Naw’m, naw’m, naw’m . . . I never. . . .” his voice broke.

“You had no business there. Stoneholt is run on discipline. You know it.”

“Yassum, I do.”

Henry held in; it was a pitiful sight. Ham’s belly was trembling; his legs shook; his eyes streamed water.

“Grubb, take him on the porch; give him ten lashes with my whip.” Anabel sat down. “Cure his curiosity.”

Grubb took the whip, rolled his sleeve and flexed his shoulder, always ready to cure with a cowhide whip anything that needed cure. But Henry’s teeth clenched. He jerked the whip; twisted and tore it loose from Grubb’s sweaty hand.

Anabel shot up from her chair. “Henry, how dare you!”

“Ham is my boy. Father gave him to me!”

“So you upset my rule!”

“Ham is honest; I know it!” Henry flung the whip to the floor. He aimed at the fire and missed it by an inch.

“Ham, go upstairs. You are to be my valet.”

“Yassir. What’s that sir?”

“Never mind what; go!”

“Yassir, yassir. . . .” Tears overflowed Ham’s wet cheeks.

“I ain’t goin’ to fail you—never!”

His hurt would heal now; he would be near him; Henry knew that was enough. Ham stumbled out and shut the door.

Anabel’s lips drew back to show her small, even teeth, only faintly discolored. “Pick up the whip, Grubb.” She took her seat again. “You see how a fine Oxonian can meddle with homely affairs on a farm.”

Grubb made a wry face. “He shore is like his pappy.” His shifty eyes avoided Henry’s as he hung the whip in its place and settled his own in his belt. From his back pocket he wrenched out the smokehouse key and handed it to Anabel. She slammed it into the basket, eyes on Henry, sultry and resentful.

“You and your father still order my life, it seems! Grubb, you may go.”

Grubb scraped and left the room. There was no more word to be said.

Henry leaned back on the sofa. Far off the guineas cried in the grass; shadow cries; like lost souls wandering in space—whimpering. Anabel took a few quick breaths.

“I’ve submitted today, Henry; but this is the first—and last time.”

Henry stood back of Ann and pressed his hands on her shoulders. She would feel his blood beat; know its provocation; your wife is yourself; she would know how you feel; know the deeps inside you; Ann would know; would understand; would return his trust. Her full lips trembled.

Anabel’s voice rose in pitch and edge. “I’ve got to have discipline here!”

“Shall I leave you in command Mother? Leave Stoneholt for good?”

Anabel calmed at once. Under Henry’s white anger she quieted.

“Stoneholt will be yours at my death, Henry. Your father saw to that.” She folded her arms high on her chest as a man folds his arms. “You have liberal income from the other farms in Virginia and Tennessee—but Stoneholt is mine for the span of my life—and I manage it.”

“Yes, Mother. I understand.” He went to her and touched her forehead with a light kiss. “We disagree, Mother, but I love you; I suppose you exact that, too.”

“Impertinent to the last ditch!” But Anabel’s brow relaxed; she smiled.

So much for a soft answer; but Henry was glad the danger was shifted; he knew Ann was glad; she looked tired—colorless. The day had been hard for her.

Milly came in to tidy up the hearth, keen eyed. She had missed the riot of the morning—that was good, but she got its echoes. Henry saw her eyes sharpen.

“Ole Miss, don’t be too hard on Marse Henry. He ain’t hardly more than a little boy yet.”

“He’s as much of a man as he’ll ever be, I’m afraid,” said Anabel grimly while Henry looked into the coals and said nothing.

“Ole Miss I been hearin’; hearin’ wheels today.”

“You can’t compete with Aunt Jett.”

“It ain’t always give to me, like her, but I got it clear this mornin’.”

“I might claim to know myself, seeing it’s time for Aunt Maria to get here. Midway is not far off.”

“They tell me she’s plannin’ soon to git cut open. Not for me, uh, uh!”

“Don’t worry, nobody is apt to take that trouble for you.”

“She wroten a month ago she was comin’ to see us and somethin’ tells me it’ll be today. And there’s a wing over it. That means it mightn’t be so good.”

“She’s just coming to pay us a call—I think.”

“Second sight’s a dangerous faculty, Milly, don’t indulge it,” said Henry.

“The doctor cut open that woman last winter; first one ever cut open—alive—they say, and she’s fit as a fiddle today and runnin’ around like a flibbertigibbet! Nobody never heard of no such doin’s. But it must have been turrible while it was goin’ on. The niggers is sayin’ he took out her insides.”

“Oh, Milly, hush!” Ann shivered.

“And put ’em in again,” you couldn’t stop Milly, “and bein’ a cold day he soaked ’em in water on the table; warm salt water. Jeemes was there and he seen it.”

“Please, no more details!”

“There wasn’t none of them; but they tell me the town was all set to mob the doctor if the woman hadder died.”

“It was a surgical experiment,” said Henry, “something new.”

“And now he’s goin’ to make another try on your poor Aunt Maria. The niggers tell—Jeems was there—the doctor, he prayed first.”

“With the mob waiting, it was a good idea.”

Milly gave Ann a narrow look. “Honey, it don’t go so good to see you punin’ around the day after the weddin’.”

“I’m all right, Milly.”

“Come upstairs and we’ll put on somethin’ pretty and freshin’ you up! That’ll do you.”

“Yes, Milly,” said Henry, “and bring her back soon. I can’t live long without her.” He drew Ann to him and kissed her; her mouth on his, he felt her sweet body grow weak in his arms—wanting him.

Ann’s face was a face to live with and to love forever; vivid, adoring; under his gaze her smiling lips quivered. He kissed them again; pressed them hard. Milly approved.

“We’ll be down quick as a jiffy; you can live that long I reckon.”

Henry walked to the door and into the hall. Murk lay across the doorstep. When Henry came out she whined and ran again to the icehouse—straight there. Henry followed, fearful. He leaned over into the cold depth, but the black bat with the bloody clout was gone—gone the bulging eyes.

“Thank God! Murder is not to my taste, Murk; slave owning is not to my taste.”

Henry threw himself down in the shade and looked up into the elm, into its great branches. He was a married man, now, with a married man’s duties and joys. Ann was a lovely thing; it was good to have her—always near, loving him—giving him her body and her mind. He should be happy, even blissful as a bridegroom should be.

“Oh you sweet Ann—beautiful Ann—beautiful sweet child. Perhaps I shouldn’t have married you—married my troubles to you—but I loved you and I wanted you. I needed you and my selfish desire has drawn your precious body to myself. That was why I waited to ask you. Even when you had confessed you loved me. Love!”

He had wanted to accustom his mind and his blood to the idea of marriage. His father’s hadn’t turned out so well. He must be sure—this was the real thing and not sudden infatuation or surprise. It was good that he had shaken off the spell of Esmeralda—a woman like that could tie a man into a knot.

He had many heavy things on his mind, now, and Ann was so tender—so young. Should he draw her into his dark problems; shackle her with his anxieties? But he had needed her and he selfishly demanded her. Only first making prayer that she would be strong enough to endure the dark thinking that was his—endure his silence and his guilt.

In his conscience he already felt dedicated to a deed he was unable yet to perform; an act of which he was now incapable; a modality beyond his powers. Henry was heavy with the new-come burden on his heart. Slave owner. But he asked her to marry him and she said yes.

How could a man know peace with the bat in the icehouse—with guilt sitting on his chest staring him in the face or hovering like the buzzards in the clouds! Guilt—guilt, echoing every footstep, rumbling underground. Even in the arms of the woman you love where is joy to be known?

In the Southern code the guilt of all guilt was helping a runaway. Even thinking abolition was the unpardonable sin.

Well he had now committed it in his heart; today! How could a man be happy with a bat in the icehouse—with the remembrance of Jim; the slave jail. In old days he had kept the jail out of his thought as something that didn’t really exist. He had never entered the place but it must be a den of blood and crime, when you pinned thought right down to it.

Old Jim gave it away. “Cleaning out the coops and cages. You don’t know nothin’ about them,” he said. Henry did know, however, the low, town-talk; the mulattoes in the slave jail waiting there in special privilege—waiting for high purchase. And L’Hommedieu, his trade name was a household word in Fayette.

Henry could see to the top of the elm tree through the network of boughs. He drew a book from his pocket, open to a favorite passage: “From a knowledge of God, there arises for us the supreme joy, the bliss of the soul. . . . It delivers us from all discord, all discontent . . . felicity, then, is not the reward of virtue, it is virtue itself. . . .” He read aloud and Murk listened as though she understood; when he paused, she began to dig for a mole at the foot of the tree; but she stopped digging and lay down beside him and licked his hand.

“Murk, could a mole underground—unseeing—know the light and shadow on the grass; unhearing, know the high wind in the leaves . . . and can I know, in what I see and hear—know, as created good, created perfection—the slow, great, moving, timeless arc of life . . . or know any broken fragment of it?”

Murk laid her head in the bend of his arm and drew a long sighing breath.

“You know things I don’t know, Murk, you’re wiser—simpler. . . . Perhaps Spinoza came close to human knowing. . . .”

Father had a kind of spiritual consciousness—a protective climate of thought in which he moved exclusive and calm. Henry, himself, would never reach that state of being; it was Father, manifest, like clear light. Henry was too tied to passion, to the senses; love he had—but peace he had never known—would never know; too many cross currents, desires, disruptions, contending—beating him down.

If Father were only here—to help!

He put the book in his pocket and stood up. Murk rubbed against his knees—her soft eyes ardent, devoted; a little lift of the lips showed her teeth in her dog smile. He stroked her head.

“I should be the least discontented man in the world, Murk; I should enjoy that felicity which is virtue itself—but I cannot; I cannot—not here—not now.”

He looked over the fields crossed and crossed again by rock fences; labor of bent backs—Stoneholt—he loved it. Mother knew. Stoneholt! Could he tear it down stone by stone; leave no trace of it; farm without negroes, house without slaves; Ann penniless; Mother bereft. Could he do it? The answer was no—not now—wait and see—wait! Some way would be found, some divine formula said! Slavery! He would batten on it for the present—for now. . . . He might make the desperate choice of Abolition, except for the bitter way of the Abolitionist, his blindness to the Southern way. Oh, no, no—he could not!

Murk gave a bark of greeting and Henry caught the sound of hooves—of wheels and hurried into the house.

“Mother, a carriage!”

He heard her black silk give off excited rustlings; Ann came running down the stairs; Sam and Milly appeared unsummoned. A visit was an occasion at Stoneholt; even Aunt Maria driving over from Midway caused a stir of hospitality.

Anabel relaxed the tension of her mood as Aunt Maria came up the path, comfortable and plump. Henry liked her round moon face and kindly smile.

Anabel led the way into the sitting room and Sam came in with glasses of blackberry cordial and little wafers of shortcake. As they sipped their drink and ate the delicate bread, Aunt Maria said, after some further talk, “The man has done this once; he may do it again.”

Anabel shook her head mournfully. “Do miracles happen twice, I wonder?”

“Don’t discourage me, Anabel; my heart is fixed.”

“I wouldn’t discourage you, only. . . .”

“Only you know the hazard. So do I.” After a moment’s hesitation, “They’ve told me I can live only a little while. I like to live. I’d always thought I was threatened with longevity. . . .” She smiled. “The bad news gave me a shock. Then I heard of the new surgery and the woman who lived through it; you wrote me, Anabel—remember?”

“I didn’t know. . . .”

“Don’t feel responsible. I decided to try it. I made but one condition. . . .”

“Yes?”

“A brave man to hold my hand. General Jackson is coming.” The tears filled her eyes; she winked them away almost gaily.

“Coming!” said Ann, “all the way from Tennessee!”

“Have you never heard of friendship, my dear—friendship? The General and your Uncle were in the Wilderness together. He’ll stand by me to the end!”

Henry could see the talk was getting too central for Aunt Maria. She said briskly, “I’d almost forgot—I’ve brought you a present, Anabel. It’s out in the carriage.”

“Shall I get it?” said Ann.

“It’s a house servant, my dear.”

Ann caught her breath, glanced at Henry.

“I can’t use her now—not now! So I’ve brought her to you, Anabel. Anyway, her sewing is too fine for me; French style. She’s a handsome wench.”

“You are generous, Maria,” said Anabel without enthusiasm. “I hope the General will stop by Stoneholt when he comes.” Aunt Maria stood up. “Perhaps he will. . . .” she said, “perhaps.” It was plain that she was not at ease in her body.

“Henry, call Venus. She’s in the carriage.”

Henry went to the door but turned back to say, “Aunt Maria, the woman is nearly white; she’s standing at the stile waiting.”

“Too white—more and more of them! We picked her up in New Orleans last spring, at a sale.”

Henry called, “Come in, Venus!”

As she made her way up the length of the walk he would not watch her. Henry went into the house, to the others. There was a lull in the talk while they waited; listened to light footsteps on the pavement, then on the porch, on the boards of the floor, then on the hall carpet.

“Come in,” said Aunt Maria.

Venus stood in the doorway, her bundle tied and in her hand. As Henry lifted his eyes her beauty spoke to him in the exquisite poise of her, in the delicate head held high on the rounded column of her neck. Her beauty spoke, it sang; it seemed to strike vibration within the bone and marrow. Aunt Maria’s small, cooing voice broke the moment’s stillness.

“Venus, this is your new mistress, her son and daughter. Serve them well.”

“Yes, mam.”

Henry saw the girl step back against the wall to retreat from the circle of strange eyes, hostile perhaps. Instantly she ceased to exist as beauty and became background. The talk went on without her—flowed around and over her.

“And now, my dears,” Aunt Maria turned to Ann and Henry, “Be happy! Youth and love and years ahead! Happy!”

Henry caught the wistful note. “I see a long stretch for you, Aunt Maria!”

They moved out to the porch, on to the lawn, leaving Venus pressed against the wall. Through the window Henry saw her ease forward to look—to listen—to hear the farewells, watch the departure. Before she turned back into the room he saw tears stream down her cheeks; saw her body shake with gasping sobs.

Henry’s mind was in turmoil as he returned from the stile. Slavery! Its fatal shadow hung over his world. The intrusion of this woman into the conflict of his thought stirred memory of his visit to the house in Boston. He heard again the hot words of the printer—again was blasted by the fire of his eyes.

Henry reached the sitting room before the others were finished with their waving and farewells. Slavery! What could he do, where could he turn?

One summer day, while he was in Switzerland Henry watched from a safe valley, the frantic course of a man caught on the Jung Frau, trapped. At the foot of the mountain Henry stood with excited watchers who followed every move of the doomed one.

“He’ll never get down! He’s done for!” Men shouted, cursed, wept as they watched. This image came to Henry now. He, Henry Ashe, was that climber on the summit; in view of the world; lost. He could move only to his doom down some blue abyss, into some suffocating chasm.

He spoke to the girl, knowing he dared the slave law which forbade all commerce of personal matter, all human touch beyond the needful.

“Why are you crying?”

The girl, racked with sobs, said nothing.

“What is the matter?”

“I have a heartache, sir; the pain here.” She put her hand to her breast.

“You are homesick. It will pass.”

“I think it will be forever.” She drew her free hand across her eyes. Her other hand held her bundle of clothes, her earthly goods; and even these not her own.

“We are all homesick.”

“Oh, not you—not you.”

“Yes.”

“You have everything.”

Henry’s eyes lost focus for a moment. “We cry to be born; cry to die.” The girl sobbed. Henry felt pain for her.

“Is anyone at home anywhere, do you think? Or do you think? I hope you don’t, Venus.”

“I. . . . I have no place . . . no one. . . .”

“Perhaps I understand.” At the kindly warmth of his voice she broke into fresh sobbing. He wondered why he had opened his heart to her . . . to what purpose—to what good?

The talk engrossed them and they did not hear Anabel until her heels struck the doorstep. Henry heard her draw in her breath sharply. Her voice gathered an icy edge.

“Why the lamentation?”

Henry saw the look of fear in the girl’s eyes as she tried to control the sobs that shook her.

“It is nothing, mam.”

An unsaid penalty congealed Anabel’s cold words. “Has anything happened here to make you cry?”

“No, mam.”

“Are you ill?”

“Oh, no; no’m!”

Henry shivered under the callous questioning.

“Then for God’s sake what is the matter?”

“I don’t know. I can’t help it mam.”

“We like pleasant faces, smiling faces. . . .” Anabel thinned her lips. Henry caught the latent venom of irritation.

“No more tears here, if you please.”

Grim and suspicious, Anabel glanced into the mirror over the mantel. Henry lowered his eyes; but in a flash he saw his mother had got their meaning and didn’t like it.

“Follow me, Venus. I will turn you over to Grubb; he’ll show you the way to your cabin.” Anabel stalked out and Venus followed her. At the door the girl turned for an instant as though to warm her body at the small cinder of pity Henry had held out to her. The glance took him unawares; it settled within him; it sank into his bowels with mercy.

Ann came in, Murk romping after, barking and joyful.

“Where is Venus? I thought she was still here.”

“Mother has taken her to Grubb to find her a cabin.”

Ann’s eyes were bright again. Henry put his arm around her; drew her to him; Ann pressed her cheek against his—her arm around his neck.

“Oh, Henry, she’s almost white; she ought to stay in the house. Aunt Maria says she does such fine work—French sewing. I’ll need her here.”

“Mother decides.”

Henry heard the guineas calling again, out in the distant weeds—far away in the high weeds—far from the house.

When Esmeralda awoke the morning after her marriage, she moved herself between the faintly mildewed sheets and looked at the man beside her in the bed. He was good to look at—and yet she might have waited longer for Henry to come ’round; she had always fancied a dimple in the chin, and elegant manners and other things—as well as Stoneholt itself. In her mind Stoneholt stood for everything she seemed to have missed.

She looked at the black curls on the pillow, at the chiseled curve of the lips, at the long fingers extended on the coverlet.

Maxwell opened his eyes and closed them again—heavy with sleep. She smiled as he threw back his head and bared the soft line of his throat. Once more he opened his eyes—wide this time—focused on reality.

“For God’s sake, who—where. . . .”

“You married me last night.”

“Damnation!” He turned his back. Esmeralda whirled on him. He shouldn’t treat her to disgrace now he was sober—or sobering; she would not be shamed by him. She would teach him better manners.

Esmeralda knew that the Ashes, behind the hand, called her vulgar. She got the gist of their talk from servant whispers she overheard. Of course Mama, when she was alive, was plain common; a mousey little woman without any snobbish gabble; and Papa—well Papa was just too bad; but he had sense enough to stake his claim and other claims too, and make a pile of money buying and selling niggers and horses and land; free moving money that he spent on her, on his fiery Esmeralda—and he would go on spending it.

It would have been grand sport to catch Henry Ashe and in spite of everything against her, move into Stoneholt and live there; triumph!

But what about the old woman—Anabel. Could Esmeralda stand up to her? Esmeralda was headstrong and high handed and hard fisted—but tough old Anabel was a termagant and could lay almost anybody low.

Perhaps the tantrum that hot night in the ravine was for the best after all. Anyway she’d make the best of what she got. There were compensations.

So Esmeralda would scratch around in the foothills with the twins.

Esmeralda went to work to bring out of chaos a farm that had been one of the finest in all Fayette. No more mildewed sheets; old Blandy would be taught better, and Tobey too and the others.

Since the death of the parent Merediths the household had run itself, had operated under the withered power of past lives; played out, worn out, frayed to the bone. Blandy told Esmeralda how it was; old Mrs. Meredith would say, in her whining voice “I used to wonder how a body could die of a broken heart; but there’s such a thing as a broken life, a life smashed to bits. One drunken son might not break it; but two, acting as one—fighting, smashing! I’m finished.” And she was.

Her husband lasted a little longer; but one morning the brothers, after a night of debauch, were awakened by Blandy banging on the door to tell them old Meredith had fallen at the head of the stairs where she found him—dead.

Blandy told the story. . . . The sons were too drunk to care. They failed to connect their conduct directly or remotely with the death either of father or mother. The old ones had served their time; bury them in the garden; say the words; “slaves, shovel the spent bodies under the earth.” The brothers went their drunken ways; servants ran the place; dry rot settled on the house and on the farm.

Esmeralda talked much to Blandy; even her most private secrets; nothing withheld; Blandy whispered it all to Milly and Milly regaled Ann. Negro talk always suspect and always hot and alive and sizzling; Stoneholt buzzed and steamed with it night and day; so did the Meredith farm.

Esmeralda loved the energies of country life, the biologic ritual of flock and herd. She bought more negroes, male and female, and set them the tasks of procreation and husbandry; she engaged an overseer and lent him powers at once flexible and restrained. She swept out the accumulated damage of years and put the house in order, spread the floors with rugs, the windows with hangings; the furniture, broken and wasted, she restored. There was much of it; beautiful delicate pieces brought from Albermarle when the Merediths moved westward. Esmeralda didn’t like the style too well; she preferred the new, aggressive mahoganies you got in Philadelphia now, that filled space regally.

“There’ll be no more tearing up of this house; I’ll have a place as good as Stoneholt; no more carousing here, indoors.”

Marion Meredith loved his brother as he loved his own soul. Loyalty was a fetish. Maxwell had always ruled him; led him deep into excess. When he learned that Maxwell was to be married to Esmeralda, Marion’s heart was bitter against the woman. She would take Maxwell from him—their tie would be broken.

Maxwell argued and strove with Marion. “She’ll never come between us; no one can.” But Marion knew better. “We’ll go on doing our lives as we see fit,” said Maxwell. “Only woman I ever wanted was that red-head at Stoneholt. If this one doesn’t like the way we live, she can damn well lump it! She pesters me to death.”

Marion offered to go away. Maxwell shut him up, “Don’t be a fool! This is your house as well as mine! We’ll live exactly as we’ve lived before; hunt and fish and fornicate as we’ve done since we were knee high to a boatbill. Let her rave. What do we care? She asked for it.”

Marion was quieted but not calmed. Marriage was a subtle thing, calculated to do unnamed harm. He saw the act of severance done that June night when the preacher mumbled words dead and meaningless. Six months ago it was—and Maxwell had slipped from him, gone from him, riven in time if not in space.

The woman was always there; the woman spoke for Maxwell, acted for him, drilled his bones with exactions. The woman was between them, day and night, whispering “Marion doesn’t love us any more; see how he avoids us!”

Already Maxwell was hardly fit to throw a leg over a horse. She was wearing him down, fraying him out.

Marion’s foot released a wasp caught in a spider web; nervous wings struggling; spider going about its business—two stinging creatures caught in a web. Plump, poisonous spiders kill their males and eat them.

Marion watched the married pair under veiled lids. She must have what the Israelites partook of under green tree and on high hill; cult of Baal and Ashtoreth. Esmeralda treated him to bluff good nature—a game of disarming naivete; she seemed often like a little child, all nonage and simplicity—humbleness. But he knew he was the object of her guile even while her play was so convincing she could almost befool him. He followed her about the place and fell in with her plan of improvement. He, too, loved the farm; the land; protested its abandonment—its desuetude. Esmeralda was good for something; he would help her in the work of restoration; that was fair; that was aboveboard.

Marion would often stay at home and allow Maxwell to go to town alone. He set himself the rugged task of reading The Decline and Fall. His lamp burned late at night. Maxwell ignored books, but Marion was a student by nature—“Born bookish,” he said. He would come down when he heard Maxwell stamp up the front steps.

“Well, Marion, have you kept my woman company?”

“No—upstairs, reading.”

“Forsworn the booze, hey?”

“Somewhat.”

“Good God, my boy, you’ll not live long! We sucked liquor from the bottle when we gave up the breast.”

“I’ve quit, for a while; that’s all.”

Marion followed Esmeralda about the place, but the bar between them she couldn’t remove—not yet. She belonged to Maxwell; nothing could alter that changeless—that unalterable taboo.

A desperate restlessness possessed Esmeralda—she could feel that Maxwell loved his brother after his own ways and trusted him as he did not trust himself. The brothers’ likeness to each other unsettled her; bore fruit in anxieties obscure, equivocal; their features were of one mold, but Maxwell’s face was cynical, ominous; Marion’s tender, easily touched to tears; his lips wore that light smile, reminding her of Greek sculpture.

Esmeralda understood Maxwell; he was easy to know; but Marion eluded her. She liked to see the brothers race over the dusty pikes—elemental, power driven; they stirred, excited her as they raced to town and raced home, sometimes drunken, but always erect. How they prided themselves on their steady heads!

But Esmeralda put her foot down hard: no more breaking of furniture; no more despoiling of rugs! Her home should be good, good to see; as good as Stoneholt! She loved it with the female love of nest and burrow; she would defend it.

One night Maxwell came home in a peculiarly venomous mood; white to the lips. His look was savage; no one to welcome him.

“Esmeralda! Marion! Tobey!” Maxwell bellowed. Esmeralda in the hall refused to answer; she saw Tobey go creeping in, his eyes popped and rolling. The hearts of the servants turned to cold stones when Maxwell was in his cups.

“What you want, Marse Maxwell?”

“Where is everybody? Damn your foolishness! Come here! Pull off my boot!” Maxwell threw himself into a chair by the fire and stretched out his leg. Tobey eased the boot off with practised hand and set it aside. He waited for Maxwell to extend his other foot; Tobey knelt before him on the hearth rug, humble.

“You damned idiot! What are you waiting for?” Maxwell gave the boy a vicious kick; Tobey’s balance lost he toppled over backward into the fire place. He scrambled out screaming and dashed into the kitchen. The house shook with his cries.

“Blandy, pull off his coat; slap lard on his back.” Esmeralda’s eyes were ruin. “Take him to the cabin; keep him out of Maxwell’s sight!”

Esmeralda found Maxwell still in the chair—his foot still extended—eyes shut.

“So, you’ve come back to pull it off hey? Next time I’ll burn you good and chunk you down.”

“Some day. . . .” said Esmeralda, “they’ll hang you for a thing like this.”

Maxwell heard her, she knew. He leaned over and threw up on the floor.

Esmeralda looked at her rug and left him.

“What’s the matter?” Marion called from the stair.

“Your brother kicked Tobey into the fire.” She heard Marion draw in his breath between his teeth as if he suffered hurt—quick breath. She went into the hall; she saw Marion’s hand tight on the banister. Maxwell got up—his eyes wide and glassy, but he walked to the stairway without stumbling. Marion came down half-way and put his arm around Maxwell and they climbed the steps together. Esmeralda watched them.

Marion would take up for Maxwell no matter what he did.

At the kitchen door she called, “Where’s Tobey?”

“He’s run off to his cabin. He was more skeered than hurt.”

“Blandy—get your bucket and wash up my rug. Hurry!”

It was late in the August afternoon, but Milly still held her long-handled duster of turkey feathers—a perennial excuse for loitering.

Sunlight seeped in, slanted through the windows of the sitting room, picking out motes of dust stirred up by Milly’s searching feathers.

Ann sat on the sofa with her sewing in her lap. She sat very still with a long look in her eyes. After some silence—with Milly watchful—she put aside her work and went to a corner of the room where an unfinished portrait stood on an easel. Ann lifted the cloth that covered it and threw it over the light framework at the back. With her hands behind her she stood and considered. . . . Milly, curious eyed, leaned over Ann’s shoulder to miss nothing of her thought or her eyesight. The portrait stood up stark on its wooden easel as if it were not yet at home—not yet absorbed into the mellow color of time.

“Why you so hard-seein’? Ain’t you likin’ your picture, honey?”

Ann drew back a step. “Milly, that portrait may hang for a hundred years—or as long as those have hung over there. . . .” She lifted her eyes to the farther wall.

“Yeah . . . lessen there’s a fire or a war. . . .”

“That’s a long time to be pregnant! I show it! How could Tom Gaitskill. . . .”

“Pregnant! Now where you show it—and he ain’t had no hand in it—how could he tell?”

“I don’t know—but it’s plain to see.”

“Pregnant! And you just freshly married!”

Ann sat down again and absently followed the close in-and-out of her needle.

“I’m happy, Milly, even if Tom has made me look like a hag.”

“You ain’t no hag—but I can’t git over you bein’. . . .”

“Hush, Milly.”

“You ain’t hardly bridle-wise, yet, honey!”

Milly peered up and spied the little mud-dauber hiding again in the corner. It had settled in its nest and filled it with spiders and insects and laid its egg, but Milly ran out and got her long broom and made a pass at the buzzing creature that flew out of the window—out into the ungrudging air.

“Little hidin’ rascal! You better not come back here! Bringin’ your dirt.”

Ann threw back her head. “Milly, I’m still a little drunk with joy.”

“Don’t let your sense of companionship get too strong Honey.”

“It’s been a wonderful dream Milly . . . it still is. . . .”

Milly set down the long broom in the corner. She set it down with a thump. “You’ll wake up, honey.”

“I hope not.”

“Menfolks is all alike. That’s a fact.”

“You’re talking like Mother, now. ‘All men are vile!’ I’ve heard it often enough. She doesn’t know; she doesn’t know Henry. I don’t believe even you know.”

Milly pushed back the long curtains at the window and dusted the sill; she smiled. The small windowpanes with their bluish waving lines, were beginning to dim the light, now, to color it, to make the sky look thick and almost stormy.

“Yo’ Henry is one sweet boy; but menfolks is menfolks; all alike!”

“I don’t believe it.”

Milly suppressed a yawn. “It’s wonderful how you gets on so good with Ole Miss.”

Ann was busy with her needle; her thoughts were busy too—Mother; and how little she understood Henry; how absurd Milly was with her prodding talk and prattle about menfolks and their ways, as though this could apply to Henry. “I understand her, Milly, I hope.”

“I’m wonderin’ if anbody do.”

“I try to see things from. . . .”

“Now if yo’ Henry had picked some flighty gal who’d have fit with Ole Miss. . . .” Milly’s eyes squinted like she’d eaten a lemon too quick.

“It would have been awful, Milly!” Ann saw Esmeralda in the holy place blowing the roof off.

“It would have been turrible—it would have busted the gates off Jerusalem.”

Ann saw Milly scrouge her shoulders against the vision of Ole Miss on the rampage—almost like the world coming to an end.

Ann studied the portrait again from where she sat. It was herself with a subtle aura of motherhood faintly realized. How did he guess? Tom Gaitskill had no right to intrude into her privacy—to know things she had not told him; it was a liberty. Tom had no right to do this. She looked at the portrait—just because he could paint—it wasn’t fair.

Milly stood behind Ann, looking too. “Don’t you worry, honey! A married woman might not never get no portraits painted if she waited to get shet of that motherly look. Most of em’s got it.”

“I’m not worried. I’m magnifying the Lord.”

“Lamb o’ love!” said Milly. “That ain’t the way with most womens.”

“Maybe they don’t love their husbands enough.”

“Aw, that don’t mitigate a bit . . . and the Lord is partial to menfolks in family ways—you know that. Women is deceitful and he’s against ’em—against ’em good and hard.” Milly pulled in her apron strings and tied them well. She scratched her top kink, rolled tight with black thread—tight to her skull. “Women is deceitful and yaller ones you can’t trust nohow.”

Ann laughed. She could plainly see through Milly’s chatter. “You mean Venus.”

“Yas mam! I mean that blue-vein sure as shootin’.” Milly began to dust all over, as though for the first time. She did the Bible twice and then again.

“Them mixed bleeds is no good. I lay there won’t nothin’ but bad luck trail after that high yaller; bad luck will blister her. They tell me,” Milly smiled with wise learning, “that Venus is a morning’ or a evenin’ star that can bust up things both mornin’ and evenin’.”

“You are envious, Milly, jealous.”

“I plumb is.”

“Milly, the green-eyed monster. . . .”

“I ain’t green-eyed, but I’m monstrous jealous. Ain’t you never been jealous?”

“I was jealous once of Esmeralda. . . .” The memory made Ann shudder; she would cover it with instant denial; she would unremember it—forget it—and then forget the forgetting. No more of that—ever!

“It was a terrible feeling, Milly . . . but it’s all over; finished; done! Henry loves me. I trust him.” Ann laid her sewing on her lap and took a long breath—a happy breath—of loving and being loved. “Milly, I love him better than life.”

“You heish yo’ mouth now! Don’t you love no man like that! It ain’t healthy for a woman.”

“I love him better than breathing, and I like to breathe.”

Milly caught her with warning—big warning. “Uk, uh! None of that!”

Ann clasped her hands behind her head, leaned back and looked up. “I love him better than heaven—when breathing’s over.”

“Uh, huh! You’re makin’ a gawd of him. That won’t bring no good on you!”

“I’ll be still happier when the baby comes. I can hardly wait.”

Milly wrinkled her nose and screwed up her eyes. “You are welcome to all the joke you gits out of bornin’ babies. I’ve borned ’em; but there ain’t no fun in it.”

“I must start my baby things now. Venus can do such exquisite work; I’ll need her here.”

“Yeah, she’s showin’ her shimmy to ever-body, most; so crazy to be tooken in the house.”

“She should be. I’ve told Mother.”

“You better leave Ole Miss be!” Milly dusted around in obscure corners, poking in and out. She stood up and waited a minute. “I lay the reason they sold that yaller gal was because some young master was lookin’ on her to. . . .”

“Shame, Milly, shame on you! Aunt Maria brought her here—you know that; gave her to Mother.”

Milly put her fist to her mouth. “Now Mrs. Jarvis, acrost the pike. . . .”

“Yes—let’s change the subject—do!”

“This ain’t no change—none hardly.”

“They’re such common people over there—always in a row.”

“Yeah. Mrs. Jarvis, she had one of your blue-vein niggers. . . .” Milly pulled her dustrag out of her apron pocket and threw it high over her shoulder and put her hands on her hips. “That gal knew good sewin’ and how to make life go good. . . .”

“Milly, your stories!”

Ann enjoyed them; they came right out of Milly’s own head; Milly—talk and gossip.

“This’n is bad, shonuf. They bartered that little slut off just the other day and there was a big rookus.”

“I heard them screaming and yelling.” Ann wouldn’t admit that she was needling Milly for her negro scandals; true or false, they had a bite—and a listener was all Milly needed.

“Mrs. Jarvis is got a face like a hoss and she’s plumb crazy about Mr. Jarvis—for he’s a shonuf handsome man.”

“He’s good looking; but not as handsome as Henry.”

“Who said a word about yo’ Henry?”

Ann knew Milly was playing with her, cat-and-mouse cunning. Milly’s eyes were crafty. She was up to something.

“His mistiss was powerful jealous of him but he went his way. . . .”

“You mean. . . .”

“The usual way with the menfolks.”

Ann heard Milly suck her teeth with pure pleasure. “You see, Mrs. Jarvis she begun to notice little mulattoes all over the place like—same as at the Meredith’s.”

Ann sat up quick; the name always made her jump.

“You pintly git the idea. Well, she bartered that blue-vein off to old putty-faced L’Hommedieu in exchange for gold leaf mirrors for the parlor. He carried her down with his batch to New Orlins—and Mr. Jarvis, he flew the coop.”

“Gone?”

“They say his ole lady driv him to it.”

“Milly, maybe if she’d let the man alone. . . .”

Milly was scornful; she pushed out her lip; she pushed it farther out.

“Shucks! Won’t a duck swim?”

The knocker sounded and the private talk was over. Milly looked pleased with herself. Again the knocker sounded.

“Tom Gaitskill’s coming to finish my portrait. That’s Tom, now. Call Henry, it’s his party.”

Ann didn’t think Tom handsome but his face had a kind of pleasant harmony; his nose with its slight deflection; his eyes large and brown and his mouth with sensual lips that were learning the lesson of restraint. Ann was sorry she couldn’t love him; but she couldn’t and he knew it. Tom told her the story of how he came to Fayette from his home in the country. His father with six sons but little money so that he could give only one of them an education. “Choose, now, which shall it be.” The brothers chose Tom because he could talk right smartly and he could think of things to draw, even out in the woods where the others could see only trees or a flock of doves or just the evening sky at sunset, and he could make a fair likeness with nothing but a piece of chalk or a stick of crayon. So they chose Tom to go to college in Fayette.

Ann knew the rest of the story well; knew how he jumped on a horse and rode to Philadelphia and bludgeoned his way to the workroom of Stuart and by sheer bravura persuaded Stuart to give him a stool in his studio; of how Stuart liked him and shared his gusto and his skills without stint. Gaitskill told her of how he sat at the feet of genius, of how he watched the master draw out the character of a sitter; capture a flash of his inner self. He learned there many other things, she knew.

“How do you do, Tom?”

“And you, sweet Ann Ashe?”

“Well! The afternoon light isn’t quite gone.” Ann seated herself in Anabel’s wing chair. She would try to look her lovliest—in spite of the threat at hand.

“Daylight doesn’t matter. The portrait is finished. I doubt if I change it.”

“You’ve been kind to me, Tom.”

“I didn’t intend prettiness; I wanted you.” He smiled his freakish smile.

“I’ll be proud to hand this on.”

“Thanks.” Gaitskill adjusted the easel and took from his portmanteau his palette and brushes. “I am happy to perpetuate your loveliness, Mrs. Ashe. I’d like to paint you again when you are middle-aged, mark your epochs; last, when you’re old.”

Outside, as the twilight settled, the little wrens were beginning their bubbling songs, popping in and out of their little round homes—gourds Ann hung for them in early spring.

“I want to die before I’m forty, thank you.”

“Don’t! You’d cheat the painter.”

“I want to die while life is perfect.”

“Perfect now?”

“Of course.”

“Say no more. I’m preyed on by the seven deadly sins. But how about Mother Ashe—doesn’t she disturb the paradisiacal air?”

“I think I understand Mother. I try to.”

“Nobody does, except, perhaps, a painter. She’s a Cumaean sibyl. . . .”

He laughed; and Ann looked at him and thought of those two years in Philadelphia and the raw country boy she had disfavored in time past.

“Life is cruel to a woman,” she said.

“Short rope of happiness?”

“It gives everything at first . . . and then . . . .”

“Each age is good—to the painter. Should have thought—and married me.”

Ann watched his sensitive fingers. “I often wonder at what time I am myself . . . now, or then, or when . . . .”

“When! When you’re old! You have summation.”

“What makes me old. . . . Why?”

“Hasn’t Henry instructed you? He’s been to Germany—sent me some German books. Nothing is—but only becomes . . . dialectical process . . . thesis, antithesis, synthesis. . . .”

“But what dries my bones, turns me to dust?”

“Activity, movement, things in flux—even honeymoons.”

“Hush!”

“The atomism of Time forever at work. Henry should. . . .”

But Henry, himself, opened the door and came in. Ann greeted him with a radiance.

“Don’t get up, Tom,” Henry said, “go right on.”

“Henry thinks. . . .”

“I’ll leave metaphysics to you and Henry; I’m concerned with planes and surfaces. . . .”

Ann’s adoring eyes watched Henry as he stood, arms folded, gazing at the picture; at the expert hands of the painter.

“Old Stuart certainly gave you a heft.”

“I’ve nothing but the little bag of tricks he slipped me.”

“You’re good! Genius has flowered in Fayette.”

Ann leaned against the high-backed chair and caught sight of the little mud-dauber busy again—undismayed—patiently making a nest all over again in a securer crevice. Everything wanting a place to be safe in—to be secure—to live. All the while there was Milly with the duster, waiting! Milly on the keen eye, waiting to sweep out—to finish. All the little plans, so carefully laid—so ingeniously contrived—soon swept out, finished.

Gaitskill worked on. He spoke with tight, envious lips. “And to think you have seen the galleries, London, Florence.”

“Saw the Pantheon too, the Pont du Gard. Romans were big doers, if not good artists.”

“What a damned jolt to come back here.”

“Mother blames foreign travel for my ruined state. Perhaps she’s right.”

“Henry is the victim of Mother’s harping.” Murk slipped in and put her moist nose against Ann’s hand. Murk seemed to know when the air was not peaceful.

“The plan hasn’t worked out to Mother’s taste,” said Henry.

Gaitskill leaned with his elbow on his knee. “You’ve simply grown up.”

Henry’s eyes narrowed. “I’m seeing things—some things—for the first time.”

“Henry means our Peculiar. . . .”

“If we could only be consistent,” said Henry, “freedom, inalienable right and we deny it before God.”

Ann patted Murk’s head. “But Henry, the negroes aren’t ready for freedom.”

“They could use it, after a while. Look at Sam—he’s a gentleman already.”

“We’ve created our small republic after our own image,” said Gaitskill. “It’s due to have a few flaws. Mrs. Ashe, turn your head a trifle to the left.”

“Henry, how can we expect Tom to paint in the dark? Ring for lights!” The window panes were looking like bluish jet, now, with night gathering.

Henry pulled the bell cord and took his seat on the sofa. “You’ve caught something, there, Gaitskill, I’ve never seen in Ann before.”

“Like it?”

“Yes—but. . . .”

“Henry ring again! We have a new servant, Tom. She’s not used to things yet. Aunt Maria brought her from Midway.”

“Relieved to be rid of her, I bet,” said Henry.

“Nonsense, Henry.” But Ann had heard Mother say Aunt Maria gave her away because she was too chickenhearted to sell her down river.

“Mulatto?” said Gaitskill.

“Looks as Caucasian as you do.”

“Yes, I’ve seen them like that. Sultry blood under white skin. Sunburnished for the Slave Jail, I suppose.”

“No, Tom.” Ann didn’t like that remark. “Venus is a beautiful seamstress. I’ll need her, here, for my baby clothes.”

Gaitskill leaned back in his chair. “Congratulations!”

“I hadn’t meant to tell you—yet.”

“It wasn’t really needful . . . and now, Madonna, we must have a frame for you; not one of these homemade frames they knock together on the place; this portrait deserves better.”

“It does.” Henry leaned over the back of Ann’s chair.

“L’Hommedieu is here from New Orleans, Henry. He brings me a few handsome frames when he comes.”

Henry darkened; walked to the window. Ann knew the signs.

“I told him he might look you up. He’s coming this evening.”

Henry stood staring out into the dark. “L’Hommedieu is a slave trader, Gaitskill; a low dog, I don’t . . .”

“He’s coming.” Gaitskill looked at Ann with apology. “I’m sorry. I have to deal with the man spite of his trade; queer bird; mixture of good and bad.”

Ann liked Tom—liked his gentle ways and soft eyes.

Of course Tom relinquished Ann to Henry—that was inevitable—that was fate; and Ann tasted an amused sip of compassion when Tom pretended he hankered on—hopeless—but steadfast.

Ann watched him as he worked. So here was Tom come back to Fayette with his palette and brushes to deliver them all to posterity. It was a matter of distinction now to have your portrait done by Gaitskill. He whispered to Ann that he painted the women of Fayette in robes of velvet and fur like those in which the women of Philadelphia were grandly arrayed.

Fayette could enjoy a vicarious grandeur; and Fayette loved it. The men he presented in rich but quiet waistcoats which gave a touch of social eminence without dashing their distaste of foppishness.

Sam came in and whispered to Ann that L’Hommedieu was outside. “Show him in, Sam.” Ann laughed nervously. “He’s punctual—if that’s a merit.”

Ann looked at L’Hommedieu as he stood in the door. He was stepping into a pool whose dank cold he knew, but his pores seemed to take it unharmed.

“Come in!” Ann couldn’t withhold admiration of a sort, for Rene L’Hommedieu was not an unhandsome man; sallow and lean and perverse, but there was a certain charm about him that commended him to women. He reminded Ann of a slightly decayed Romeo, with his damp black hair curled over a bulging forehead, a nose thin and delicately aquiline, teeth white and regular under thinly curving satirical lips.

He knows just how much they dislike him. Ann winced at the unfairness of the man’s plight; the buyer damned by the seller who went free of blame himself. Yes, in spite of all offense, L’Hommedieu managed to live and hold his finely modeled chin in the air. She secretly thought it was a high effrontery, even a kind of gallantry.

“Madame.” L’Hommedieu bowed with his elaborate, European manner. “Messieurs.”

Ann was almost tempted to give him her hand but what would Henry say or do. And if L’Hommedieu should dare to kiss it in his old-world fashion, she couldn’t imagine what would happen then. She smiled with faint cordiality and the men bowed. Ann wished to break the social impasse. “You’ve brought the frame, I see.”

“Yes, Madame.” L’Hommedieu hastened to take the covering from the unwieldy object under which he had staggered into the room, although Sam stood by waiting an order to help—watching the whole performance.

“Mr. Gaitskill gave me the dimensions and I happened to have one just the right size.” As ceremonious as in a ritual, L’Hommedieu lifted the portrait from the easel, put it within the frame and set the framed painting in place. He stepped back. Ann watched each movement; timed; overlaid with meaning.

“How it sets off Madame’s charm!” L’Hommedieu breathed rather than spoke while his Gallic hands spoke for him.

Ann broke the spell—as one breaks an incantation—by quick return to the commonplace.

“Lights, Sam! They’re a long time coming! We’ve only the firelight now. Send Venus!” Sam went at once.

“You make frequent trips to Fayette, L’Hommedieu?” said Henry.

“I come twice a year, Monsieur.”

“You deal in objets d’art?”

“I do.”

“But not exclusively!”

Ann saw a purplish vein swell in L’Hommedieu’s temple, a dark flush creep over the sallow face. “Not exclusively, Monsieur.” His thin lips repressed a curve of defiance.

Gaitskill stepped into the breach. “This frame is perfect, Henry; you couldn’t improve. . . .”

“Handsome!” Henry admitted as the firelight played over it, lambent and gleaming.

Just then the door, opened by Sam, allowed Venus to come in. She held in her hands two branched silver candlesticks. The lighted candles gave her face a nacred glow. Ann thought of the vase of porphyry Henry brought from Pisa. Venus hesitated for a moment in the doorway. The men looked.

“Lights at last,” said Ann, “we need them.”

Venus spoke on her breath. “Are they garniture de cheminée?”

“Yes!”

Venus, with a grace simple, voluptuous, set the candlesticks on the mantel. L’Hommedieu looked at her and stepped backward; struck his ankle sharply against the handle of the copper kettle that held the tapers. His forehead creased with sudden pain. He would have fallen, but Venus caught him—held him for a moment in her arms until he got his balance; her eyes big with pity; her warm voice tender.

“Oh Monsieur! Are you hurt?”

“You saved me.” He looked flushed—embarrassed.

The other men in the room were evidently none too pleased. Ann could see that; but there was nothing to which they could take exception; nothing but a small unavoidable accident; no one to blame.

The tapers spilled over the floor. Venus gathered them up—replaced them and quietly left the room. The men’s wary eyes followed her as she went out. There was silence until L’Hommedieu said with a gasp, “Bon dieu, where did she come from?”

“New Orleans—your city,” said Ann.

“Tendresse! Je suis en extase!”

Ann read his thought—it was plain to read. “We’ve no idea of selling her.”

With veiled insolence he said, “every proprietaire d’esclaves has a price, Madame.”

Henry loosened the band of his collar with two fingers. Ann’s eyes begged him not to make a scene. He sat down.

“I could give you a pretty offer, Madame. As Monsieur has said, I am in the market—and for such. . . .” He kissed his hand when words failed him. “I’ve noticed that Mrs. Ashe the Elder is a close buyer. Perhaps she will want to sell—sometime—later, maybe.”

“Mother buys, of course,” said Ann, “but sells only field hands. We don’t part with our house servants. . .”

“Have you had this one long enough. . . .”

Henry stood up straight. “L’Hommedieu, I take it you came here to sell a frame!”

“That was my purpose at the moment, Monsieur, but my bigger purpose is la recherche de—”

“We should be aware of that purpose and you should know our purpose: business of buying a frame. The business is ended.” Henry stepped toward the bell cord.

“I seem to understand you, Monsieur,” said L’Hommedieu rising. He gave a mocking bow. “For some things there is no price; for the frame, one hundred and fifty dollars, if that price suits you.”

“The money will be sent you in the morning.” Henry pulled the bell cord. “Remember this matter of Venus is closed.”

“Venus! What a nôm de baptême—à propos—juste!”

Sam appeared at the door; black geni at the call of the djinn.

“Sam, show L’Hommedieu out.”

“Au voir, Madame—Messieurs.” L’Hommedieu bowed and followed Sam. The men bowed; Ann smiled and Sam closed the door.

When L’Hommedieu stumbled, Ann intercepted the sudden look Venus gave him. She must have known his status—or guessed it. It was swift as thought; the small accident happened in a moment.

She called him “Monsieur.” Did that touch him with old memory. Nobody so dignified him now. Ann saw his eyes deepen with emotion—they almost held tears. He must have a heart under the rag of dishonor that he wore—under the filthy rag of the slave trade. He was L’Hommedieu to everyone—without title; without appellation of dignity. The slave trader.

“Monsieur,” she called him, in his own tongue.

His manners were manners of the Court. Where had he got them. How had he happened? It was all a mystery. And how well he wore his clothes—with what unconscious grace.

Ann couldn’t help feeling that L’Hommedieu had had the better of the wordy scuffle of the sitting room. He was a gentleman . . . what could have brought him to this lowest of all estate: the trade! It was said he was hugely rich; but wealth gave him no contact with his kind—and in spite of his social grace—a pariah—an outcast!

The curtains moved and flapped and the evening wind blew fresh; fragrant with earth odors.

“I didn’t know what I’d got you in for,” said Gaitskill.

“His insistence! Damn him! Venus belongs to Mother and Mother’s plans are her own. If he made Mother a topping offer she might take it. She likes the negro’s inky coat; no yellow ones for Mother.”

Henry looked long at the framed picture.

“I don’t like his property—past or present.”

“We can’t be consistent, Henry,” Ann spoke thoughtfully, “while we have servants of our own, bought somewhere, sold through somebody.”

“I make no excuse for us; but this man’s business—”

“They say he’s generous; he has manners; he may have a code of his own.”

“You are naive, my dear.”

Gaitskill looked toward the door. “That girl! Henry, how did you come by her?”

“Aunt Maria brought her; picked her up in New Orleans.”

Gaitskill’s lips parted; he waited a moment. “I’d adore to paint her!”

Why all the excitement, thought Ann. Of course the girl was goodlooking; comely; an artist could see values Ann couldn’t appreciate.

“Mother would never allow it, Tom.”

“Mother need never know.”

“Pull the wool over Mother’s eyes—think you can!”

“Yes—Henry, call the girl in on a pretext. Say I haven’t lights enough. God, what a face! I’ll paint her from memory. Damned if I don’t.”

“She’s going to be a problem here,” said Henry, the line on his forehead deepening.

“She shouldn’t be—we can use her in the house—away from the others; and she sews. . . .”

“That dark glory of her skin. . . .”

Ann knew Gaitskill was already painting the picture.

“She may not be negro after all. Many breeds find their way into port at New Orleans. She mayn’t have more than a trace of Africa in her. . . . It may be nightshade, belladonna, henbane, mandragora . . . or some other quintessential drop. . . .”

“Tom,” said Ann, “you’re just a crazy artist! I can tell you right now Mother’ll be against it.”

“She needn’t find out,” said Henry, “and if Gaitskill wants another sight of the girl for his art’s sake, by God he shall have it!”

“Only once—only once—for the sake of the poor painter.”

“We’re doing nothing sinful,” Gaitskill’s eyes were on the door. It opened and Sam came in.

“Send Venus with more lights,” said Henry.

Ann saw Sam’s eyes shine as he stood in the doorway. His occult Negro sense alive, his nostril wide, moving. Ann watched him.

“Yassir! You sho needs a passel of lights to paint by.” His indoor servant tread made no sound as he left the room.

Just then a face appeared at the window. Ann called after Sam. “Send Lobelia Grubb home; she’s out there peeping!”

“She’s eluded Sam,” said Henry, now at the window. “Here she comes!”

“Little eavesdropper! She makes my flesh creep,” said Ann.

Lobelia sneaked into the room. She was panting from the run; her shifty eyes avoided Ann’s frown; her hair, colorless as hemp, hung about her in disorder. Ann couldn’t bear the sight of her or the smell.

“Miss Ann, wherefo’ is that white nigger come here? How-come she come?” Lobelia’s ferret eyes squinneyed to pin points.

“Go home Lobelia!” The ever present smell of sweat and worse; Milly called her a stinkpot. Ann shuddered.

“I ain’t seen no white nigger before now!” Lobelia’s corrupted teeth pushed out beyond her lips. “How-come she’s most white?”

“Never mind that; it’s late; go home.”

“I’m agoin’, Miss Ann.” Lobelia’s face had a warlock quality. “I’m agoin’, but I’m a-queryin’!”

Lobelia plunged through the door and narrowly missed Venus who came in with a whale-oil lamp. Venus allowed the flurry of Lobelia to subside; she let her own disturbed skirts compose themselves.

“Lobelia nearly knocked you down,” said Henry.

“I just escaped her, sir.”

“Put the lamp on the table by the easel,” said Ann.

As Venus set the lamp at his elbow Gaitskill turned to her. “Venus, I’m wondering about you—where you came from—”

She gave a start. “From New Orleans, sir.”

“You are a servant—but—” he was on forbidden ground.

“I’m not negro, sir, if you mean that,” she said humbly.

Already sketching with covert expertness, Gaitskill went on. “How did you happen?”

The girl’s lips trembled; the question implied common mercy; escape of speech. She spoke quickly in a low voice—her hand at her breast. “My mother came on a ship from Portugal—”

“Oh!” Gaitskill wouldn’t let the talk dwindle; it must keep alive while he sketched. Ann saw the girl look at him hoping for belief. “Portuguese! Your mother came on a ship. . . .”

“The ship was sunk by pirates. My father killed then. . . .” Her eyes pleaded, “believe—only believe . . .”

“And your mother. . . .”

“She was sold when the ship came to port in New Orleans. . . .” The pleading eyes looked into his.

Gaitskill pressed on gently. “And you. . . .”

“I wasn’t born then. My mother died when I came—life was hard for her.” The girl’s voice diminished to a whisper in the small confidence. “But I . . . for a while . . . I live. . . .” Her lips wavered.

Gaitskill was working rapidly. “Where—where did you live?”

“With French people: Madame and Monsieur Roland.”

The girl’s dark eyes had a look of dread, her lips parted; her breathing was too rapid to be curbed by closed lips. Her hand crept to cover them as though she knew her struggle was unsafe to betray—a hazard to reveal—and yet she was helpless to hide it.

Ann felt drawn into the circle of question, a circle that drew them together. “Always a servant?” she said.

“They were good to me; I was like a child of theirs.”

Ann had a confused wish to be kind—to say some healing word. “What did they do for you, Venus?”

“They taught me reading, sewing—many other things—they were gay and happy people; I was happy with them.”

“What became of them?” Ann shrank with pity as she drew sorrow to the surface; dragged its drowned form to the light.

The girl’s heart seemed to bleed—to perish in her breast. Her eyes told you. “My friends died—both together—in a boat on the Gulf. They were never found.”

“And you—” Gaitskill spoke with busy, unfeeling pencil, uplifted.

“I am left alone—boats and seas aren’t good for me.”

“But why on God’s earth didn’t they free you?”

“They promised—they would have; but—but. . . .” She caught her breath. “They didn’t think to die so soon—and I. . . .” Her great eyes filled and overflowed.

“Don’t cry, please. . . .” Gaitskill hushed. Quick footsteps sounded in the hall. He stopped sketching and nimbly concealed his work in his portmanteau.

Anabel descended on the absorbed group like one of the Eumenides. Henry caught her quick suspicion. Fear fell on them. All had sinned. Anabel turned to Venus, sharp and cold. “What is this; haven’t I told you we want cheerful faces here?”

“Yes, mam.”

“Go to your cabin at once!”

Venus started to the door, but stopped there. Henry knew she must not stop there, even for a moment. Her eyes showed him a thin rim of white beneath the iris—sad eyes, frightened eyes.

“What are you waiting for?” stabbed Anabel.

“May I have a key to my cabin—please. . . .” The question trembled weak and anxious.

“A key!” rasped Anabel, as though the wench were asking for a roc’s egg. “We have no keys to cabins.”

“I’m afraid . . . in the dark . . . I thought I heard. . . .”

“Foolishness!”

“Yes, mam.”

Henry held his breath. Surely his mother would relent. After all, the human heart is flesh, not stone. She justified his hope, in part.

“There’s an Indian bar in the cabin, somewhere, I suppose. You may put it up.”

“An Indian bar?”

“City born!” Anabel sniffed.

Henry spoke, although he knew better. “It was used once to bar out Indians.” Ann piped up, “It’s stronger than a key.”

Anabel’s lips tightened as Venus eased toward Ann, close, and opened her dress at her breast to show the white chemise underneath. “This is some of my work.”

“Oh, Mother, look! Gorgeous embroidery! We’ll have to let her sew in the house!”

“No promises!” bit in Anabel. She lowered her voice and looked at Venus. “And don’t be too free with your shimmy!”

Venus hastily fastened her dress. “I can make delicate foods, too.” Henry caught the unspoken plea: oh, let me stay! “Madame Roland was a famous cook—she taught me.”

“French cooking!” Henry might have known better. His mother was out to squelch the idea at once and forever.

“No meddling with Lucinda!”

“But continental food, Mother! Have you ever tasted it?”

“Lucinda’s the best cook this side of the Alleghanies! I taught her myself. I’ll not have her vexed with interference!”

It was hard to give up the struggle while Venus hung on the talk, her eyes bright as an animal’s with unsubdued fear. But Henry knew that further word was useless.

Anabel drew in her chin.

“I’ve given you one order to go. Remember, girl, I give one!”

Henry saw Venus creep out, swift and fear-footed as a shadow in a half remembered dream.

Anabel waited until she was gone; then she went to the door and called Sam. From nowhere, Sam popped up.

“Yassum, Ole Miss.”

“Tell Grubb to see me in the office.” And Anabel left the room abruptly as she came.

Her displeasure seemed to fill even the air she quitted, and Henry felt it deep in the lung. Mother’s blame was hard to breathe. He was the first to speak. “Close to fatal accident.”

Gaitskill, too, drew in his breath between shut teeth. “Good God, that girl! What a subject!”

Henry’s eyes misted. “I’d say, what a fate!”

“Well Tom,” said Ann, “you’ve left me for another sitter; but you were through with me, anyway, so it makes no difference.”

Gaitskill took her hand and looked at it. “Little burr under the skin—? Little claw on its little paw?”

Ann withdrew her hand. “Tom, you make me laugh. I warn you, though, Mother was watching.”

“Think we didn’t know it,” said Henry. “Mother mistook art for nature.”

“Well, she was pretty damned right, I reckon; if I had money I’d buy that yellow girl out of hand.”

“Oh, you would?”

“Keep her for my model—paint her in techniques—”

“You’re feverish,” said Henry, “better be quiet.”

“Yes, Tom, if Mother hears a breath of this, she’ll sell Venus.” Ann looked serious. “But not to you, Tom Gaitskill.”

“Beggar that I am!”

“Against the code.” Henry shrugged his shoulder. “You know it. She’d never encourage admiration of a servant. And remember L’Hommedieu; be cautious.”

“You be careful, too, Henry.” Ann turned to Gaitskill. “Henry and Mother clash morning to night; it’s dangerous.”

“It’s like clashing with Juggernaut; with her mind not her body. Mother believes in slavery as she believes in human depravity, hell fire, damnation. If these pillars totter she’ll go down like old Samson in Gaza.”

“You are talking about me!” said Anabel at the door.

“Only comparing you with Samson and Juggernaut.”

“Thank you Henry for historic focus. Samson pulled down the temple on himself; go as far as that?”

“Maybe!” Henry got up and kissed her cheek. Anabel laughed and Ann ventured into the warmer current.

“Have you got Venus settled, Mother?”

Henry saw his mother chill at once.

“Maybe she’s not a negro,” said Gaitskill.

“Flapdoodle! You believe her stories. All mulattoes tell them, to regale dupes and dullards.”

“I know facial type, Mrs. Ashe. There’s nothing of the Negro there.”

“Except blood. One drop is enough.”

“But suppose she hasn’t it? Suppose she’s White as she says—Portuguese.”

“Believe what you like; you’re welcome. I don’t believe a word of it. Jut wait. Some day she’ll spawn a nigger, blacker than Ham is.”

“Oh, Mrs. Ashe!” Gaitskill shook back from his forehead the stray lock of his unruly hair.

“You’re gullible, Tom Gaitskill. There’s many a white skin with black blood running under it. You ought to know that.”

“Ann wants to keep her for a house servant, Mother.”

“Young man, I direct the servants of this farm.”

“I’ve set my heart on having Venus for my baby clothes. I’ll need her.”

“Shucks!” Anabel snorted, “my baby did with a bellyband!”

“Mother, that isn’t so! I’ve seen my christening robe. You wouldn’t want your grandson to do with a bellyband.”

“Henry, I hope your heir will sharpen up your loyalties.”

“Mother, be just,” said Ann with a sob.

“Just? I’m generous! Any man against the institution of his land. . . .”

“Oh, Mother!” Ann’s voice was despairing.

“Any man, I say, who encourages Abolition is a traitor, a black traitor! Anyone against our Institution is against us!”

Henry shuddered as Gaitskill said, “But how do you justify slavery, Mrs. Ashe? How do you equate it with any kind of morality?”

Anabel’s eyes blazed at the enemy in her own camp. “I justify it by Holy Writ. I equate it with necessity.”

“You mean the Negro is holding up our world?”

Henry thought Gaitskill mad, completely mad.

“Isn’t there something inside you, Mrs. Ashe, that shivers at your power of life and death?”

“No! Tom Gaitskill, anybody who touches the powder keg of Abolition is apt to set it off.”

“Always underfoot to stumble over,” said Henry.

“No excuse for stumbling. A word, a motion, and all hell would break loose here. You know that.” His mother squared her chin.

“Slavery is a cruel need, Mrs. Ashe,” said Gaitskill.

“All social systems are. We are kind to our servants. There are no happier creatures.”

“And the whip on the wall. Decoration?”

Ann began to cry. “Mother hasn’t used that whip since. . . .”

Henry sprang to his feet. “For Christ’s sake, none of that! I’m against it. Against it. Against it all!”

Anabel looked at him; wiped her nose briefly. “Hysteria! see what foreign travel does for a young sap. I’m not rankly concerned about you, yet!”

Gaitskill gave a parting shot. “I hear that General Jackson doesn’t approve of the Peculiar. . . .”

“But he knows there’s no way out for us.”

“He doesn’t defend it,” said Henry.

“I do,” roared Anabel, “with all I have and am!”

Gaitskill’s departure was overdue. He had strained the bounds of courtesy, but Henry knew it was his fault: he had lured Tom into honest speech. Gaitskill gathered up his paint brushes.

“I think the portrait is perfect.” Henry put his arm about Tom’s shoulder. “Won’t you stay with us for supper? Lucinda has chicken and batter bread tonight—my request.”

“Stay with us,” said Ann, mopping her eyes.

“Thanks, thanks. I must be going.” Gaitskill looked at Anabel and smiled. “I’d like to do your portrait, Mrs. Ashe, when I’ve learned wiser practice.”

“For children to hide in the garret! No, thanks.”

“Older faces are for painters; young faces have only promise.” Gaitskill made for the door.

She hadn’t asked him to stay; frontier usage violated. Henry knew Gaitskill had deserved chastisement; but he, too, was guilty. With a sharp glance, Anabel said, “What does the face of Venus promise?”

Gaitskill caught his breath. “Doom,” he said.

“Tom Gaitskill, you are headed for hell.”

“Thanks for the warning.” He moistened his lips. “Good night, Mrs. Ashe. Think better of your portrait.”

She didn’t answer. Henry and Ann followed Tom to the front door.

“Good night, old man! Come again soon.”

Gaitskill hastened down the gravel driveway, waved his hand from the stile, mounted his horse, and was gone.

When Henry and Ann returned, they found Anabel seated, with her eyes half shut. Henry went close to his mother; she moved away slightly.

“You didn’t ask Gaitskill to stay, Mother.”

Anabel rose from her seat. Every black silk ruffle shivered over her starched petticoat. Hospitality was law. Even Anabel Ashe was not above the rule of household mores. Henry knew she must defend herself.

“I didn’t like his talk. Flagitious!” Her petticoats seemed to carry on the swish of the word.

“Flagitious!” Sam said it over to himself as he listened; intent. Ole Miss could fling words around, scan’lous! Sam might use them some day, too, if he listened hard enough.

He waited a minute at the door to be rightly timed, and then he said, “Supper is served, Ole Miss.”

Ann was delighted with Venus’ beautiful sewing and wanted her in the house though Milly was jealous of her own rights there. Ann was sorry for Venus whose eyes were so sad—too sad for beauty. But she was a problem Ann couldn’t solve. What could you do? Things were established—permanent!

Ann’s thoughts were all concerned with Henry. How to make him happy—satisfied. She knew he wasn’t either happy or satisfied—always worrying about something. It was his disposition. He couldn’t help it. Her place was to straighten things out if she could—where she could. But how?

Milly was always harping on Henry’s looks—how handsome he was and how the women would go for him; and Esmeralda hovered in the background—like an over-gaudy bird of destruction.

Life—married life—was a strange medley of incertitudes. But there was the baby to look forward to—the baby! He was coming now! The baby would solve every earthly problem. Henry would be happy. Even mother less morose and hard to get along with. After all, God knew best how to make women quiescent and family life the best life—the only life for a woman. Certainly the only life when you loved your husband as she loved Henry. Perhaps she made an idol of him—maybe it was too much loving as Milly was quick to tell her.

Sometimes—often now—Henry would dash away to the “Oval” on the turf where the races were run. The one thing in common he and Mother knew was their love of horses—race horses and horse racing.

His mother was willing to be stared at and even stared down as the only woman present when the races were in progress—everyone standing on the turf around the Oval. Her greatest wish, she often said, was to have the finest stallion in Fayette. Of course he had to come from Virginia and Mother had waited for Henry’s judgment before she bought; for Henry knew horses. He had an intuitive gift in their choosing and selection—an eye for nice points in horseflesh.

The races in Fayette were run in heats. Two-mile, three-mile, four-mile—run on the race field and the race often lasted several days. Mother was always there—watching and betting too.

The war at New Orleans had stopped the races for a while but they were now going full blast. Some day the turf would be skinned and a track established with maybe seats for spectators. That was Anabel’s dream and Henry’s too and the dream of all Fayette where racing was a need—a native demand.

Henry didn’t ride in the town races himself; there were jockeys for that riding a-plenty—but he loved to feel out a horse’s strength and stamina on the turnpike between the toll-gate and Stoneholt.

Each day he rode. Riding lifted his thought from pedestrian drag and scuffle—from inextricable problem and set it to motion—joyous, pure. His gallop now seemed a daily necessity.

More and more as the days passed Henry found himself obsessed with the tragedy of the mulatto girl—her fate. The whole matter was unsettling.

Why had Aunt Maria conferred this unquiet—this uneasy gift upon Stoneholt. But of course he knew—Mother knew—Aunt Maria was tenderhearted. Henry’s mother often said that Aunt Maria was as amiable as a setting hen; but there was a trace, a tinge of envy somewhere in Aunt Maria; envy of Stoneholt; Mother felt it, she said.

Aunt Maria was not an efficient housekeeper and her farm, in spite of good money to run it and servants to serve it, was always slightly down at heel; a contrast to Stoneholt.

Did Aunt Maria bring Venus here to embarrass Mother with a gift mother could neither part with nor conveniently keep—nor indeed refuse to accept; Aunt Maria then confronted with the crisis of her coming surgery?

Aunt Maria was softhearted—she wouldn’t sell the girl herself—but “here she is for you, Anabel. Take the girl even though you don’t like white Negroes. Take her. I turn her over to your expert hands.” Mother told Henry she had worked out the motive of Aunt Maria’s gift.

Aunt Maria was home now and as well as ever. Dr. McDowell sent a bill to Uncle James for five-hundred dollars. Uncle James wrote him a check for fifteen-hundred dollars. Dr. McDowell sent it back thinking it to be an error but Uncle James returned it. He thought Aunt Maria was worth fifteen-hundred dollars.

Henry watched Venus as she went and came. Somehow it reminded him of having a bird or a butterfly under your hand and feeling its wild and self-destroying struggles.

Her eyes followed him appealing for help in desperate need—help he could not give.

Mother’s suspicions seemed for the moment to be calmed as she watched the skillful fingers swift and adroit and approved the organized and perfected strategy of the needle—a formal art she could appreciate. Anabel at last relented and often allowed Venus to sew in the house.

Henry was constantly aware of the mulatto girl’s presence—of her dark tragic eyes. Her voice affected him strangely—the foreign inflection—its deep and musical resonance, vowels like a liquid content held within the crystal cup of the consonant. The unquiet fear, the unuttered cry for help, were tangible suggestions. Her story! Could it be believed? It was possible to believe. Her native delicacy, her intelligent speech—she had gained these somewhere and they seemed to verify, to confirm, her word.

If Henry could only save her! Get her across the border. But where could she go? How could she survive in the unwanting world? The whole problem had neither beginning nor end. It was without continuity or finish.

The mulatto girl! Henry was obsessed by her beauty, her helpless hopeless state. In the cabin, shut in. If he could only get the girl across the river—find a way to save her. But how, except to plunge her in deeper into danger.

Henry held no truck with the Underground. No help there—that mystery—half suspicion, half certainty—that had come to pass since he left Fayette for England. But Venus was in his thoughts night and day. Of course he was not in love with her. The idea was unthinkable. He loved Ann, his lovely wife—his bride. His bond with Ann was irrevocable. Ann was part of himself, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. Their marriage, a blood covenant established before birth. She was one with his breathing.

Venus was accident; Ann was law. He could say no to his love for Ann only if he could deny breath and being; say no to heartbeat; say no to the tides of life—their rise and fall.

Ann was unbroken rhythm—Venus was hiatus.

Venus was as unrelated to his life as though she had come from outer space. But she had come. The pity, the anguish of this creature seemed to jangle every nerve in his body. It was an emotion apart from his love for Ann. A different, separate part of himself. Like a chasm opening within him—an infatuation, part blood, part thought.

Mother ever on the alert, keen eyed, ready to sell the girl any minute to the slave jail or even down river. Mother resenting Aunt Maria who wouldn’t sell Venus herself she was too chickenhearted—palming her off on Anabel and Stoneholt. The servants all disturbed by the presence of the slave with the white skin.

Henry’s mind constantly toyed with the idea of escape over the river—a runaway. Could he compass it? Would he dare the rage of his mother—the revenge of his world? The time might come when he could stand the strain no longer. Thin-skinned his mother called him—ever since the day long ago when the sows rooted into the barn and ate off his little she-goat’s teats and left her dying there and then attacked Billy and were devouring his testicles when Henry heard him and at his own peril, fought the sows away. He led Billy to the house, bleating and gory and Mother said, “Put an end to him. He’s no use any more!”

But Henry made such a racket that father came out and had Sam take Billy and doctor him and Billy lived to old age—happy without offspring. But Mother never forgot. She had held it against Henry to this day. “Thin-skinned! The Border is no place for a mollycoddle.”

Around him Henry knew that the men of his world met their conflicts without any ado of conscience. A wife in the house, a woman in the cabin—quiet affection—tidy life pattern undisturbed by the outside event.

Jungle fevers could be caught of the slave and her body secretions; disastrous—consuming. But the fever abated with no qualm or gnaw of guilt.

All was part of the essential Peculiar Institution accepted without inner turmoil. Without acknowledged turpitude. Nature was what it was. Didn’t God make it or condone it or wink at it; or perhaps was it all a joke of the Cosmos?

Who should worry or disclaim? Jungle fever was caught as a man caught a fume of the pestilence that walketh in darkness. Always there remained the cooling shelter of domestic peace, traditional plan of living—home. The house: an island of white thinking and white law amid the gust and spume of Africa unlicensed.

Venus—at your pleasure—at your mercy. Venus in the cabin. Ann in her quiet room, asleep. Milly, guardian and watchful. Knowin’ men folks; one eye always open even when her head was tied up for the night in Rooshan’s head handkerchief.

The men’s wives? Were they deceived or did they shut their eyes tight? It was hard to tell about women—enigmas they were. Here was the under-belly of the Institution bared—but the women as the men lived by the Institution and though it was ugly, they survived.

Henry had freed his tongue of the idiom of his people. He had unlearned their language but, as yet, he knew no other.

Henry glanced from his book. “I’ll read a while longer, Ann; don’t wait up for me.”

Ann lifted her sleepy eyelids and smiled at him. “Old night owl!” She looked out of the window where purple shadows streaked the lawn and a jagged moon was moving toward the meeting of earth and sky.

Anabel stifled a yawn and straightened out the sock nearly finished and wound up the yarn into her ball.

“Ring for Sam to put the lights out, Henry.”

“I’ll put them out; no trouble. I’ll finish The American Experiment—perhaps decide who wrote it.”

“Nobody in this neck of the woods believes a woman wrote it.”

“It’s as sharp as sin—whoever did it.”

“Everyone to his taste. Damn lie, I call it.”

“Would some power, Mother—”

“Enjoy it, then. Good night.” She offered Henry a meagre cheek, gave Ann a peck on the forehead and went to the door. Her silk skirts made a faint rustle in the room; more faintly rustled in the hall—the sound lost at the stairway where Anabel’s steps struck firm and quick.

Ann leaned over Henry’s shoulder. “I can’t forgive the attack on Jefferson. I read that far and stopped.”

“Negro wench in every fence corner?”

“Yes.”

Henry’s tone seemed too casual. He passed his hand through his hair and turned a page, without looking up. “Many tales were told about him; he never stooped to deny them.”

“But this—oh, this!”

“Political venom, my dear; the writer heard it and merely passed it on.”

Ann laid her cheek lightly on Henry’s soft curls. Should she ask him a question long lingering in her mind. . . . “Henry, do you think men were—well—easier in their morals then?” At the back of Ann’s thought there still clung Anabel’s decree: “All men are vile.” Ann refused it and yet it defaced good thinking. It was not true—never true of Henry. He leaned his head back and smiled.

“There’s always plenty of temptation in a slave owning land. You know that.”

“But surely—some men—your father, Henry, you—”

Henry looked into her eyes. “You know what Hamlet said—maybe he spoke for all of us . . . ‘I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me—’ ”

“We all feel like Hamlet, sometimes. . . .” said Ann. “Even I do.” She rumpled his hair with her hand; she walked to the door and stood there looking at him—at the easy grace of his body, the tender curve of his lips. She felt a pulse of desire—of warm joy. She ran to him and kissed him and lay back in his arms. He loved her; she knew it; nothing else mattered. Henry drew her closer. “It was never good for man to be alone. You make a dear helpmeet for me.”

“I’m glad.” Why should she ever have worried.

“Run now; time for bed; remember the rising bell; and the baby, too, needs rest.”

Ann kissed his eyelids and left him; she looked back as she went.

Henry began to leaf through the book he held; reading portions half aloud—“Quadroon girls, the daughters of American fathers—”

A muffled thud shook the front door; Henry ran to open it. The door refused to give; he pulled hard on it and Venus fell forward into his arms. He held her while she fought for breath—while she gasped and leaned against the door frame. She seemed ready to die from fear and breathless running. He waited until she could speak. “Now tell me.”

“My door—”

“What happened?”

“The Indian bar, I couldn’t find it.”

“You are safe now. Tell me. Someone tried to harm you?” She nodded. Her body spoke to him, her breasts. “Surely no one here. . . .”

“Yes. Yes.”

“A Negro?”

“Yes. It was dark, but I know.” She was gaining control. “I fought him—fought. He let go. I ran. I am here.”

“Did he hurt you, harm you?”

“Only, only my neck.” She threw back her head and showed marks of a man’s hand.

“Would you know him?”

“No. Too dark.” Her face blanched as the blood drained from it. “I’m strangled—can’t get my breath.” She crumpled to the floor at his feet. Henry lifted her and carried her through the hall into the sitting room to the sofa. “Heaven send Mother a sound sleep!” Venus caught her uneven breath. “Lie here till you feel stronger.” His arms were about her as he watched her slow return to life. He put a cushion under her head.

She breathed better now. “I thought I was dying, dying. I should like to die here, near you.” Again the blood drained from her cheeks.

“Lie still a while. Close your eyes.” She lay back; her lashes heavy-weighted with tears. “Listen,” said Henry, “I believed your story yesterday.”

“That makes me live.” Tears forced their way.

“Rest now.”

“I must show you the ring I have!”

“Not now. Lie still. When you are stronger.” But she put her hand to her bosom and struggled up. “It’s gone! He tore it loose. I must get it.”

“You can’t in the dark. If it’s in the cabin, you’ll find it later.”

“It’s the only proof I have; my father’s ring.”

“I don’t need the ring to believe you, Venus.” After all, her story might be true. Why not say so?

She dropped to her knees her head in her arms. She was close to him, her face hidden. “You are good.”

“But I warn you, Venus. No one else here will believe you. They don’t want to believe you. They’ll deny you to the last.”

“I know.”

“There can be no doubt here; no question.”

Still kneeling, Venus looked at him. “What is to become of me?”

Henry helped her up, his arm about her. He sat beside her for a moment on the sofa, then moved to a chair near by. Her breath was still too quick. She was still trembling. “Be quiet for a while.”

“Madame Roland kept me with her, in her house. I’ve never lived—with them. . . .”

“She was kind to you—good.”

“She would have set me free if she hadn’t died so soon, so sudden. Sometimes I think to take my life—now!”

“No, Venus. Hold on.”

“I’ve always lived with white people. I can’t live with—with the others. What can I do?”

“I don’t know yet. I must think it out.”

“It’s dangerous to think.”

“Yes.”

“I try only to feel, to breathe,” she put her hand to her throat, “to live, not to think. So many things when you think, seem wrong.”

Upon their low talk a sound broke. Anabel calling, “Henry!”

“God Almighty! Mother! Hide quick! There, in the window. Hurry!” Venus ran to the window, hid behind the curtain. Henry stretched out on the sofa and clenched his hands back of his head. His heart pounded so hard his mother might see how it was with him, might count the broken rhythm; grow suspicious.

“Henry,” Anabel stood in the doorway in her cotton night gown, a black shawl around her shoulders, “Are you asleep?”

“No, Mother.”

“You didn’t answer. I left my key basket somewhere. Here, I think.”

Henry jumped up. “Let me look for it.”

“Perhaps I left it in the window. What can Sam be thinking of to draw the curtains crazily like that!”

Henry got to the window first, settled the curtain, prayed for skill to handle the impossible.

“Not so close together. Straighten the one on the other side.”

“Yes, Mother.” The basket in the window! Her guess was right! Anabel was on the sofa now watching, as he brought the basket. “What would you do without this badge of your rule?” He put the basket beside her on the sofa.

“Have the house stolen, I suppose. But why the breathless haste?”

“Your command, Mother, stirs action.”

“Not such haste, commonly. Might think you wished to be rid of me.”

“Idle suspicion.” Henry took his place near her.

“Not so idle, maybe.” Did his mother feel intangibles about her, in the air. He could see she was puzzled; something equivocal at stake.

“Relax,” said Henry.

“That is the last thing I want to do, ever. Who would relax with keys lying loose and light fingers everywhere?” Was it Henry’s imagination or was his mother’s eye edged with more than casual keenness? “What is that shining on the floor over there? Is it one on my keys?”

Christ Jesus, it was the ring. He knew it! He sprang and picked it up, concealed it in the palm of his hand, brushed the floor lightly. “Mother, there is no sign of a ring here.”

“Ring. What do you mean?”

“Key, of course.” Henry’s lips were dry.

“I certainly saw something. Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.”

“The American Experiment is on the floor too. Since you like it so well, pick it up. I heard you reading when I came down.”

He stooped and reached for the book and handed it to her. “An old habit.”

“This writer is too raw for me.” Anabel held the small volume with the disfavor she might feel for a dead mouse. She flung the book down on the sofa where it fell open, the pages sprawled obscenely. “Good night. See to the lights.”

“Yes. Good night.” He kissed her forehead, thankful she couldn’t know his thought. He waited as she went up the stairs; he counted each step; at last heard her close her door. “Come out, she’s gone.”

Venus came from the window, cautious—her hand tight at her breast. She swayed, but steadied herself and got to the sofa.

“It was hard for you.”

“Yes. I’m afraid of her.”

“So am I.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Yes. Here’s your ring.”

“I knew when you found it.” Tears were in her eyes; tears rolled down her cheeks.

Henry felt pain like a blow on the heart. Slavery at any level cut to the bone. And this woman’s state, her despair hurt him like personal sin; crime in which he had part. “Come, sit down.” She came around the sofa and sat at the far end, away from him. “We are partners in deceit. Your ring has a handsome crest.”

She held it toward him. What would his mother say to this. She would like to kill him coldly, without remorse. It would be her thought, if not her act. She would find no excuse for him. “It is very old,” Venus said.

“You know its story?”

“My father’s ring; that is all. . . .”

“Luckily mother didn’t get it. Hard to explain.”

“I’d have been lost.”

“It’s best out of sight.”

“Yes. I keep it here.” She put her hand to her breast.

The time had now come when he had to say it. “Venus, it’s getting late.”

“Let me hide in the house!”

“Where could you hide that she wouldn’t find you? If she found you, you know what would happen.”

“Yes.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Yes.”

Henry covered his eyes with his hand. The matter seemed too desperate for thought; reason helpless.

Silence fell between them. He wondered what she was thinking; what he could say to help or console.

“I want to tell you a story,” he said at last. “Would you like to hear it?”

Venus leaned toward him. “Oh, yes!” Her eagerness was pitiful, childlike. For the first time he saw her lovely lips part in a smile, her face alight with it.

Maybe he was on the right track—anything to soothe her for a moment. After all she was a child in thought if not in years. “Once upon a time there was a man who was in bondage and who wanted to be free. . . .” He waited.

“Who was his master?”

“His own thought was his master, just as it is your master and mine, and this thought governed the city in which he lived.”

“His thought,” she repeated as though trying to fit the meaning. Her absorption was a kind of ecstasy. “But he made up his mind that he would not always be a slave, and he set out on a journey from his city, which he called the City of Destruction, to reach the Celestial City—the city of freedom.” Again he waited the spur of her question.

“Did he reach it?”

“Yes. But he had many adventures on the way; struggling with adversaries who tried to prevent him.”

Would this anabasis mean anything to her—this simple parable carry any conviction? He didn’t know. He would blunder on.

“They didn’t prevent him?”

“No, Venus. Nothing could prevent him. Nothing can prevent you.” He must be careful here.

“Me?”

“Yes.” The cool night air came in through the windows, faint night sounds, muted leaf music. He turned toward her. Her eyes were luminous; she was hanging on his words.

“This man fought with Apollyon, the Devil, the angel of the bottomless pit, Abaddon, who claims dominion over men’s thoughts.”

“As I fought tonight?”

“Yes. He, too, was wounded, but undefeated, unbeaten.”

“He had courage,” she breathed.

“He said, ‘though I fall I shall arise’.”

“But I, I have no courage.”

“You have. You must know that you have.”

“Shall I reach that city—be free?”

“You are free now, Venus. Knowing that you are free is the Celestial City; the city in which free thought lives.”

“You are just trying to comfort me.”

“Yes. But as long as your thought is free you are not a slave. Your thought is you. But this secret you must hold in your heart and never tell it.”

“Never, never.”

Tears stood in her eyes. “I have no right to say this,” she said, “even to think it . . . but. . . .”

“What Venus?”

“I love you.” He didn’t answer. “Is that wrong?”

“No. Real love is never wrong, I think. But it is not good for you to say or me to hear.”

“I know what you mean.”

He must be cruel. “It is getting late.”

“But it’s dark. There isn’t even a moon now. I can’t fight in the dark. Let me stay.”

“My mother isn’t willing yet. Later, perhaps.”

“Who would be more bad to meet, the man out there or Apollyon, or your mother?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look! There’s someone at the window!”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Something moved.”

Henry sprang up. “We must be quiet, careful. Stand back against the curtain; no, behind it.” Venus drew into the shadow of the window and Henry went into the hall, opened the front door, walked past the windows and looked in: no sign or human sound, only familiar night murmurs. Perhaps she had seen nothing; the devilish situation. What to do! He came back into the room. “Come out. I see no one. You may be mistaken.”

“Yes—yes.”

“But if Mother is loose I can’t hide you here. There’s no hour of the day or night when she’s not on the hoof, looking things over.”

“But the man may be waiting! Don’t send me, don’t, into the dark alone!”

“I will go with you. Come.”

She threw her arms around him with passion, her lips met his lips. Together they went out into the night, a night intensely dark. The sound of distant water over rocks, the cry of nightbirds in the big elm, the moving leaves. They walked under lilacs, bereft of bloom. Henry thought of their heavy scent the night he and Ann ran over this path to Aunt Jett’s cabin. Was Aunt Jett’s second sight working tonight? His nostrils seemed to catch a faint odor of lilac. Conscience! Ann! But Venus was under his arm, her warm breast against his heart; her passionate need drained him of strength. They found the cabin door open; the meagre room; Henry made sure the place was empty. He stirred the logs and a single flame shot up, filled the cabin with monstrous shadows leaping, coupling on the log walls and overhead. He found the Indian bar and barred the door. “Now you’re safe.”

Venus came into his arms.

The leaves were turning now—October was coming in.

Henry promised to go with Ann to the dance at the Lentell Confectionery. He was late; something was keeping him.

The citizenry of Fayette was frankly given over to the dance; it meant action, excitement; it filled a need in social vacuum. Dancing teachers came to town and found ready pupils. Monsieur Tonnaire was now as busy as a hummingbird, with classes every hour of the day. He offered the latest Parisian steps, the newest quadrilles, minuets, waltzes. Every fortnight there was a dance at the Confectionery, a sizable hall in the centre of town.

Ann’s dancing days were shortening; she was anxious to go dancing while dancing was no hazard. “I’ll wear my pink tonight to brighten me.” She was troubled by Henry’s look, his inattentive manner. It would do him good to go, give him a change of thought, stop his brooding. Nothing like dance music for that. But Henry was late and Ann fretted. What was keeping him, who, why, where? They would miss the dance altogether.

Ann wondered how many women got the man they really wanted. Had Esmeralda hers? Ann doubted. There was a shred of cloud still in the sky of memory. Esmeralda had wanted Henry but she didn’t get him. Thank God she didn’t get him. Henry—the desire and hope of Ann’s heart. Hers!

Here he was. Home from Oxford with no other love to bind him. Home at Stoneholt, with all his learning and his goodness and his English manners—and his looks—his beauty. Henry was too much to put into a category. Even into the category of loving. He ran away with it—Henry himself—who seemed to blend the particular with the general—variety with unity.

Ann had no logic but she had love and she saw Henry as no one else saw him. Knew he was different from all other men—not even as Milly saw him, and Milly could see through you with her cunning, crafty knowing—certainly as his mother never saw him.

Ann believed she saw Henry even as God made him in his own image and likeness. To Ann this was no blasphemy and she found him to be good. Her big problem was trying to keep the peace—trying to keep Henry from open warfare with his mother. Blessed are the peacemakers—maybe she was a child of God for this service. But the peace was uneasy at best—always on the thin ice of conflict. If she didn’t let yesterday’s anxiety return to skulk into today—or allow tomorrow’s potential to clutch out and catch her Ann could manage to be serene, happy.

Milly said that was why she wouldn’t never get old. She lived just today—full up. Milly said that most womenfolks dry so quick by mixing yesterday and tomorrow with right now. Ann lived today—that was enough.

It wasn’t just her hair being always red, it was her thinking that wouldn’t count the years too close and would keep her bloomin’ after other women had lost their season. She would stay soople in her bones and in her joints and in her lookin’. “One day at a time—that does it,” said Milly.

Ann lived in a baby world of expectancy—a world with its own skies and stars. She could see her baby now; already; as he would one day appear. In her mind she created him as she was creating him in her body. Her baby and Henry’s—the wonder of it!

She often visited the cabins of the newborn. She kept count on the mothers when they were nearing their time. Some days she heard the women sobbing behind their closed doors. She knew it was for the one cause of grief. Some husband—some father on another plantation had been sold down the river. It gave Ann deep sadness—compassion. She couldn’t sleep at night for thinking of their pain—their loss. When they were happy they were so singing glad that no one could feel sorry for them. They were just where they seemed to belong—safe and secure from fate or disaster; warm in a cabin with fire and a feather bed; closed in with kind negro smells and with a little warm baby close at the milky breast and plenty of strong food and rough clothing. No longer in the jungle at the mercy of jaguars and pythons or naked cruelty of tribesmen; of taboos and stark horrors and haunted dark. They were better off here; slush of swamp, poison of low places—none of that at Stoneholt.

Here was sunlight and Henry near by with his kind eyes on them—on their welfare—overseeing Grubb. And even mother would not harm them if they were careful, obedient. Grubb himself wasn’t exactly damnation if you stayed on his good side.

The dear little babies—Ann really adored them. They were so lovely and fat with their squirming arms and legs and their bright eyes and winning smiles and their little crying voices that stirred something within her that answered with love and longing. She could cuddle them and love them but never quite kiss them. They were not her world any more really than the little puppies Murk had—perhaps not so much. She adored them but they were always separate; on a different level of living, of loving, of being.

She carried the mothers’ delicacies from the table—soft things, milky things—to make more milk in the heavy breasts the little mouths clung to. Sometimes a bright eyed baby would cry to go with Ann when she was ready to close the cabin door.

Ann laughed to herself. What could she do with a black baby that wouldn’t be parted from her? It pleased her, though. It was like having a small puppy lick your hand.

Born to slavery! Knowing nothing but slavery ever! And yet a bird in a cage has never known flight—it eats its food—it sings.

So many hurts are hard to understand. Like killing animals. You don’t want them to die but you go on eating them. You don’t know what else to do.

Aunt Anabel tried to keep her servants together but the Merediths and others sold without mercy and the women cried softly and secretly in their closed cabins smelling of negro skin and negro sweat and smelling of little babies; a close warm smell that Ann liked to smell because it was baby smell.

She was ready in her pink dress when Henry came in and started changing; no word to her at all. She wouldn’t press him. Something was wrong—too much talk in town—Abolitionist friends. These meetings were suspect, if not treasonable. She feared them, but she was helpless. Her beloved was on the wrong track.

They were late and the dance was in full play when they entered. The dancers went about their business, joyful but serious—proficient in an art they could master and display. The hall was hot. Big, log-filled fireplaces roared at either end of the room; the reek of overheated bodies mingled with the perfumes of women; tobacco and leather of men and the acrid odor of wood smoke.

Ann was a lively dancer. Rhythm excited and yet soothed her; it answered a sensuous need. Men approved her dancing she knew and that pleased her. She was a wisp of nothing in their arms, light as warm down. She sailed out on the floor in the arms of Gaitskill who asked her of Henry with apologies.

Henry stood looking on. The dancers dissolved into dimness and he saw the black inside of the cabin. Venus alone, barricaded against the Negro buck who had offered her violence. It was a goddamned situation; he powerless to help. Help! He had outdone outrage—deserved to be shot. To adultery he added rape. What if she invited it! He should have shut the door on her, left her there! Joseph, himself, wouldn’t have done that—no—no—and now the consequence—and to be faced.

Esmeralda whirled past him in the arms of Marion Meredith. She looked pale, black rings under her eyes. As she came around the room the second time, she stopped in front of him. “Marion, you’ve had enough of me. I want to dance with Henry. He has a lean look—lonely—he’s missing something!”

As they circled the room, Henry evaded her blandishment, loosed her heavy-bosomed embrace. “What is the matter with Maxwell? He’s haggard. You’ve been too much for him?”

“Shut up! You’re indecent. You know I’ve always wanted you. Don’t deny it.”

“Like to carry me to your nest, eat me alive, little vulture?”

“Vulture, thanks! Better word than crow!”

“Or buzzard! I’m a wary bird. Keep on the off-wing of murder.”

“I wouldn’t trust you. You’re dangerous.”

“Thanks!”

“Pretense of virtue! Pooh! I’ll bet, a good fat wench takes up the slack of your cotton-mouth wife.”

“Leave her out of it.”

“Little sneak!” Esmeralda’s spite burst loud, defiant. Henry steered her straight toward Maxwell, bowed, and left her. Maxwell glowered but said nothing.

Henry wanted to get away; the evening grew heavy with boredom; anything was better than this silly whirling; he felt he could bear it no longer. But Ann was having a gay time; her cheeks shone—her black-fringed eyes were bright.

There was Maxwell stark against the wall watching the dancers—his brows knotted, malign. Henry thought him the figure of evil—devil; the old man himself when he was young. What was he plotting now; Marion hovering behind him like a lost guardian spirit? And Esmeralda weaving in and out swinging her hips toward every man she passed. How could a man be monogamous even if he tried . . . how could he . . . it wasn’t possible. Ann, in her pink dress, lovely as Aurora, should have happiness—only good and blessedness—might as well kill her outright as be unfaithful . . . and Venus . . . pregnant now. How would he settle for that?

Henry went into the back of the hall where the men were served with drinks. They were talking in subdued voices—talking of the Underground.

“Treachery! Field agents! Chain of stations!” Whispering of secret walls—imagination built them, thought Henry, even if they didn’t exist. False attics; hidden chambers.

Nigger dogs on the trail—nose to the ground; the whipping post or death the due—if runaways were caught.

But the slaves were “making it” for Canada in increasing number. By what route no one knew; follow the north star; traveling at night; hiding by day; swimming the river. You could almost hear the splash of it.

North star the guiding beam in the heavens; guiding to the far land where a runaway could safely hide.

The nerves of Fayette were on edge. A state of uneasy tension prevailed. Henry felt it keenly, but no matter what he thought of slavery—the Underground was not the way to meet the issue—not Henry’s way. He would never tie up with that crowd—never.

A man held the small local news-sheet and read aloud from it; the usual high-flown language: “Spies in our midst, who with unexampled audacity perpetrate their foul practices.” Henry listened. The man talked on; the Underground was organized and master-minded by abolitionists in the North—they had planted stations somewhere, a day’s journey apart, but where . . . where?

Spies! Traitors disguised as slave owners! Friends pretending loyalty and secretly helping runaways . . . dark doing and stealth until you couldn’t trust your next neighbor across the rock fence—your friend. Of course you couldn’t look your neighbor—your friend, straight in the eye and doubt him. You couldn’t doubt your neighbor, your friend, and yet somebody was doing the business.

Henry saw Maxwell make his way toward Ann; heard him say, “Has Henry left you?” He tried to guide her into the waltz but she held him off.

“I’m going home.” Ann was defending herself pretty well. She called, “Henry!”

It was time to intervene.

Maxwell growled under his breath: “I hate that bastard! I know what he’s up to here—Abolition—that’s what. I’ll get even with him. I’ll get even with you both! Mark my word: I know what Henry Ashe is up to, and all Fayette shall know it.”

Maxwell was drunk and thick tongued; muttering, but loud enough for Henry to hear, or for anyone else to hear who had an ear alert or a suspicion germinating.

Henry realized the danger to his good name if the charge were believed; but who would believe Maxwell in his cups?

Maxwell saw Henry coming and made off. His hot eyes followed Henry and Ann when they left the room. Henry caught the glare of implication as he closed the door. He remembered the bat in the icehouse.

Esmeralda drove home in the family coach while Maxwell and Marion went, as they came, on horseback. It was their privilege, she didn’t object.

The night was clear and starlit, frost in the air; no moon was out. She loved the sound of the horses’ hooves on the hard winter pike; she liked to hear the creak of the coach, to smell the close harness smell inside, stable smell, and feel the pleasant movement of the wheels and shake of the seat . . . all set the mind adrift and left the body almost untenanted, inert. She was sleepy, now nearly asleep.

Maxwell was raising a big hue-and-cry that Henry Ashe was an Abolitionist and would get what was coming to him—a ride on a rail or a knife in the back. Hiding that runaway—hiding him and turning him loose to die in the ravine; nigger with his head tied up.

Maxwell rode down there and found the nigger—head still tied up—dead as a blue cheese. Buzzards all over the ravine. Maxwell left the nigger in the creek for Henry to keep—he liked him so well. Henry would soon find out he was there; Buzzards roosting on Stoneholt. Henry would find out.

It made Esmeralda sick to listen to Maxwell. He was a devil when he wanted to be. He was a brute and he was a bore and she was getting tired of him already. She missed Beelzebub, too; and even the tavern drunkards had offered some diversion. It was dull in the foothills.

She was passing the camp meeting grounds—deserted now; the benches bare and forbidding. “What a shake-up those people had last summer—wallowing and shrieking.” The preacher’s call to sinners often drifted to Esmeralda’s ear as her carriage drove by in the summer twilight. He had a phrase he played on; it came bleating over the air into her hearing: “It’s simple! It’s so simple—it is blinding.”

Esmeralda laughed in her throat as she recalled the tale old Blandy told of the summer meeting. “The last night the preacher took a sinner by the hand and him and her went out together into the shrubbery. It looked simple,” said Blandy, “blindin’ simple. Before long the sinner run back—bug-eyed. The preacher had plopped off—dead; out in the dark; dead.

“And Mistiss,” said Blandy, “they had to bury him just the way he wuz. Couldn’t do a thing about it, no how and no way.”

Blandy told the whole story—nothing withheld—nothing. Negro talk—ragged on the ear—rough on the tongue. Esmeralda encouraged its ready flow. How could she get along without it?

Esmeralda was sound asleep when the carriage turned into the driveway and stopped. She awoke. “Those damned twins have stayed behind to get more drinks! Drunken buffleheads!” She wouldn’t sit up for them.

She would enjoy her home in spite of the men in it. Hers would be the handsomest farmhouse in Fayette. She’d set L’Hommedieu off on the trail of mirrors, china, silver cups and pitchers, candelabra. Hers would be a finer place than Stoneholt. She was getting big, impressive furniture, heavy four-posters, statuesque bureaux, wardrobes. Empire they called it, because Napoleon decreed it along with laws and other things; it was good to think your own taste was royal too. She was tired to death of the picayune little pieces the Ashes set such store by, the insignificant buffets and secretaries with their delicate reedings and inlays. The new style filled the spacious rooms, gave them importance, amplitude. She enjoyed showy things, things you could be proud of. “I’m happy with my belongings if not with my husband. After all, he is only an adjunct.” Dreaming of more and more furnishings she fell asleep. Her farm would be a finer farm than Stoneholt.

After the dance—in spite of his unsettled problems, his emotional unheaval—Henry felt he must look after Murk. She was not at her post of duty; the front doorway, awaiting his return. He missed her and he suspected her trouble. He couldn’t fail her. He wouldn’t.

He went to the barn with a lighted lantern, leaving Ham sound asleep in the hall where he let him be. The barn smelled puppyish—a mingle of onion and afterbirth. By Murk’s side lay a small parcel wrapped in transparent gauze, just born. Murk had released it from her body but hadn’t freed it from the caul that covered it.

Henry tore the frail covering from the sealed mouth; the creature lay inert, breathless, unliving. Henry held his own breath as he waited. There was a movement, a tremor; then he saw the mouth open like the mouth of a fresh-caught fish; again it opened; again; the small thing breathed. Henry felt tears on his cheek. The struggle for life won! Now it was making a faint sound, a cry of the new born. The mother fondled it until another came to birth.

Henry heard or thought he heard a sound from a dark corner of the barn, a tiny cry, a pipe thin as that of an insect. He lifted the lantern and went toward the sound that was scarcely a sound. In the straw, struggling and alive he found another puppy putting up a fight for life. Henry lifted it and laid it in the basket. Murk greeted it without surprise. These were her first children. In the terror of the first hour of birth she forgot that one had fallen out of bounds.

Henry went to the house and brought her a bowl of rich, warm milk. She stepped from the basket worn and gaunt, and lapped the milk with famished eagerness. The forsaken young sent up a cry, shrill, insistent. She lapped the last drop and went back to them. With skill, as of long practice, she stepped among them, never touching to injure one of the squirming, small bodies; wisdom learned through the blood of other bodies, other mothers, other nights of birth. It was hers now; ancient knowledge, percipience back of the perceived, old as earth.

Henry leaned down and patted Murk’s silky head. Her eyes glowed with tired joy. “You’ve done well, old girl. You’ll get a full meal in the morning; set you up.”

Henry looked at the dog and her whelp . . . here was the female power ordered to keep alive and going the body of sentient dust—body of this death, old Paul called it—dust that in a tick of time blows away and is no more.

“Avert the doom of nothing, Murk . . . you’re doing it tonight . . . bring your brood to birth . . . hold to the fugitive memory of a memory. Dust is all we have here. Murk; we’re made of it.”

Like a northern light wavering on the pale sky of past time . . . of the long time ago. . . .

Henry was in Virginia visiting Aunt Lish, he and Milly and Mother and he was five, or nearly, or a little more. Morning time and “Get up, child, get up! What you doin’ sleepin’ on a pretty day like this? Get up! Don’t you know we’re going to the country?”

“Oh, the country!” said Henry, winking away sleepiness.

“Yeah, we’re takin’ lunch and goin’ for the day.”

He jumped up at once—this sounded like a picnic. Picnics and fishing were at the mercy of disaster, but here was a sunshiny day.

Milly dressed him in short order.

“Where we going, Milly?”

“To the old place, the buryin’ ground.”

“What for, Milly?”

“They’re diggin’ up your grandpa and yo’ grandma, them that hangs over the mantel, that died a hunnert years ago and we’re carryin’ em to the cimetry in town.”

“Why?”

“Too lonesome out there, I reckon; want em to lay in the new cimetry.”

“Oh!”

Henry liked the portraits of his grandfather and grandmother. He often sat on the sofa at Stoneholt and looked at them. They wore well their beautiful clothes: Grandfather in a velvet coat and satin waistcoat, his dark curls falling over his lace trimmed stock; Grandmother in her wedding gown with her jewels on. He didn’t know they were lying in the graveyard at the old place.

That morning—it was a pleasant morning—most of the family went, Aunt Lish’s family and some others. The sun was shining bright. The two carriages were followed by menservants in a wagon. They had a happy look; they were carrying spades; there was also in the wagon a big tin box.

Henry heard Aunt Lish and the others talking; the talk didn’t mean much to him, but he listened.

“You have to oversee these things yourself; can’t trust them to anyone else. You have to go and see.” They would stick the headstones around in the new plot and no one would know that all were buried in one tin box. This was the easiest way.

They dug for Grandfather first. The servants knew just what to do.

Henry expected to see Grandfather lying there in his velvet coat and his satin waistcoat and his black, shining curls. They dug and dug, and at last they took out several shovels of dirt and some small white particles and put them in the tin box. Grandpa couldn’t have been there; they must have made a mistake.

The grown people were roaming around reading the old headstones, covered with moss.

“They are diggin’ now for yo grandma,” said Milly. Henry could hardly wait to see Grandmother in her wedding dress. He wouldn’t look at first; he wanted to be sure they had found her. He went to the edge and looked in. There was nothing there, nothing at all—nothing but what he didn’t want to see. He rushed to Milly and buried his head in her apron.

“What’s the matter with you, chile? You look bug-eyed!”

But he didn’t know; he couldn’t tell . . . and the grown people weren’t paying any attention.

Dust mingled with dust in a tin box: nothing! For this women knew pangs of bearing; for this men begot sons on them. Birth; life; time; dream; nothing . . . .

Father said spirit was the only reality—reality that seems the most unreal.

Old words bubbled up tonight—words Father used to love: “Born again—not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life . . . .”

It was midnight now, and low clouds were hurrying over the stars as Henry made his way to the house. He passed the door of Venus’ cabin; stopped; listened. He tried the door with his hand, with his knee; he pressed hard, felt the strong resistance of the Indian bar. She was safe from harm; he would not wake her—not tonight.

Tonight Henry’s life passed before him completely unresolved; he had gone to Venus at her own desire—to quiet her wild flutter of fearful danger, to subdue the terrors of her dark cabin.

Why should he quarrel with the law of nature that drew him into this matter wherein he was—or protest its biologic necessities? And yet his argument ended nowhere—a web of ambiguous dubieties without postulate or conformity—nothing settled—nothing resolved.

The breeze of daybreak was blowing now—the sky a lucent green. The morning star stormed up the eastern highway. Ann would be anxious to know about Murk. He extinguished the smoking lantern and went in the house.

Venus became a fire in Henry’s blood—disorder—insane blame. She loved him with such a selfless abandon, a passion so disregardful of consequence—of life or death. It was like a lightning blaze against a threatening sky.

She loved him as he loved virtue and right-doing and honor—as he loved freedom—to all of which he felt now derelict. Her’s was an innocent love of the senses—disarming—devoted—passionate.

Life for Henry became a battle between desire and duty. One thing only stood clear; one demand. He must get Venus across. She must be freed. It was ordained—his due to her. There was no question of doubt. She must go. Her child should be born across the river—free.

Henry loved Ann but Venus was a subterranean fire he could not put out. It was fed by inner embers of pity and compassion. Sometimes Henry felt that he was pursued by the most wily and venomous devils of the pit. He loved two women at once. To each he owed a claim, a debt to each; to each her rightful exaction.

In Ann’s love Henry was warm and blessed but underneath the peace and quietude lay the ache and unease of conscience. The almost hopeless striving to think straight—to find an answer to the accusals that sounded and resounded in his ears day and night.

In Ann, lovely Ann, his cousin, Henry had found the truest sense of harmony—of blood vibration, of traditional and unbroken rhythm. No clamor of strange voices—no blood currents unexplored—no tangential divergences, no chasms of difference. Married cousins were one flesh, one blood, one thinking, an innocent incest. Old Aunt Jett was right. But Venus had come and had called and thrown herself upon his mercy and his pity.

Milly was watchful Henry knew. She thought him good-minded, good-hearted and loyal after his fashion but he was a man and Milly watched menfolks with a keen eye. She knew menfolks.

The runaway’s chance might be a fatal chance; a frail filament to hang hope on but Venus would have to take it and so would he.

The Underground Henry refused to deal with—sneak and stealth on a big scale—he refused—furtive treachery toward his people; he would not ally with that. He would come out openly for Abolition or hold his hand and his peace.

Henry now began to feel the faint hostility of the townspeople—his long-time friends. He saw, or thought he saw, latent distrust in their eyes. Maxwell’s big tale about the runaway perhaps was gaining credence. “Henry Ashe is a secret Abolitionist!”

The charge was deserved of course. In time it would have to be known but Henry bore it with a grudge against this instinctive distrust where once had lived the cordial response of mutual interest. In his mind he had broken away from the solidarity and cohesive amalgam of the South. “The Solid South”—the sink-or-swim absolute; the mass cohesion.

He no longer wore the defensive carapace the Southerner was born with—the body armor of daring pride—aggressive, sometimes insolent pride. He no longer protested his loyalties. He walked as a stranger walks in his own land—breathing the winds of home—once familiar, now alien.

The whole slaveholding world had altered its perspective. He saw it now close up—in the fore ground. The creature in the ice house, the bloodstained bat against the stones, the buzzards over the ravine, the whipping post, the slave jail, the coffles, the block. It was as though he had never seen them before. The perspective had shifted.

The next day was Sunday. On Sunday morning all Fayette went to church; all of white Fayette.

Neither Ann nor Henry felt like early rising, but the hour for prayers was unamended for the Sabbath.

At five the rising bell rang. Henry groaned. It was a frosty morning and Milly had tended the fires all night in the bedroom and in the smaller dressing-room.

Milly came with water and towels and Ann, languid, followed her into the dressing-room. “You don’t mean a little dance used you up?”

“Seems to have used up Henry too; he was awake all night. He thought I didn’t know and I thought he didn’t know I knew. Something’s on his mind.”

“Uh huh.”

“We had a little sleep toward morning.”

“He’s a moody child.” Milly went to the door and called, “Git up, Marse Henry; won’t have more than time. Hot water’s on the washstand. Don’t slip off again.”

“Milly, Murk had pups last night; I must run out to see them,” said Ann.

“Not ’till after breakfast; and remember, this is Sunday; you got to dress.”

“Milly, could pups keep Henry awake all night?”

“Gawd, no—lessen they was howlin’.”

Milly had a funny look. She was hiding something; Ann could tell. Maybe it was another bad story about Esmeralda and the twins.

Ann watched at the dance last night; couldn’t help it. Henry danced but once with Esmeralda—clearly she wasn’t on his mind—not now.

After prayers and breakfast, there was much changing and primping. Sunday was the day all daytime finery was on view. Sam had the carriage at the door by ten o’clock and Henry said that Mother looked handsome as a henharrier in her copious black taffeta as he handed her into the carriage and drew the buffalo robe over her knees. Ann knew her eyes had bluish circles, but her cheeks were rosy under her feathered bonnet, and her fur trimmed pelisse could still meet at the waistband even though Milly insisted on her wearing her balmoral petticoat which bungled the outline considerably.

Ann sat on the back seat with Anabel, and Henry faced them. In his English broadcloth, with his father’s heavy gold watch fob and seal, his English beaver pulled over his curving eyebrows, Ann thought she had never seen him so handsome or so sombre—beautiful as Byron—but something was wrong; gloom sat heavy on him. She must keep things on the light side, not let the talk drift into danger. Esmeralda would say Henry was a snob to wear these well-cut garments on his homely soil, but what did Ann care—to her he was perfect. She wouldn’t change anything except the light of his eyes, the charm of a more frequent smile. She knew his troubles; it was the old matter, the Peculiar Institution . . . jeopardy—hazard . . . . She wished he could have seen the General—his opinion weighed with Henry. But he hadn’t stopped as usual on his way home from Olympian Springs. Aunt Maria wrote that she was steaming about the place like a river boat—good for another fifty years.

The carriage drew in at the Presbyterian Church for Anabel. She hadn’t changed her religious complexion when she married John Ashe. He went his way, she hers. Little Henry chose his father’s church—Episcopal. He seemed to like it, said Anabel, all the folderol, the liturgy, the ritual, even the dressed up music. John said it eased the child’s thought as against the immitigable sternness of Anabel’s church with the shorter catechism, the harassed Sabbaths. She and John almost quarrelled when he interceded for Henry on what he called those gloomiest of all days and Little Henry was glad of the rescue, but Anabel took it ill. Anabel was religious; John was truly good; even Anabel dimly sensed the difference.

Today, straight as a rapier, Anabel marched in and took her seat in the first pew of the middle aisle. She liked to get away, she said, from the stinks of the congregation; there was purer air on the front seat. She enjoyed the constant bickering going on, now, between the northern and southern churches on the subject of slavery. The matter was still in some control but it threatened to burst embankment and flood the land with waves of hate. Anabel enjoyed it; she liked altercation for its pure self; it was almost as good as a horse race which she loved. Today it was wonderful; the added hot warrant she held for her cause lent zest to the battle; religious intemperance quickened her pulse, stirred the deepest wells of her being. The sermon was by a visiting minister; a fulmination against a brother minister in the North who dared offer to come South to state his side of the argument against The Institution. This was provocative stuff. Anabel took her seat directly in front of the speaker. He was thin and hostile; his head, naked as it came from the womb, sprouted ears that fascinated her. They stood out like question marks and when he spoke with greater fervor they stirred, they wagged as though separately alive. They excited Anabel; exercised a powerful charm. She waited for the stir to begin. She would like to laugh, to fill the church with immoderate blasphemy but she held herself in—not a smile, not a twitch would she allow; grim but happy she sat and listened and watched.

Henry and Ann drove on to the Episcopal Church near the center of town. It was simple and plain, as were all the churches of Fayette, but to Ann today it held a quiet peace that met her need. She loved old Mr. Craig; his mellow rhetoric never stale, was free from the clichés of the evangelicals. Ann liked to listen. He spoke with simple authority. On the subject of slavery irrevocably silent. Perhaps he saw the madness lurking at the turn of the road—at least Ann thought so.

This morning he entered the lectern, his energies under serene control, and launched easily into his sermon. In a moment, little Midnight crept out from a hiding place near the choir. The congregation became restive; Ann flushed with anxiety. One of the choir boys reached a furtive hand to capture her but Midnight drew back and bared her savage little teeth. This discouraged further ambush and she was let alone. She lay quiet but alert, in full view of the worshipers, until the sermon was over, and after the service trailed out behind the master—processional. He never alluded to her presence that day though once he said to Ann that the words in Revelation “without, are dogs,” seemed too diffusive. Certainly these words did not apply to little Midnight.

They had to wait long on Anabel. The ears were flapping as though unhinged. Intoxicated with hatred, the man tore defiance out of the timbers. Even in the waiting carriage they could hear him. “Blood, blood! He’s yelling for blood,” said Henry. “He may get it sooner than he thinks.”

When he was little, Henry used to listen to the pigs squealing loud on the clear frosty mornings of autumn. “What’s the matter, Father, with the pigs?” He was very little or he would have known. “You’ll learn about that later, Son. Keep the child away from the pens, Anabel; he’s a baby yet,” his father said.

“You are silly,” sneered Anabel. “Let him learn; the sooner the better. We live on the lives of lower creatures. Nothing to be ashamed of, or afraid of either!”

“Keep him away!” So Anabel issued orders to keep the child away from the pens.

Pig killing was the servants’ relished privilege and duty. One day Milly said, “Come on, boy, let’s go to the far barn, beyond the pens. We ain’t goin’ near the pens. We’ll go see the Little Butcher workin’.”

The Little Butcher was a young White man who came through the country offering his services from farm to farm, teaching the Negroes better and finer butchering skills. Henry liked the Little Butcher, for he played with him in the yard. He had tight curly black hair, white teeth and blue eyes and a very fair white skin, with great big hands. He made Henry a pair of stilts and taught him how to walk on them grandly. So when Milly said, “Come and see the Little Butcher workin’,” Henry was happy. “He’ll give you a bladder maybe, to play with. They are like balloons. You’ll like em.”

So they went out to the far barn. He’d never been there before. It had a bad smell. Milly pointed to bladders hanging on the wall. Henry didn’t like their look. “Those are them,” said Milly, and she took one down and gave it to him. It was light and floated in the air and made a slippery sound under his thumb. But it stank. Still, he tried to like it pretty well.

Presently the Little Butcher came in, looking fresh and happy. His sleeves were rolled up and the muscles of his white arms stood out big. He smiled at Henry and showed his white teeth. “What a kind man he is. I like him very much.” The Little Butcher said, “Howdy,” and rolled his sleeves up higher.

Henry said, “Howdy,” and smiled too.

There was an ax standing in the corner. The Little Butcher picked it up and stood with it, waiting. After a while they pulled in an ox. There was a winch they turned that dragged the ox in; he didn’t like it very much; you could tell that. He seemed surprised and his eyes were big. “Maybe he is scared,” said Henry.

When the ox was all the way inside, the Little Butcher drew back and hit the ox in the head with the ax. The ox looked more surprised and fell down and rolled over and his legs stuck up straight. Then the Little Butcher took a knife and cut the ox. He cut his throat and the blood ran. The Little Butcher held his hands out and caught the blood and drank it. “It tastes like chestnuts,” he said as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he took a cup and filled it with the blood that was still running and held the cup out to Henry. “Have some,” he said and smiled. But his teeth looked bad.

“I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it!” screamed Henry. Everything went black after that.

And the next thing Henry knew, he was outside on the grass with Milly crying and saying, “What’s the matter, honey? What’s the matter?”

“I’m all right,” said Henry, getting up and feeling funny. “But he handed it to me. I couldn’t!” Henry began to cry. “I didn’t do it. I didn’t!”

“You hush up, honey, and come on back. And don’t you tell nobody we been here.” Henry was still holding the bladder. “And you better throw that thing away.”

At night Henry’s father had company. It was the General and he was in a mellow mood, a genial disposition after several of Sam’s toddies. The General was telling a story all about New Orleans and the hot fight there. He was just at the high point when little Henry ran to him, squeezed between his knees, and looked up into his eyes with their bosky overhang. “He drinked the blood! He drinked the blood! Do you drink the blood?”

“What are you talking about, little son?” said his father.

“Good Godamity! He must think I’m a fighter sure enough,” the General laughed.

“He drinked the blood! He drinked the blood! Do you drink the blood?”

Milly ran in and took Henry out, in the midst of the commotion and the laughter. But Henry’s father was serious.

“Perhaps that is what we’re all doing,” he said.

Anabel came out of the church to the carriage, stimulated, content. Her sentiments had been voiced by word, by text, by ecclesiastical sanction. The Peculiar Institution was buttressed by religion, Stoneholt was buttressed by the Institution . . . denial fell blunted. In the fibre of her being she was convinced; bodily, she was at rest. There could be no valid argument against religion and religion today spoke the last word.

On the drive homeward Anabel was almost gay.

Anabel now allowed Venus to sew in the house daily. Henry breathed freer as his mother relaxed her tight rein of discipline, her rigid censorship.

Henry guessed the reason. Here was the informal exercise of an art of common interest; the art of textile; intricate hand labor, creative skill.

Baby clothes! Henry knew that even Anabel could feel the tender bliss of their prophecy. Even Anabel fell under the influence of the new harmonious order—approving.

Henry watched Venus bending over her work; her profile molded and exquisite; her skin like translucent parchment; lips curved and perfect—pale—almost colorless.

Ann pictured her baby in these soft garments embroidered with such delicate skill. She found Venus a source of deep comfort. Venus was so comprehending—so thoughtful—her voice a soothing balm. Venus healed you of all irritation; of all edged encounter; quietly smoothed it away. Her understanding of pregnant anxieties was almost a miracle of intuition. She seemed to be aware of, without being told, the small and great incertitudes; the fears, the trembling hopes, the plans. Ann told Henry that Venus had the mind of a poet.

Ann and Venus could talk together for hours on end in a congenial weather of thinking. Nowhere else, except with Henry, did Ann feel such response, such singleness of purpose. Venus could say the thing you held in thought unsaid; say it so simply a child might have said it with his untaught speech; but as Venus spoke, it seemed to have the clear ring of reality—of truth.

Milly was jealous of the invasion of her province; but Ann knew she couldn’t talk against the sewing. She had to suffer and grumble in her mind and watch the doin’s in heavy silence—in massive silence. She stalked on the outskirts of the rapt circle, bleakeyed and unyielding.

The faces of Sam and Ham told nothing; meaning was blotted out of their eyeballs, vitreous and unrevealing. While the white nigger, centre and core of the activity, sat meek and quiet and sad faced; self effacing. It was a scene to ache in your thought if you gathered its import. Ann believed that Venus at last might make herself so useful as to become a need—a necessity.

Surely this was the woman’s wild desire—her hope.

The autumn brought high winds and a welter of sunny days mild as April.

Old Rooshan, the Jewish pedlar, was on his round selling pots and pans and odds and ends of calico and gingham at the farm houses along his route. His beaked face and bright red hair were recurrent omen of open weather. Today, bent under his pack, conditioned to it, he was bargaining with Anabel, his buttons and pins and innumerable small items for the servant body and farm household needs.

Anabel was one of his heaviest buyers—so many dresses wanted for the servants, so many notions to be used with profit. Old Rooshan’s things were cheap and crass, but durable. Milly loved the haggling at the doorstep. All house servants rejoiced to see Rooshan. His visits meant a bright head handkerchief, a fresh apron, perhaps the material for another dress. No one ever knew his name; his words, heavy-weighted and guttural, came laboring from his deep chest. On his first visit to Stoneholt, he said, “I am Russian.” And the Negroes called him “Rooshan” from that time.

He made his way from farm to farm with his household freight, a load for a cart horse, but Rooshan plodded on. Burdened with his pack, he couldn’t climb over the stile, so Milly went out to open the gate for him when he left. “He’s stronger than a nigger,” she watched him on his way down the dusty pike. “Right spang in the middle of the road, he is! He better be keerful nobody runs over him!” She looked up at the sky. “I better be hustlin’.” Milly went soberly into the sitting room where Sam was washing the hearth. “You’re mighty late, ole son. How come you so late washin’ up?”

“I ain’t late no such a thing. But these here days git quick on me.” He looked at her and she saw he caught her mood. “They’re gone before you know it.”

“Yeah. An some folks’ll be gone before they know it.” The matter was now in the open. “You mark me, they’ll be gone as good as old Rooshan. Only they won’t never come back.”

“What you beatin’ about the bush, ooman?”

“I don’t beat nothin’. . . .”

“You ain’t sayin’ nothin’ neither.” Sam straightened up, still on his knees.

“I’m sayin’ I smell trouble.” Milly was busy with the broom, stirring the dust up, making business.

“Where you smell it?” Sam was on his feet now, pottering with the fire irons.

“I smell it in the air,” sniffed Milly. “I smell it strong as a rat under the house. I smell it like I smelt that cat-huzzy under my bed yestiddy. I smell it of days, but mostly I smell it of nights.” Sam laid some small logs on the moderate fire; carefully he laid them, one by one, to burn moderately, to take off chill but not to overheat. “A stink pot,” said Milly, “is a stink pot, wherever you find it.”

“You better keep yo’ smells to yourself. You got plenty of your own.” Sam raised a window to emphasize the point. The keen wind came blowing in. Milly felt it kindly in her wool, wrapped with string tight to her skull. She felt it in the fuzz that stirred on the back of her neck. She breathed it with quick breaths. Sam looked at her, “You’re just bustin’ to tell somethin’. Can’t fool me.” At that moment Lobelia stuck her head in the door—her ferret eyes and tousled hair, scarish; Milly twitched and turned around quick, “Git home you low-life! Your daddy’s huntin’ you with a stick!”

“I ain’t skeered of him,” Lobelia rubbed her sharp nose with her thumb. “Where’s Ole Miss?”

“Gone to town,” said Sam. “Git out!”

“I got somethin’ to tell her. I got a long secret.”

“You better hold it,” said Milly.

“I done helt it too long aready; when I hold too long my giblets git cold and turn over.”

Milly shook her feather duster at Lobelia. “You take yourself often this place—you pissy-cat!”

“Jesus! My giblets is acoolin’ off aready!”

Milly made a pass at her with the duster. “I’ll knock your gizzard from your cyarcus!” With a screech, Lobelia stuck out her tongue and ran.

Sam put his knuckles to his open mouth. “She’s got aholt of somethin’.”

Venus came in just then and went to her work-basket on the low shelf of the secretary. In her hands she held an infant’s coat of pink cashmere.

Milly’s look was shifty, appraising . . . Yas, she was kinder pretty for a wench, and that there white rim under them eyeballs was good on her . . . but it gave a-body a sad look.

Venus sat down and began to embroider the delicate, soft fabric. “What’s the matter, Milly? Anything wrong?”

“Nothin’. We ain’t sayin’. . . .”

Venus bent low over the work in her lap.

“Tell me. I must know.”

After a wait, Milly said, “There’s trouble nickin’ on your door, Venus.”

“Yes. Ever since I was born.” Venus spoke quietly, tensely, without looking up.

“Thishere’s new trouble—this year’s trouble,” said Milly, squinney-eyed, peering into the fire.

“What is it, Milly?” Venus’ hand shook as she put down her needle.

“T’ain’t for Milly to say,” said Sam. “It’s for you to know without sayin’.”

“You’re trying to frighten me.” Venus stood up and leaned against the secretary.

“We ain’t sayin’ we ain’t,” said Milly. “Thishere’s a warnin’.”

“Milly says somethins in the air. She feels it in her head-fuzz.”

Venus’ knees gave way. She sat down again. In the hall Henry’s footstep. She laid the pink cashmere in the work-basket and Milly saw the bright look Venus gave him when Henry came in; but Milly never let on—oh, no, she wouldn’t.

“Milly, give Lucinda the birds Ham shot. He’s gone to the stable with Sazarac.”

“Yassir.”

Milly and Sam, with the old wisdom of servants, left the room without an upward glance.

“What’s the matter,” said Henry, “you are trembling.” His hand was on her shoulder.

“They know,” said Venus. “I don’t think they’ve told yet, but they know.”

He threw himself into a chair. “Good God! I must get you out of this.” He looked at her, her dark beauty opulent, fulfilled.

“There’s a sure way out,” she said.

Henry got up quickly. “Remember, you’ve promised.” He took her in his arms, “I’m utterly criminal, Venus,” he said as he kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her lips; as he held her away from him at arms length, “but who could resist you!”

“It has been my fault,” she was breathless from his kisses. “Pity brought you to me when I called you . . . I know you don’t really love me . . . you couldn’t.”

“My wife, Venus . . . my wife . . .”

“Yes . . .” she said, “yes.”

Henry shut his eyes . . . . Pity, yes, and passion—he knew she understood.

He took her hands and held them against his breast. “For me, there may be excuse—but no pardon.” He could feel the heavy beating of his heart.

“Don’t . . . don’t say that. . . .” Her tears fell on his hands holding hers. “It isn’t true.”

“I must get you across.”

“That may not be possible.”

“Over there—across the river—no one need ever know you’ve been here.”

“Easier to end it . . . easier. . . .” Venus turned from him, but Henry’s arms held her.

“No, you would take two lives.”

“Better for both.”

“Not if you’re to live free—happy. . . . .”

She moved closer in his arms, her face on his breast. “Not happy—away from you. . . .”

“There’s no time to lose, Venus.” She lifted her lovely eyes, brooding on the woe of separation. “Be watchful.”

“I will.”

“You have the dress and bonnet safe?”

“Hid under my mattress.”

“Be ready at a moment’s call!”

“Ready?” repeated Venus. He could sense her clouded thought that grasped only their parting—ready to leave him—her eyes said she could never be ready for that.

“You can trust Ham. He’d die for me—foolish boy. But don’t talk. Walls have ears. Gaitskill will help; he’ll drive you to Fairview. The stage stops there. Before you know it, you’ll be at the ferry and then across.”

“It sounds possible . . . .”

“You have the address?”

“I keep it here,” she touched her breast.

“They—those people—will take you in. I will see to the rest. . . .” He held her with strength that meant . . . the end.

“I owe you freedom,” he said as he released her.

“You owe me nothing—nothing . . . .” Heavy tears brimmed her eyes as she took his hand and kissed it and held it hard against her cheek.

“Listen.” Henry spoke rapidly, under pressure, low-toned. “Tonight General Jackson will be in town. There’ll be speaking on Cheapside. Mother will be sure to go . . . a chance for us, then.”

Henry went to the door and into the hall; his nerves taut, his heart pounding. As he swung back into the room Venus whispered, “Look, look behind you.” Henry started, shamed at his weakness. Sweat broke on his forehead.

“It’s that girl again. She trails me. Ever since I came here, she . . . .”

“Lobelia,” said Henry, “what do you want?” Lobelia was in the hall, rubbing one dirty foot against the other.

“Nothin’, nothin’.”

“You’ve no business here. Run home! Run!” Lobelia whirled and ran down the walk, over the stile.

“She suspects,” said Venus.

“Oh, no, it’s just witless gaping.”

“The negroes can tell; old women; Milly looks at me; she knows.”

“We must be careful. No false step.”

“It’s deadly dangerous—helping a runaway.”

“I’d deserve killing if I failed you.”

Her hand went to her lips as she caught her breath with a sob. “I’m not worth the trouble—the danger. I’ll not live long. For me . . . just a little time of loving.” Tears filled her throat. He saw it swell and throb as he drew her to him. She kissed him and ran out of the room; sobbing, she ran along the stone walk to her cabin.

Henry watched her go, thankful his mother was in town, thankful Ann was busy somewhere else.

He was lighting his pipe at the fireplace when Ann came in with a package; he felt his hand shake as he held the paper lighter. “Henry, look what Aunt Maria sent me! Sam brought it from the post. A pearl pendant! Aunt Maria thought I wasn’t pleased with the present she gave Mother.”

“What was that?”

“Why, Venus, of course. She doesn’t know how well Venus has served us—the lovely work she’s doing for the baby.” She took out her own sewing and sat down.

“Pearls were made for you,” said Henry.

Ann went to the mirror and hung the jewel about her neck by the slender chain. “It’s lovely—but childbearing doesn’t become me very well . . . I’ve been almost afraid I’d lose you.”

“Don’t worry—you’ll have me all your life.” She put her arm around his arm and leaned against him—her body heavy with the body of his child. She looked up into his troubled face.

“When the baby comes, everything will change, Henry. You’ll put away your cares—your social problems. He’ll be your problem then.”

“Yes,” said Henry, “yes,” his eyes far off.

“I must finish my baby dress . . . but where is Venus? I thought she was at work in here.”

“Don’t sew any more today—it’s almost night—too dark.”

Ann looked wistfully at the baby dress but she obeyed him—she put it away.

Would Ann catch his anxiety . . . Henry’s restless footsteps were on the porch now. Ann seemed covertly to watch him . . . to feel his retreat from questioning . . . to guess some evil at work . . . something desperately at odds with peace and good. She was silent, guarded, but Henry caught her eyes on him. He was white to the lips, he knew . . . and near the breaking point. Would the night never come—darkness—the hour of escape?

Mother was in town—thank heaven—savoring the political furor that fed her appetite for excitement. The General would reach Fayette that evening—a barbecue was preparing in his honor. Huge animal carcasses were roasting over live coals; there would be meat enough to feed the town, and afterward, a grand torchlight procession to celebrate.

Carriage wheels at the door announced his mother’s return, Sam driving.

“I hear the General won’t be with us tonight,” said Henry to Ann.

“That will break Mother’s heart.”

“What will break my heart?”

Anabel in the doorway, removed her shawl and bonnet and handed them to Henry who hung them on the hatrack in the hall.

“Disappointment,” he said, “the General can’t favor us at Stoneholt with his talk . . .”

“Of course not . . . now. He’s too busy. He’s by way of being President—this time he’ll make it!”

“I hope he will. I hope he’ll . . . .”

“Now shut up—no more of that. I saw a spate of old soldiers in town to see the General—to touch his hand—his coattail, maybe. They still think he’s Godalmighty.”

“When I saw them this morning,” said Henry, “they were drinking their heads off. It’s easy to hatch mischief in a crowd from the sticks.”

“Yes, they threaten to string up all the Abolitionists, hereabout.”

“Big order, mother . . . .”

“Those varmints work under cover . . . but they’re growing bolder.”

“What have you heard?”

“Runaways getting help . . . I must tell Grubb to be vigilant.”

“Mother, you know what I think. . . .”

“Too well!”

Ann turned to Henry, “Don’t talk in town—there’s danger.”

“Nearly came to blows with those loafers this morning.”

“Where?” Anabel straightened up.

“Cheapside.”

“Henry, for my sake, be careful,” said Ann.

“If he’s got no more sense than to stick his head in a hornet’s nest he deserves to be stung.”

Anabel pushed back her curl and sat down. “You can’t protect a fool from his folly—it’s his natural end.”

Ann knew there had been a flock of buzzards over the ravine and she heard Henry order Grubb to see what was wrong down there.

Miss Pringle said Maxwell was spreading his lies about Henry but no runaway had ever been hidden by Henry. Maxwell getting even—that was all. His eyes still pursued her. She trembled at their sinister invitation.

“There’s a big difference, Mother, between thinking Abolition and helping runaways.” Ann’s voice shook. “Henry would never help a runaway!”

“I reckon not! He’d deserve hanging if he did.”

“Oh, Mother!” said Ann.

“But you’re not a coward, Henry, like these poltroons around here,” said Anabel, “you stand by your guns only too stoutly.”

Ham came to the door, eyes blinking, breath short. “Marse Henry . . . .”

Henry caught his excitement. “What is it, Ham?”

“Mr. Gaitskill . . . .” Ham gulped.

“That’s another of your crowd . . . Tom Gaitskill! The town distrusts you both.” Anabel turned to Ham. “What’s the matter, boy? Stop that gibbering! You look like a goddam goby.”

“Yassum, yassum,” said Ham, backing away.

Henry followed and closed the door.

When they were out of earshot Anabel stood up. “Pregnant women should be shielded; guarded from all shocks, they say. I say, tommyrot! Pregnant women have the strength of ten men, so listen. Henry’s fool talk isn’t relished in this town.”

“Tell me, Mother, I can . . .” Ann spoke in a small voice; the walls seemed to contract about her.

“I might as well. Sooner or later you’ll learn it.” Anabel’s words were big with meaning. “This evening I heard rumblings; hints of violence. I’ve warned him to keep his mouth shut, but warning him is water on a duck’s back.”

“Oh, Mother.”

“Maxwell is in town, drunk as a fiddler’s bitch, bawling that Henry is an agent of the Underground. Of course the townspeople, mostly, wouldn’t believe him, I reckon, but there is a horde of old soldiers here today, out of the sticks, guzzling liquor and listening big eyed. Come to see the General. They are drunk and wild and damned dangerous. Anything can happen.”

Ann gasped.

“Now, Ann, you’re neither feeble nor decrepit. Face this thing.”

Ann leaned back on the sofa, nerves ragged. “Mother, there’s Lobelia looking in.”

Anabel tiptoed close to the wall till she came to the open window. In a flash she reached out and clutched the shagged mop of Lobelia’s hair. “Caught you this time!” Lobelia’s squeal cut the quiet of the room with a raw edge. “Come here and tell me what you’re after.”

“Ow, ow Ole Miss, let go and I’ll tell you! Let go my hair!”

“Come in! I’ll have to wash my hands with lye soap.” Lobelia, released, slank through the hall into the sitting room. “What do you mean, prying where you don’t belong?” Lobelia’s mouth hung open. Ann shuddered. Lobelia’s teeth edged with green moss seemed to lengthen as she caught her tongue between them. “I feel like I got to tell you somethin’.”

“Out with it!”

“I feel like as—as—you otter know.”

“Know what?”

“I feel like I otter tell, but I’m skeered.” Lobelia’s chin quivered inanely.

“What are you afraid of!”

“I’m askeered of you, Ole Miss.”

“How silly, Lobelia,” said Ann. She would conquer her disgust.

“I’m askeered of you, too, Miss Ann.”

“Go home, then,” said Anabel. “You haven’t got the sense God gave a skunk!”

Lobelia managed to whisper. “I feel like you otter know what I know—hear what I heared—see what I seen.”

“Out with it! Or I’ll snatch you baldheaded!”

“Don’t snatch, Ole Miss; don’t snatch me! I’ll tell you!” But Lobelia’s mouth opened and no sound came.

“Shut your filthy trap!” shouted Anabel. “I’ve got no time for this damn foolishness!”

Ann felt a vague horror deepen as Lobelia’s tongue began to wag at last. “It’s all about Venus. Ain’t youall notice how she done swell up?” Lobelia made a realistic gesture. “Ain’t youall seen how she’s wearin’ a apern most all the time?”

“No; you’re crazy!” said Ann.

Anabel cut in. “Of course, Ann, you wouldn’t notice.”

“It’s Gawd’s truth,” Lobelia was defending her perilous word in a hoarse whisper.

“Be careful what you say!” warned Anabel.

“Yassum, Ole Miss, she’s swole up fitten to bust!” Lobelia’s eyes wandered over Ann’s rounding figure, “and I heared Milly and Sam atalkin’ . . . and they abeen asayin’ . . . .”

“Speak out!” bellowed Anabel.

“They abeen asayin’. . . .” whispered Lobelia, again at the point of drying up.

Anabel gritted her teeth. “It would be a warrantable act to choke you, Lobelia.”

“I can’t hardly swaller now, Ole Miss . . . I can’t hardly talk.”

The clogged obstruction was so great that Ann thought Lobelia might choke outright as she coughed and sputtered.

“Talk and talk quick,” commanded Anabel.

“Wellum . . . they abeen asayin’ that there’s goin’ to be a white chile born soon—and more’n that, they says . . . .”

Ann was not hearing things straight any more.

“Dammit, what do they say?”

Lobelia quailed before the stroke of heaven. “I’m astiflin’, Ole Miss.”

“Well, I’ll finish the job!”

“Don’t strangle me, Ole Miss. I’ll talk!” Anabel let go of her.

In terror, Ann watched Lobelia’s stubby hands grabble, her small eyes protrude till at last she managed to lay the egg of speech.

“They says as how they knows who is his pappy.”

“Who?” croaked Anabel.

Ann couldn’t breathe very well—the air was too thick—too dead. “Don’t ask her, Mother!” her voice was strange, not her own.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“She’s making it up!”

“Anyways, I’m askeered to say!”

“Don’t ask her, Mother!” Words meant nothing, now.

“She’s said enough! Lobelia, if you tell this . . . .”

“Gawd, Ole Miss, I won’t! But all the niggers on the place knows it, I guess. I hears it everwheres I goes—or I wouldn’t be atellin’ it.”

Ann stared at Lobelia whose perverse body seemed to vanish in the flame of her unbelievable lie.

“Send her away, Mother, send her away!” Ann’s stiff lips could hardly form the words.

“And I seen things, myself!”

Ann felt coldness creep through her bones as she sat in deadened silence; cold crept over her whole body; she heard and saw but she was someone else hearing and seeing.

“For God’s sake, out with it!” bawled Anabel. “Speak out!”

“Wellum,” Lobelia swallowed, “I winder-peeped at her and Mister Henry settin’ close on the sofa.”

Ann’s eyes that wouldn’t shut watched Lobelia savor her story with cool venom. When she told of the sofa, the point of high explosive, Anabel stormed, “That’s impossible! I was down there myself! You’re lying!”

“Of course she is, Mother! Of course!”

To deny the abusive charge Lobelia poured out her malice in a gust, “Yassum, I seen you come in! Venus had just drapped her ring on the floor and when she heard you comin’ she run and hid behind the curtain at the winder; you saw the curtain was twisted; you spied the ring on the floor; but Mr. Henry he got it quick, and you never suspected nothin’.”

Ann saw Lobelia swell with pride. She was bearing witness against the gods.

“That all adds up,” said Anabel. “Where in hell did she get a ring?”

“She ’lowed it was her pappy’s.”

Ann broke in, in a whispered scream. “It isn’t true! It isn’t true! Not a word of it!”

“It stacks up,” said Anabel, “and it stinks!”

“It’s as sho as shootin’, Ole Miss. They sat there on the sofa and he give her back her ring, and they talked a long time.”

“Even if it’s true, Mother, it proves nothing,” said Ann, with wide unblinking eyes.

“You think not! Sitting on the sofa! Wait, what else? We’ll see!”

Lobelia’s joy was great; blissful; she closed her eyes. “And they stands up and they kisses together and they walks huggin’ each other to Venus’ cabin; and they goes in and shuts the door and I can’t peep no more.”

Ann gasped. It was finished, at last, released—the long-time torpid malice. Oh God! What a world to live in. Ann couldn’t breathe its air now.

“You brazen little brat,” said Anabel. “Go home and keep your tongue in your head. No word of this!”

“Yassum, yassum,” gobbled Lobelia as she ran out of the house and straddled over the fence. They heard her shrieking with wild laughter.

“I won’t believe it,” sobbed Ann. The pain inside was aching numbness—cold palsy—no air—no breath.

“What is so hard to believe? He’s a man, isn’t he? I never had this trouble myself; but I watched.”

“Henry . . . Henry . . . no, it’s impossible,” said Ann, her body inert, nerves keen-edged.

“Don’t let this get under your skin; it’s an old happening.”

“Henry . . . no . . . no . . .”

“Honey,” a mellow voice at her shoulder, “menfolks is all alike in country manners . . . .”

Milly’s talk brushed Ann’s mind without leaving a mark, a trace. Nothing meant anything now.

“Milly,” said Anabel, “what do you know about this business of Venus?”

“Gawd, Ole Miss, I don’t know nothin’.”

“You do!”

“ ’Ceptin’ thatthere gal looks mighty prominent.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Lawdamitygawd! Ain’t you got eyes, Ole Miss?”

“Apparently not!”

“T’wan’t none of my business nohow, to tell you what you could see for yo’self.”

“Well, I didn’t see.”

“And right under yo’ nose, too.” Milly’s impertinence would have amused Ann yesterday but nothing meant anything today—nothing.

“In this house . . . and the baby coming . . . God, don’t let me believe it . . . let me die . . . .”

Anabel, grim and tight-lipped, stalked to where the whip hung; unhooked it.

Milly’s eyes popped. “Lawd, Ole Miss, what you . . . .”

“Mother, Mother!” Ann jumped up. “You can’t do that.” There was something stronger than self pity, deeper than the wound of violated love. “You can’t, you can’t!”

“Ole Miss,” Milly spoke bravely, female to female, “it might kill her—and the baby of her’n, the baby!”

Ann struggled hard to get the whip but she was no match for Mother who had the thews of a wildcat. She wrenched free of Ann and dashed out of the house. Ann fell near fainting on the sofa. Her mind screamed out with nightmare—she would wake in Henry’s arms; they would laugh together at the dream that frightened her. It couldn’t be real—Henry would call her . . . his voice would come . . . would break the curse of dream. But it didn’t come.

The clock was striking out in the hall—the old clock with the silver chime from London—on the brass face the name of William Kipling; in London making chimes of silver—for what? And what was he to her or what was the London clock, striking now, or the hour? Only another hour rung in for more agony. What was the day or the night or time or anything? Life was over—time was meaningless. Yesterday was yesterday and she was Ann and today was today and she was nothing. This morning was the same as now; she was here . . . and life and love and good were here . . . and now all were gone, wasted, dead.

“God, I can’t stand it.”

“Honey,” said Milly, “don’t take on so!”

“Milly, Milly, let me get up! I must not lie here! Don’t hold me.” Ann staggered out and down the path to Venus’ cabin.

“Henry, come quick!”

Sam peeped into the room where Milly stood shaking and sweating. “What’s the matter, what’s the matter?”

“Ole Miss found out. She’s gone after Venus with the whip.”

“Gawdsakes, you ain’t told?”

“Naw. I’d swaller my tongue. It was Lobelia!”

“Dirty little stink-weed! She otter be kilt.”

“Poor Miss Ann—making a gawd out of him and there ain’t no gawds mongst the menfolks, white or black!”

“Shut up! This ain’t no time to slam the menfolks.”

“Naw it ain’t! They slam theyselves. They is just plain hawgs.”

“Look! Comin’ back. They musta got thu in a hurry. Miss Ann’s most ready to drop.”

“Ole Miss heppin’ her along!” Milly peered over Sam’s shoulder. “Tribulation!”

Sam and Milly retreated from the door when Anabel came in half carrying Ann.

“You might have saved yourself this strain,” said Anabel. “You should know I wouldn’t hit a pregnant wench—but when I go looking for a runaway, my whip goes with me.”

Ann felt the blood ebb from her heart; she was scarcely alive now; she tottered to the sofa and fell on it. Anabel panted under the mental and carnal strain, but she hung the whip with a steady hand. “Now, Ann, control yourself.” But Ann shook with sobs of havoc. Anabel wasted no time on Ann, but turned to Sam. “Run for your life, Sam. Bring Grubb here. Tell him to move like his britches were afire.” Sam ran. “Milly, Venus is gone!”

“Gawdamity!”

“The hearth cold, cabin empty. She’s run away!”

“Maybe she’s some place on the farm.” Milly was shaking too.

Ann lifted herself, hollow-eyed, gaunt. “I hope to God she got away.”

“Be keerful what you say,” warned Milly. “Venus done done badness. You know that. She knowed it.”

“Maybe she . . . . I hope we’ll never see her again!”

“You won’t, Honey. Once she gits over the river. But don’t you hold nothing aginst Marse Henry. It’s just men’s nachel doin’s.”

Ann’s tears began to come at last. “I’ve loved him too much, Milly. My life’s ended, Milly!”

“Quiet down, quiet down, Ann! Stop that foolishness!” Anabel strode back and forth in feverish haste. “Where is Grubb? Why doesn’t the lazy bastard hurry?”

“He’ll come arunnin’, Ole Miss.”

“Oh, Mother, let her go!”

“Let her go! Are you crazy?” Anabel’s jawbones worked white through the skin. “With runaways uncaught; Abolitionists prowling—we’d be naked to our enemies.”

“Necked as a jay,” said Milly.

“They’d destroy us, these Yankee hyenas!”

“Just fixin’ to feather their nest,” said Milly.

“Hush! Hyenas don’t have nests or feathers either.”

“But jay birds does.”

“Who said anything about jay birds?”

“I did,” said Milly.

“Shut up! See if Grubb is coming.”

“Here he is!”

Anabel turned and faced him. “Grubb, get your handcuffs.”

Ann saw Grubb’s eyes bulge; shining. “Who’s missin’?”

“Venus.”

“Jeez!” Grubb shifted his weight. “I knowed that blue-vein would . . . .”

“She claimed she was pyore white!” struck in Milly.

“She’s nothin’ but a high yaller. Anybody can see that!”

“Stop the talk, Grubb. Hurry!”

Grubb drew a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. “She must have had good hep.” He pulled up his breeches and tightened his belt.

“I think she had!” barked Anabel.

“The stage left a hour ago,” said Grubb as he tried the handcuffs.

“Yes,” said Milly, “she might have been in that.”

“Grubb, bring that woman back.”

“I ain’t got but two hands but I’ll catch her if I kin.”

“Yes, ef,” said Milly under her breath.

As Grubb ran out, Anabel boomed after him, “Don’t excite the Negroes and keep your mouth shut.”

But he was off. As he raced down the drive to the stile where his horse was hitched, he called back, “I’ll get hep in town!”

“Too late to stop that now,” said Anabel.

Ann gasped and turned over. “I hope she’ll never be caught, I hope . . . .” But Henry stood in the doorway, deadly pale, covered with dust. “Henry! Henry!”

Henry stood still for a moment. Silence held them all. Then Anabel said between closed teeth, “Where is Venus?”

“Gone, there was no other way.”

“So you robbed Ann of her peace and me of my property!”

“Yes.”

“And begot on this wench a brat to plague the world with! We’ll pass over adultery; a mere quibble!”

“You have the edge on me, Mother.”

“I hope you are satisfied.”

Henry was silent. There was no acquittal. “Marse Henry,” said Milly, “These here color mixtures won’t do. I knowed it from the first.”

Henry sat down and folded his arms. There was no use trying to make them understand. Yet he would try. “I love you, Ann. You must know that I do. But the pity of that girl was too much for me.”

“So you made her plight worse.” Anabel’s words were bitter drops, distilled, poisonous. “So you raised it to the magnitude of tragedy!”

Henry’s head bent. “I make no defense.” Words seemed no longer useful. At length he looked up. “What was the matter with Grubb? Blasting down the pike.”

“Do you think I’ll give up without a struggle? This wench is my property. I’ll get her back. I’ve never had a runaway and I don’t mean to begin.”

“It’s useless, Mother. She’s far away by now.”

“Ole Grubb’ll blab it all over the place. He ain’t got no better sense,” scorned Milly under her breath. It was dangerous to encounter Grubb’s enmity but Henry knew Milly scoffed Grubb as a low-life.

“No help for that. Criminal acts expose themselves.” Anabel’s voice was cold with anger. Ann lay still, face down now on the sofa, her head in her arms.

“He’ll do my case no good,” said Henry.

Ann lifted herself. “What do you mean, Henry?”

He went to the sofa and knelt by it. “I want you to go upstairs. You are worn out.” He put his arm around her. But she drew away. Heavy tears ran down her face, disfigured, swollen. “I can’t rest, Henry. I’m—shattered.”

Milly crept close and whispered to Henry, “Keep on tellin’ her you love her. After a while she’ll have to believe you. She can’t hep it. She ain’t got nothin’ else.”

“Ann,” said Henry, “believe it. I love you. I deserve the worst. Can you forgive?”

“There’s nothing to forgive—but I can’t think. I ache too much, inside.” Her face was from him.

“Boy,” said Milly, “she’s been makin’ a gawd out of you. That’s her trouble.” And under her breath she said, “Even gawds has their off moments.”

“Do one thing for me, Ann. Go upstairs now, at once.” His voice was urgent. He turned to his mother. Her stony face offered no easement. “Mother, ask her, maybe she’ll go.”

“Why should I ask her? She knows what she wants to do.”

Milly crept to the window, listening. “Seemlike I’m hearin’ a funny noise-like.”

“I don’t hear anything,” said Anabel.

Henry spoke through tight lips, “They are coming after me!”

Ann turned to him quickly. “Who? Where?”

“I was warned as I came out. There’s a crowd in town from the sticks—old soldiers—General Jack’s fighters here for the barbecue.”

“But why should they? How could they know about this?”

“Because of Maxwell’s stories and because of the row this morning; because hotheads believe the worst. And now Grubb has blabbed.”

Ann started. “Henry, they might kill you!” She threw her arms around him.

“I wanted to spare you this.” His lips touched her hair.

“As though you could!”

On the wind Henry heard a hoarse animal sound, even at a distance, bestial, wild. The approaching mob voice, sub-human. It gave off horror in wordless incoherence. And there was Grubb—dishevelled, his shock of sandy hair on end, his hackles up, he stood, breathing hard, open-mouthed. “Mr. Henry,” he gasped, “you’ve got yosef in a God-awful mess! Half the town, look like, is bustin’ up the pike. They are comin’ after you, they says.”

“Henry,” cried Ann, “you mustn’t stay here to be murdered!”

“He’ll stand his ground,” said Anabel.

“Mr. Henry,” said Grubb, “they says you is a goddamned Abolitionist and they is goin’ to . . . .”

“Mother, take Ann upstairs.”

“Do you think I’d go?”

“Of course she won’t go,” ground out Anabel between tight jawbones. “We stay right here to meet these blackguards.”

“Grubb,” said Henry, “round up the field hands. Shut them in the cabins. Send Sam and Ham here at once.”

“Yassir, yassir.” He ran out at full tilt.

“Henry,” said his mother, “those two pistols in the secretary—see if they are loaded.”

Henry pulled out a drawer. “I don’t see them.”

“Look in the lower drawer. For God’s sake, have some initiative.”

“Here they are.”

The quiet of the room held against the bedlam outside. Sam and Ham came in, panting and fearful; wall-eyed. “Put out the lights, Milly,” said Anabel.

“Gawdamity, gawdamity,” croaked Milly as she went about the business.

“They are tearin’ down the copin’ of the fence,” said Sam as he peered out. The night was taking on a fiery glow. Torches!

“They’ll use the fence rocks,” said Anabel in a husky voice.

“Gawd, you don’t reckon . . . .” Sam was shaking.

“Yes, I do. I reckon pretty shrewdly.”

“Oh, Mother—the townspeople wouldn’t . . . .” said Ann.

“Some of them would.”

“Leastsways of they’s drunk enough,” whispered Milly.

“Court day and barbecue and liquor and old soldiers on a rampage and you have the making of trouble.”

“Town full of low life,” said Milly.

Ham began to whimper. “They’re comin’ with more torches. I’m askeered; I’m askeered!”

“Shut up,” said Anabel.

“They taken the torches from the Cotehouse, I bet,” said Milly.

Anabel’s eyes flashed. “Yes, those torches were for the procession; for the General. They stole them, the goddam thieves and sneaks.”

“Burn the house down maybe,” Milly whispered.

“Second sight is out, Milly,” said Henry. The hubbub grew louder, more menacing. Henry stood alert and tense, his teeth shut tight. Ann hovered near him. Cries and threats could be heard now above the brawl and uproar.

“Lamb o’ life, what’s goin’ to happen!” groaned Sam.

Henry turned to him. “Can I trust you to load a pistol, Sam?”

“Yessir. Ole Master taught me good. I’ll load ’em as quick as you can fire ’em. Here’s all the stuff.”

“Get ready.” Henry laid the two pistols on the table close to the window. Sam got ready: bullets, wad and powder ready on the table by the window; pistols alongside; ready. Sam’s legs were shaking but his hand was sure for a job he knew. At the table close to the window, Sam waited.

Milly took up the long fire iron. “I’ll handle this poker and I’ll punch the . . . .”

“Wait, Milly, till I say so,” said Henry. Ham was at the window, kneeling down, sobbing to himself. “Marse Henry, what they goin’ to do to you?”

“Be quiet!” A rock struck the porch with shaking impact.

“Mother, take care of Ann.”

“I take care of nobody. Ann can take care of herself.” Henry looked at the mask his mother wore. No further talk would profit. He didn’t court death; life beat strong in him. Death at the hands of ruffians and under indictment of disgrace he would resist with every breath of his body. The noise was deafening now. The lights of the house were out, the fire heaped with ashes from Milly’s shovel yet the room was filled with a dull glow from the torches. Shadows flickered and banked against the walls, walls that were built for assault. A yard thick they were, built to resist cunning and stratagem.

Milly crept up to Henry. “You sho done us a bad turn.”

“Milly, take care of Ann. I’m going to meet them.” Henry stepped through the hall and on to the porch.

A yell went up from the gullets of the threshing crowd. “There he is!”

Henry saw a white face in the front row, a face disfigured, wild with hate. Maxwell Meredith!

His mother called, “Take your pistol!” But Henry was on the porch, speaking. “Why do you come to a gentleman’s home?”

“You’re no gentleman. You’ve been heppin’ runaways. We’ve got the goods on you!”

For a moment Henry saw again the figure of old Jim, bloody and beaten and dying. “What do you want?”

His quiet words silenced the crowd; then someone yelled from the rear, “We want a stinkin’ Abolitionist!” A man lurched forward. “You’ve been talkin’ biggety so take that!” He hurled a stone that struck and shattered the window.

Ham hunched up behind Henry. “Come away. Come away befo’ they gits you!”

“Go back, Ham. Go back! Don’t be a fool.”

“Let me stay here for a minute. You can git out.”

“Damn you, boy! Stand back!”

“Come on out, Henry Ashe,” shouted a countryman. “We’re goner learn you what tar and feathers and a ride on a rail feels like!”

Henry saw Maxwell with a stone in his hand; saw him lift his arm and fling the stone. Henry fell to the floor of the porch. Ham caught him by the shoulders and drew him into the hall. A torch tore through a broken window; Milly pounced on it with the shovel and beat it out. A man ran up the steps of the porch and dashed a rock against the mirror. The glass crashed in fragments, the shining bits covered the floor. As the man dodged back into the darkness, Ann and Ham dragged Henry to the sofa.

Anabel looked about her. She strode to the table, picked up the pistol Henry had refused and laid it with the other one on the window sill. She stepped through the hall door to the porch, edged toward the window, drew up her height of five feet to dominant level and spoke with toneless, raucous voice, penetrating and defiant. “You cowardly bastards, get off my land.”

“Haw, haw!”

“You’ll never ride me on a rail, I’ll wager.”

“We’ll smoke you out, old gal!”

Another lighted torch fell in the room, but Ham and Milly smothered it. As she stomped it out Milly rumbled, “dirty stump-suckers!”

Anabel’s voice gained in power. “What do you mean by killing my son and breaking down my house?”

“We don’t want no parley with you, old dame. Your son ain’t dead. He’s possumin’ in there. We want him. He’s a coward and a sneak, a goddam Abolitionist. And we want him bad.” Another voice cried, “We could rock you down, but we don’t aim to bust up no woman. We’ll git that triflin’ son of your’n or we’ll know the reason why.”

Anabel reached through the window and grasped one of the pistols. She looked at the crowd. She knew they could swarm over and trample her down, but she’d stand up to them—the skunks; they wouldn’t have the liver to do it. Sam could load for her and she would make them dodge. It was a slim chance; she’d take it. With Sam to load . . . .

“Get out! Don’t think I’m afraid of you. I’ve fought Indians in my day! Come an inch and I’ll fill you with cold lead!” At her threat they slumped back a step. “I’ll have the law on you! I’ll let no gang of ruffians murder my son. Take this!” Anabel let loose with her pistol, shooting over the heads of the crowd.

The ranks broke; the ragged pack gave way. “Hold yo hosses, little ole crone. We ain’t aimin’ to do no killin’ exactly. We just . . . .”

“What are the rocks for? Drop them!” Rocks fell on the ground. “This was a goodwill visit, I suppose.” Anabel’s voice was poisonous.

“We just had the rocks and we threw em.”

“You damned loafers, I can smell you from here! Drunk as hell!”

Sam was keen at reloading: powder in barrel; wadding on top of powder; bullet in cloth and rammed down into barrel. Sam knew how. Again Anabel shot; low this time, raking the crowd.

“Ouch, Ole Miss, that skinned my toe!”

“Wow! You nigh nipped off my . . . .”

Anabel was reckless. She would give them the works. “I’ve got an itch to shoot the whole batch of you! For a copper cent I’d pick you one by one.” She could do it, too, with Sam’s help.

“Good grief, Ole Miss. Quit shootin’!”

“Not till I get ready. You’re clodhoppers. You don’t all come from Fayette, I’ll bet.”

“We come to town to hear the General.”

“And to gorge barbecue and fill your bellies with corn liquor.”

“You’re darn right.”

“You stole those torches, too! I’ll sick Old Hickory on you. He’ll finish you. You know him!”

“Aw, shut up!”

“What’ll he do when he hears you tried to kill his best friends and burn down their house?”

“Who’ll tell him?”

“I’ll tell him, by God! He’ll blow the backsides off the lot of you! You know that!”

“I shore do!” said a befuddled voice. “I fit under him at N’Yorlins! Boys, we’d better give in. Can’t git the Ole Man after us! Lady, put yo pistols down. You win! Don’t tell on us and we’ll git offen yo place. But tie up that son of yourn!”

“I’ll answer for him! Answer for yourselves! Cackley, I see you out there. I know you! Send tomorrow; have my window fixed. Belcher, this night’s work will cost you money. You broke my mirror-glass! I want a new one!”

“Right, mam. I’ll git one from L’Hommedieu.”

“Was I dreaming, or did I see Maxwell Meredith out there?”

“He was here, but he’s gone; on his hoss.”

Anabel shot once more. It was her last slug. Good measure, a final blast.

“Don’t shoot no more, Ole Miss. We’re agittin’.”

“Well, git. And be damned to you!”

“Boys,” yelled a drunken voice, “three cheers for Mistress Ashe, a good ole Indian fighter who can cuss as straight as she can shoot.” The crowd sent up its breath in a coarse bray. With scrabble and shove, the disorderly crew shuffled out of the yard and into the roadway.

Anabel waited stonily for the departure. She still held a pistol, her head high, her eyes sharp as frost. She waited, while the sound of the scuffling grew fainter, until the hoarse laughter came to her from a distance. She drew a long breath, her only admission of hurt, wrench or strain. Then she turned back through the hall into the sitting room and laid her empty pistol on the table. “Well, that skulduggery is over,” she said as she wiped her hands with a gesture of disgust. She closed her eyes for a moment to collect her thought. Yes, it was Henry. Something had happened to Henry. Ann and Ham and Milly were clustered about him. Ann knelt with her head on his breast.

“He’s alive, Ole Miss, he’s alive,” said Ham, the tears streaming down his black face.

“My love!” Ann sobbed.

“Good God, how can he breathe, Ann, if you lie on top of him?” Anabel lifted Henry’s head higher on the pillow and passed her hand through his thick curls with tactile scrutiny. “Wake up, Henry. Wake up!”

Henry opened his eyes. “What’s happened? Where am I?”

“That’s better,” said Anabel.

“How did I get here?”

“They cracked you a glancing lick over the head. You’ve got a lump there. But it takes more than a rock to break some heads.”

Henry closed his eyes again. Slowly the whole matter came back to him.

“Maxwell Meredith,” said Henry vaguely. “I remember—but where have they gone?”

“Mother scared them off,” said Ann between laughing and tears.

“Shot at ’em with both pistols,” said Milly as she put the poker in its place by the hearth.

“And hurled a few curses,” said Anabel, unsmiling.

Milly enlightened him further. “Name of Gawd didn’t scare ’em off. It was the name of Jack that done it. Ole General Jack! They’re afraid of him—sure as hell.”

“I’ll have the doctor look you over, Henry,” said Anabel.

“Don’t bother, I’m all right.” Henry drew his legs from the sofa and stood up; he staggered.

Ham sprang to help him. “Lay down again, Marse Henry, lay down an’ rest.”

“No, no. I’ll go upstairs and rest there. Come, Ann.”

Ann eased her arm around him and she and Ham helped him up the stairway.

Henry was safe at last. Ann’s heart almost burst with relief and joy. All the warmth of love rushed back, deep love, indestructible love. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could ever lessen it. He was hers, just as her heart and her body were hers. He might destroy her, but she would love him forever. He leaned and touched his lips to her hair. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Oh, Henry,” she whispered, “I’m glad you didn’t die.”

Milly went into the hall and watched Henry’s passage up the steps. Ann saw gladness in Milly’s eyes too. “Everybody loves him,” Milly said out loud, “they can’t help it.”

Anabel took her seat in her arm chair and looked around the disrupted room. It was bad doing but things might have been a damn sight worse. Her quick eye caught Grubb coming in cautiously, by way of the front porch. Grubb’s lank hair was wet with sweat, he stank of it; his heavy muscles sagged. “Wellum, I’m stove in; but all’s quiet at last around about agin tonight, mum.”

“You’re ironic, Grubb.”

“I don’t know that, but I’m nigh done!”

“Yes, I see.”

He pulled out a filthy rag and wiped his brow. “I’m sweatin’ like a hoss.” Anabel sniffed and turned her head. “They done trompled up the lawn and busted the garden and tore down the fence and broke the stile, but . . . .”

“Those things can be mended. You get busy. Put the Negroes to work. Yes, we had a brush with low life, Grubb.”

“You was a plumb match for em, Ole Miss.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Nawm,” Grubb grinned, noncommittal.

“Venus got away in the scuffle, it seems.”

Anabel saw his eye brighten. Here was his chance of extenuation. She knew it would not be muffed; he was blameworthy until absolved. The command was “bring the woman back.” He had failed. “What with the mob and all, we lost the trail of her, Ole Miss.”

“You never found it, I’m thinking.”

“They outrunned us.”

“And outwitted us. Put that to their credit.”

“They ain’t got no credit, Ole Miss.”

“Well, she’s gone,” Anabel would not discuss the matter with Grubb. Whatever weedy suspicious had grown up in his mind in the dark of the night, his plane of thinking was not hers, his suspicions irrelevant. “There’ll be work to do tomorrow, Grubb. Goodnight.” Grubb pulled at his distorted cowlick and wedged out of the room and Anabel turned to Sam who stood beside the table, stock still, ready for anything. “Load the pistols and put them back in the drawer, Sam, and get the carriage to the door.”

“Where you goin’, Ole Miss?”

“Where do you suppose?”

“I ain’t sposed to ’spose,” Sam said as he left the room. As he passed through the hall Anabel saw him slap Milly on the buttock to remind her she had duty to do. Anabel called, “Milly! Come here, Milly. Look at this room. Get to work and sweep up the abomination on the floor. Glass is dangerous underfoot.” As Milly went for her broom, “Bring my shawl and bonnet from the hatrack.” Anabel seated herself in the exact centre of the sofa and folded her hands in her lap. The day was done. Things had been bad, but she had scored a triumph of mind over matter, a triumph of pure gut and gizzard. She was pleased, in spite of the destruction of property, in spite of her rank defeat in the loss of Venus. She would set that aside now; it would sting for many a day; meanwhile, she would count what feats there were: she, one small woman, had turned away a mob bent on mayhem. She had done it, with some skill. She remembered her Indian escape long ago. That too was a match of wits, a struggle; with murder and rape as the odds. She had saved her life then; and, now, the life of her son, for whatever it was worth; yet she had been stupid enough to allow a mulatto wench to outwit her on her own ground. It was Henry’s doing—son against mother. He had won this time, but let him beware. Maybe the mob would teach him a lesson, curb his tongue, stop the blather of his foolish notions.

Milly returned with the bonnet and shawl, the broom under her arm. She set the broom against the wall and with elaborate pains placed the bonnet on Anabel’s head at just the right angle and wrapped the shawl with grace about her shoulders. When the delicate rite was ended, Milly said, “Ole Miss, you goin’ out at this time of night?” Anabel tied her bonnet strings with deliberation. “You ain’t had yo supper, neither—not a chew.”

“Lucinda is hiding out, the idiot. Nobody thought of her in the scrimmage.”

“Well, Ole Miss, after all this bustin’ and doin’, even my old laigs is gone trimbly.”

“Fiddlesticks! I’m ashamed of you!” Anabel tiptoed and peered up into the broken glass over the mantel. “How do I look, Milly? I can’t see myself in that mirror.”

“It’s busted. No wonder. They sho done a job tonight.”

“Is my bonnet on straight?”

“You look peart as a bug, Ole Miss, but I’m thinkin’ it might be good for you to rest after all that shootin’ and cussin’.”

“Rest! Nonsense! I’m going to the barbecue. It won’t be over till midnight. Do you think I’d miss it? The General is expecting me!”

“The carriage, Ole Miss,” announced Sam.

Anabel gathered her shawl about her and marched to the door, rustling her wide skirts; five-foot of bone, unconquered.

Milly went about her work and mumbled to herself, “Ole Miss, you don’t beat nothin’! When Gab’l blows his horn, you’ll still be stompin’ . . . I ’low you will!”

Esmeralda went home about five o’clock. She had meant to remain for the barbecue, but when she found excitement mounting and caught the gist of threat in the air she decided to return home. Should she stop by Stoneholt and warn them—there? No. Let them take care of themselves. Why should she worry? No, she would say nothing; would get home. Let fate take its due.

Blandy had dinner hot and ready—four kinds of bread, biscuits, muffins, batter bread, sally lunn, all delicious, and her meats done to a turn of delicate savor. But Esmeralda was not hungry. She disliked a solitary meal, it was depressing. Her mind was at work on her problems. She was lonely; she wished she had stayed in town where the barbecue might have offered distraction. The house, her most pleasant interest, was beginning to pall. When she had filled every want in it—would it be like the doll house of her childhood? After that was furnished with the paraphernalia of cardboard, she had never played with it. It was a thing done. She left it, to think of something else.

At length she sat down and ate her supper, without appetite. Her mind was on Marion; she thought of his love for his brother, an obsession surely. When Marion’s eyes lighted on Maxwell, she often saw them grow soft, gentle with pity. Marion’s devotion was a thing unalterable; and for that sot! It must be the birth bond, the twinship. She ate with no interest. Blandy watched her pick at her food. “What you worryin’ over, Mistiss?”

“Nothing, Blandy.”

Esmeralda got up from the table, went into the sitting room and sat by the fire. Restlessness swept her like high tide. She bit her lip until it bled; she wiped it with her handkerchief without thought, absently. She was tired of Maxwell. He no longer gave her the satisfaction she had felt for a few weeks after her marriage. Now her vagrant choice lighted on Marion. His aloofness maddened her. His loyalty! Loyalty to Maxwell, who knew no loyalties, human or divine! If she loved Marion, why shouldn’t she have him? She would have him. Let Maxwell shift for himself, the sot, drinking at the tavern; guzzling at the whisky barrel in the barroom; sleeping it off; slamming home to scare the daylights out of the servants and sober up for another debauch! Esmeralda drank, but she hated the burnt-out breath of the day after; the game wasn’t worth the candle.

Tonight she would drink.

She got out the decanter and two glasses. If Marion was alone she would give him a drink tonight . . . at home. She waited.

The door opened and Marion shouldered in, tall and handsome. She ran to him and threw her arms around him. She felt the blood flame in her neck and face when she let go of him.

“Oh, Marion! I thought you were Maxwell! You get more like him every day!”

Marion stiffened; drew back; his jaw set, his eyes unruly. He had no word for her. She didn’t fool him any more; she saw that; saw that he knew her now, knew what she was after; Maxwell was to be the sacrifice; she was through with Maxwell. Marion’s tight lips told her he would stand against her; he would never let Maxwell down; let her keep to herself. He knew what she wanted—to separate—to dissever. She’d never do it! She’d never do it! It was clear to Esmeralda what he felt; he made it clear; tears filled his eyes; he would rather die than give in, though his loins felt desire and his thought was hot and desperate. Yes, she knew she could stir up lust in an anchorite; she was a dangerous female animal, zestful and predatory, and she knew now, he knew her. She couldn’t fool him any more, she saw that. He would stand against her to the end . . if he could hold out he’d never let Maxwell down; his eyes, his body told her . . . he’d never let her get what she wanted . . . what she was asking for. He’d rather die than give her what she wanted, his eyes told her, his shining eyes. Her nearness was a fatal thing; he was all set to go, get away without a word; leave her, give her the slip! It was plain to Esmeralda.

Now was the time for action; now if ever.

“You’re late for dinner.”

“Don’t want any.”

She went to the decanter on the table and poured him out a drink. He took the glass and drank.

“I’ll tell Blandy not to hold things hot for you.” She drank and filled his glass from the decanter and gave it to him. He drank it at a gulp.

“I’ll tell Blandy.” She left the room, intent, eyeing him. She would wait a little outside the door while he drank the last drop from the decanter. Values would be befogged, lost.

She came to him; went into his arms. He crushed her savagely. “Since you will have it so. . . .” He lifted her and carried her up the stairs into his bedroom. They troubled not to close the door—they were completely mad.

Blandy slank into the hall in time to see them go up the stairway. She shivered; shook her head in terror, a morbid terror mingled with savage curiosity.

“Gawd help us all!” She crouched back under the stairs to await what should come. “Gawd, Gawd, don’t, don’t let Marse Maxwell git home, this night.”

She waited. It was not long till he came. She saw he was cold sober tonight. He was panting like he had run far.

Marse Maxwell was cat-footed when he wanted to be. If he was sober, he could slipper in and not wake nobody, or else if he was drunk he could knock the whole house down.

Bees began to buzz in Blandy’s head when she saw him tiptoe upstairs—sober. She shivered with delicious horror, grisly craving.

Maxwell went up the steps and Blandy followed him, sneaked after him. If he caught her he’d kill her. She hid in the upper hall where she could see—she had to watch—she had to.

The smell of alcohol hovered in the close air of the upper hall. The fire in Marion’s room flooded the walls and even the hall with a rosy light. From where she hid, Blandy could see straight through the open bedroom door. They were lying, young, loving, beautiful, their heads thrown back on the pillows, fast asleep.

Maxwell stood and looked at them. He went into his own room and came back with a leather case. He opened it.

Blandy craned her neck forward, though she might get kilt herself, she had to see.

Maxwell leaned over the bed and stood there a full minute and looked. He leaned farther over and swiftly cut their throats with his long muscular fingers . . . and Blandy saw nary a drop of blood on his hands.

Blandy’s hand was at her own throat to keep herself from screaming. She could smell her sweat so strong . . . would he smell it and roust her out . . . . and kill her?

She jerked back as Maxwell stumbled downstairs, his face white as a rag, tears running down on his coat. He was sobbing out loud: “Marion, Marion. . . .”

Blandy heard him open the door and then his horse’s hoof-beats sounded on the driveway. He was gone.

Blandy was shaking so she was almost dead—dead on her feet. But she mustn’t die there . . . and she must look once . . . once more into the room.

Were they still moving about—on the bed? The whole room looked red to Blandy—the firelight and the blood dripping on the floor . . . and she thought she heard the blood dripping on the floor as she ran down the steps. She couldn’t help thinking how the Mistiss would hate that . . . all that blood on the floor.

Blandy whispered to Milly the whole story of Esmeralda and the twins. Milly told Ann. It was all part of the Story of Stoneholt—was it not written in the chronicles? That chapter was finished now. Tear out the chapter; rip out the pages—half close the book.

The Meredith farm went to one of the Meredith kin, the servants’ panic calmed by kindly rule. Maxwell was never heard of or hunted down—the law did not intervene in a crime passionelle. Justice in Fayette was appeased by the atoning sacrifice.

Miss Pringle’s little pointed tongue, darted in and out, smeared with bloody talk. Ann fled from it; she wouldn’t listen—now now—but it would surely furnish material for gory repetition in days to come—the little pointed tongue, darting in and out at each pause. Ann could expect that. Miss Pringle had dressed and adorned Esmeralda since she was a rowdy child, and through her Miss Pringle enjoyed her only contact with passionate, wilful enterprise. This excitement would live on. “It should last Miss Pringle out,” said Ann, “with thrift it should last.”

Venus was gone—gone now from Ann’s world; but jealous fires linger for a time—flare and smoulder—and at last burn down; self consumed.

The baby’s coming would suffice for all past tribulation—all disaster.

With Henry returned to her, Ann’s winter took on peace and rounding content.

Perfect or imperfect, Henry was Henry and Henry was Ann’s—and Ann would love him forever. It was so ordained.

Winter was wonderful, even the cold that could be so cruel; she, warm and softly nurtured and housed, looked on it from within. Outside the keen weather—the whine of snow underfoot—the squeak and crunch of it beneath raking wheels, wagon wheels hauling wood, hemp, tobacco, adding to the wealth her son would share. On dark, winter mornings Ann often watched the skies thick as blue agate while snow flakes wove veil on shimmering veil; she loved the hush of falling snow on a muted world, muffled, powdery, dense. Sometimes a cardinal flew by or alighted on the windowsill, incandescent fire on ice. The world of winter seemed waiting as she was waiting.

These long evenings, Abolition was not argued in the sitting room. It was a thing too keen now—too potent to meet the explosive brunt of speech. What ties Henry had in town and under cover of darkness, Ann neither knew nor questioned, but she hoped he had learned his lesson.

Spring came on as in other years. The cups of the tulip poplars, that in winter sunsets shone like grails, were beginning to feel the thrill of ancient sap; soon it would pulse through trunk and branch and bough until the cups fell away, molded shells of a forgotten summer, to give place to vernal calices of pink and gold with which poplars, in spring weather crown their summits.

While Ann waited her moment, she glanced sometimes, at the fragile garments Venus had embroidered with such delicate skill. Thought escaped control—went out to the doomed and fatal beauty to which Henry, even Henry, had fallen victim. Strange it seemed, that Ann had never thought the woman beautiful. It was all a painter’s notion, she thought. Now she knew better—knew that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. “Thank God she got away—unharmed—uncaught—unsold as a runaway.” Ann shivered. Henry had suffered enough. “I, too, have suffered, but I’m glad she went, unharmed.” She could say that, now, and mean it.

Mother strongly suspected Gaitskill of having part in the escape of Venus. Evidence was against him and of course Tom knew he bore the blame, but never a word was said to confirm it. The matter was closed forever. No one spoke of what they all took thought, each after his own way.

The ministers continued to thunder against Abolition. God was the author of the Peculiar Institution; the Bible was full of it from end to end.

Even the negroes got a waft—a hieratic whiff of the atmosphere of spiritual conflict their masters breathed.

Milly said to Sam, “Sometimes, when they go on like that, I smell blood: fe, fi, fo, fum!”

“You heish yo mouth,” mumbled Sam.

Anabel’s preacher shouted, “Abolition will soon be as dead as the diplodocus! Just as dead, dead, dead!”

To Milly the derisive blast sounded like the hoot of an owl. She said it made her toe-nails crawl when ole flannin’-mouth got on his highhorse. It was a death wish . . . a sure hex. Of course Milly didn’t say this out loud where white-folks could hear.

Milly accompanied Anabel to church to look after the sacramental wine. Milly carried it from the carriage to the vestry with caution and some awe, and then took her seat in the rear pew between the two iron stoves that reddened and roared and kept the air dry and charged. She drank in the sermon thirstily. After all it was God’s word, she supposed . . . this mingled draft of rancor, venom and pure hate. Jehovah was a god to be feared.

Milly weltered in the thick waves of emotion that swept the bleak walls; she was stirred in the depth of her savage bloodstream.

That evening when she prepared Ann for bed Milly kept grumbling to herself while she unbuttoned and put away day clothes.

“What’s the matter, Milly?”

But Milly was talking to herself; Ann could listen if she wanted to. “This is a white-folks’ country. You can’t git around that! White-folks brought us here . . . they know it was wrong, same as we do . . . but what was we like when we come? Maybe you ain’t never seen none of them raw niggers—new-come niggers! I have . . . back in Tidewater. They’s nothin’ but animals, most. An’ look at us now! How we can read and write, some of us. The white-folks is done give us a chanct, a chanct to live rightly. They’ve give us religion too—but it’s goin’ to take us a long time to git the way they is. Look how long they taken to git like they is . . . they taken, they tell me, hunnerts of years. Maybe some day some of us will git somewhere: but it’ll take a whole lot of hunnerts of years before us niggers will be more than niggers; we still got the jungle in us—strong; hot! Some white-folks is mean and slavery’s mean, but our own people is meaner, sellin’ us fast as white-folks’ll buy us. They tell me the Yankees in the North is got the niggers up there so bowdacious they strut the streets tellin’ theyselves they’s good as white-folks.”

“Who says so, Milly?”

“It gits around, honey.” Milly wiped her forehead with her forearm. “This is all got to be settled by the hunnerts of years—like for the white-folks. Them Yankees make me want to spit—make me want to poot!”

Milly slipped the wool gown over Ann’s head. “Won’t be long ’till you’ll be wearin’ your linen shift; weather’s turnin’.”

“Yes,—and the baby nearly here!”

“Mammy Jett’s holdin’ on ’till the baby comes. She’s lookin’ for him soon.”

“I hope she’s right; I’m ready.”

Milly helped Ann up the three steps into the high feather bed. “Bornin’ is a curisome business anyway . . . I never git used to it!”

Just at midnight, on the silver stroke of the old London clock downstairs, Ann stepped heavily out of bed. “Milly, my time has come.”

Milly was crouched on her pallet on the dressing room floor, her head tied up in Rooshan’s crimson head handkerchief.

“Milly!”

Milly gave a jump and sat up. She was on foot in a flash. “You git right back to bed.” She tucked Ann in. “Wake up, Marse Henry. This ain’t no place for no man, nohow. Not now. You done done your part—now it’s time to go. Stop that snarkin’ and snorin’.”

Henry was up in an instant; under Milly’s crossfire he dressed and went out and called Anabel who should be active, abroad, omniscient. Anabel awoke without apparent excitement. “There is no hurry, Henry. These things take time; I’ll send for the doctor and the midwife; meanwhile, keep your head on. Births have happened before and they’ll happen till kingdom come—or as long as men and women cohabit. Nature’s an old hand at this game. She’s pretty dependable.”

Up in the big bed, Ann swam in womb waters that burst before the doctor came. “A dry birth,” the midwife muttered, “that ain’t so good.” Before morning, demons of agony awoke, destroyers; forces of death against life; powers of hell against love and love’s giving. Henry couldn’t endure it for her but he seemed to follow her—all the way as day followed night and night came again; but for Ann time seemed to cease. She climbed mountains of labor, crossed valleys, sunless and doomed. She seemed outside of life, past aid, breathless; beyond the conscious self. This was not she; this was no longer Ann, his lovely Ann—but driven, exhausted flesh and bone. Only the tossing bright curls on the pillow held any look of Ann herself; beauty crushed as a moth; destroyed—the defaced prey of tortured, endless hours.

At daybreak a baby was born, beaten and woeful—a bruised shred; lifeless. The doctor gave it a sharp look. “Too late. Dead!” he whispered to Henry. He cut the cord and laid the shattered fragment on the day-bed near the door.

Henry heard the door-latch click when Aunt Jett came in muttering breathwords: “Ole Elisha, Ole Elisha!” Aunt Jett’s insania. Henry felt her presence but paid her no heed. She had come to see the baby. Well, she would see it; there it was—stark on the day-bed.

Henry didn’t speak—could not. He heard the door-latch click when Aunt Jett went out; but he didn’t turn his head. His whole thought was on Ann who was losing blood—fighting for her life. Her breath fluttered; almost ceased. Milly had rushed downstairs—apron over her head—to spread the bad news in the kitchen; baby dead; Ann dying. She would be back—with haste.

Sharply, Henry heard the door-latch click when Aunt Jett went out. It cut the stillness—the quietness.

On the high bed Ann’s eyelids wavered; her breath was now less shallow. Henry took her cold hand in his. The doctor nodded, “She’s pulled through. Yes, she’ll live.” Henry laid his head by Ann’s on the pillow and wept. Even Anabel’s eyes were moist, Milly, back again, sobbed, half aloud.

The doctor straightened his back. “Childbed is a strain,” he wiped the sweat from his forehead, “something should be found to ease it.”

He put his hand on Henry’s shoulder. “She’ll live,” he said again.

Henry sank to his knees and waited; waited for the question that would be sure to come.

“My baby . . . where is my baby?”

The doctor turned his head away. Henry’s hand tightened on Ann’s hand—his lips parted.

The brass door-latch clicked . . . and Aunt Jett came in with the baby in her arms—wrapped in her apron. She moved to the bed. “Here’s yo’ man-child, honey Ann,” said Aunt Jett.

Henry sprang up. “Good God,” he whispered, “good God!”

Aunt Jett spoke low to Henry. “He had a hard time comin’; but he’s all right now. He’s mad, too, nobody wantin’ him but his old Aunt Jett.”

“You’ve saved us all,” said Henry, wiping the tears off his face.

Mother had a swift look at the baby and the doctor stared wide-eyed.

The child was alive—breathing. His wail went up good to hear—strong and vindictive. Henry agreed the anger was fully justified.

“Here, Milly,” said Aunt Jett, “take this baby; freshen him up and give him to his mammy.”

Milly opened eager arms.

“Aunt Jett,” said Henry, “dear Aunt Jett, sit down while I bring you a drink to warm your old bones.”

But Aunt Jett was gone without turning or seeming to hear.

Henry lingered as Milly bathed the baby and swaddled him, crooning to him in her own baby-talk: “Who ’bused my baby . . . who ’bused my boy?”

When she laid him on his mother’s arm Milly said, “He’s the image of his pappy.”

Ann looked at her baby with bright tears. “Yes,” she said, “yes.”

“She must be quiet now,” said the doctor to Henry, “let her sleep.” But the doctor’s brow rumpled. “The thing’s uncanny,” he muttered as Mother followed him to the door. “Madam, the child was dead; I’d swear to it! A doctor should never be surprised—but. . . .”

“But he may be mistaken—that’s humanly possible.”

“Yes Madam,” he blew his nose. “I’ll be back in the morning. Good night.” Mother followed him out.

Henry lingered—trying to clear his thought with clearer percept. Birth—death—breath—a meaning somewhere . . . hid. He lingered, looking soft-eyed at his newborn son . . . Man . . . continuity . . . love . . . meaning what?

The midwife bustled about with muted bedroom duties. Milly jealously sharing them.

Quiet settled down. Henry looked at Ann asleep—rest after labor—peace after pain—the baby in the curve of her arm. Relief set Henry’s blood tingling; lifted his eyes to the stars . . . after blind darkness. He ran downstairs three steps at a time through the dining room where he caught up a cutglass carafe from the sideboard and laughing, rushed over the settled stones to Aunt Jett’s cabin.

Ham met him at the door.

“How’s Miss Ann?”

“Ham, I’m a father!”

“And Miss Ann?”

“She’ll live. She’s come out of Sheol!”

“Where’s that?” said Ham, big-eyed. “I’ve been here sittin’; waitin’, waitin’ to get to the house; but Granny wouldn’t let me; she wouldn’t let me leave her. Twict I got to the door; and twict she called me back.” He lowered his voice. “She’s sleepin’, now.”

“You’ve been asleep yourself, Ham. Aunt Jett went to the house; she nursed the baby back to life.”

“Nawsir! Couldn’t abeen. Granny’s never left that bed; but she’s been dreamin’ somethin’ powerful; somethin’ about Elisha. . . .”

“She slipped by you. You know you’re like a log when you go to sleep.” But Ham shook his head in dogged denial, steadfast.

“I’ve brought her a toddy to cheer her up.” Henry moved toward the bed, but something in the stony outline there forced the truth on him. He bent over and touched the grey forehead. “Ham! She’s gone! She’s left us!” Henry sat down in the old splint chair and put his head in his hands.

“Lordamighty,” sobbed Ham. “She was big-minded she’d live to see the baby!”

“She did, Ham, she did see him! You fell asleep.”

Ham crept to the bed and turned aside the covers. The ancient feet lay bare, worn with labors, grey as withered leaves. For an instant Ham leaned over. “There ain’t nary a spec of dirt on ’em!” he cried. “She ain’t never left this bed!”

“Turn the cover back, Ham. You were asleep. Aunt Jett went out while you slept. She walked through the wet grass, the dew. You know how secret she was; she wouldn’t tell you she was going.”

“Yassir, yassir! Please let me sleep in your room tonight. I’ll lay on the floor and won’t disturb you none.”

“Come along. Get Milly to fix you a pallet. I’m sleeping in the south room. Put out the fire; snuff the candle; shut the door.”

Henry watched them bury Aunt Jett in the family plot—the little square of green sod within the low rock fence. She had a proper stone to mark her place—Henry saw to that.

Aunt Jett had completed her wishful cycle—a hundred years, she said, was enough of living.

Ann cried; for she loved Aunt Jett. But nothing could long cloud her mind—busy with the fleshly joy of tending the sweet body of her child; the sensual, earthen passion of motherhood, the perfect bliss of giving suck.

“There ain’t no dimple in his chin, though,” said Milly, “and Ole Miss says she’s glad there ain’t none.”

They named him John Henry—a good name Milly said, and even Mother wasn’t against it.

“He’s pintly no moody boy-child; he looks the spitten image of his daddy,” said Milly to Ann, “but he ain’t like him in his ways. He’ll git up and git and be up and comin’; no moonin’ around for him! He’ll make his mark; mind my word, and when that boy-child smiles on you, you’ll break your heart with lovin’ him.”

As the years passed, Ann’s life moved forward, rounded and complete, with husband and son, and love fulfilled. What more would a woman ask of life?

The boy, in time, broke through the crust of Anabel’s heart; his wide, inquiring eyes, his independence, his captivating smile bore down her resistance. She loved him. The House of Stoneholt had a worthy offspring, her line, at last—fresh sap, healthy and vigorous. Anabel took on renewal. She knew now that Henry’s views were unalterable, but quarrels were over; what might happen in cover of darkness she refused to dwell on. Henry had returned as the lost sheep to the fold; straying and roving were perhaps congenital. She would allow him more latitude on the farm, foster the sense of his importance as land owner, help fill his days with practical matters. All this should cure his fits of deep gloom that led him to take those long hunting trips alone—even without Ham, his shadow.

Her disgust still seethed at Henry’s refusal of the law as a profession; of its corollaries: politics and party battle. How else could a man on the frontier canalize all that Oxford culture? She would like to see Henry governor, or perhaps even. . . . But why record foolish dreams,—Oxford,—Anabel lifted her nose,—Oxford had ruined Henry.

Henry kept his own counsel, kept his thoughts and even his words to himself. With Father gone, there was no one to understand.

Felicity was not the reward of virtue; it was virtue itself. The black stain still seeped into his conscious and unconscious thought—into his bloodstream—into the hidden springs.

In his little son, Henry found release. He early realized that John Henry was a vital and adventurous spirit. Henry would teach the boy to think for himself. He would give him principles; let him apply them; he wouldn’t thwart him with his own failures and indecisions—his social despairs—his bitter sorrowing.

The little hand in his own, the confident love were tender and dear matters.

Henry walked over the fresh-cut turf to the stables. “Twenty years when they are gone—look back on them. What are they?” said Henry half aloud. “Twenty years, when they are gone, are only a parenthesis between then and now. You can’t measure them by clocks or calendars—but you can look at the height of John Henry; a man grown; that’s a measurement.”

Mother had come back from the Hermitage where she went to see the old General. She found him mighty poorly. When she left he gave her a pewter snuff box; and though Mother never used snuff, she kept it in her reticule and at night put it into her top drawer of the highboy, along with her family jewels.

Henry breathed deep the sweet air. This first day of May seemed as good as the endless spring days of youth—unfocused now, faded and blurred. The throb of brevity was loud in his breast this morning. How many more springs would be his with their palimpsest of being and becoming—forever obliterating—forever repeating the eternal pattern of change?

In ten days his birthday again. There were things to do yet; to do quickly, if ever. Middle age was a time for reckoning—a time for decision. Time was needful for change.

“Time I’ve had, God knows! I’ve made common cause with Slavery, never peace with it. No more compromise—no more. . .”

He felt new urgence in his heart, vigor still in his loins.

“The rumble of earthquake is under us all. I’ve lived on the blood and the breath of God’s creatures. Justice waits . . . but I believe I’ve come to grips at last with good and evil.”

Henry no longer felt soiled by the lowest of all deeds, helping a runaway. He was no longer hamstrung by the fetter of the Southern Code—the birth to death Code of iron, the coffle. He had struck it off. In his mind he was free of it at last. His world itself seemed to be moving out of hard self-interest into a new—a flexible hope—into a dream of a South to be reborn—purged of greed and of human exploitation.

Where once there were furtive units in Fayette, whispering behind closed doors; now there were outspoken groups; vocal, divisive and insistent. A war of ideas was in the making. Change blew in the wind, palpable, apparent.

A tidal wave gathered and moved slowly landward and Fayette was on the coast line—on the border of the South. Anything could happen here. Fayette was moving or beginning to move, out of passive emotion into a fervor active, almost religious; forgetful of self-interest, unmindful of the final end of a world.

Henry might have to keep a naked knife at his elbow but he could speak his mind. It was now time to put speech into the printed word. When you are young, said Henry to himself, it is the future that holds meaning. When you are old, it will be the past. When you suddenly—and without warning—realize middle age as I do today the present becomes big; alive. The NOW strikes down upon the moving stream of time and bursts with its own weight.

Abolition was a force to reckon with in Fayette. Henry’s world was moving, as he was moving, toward change.

Last night Henry agreed to edit a weekly journal committed to “The Cause.” Now break the ties with old friends, old custom. He must stand against his world.

The logical, if remote, end would be Stoneholt without servants, farm without slaves. The picture was bleak. His mother would rave and fight against him; Ann would sorrow but she would survive; John Henry would understand; he, alone of them all. Fatherhood, at last, had a stay—a staff to lean on.

No one should know beforehand; they would be faced with a thing done. His journal would confront the hot and costly issue; meet it head on—no doctrinaire approach. His duties would begin today.

But another grave matter had to be settled at once. Henry put his hand to his inner pocket; he felt the sharp edge of two letters there; he took one of them out and flipped it against his hand; his eyes narrowed; his lips thinned as he returned it to his inner pocket. The post would not leave till noon. Meanwhile, waiting, he would take a gallop on Al Sufi, his new stallion.

The strain of Al Sufi would one day furnish Stoneholt with winners on the turf. Al Sufi would make his mark on the new skinned track; as racer and sire he would be the crowning glory of Stoneholt. Henry paid an unholy price for him but Mother lent an eager hand; horse racing thrilled Mother; charged her with surplus energies and there was plenty of racing in Fayette; it was a big part of life.

The morning air was cool for May—the sky blue and cloudless. Henry heard a vague mutter as he looked up. Wild geese were flying north—late flying this year—leaving the southland, heading north.

Henry liked the biting, astringent smell of the stables, the dim light of the stalls; where Ham’s black face could hardly be seen as he curried Al Sufi’s gleaming coat, as he tended him with love. Henry put his hand on Al Sufi’s shoulder, stroked his chest, wide and capacious, examined his legs flexible and strong with tendons like cables. Henry looked him over with pride. Al Sufi’s bearing seemed a kind of equine majesty. Here was the horse of Henry’s love; the horse of Anabel’s hope.

“He’s a winner, Ham!”

“You bet he is,” snuffled Ham.

As Henry entered the stall Al Sufi stamped and threw back his head and rubbed his moist nose against the sleeve of Henry’s coat. “You want freedom, too!” The horse curved his neck, his nostrils widened; with wild energy he blew his warm breath into the palm of Henry’s hand. Henry stroked him. “Steady old boy!”

Henry never mounted a horse he failed to control. His hand, his voice quieted animals—gentled them. “Ham, he’s nervous. In town he shies at a hitching post. He’ll never submit to that.”

“Nawsir . . . never.”

“I’ll take him a few miles out. Have Panache saddled for me. I’ve a letter to mail in town—an important letter.”

“You got time enough—coach don’t leave till twelve.”

This morning Al Sufi seemed scarcely to touch the ground. Henry felt kinship with his restless spirit, and when they raced together, they were one in nerve and sinew. The morning air was fragrant, the pike moist and dustless. After the third smooth mile, Henry drew rein, let Al Sufi breathe; his glistening body wet with foam, his nostrils hot with quick, eager breath.

As they dashed for home, the wind tore past them, filled their lungs with drafts of power. They reached the gate of Stoneholt at top speed.

Without warning, old Rooshan, deaf and dim-sighted, stepped under the hooves. Al Sufi reared; fell back and flung Henry against the rock fence.

Numb agony; the will to breathe; the desperate need to breathe; the terrible need. Then release; he was racing on Al Sufi—rushing through cold air, far away . . . Ann . . . Mother . . . danger . . . letter . . . what letter . . . what letter . . . Venus . . . the cabin . . . dark in the cabin . . . hollow dark . . . blank nothing.

The horse struggled to get up; the hooves of his forelegs dug into the ground but his hind quarters lay wet and quivering.

The peddler shifted his pack and yelled for help . . . . Stomping feet at the stables . . . Ham and Sam on the run . . . running feet in the yard . . . Ann and Anabel and Milly breathless from running; Ann, last to reach the gate; Milly holding her up . . . Rooshan stood with tight grip on Al Sufi’s rein—out of reach of the driving hooves.

Anabel listened for Henry’s heart, felt of his pulse, turned back his eyelids; Ann—half alive—made no movement.

Anabel’s hand went to her throat. She gasped, “He’s dead!” Anabel turned to the shaking negroes, “Sam, Ham, take him in the house!” She moved his head. “Put something under him.” When they lifted Henry, Ann shrieked, “No, no!”

“Stop the noise. Cut it out!” said Anabel. “Leave that to poor white trash.” But Ann screamed again and shook with loud sobbing. Milly drew her into her arms. When she could get her breath Ann said, “Mother, what can we do?”

“Do? You’ll go on living. Life drives on. No matter what happens, you bear it . . . and with as little fuss as may be.”

Ann looked at her and stood still, expressionless, blind-eyed. “Send to town to the college, for my boy! Let Ham go!”

“You go, too. You’ll have each other.”

Milly helped Ann climb into the house—up the front steps one step at a time. Rooshan still held Al Sufi’s rein. Anabel waited.

“It warn’t the horse’s fault!” The peddler’s eyes were running water, his nose red and vehement. “I run under him . . . If he hadn’t rared back I’d been kilt, dead. I run under him . . . .”

Anabel, silent, tight-lipped, looked at Al Sufi. “His back is broke,” said Rooshan. Anabel dashed to the house and came back with her old pistol. She put it to the horse’s head and fired. The great eyes dimmed; the shining head sank down. She stood for a moment without moving.

The shot brought Grubb from the pasture. “Get field hands, Grubb,” Anabel turned her head away. “Take him out of my sight.” Grubb stood rasping hard, from his run; his bleary eyes travelled from Al Sufi to the patch of blood on the rocks. “Mr. Henry?”

“Yes,” said Anabel and turned and went into the house and left Grubb looking at the blood patch on the rocks—at Al Sufi, shot.

Ann sat beside Henry, and Milly went out quietly and shut the door and left her there. But when Milly was gone, Ann threw herself on the floor. The ache inside couldn’t be borne—couldn’t be borne for long. All the love and the living—and then this. After a while she stood up and bent over him, Henry looking beautiful as ever—looking as if he were about to tell her something.

“Oh, tell me . . . tell me,” she whispered. And then she threw back her head and laughed and laughed and couldn’t stop. He would never tell her anything again.

“I’m mad! I can’t . . . I can’t live without you . . . I can’t!”

Anabel came in. “The carriage is ready and Milly will take you to town. Pull yourself together . . . remember the boy!”

“Yes . . . yes,” said Ann, tearless and haggard. “Yes, I will.”

Out on the open road the carriage overtook old Rooshan scrambling down the middle of the turnpike, heavy-footed, his back bent under the weight of his load, his forehead nearly touching the ground. Sam had to pull to one side, almost into the gully. A noise overhead and old Rooshan twisted his body—hoisted his load—and looked up.

Overhead in the clear blue sky the wild geese were streaming north.

Today was the tenth of May—Henry’s birthday. Today there would be no celebration—no juleps, no dancing; but Stoneholt and its planned routine of maintenance neither death nor birth could alter—sorrow nor joy.

This morning Milly was dusting the sitting room, changed little in twenty years; brightened by new fabrics at the windows, floor coverings from Philadelphia, vases from the Orient, and more books and more; on the table was spread the local news-sheet, and journals from England, France, Germany gave proof of Henry’s interests outside his limited world.

The old furnishings were lovelier under the sum of Milly’s dusting and Sam’s waxing. Today Sam was washing the hearth, laying fresh logs on the open fire that smouldered in the cool room. Sam raised up and looked about him.

“Stoneholt ain’t agoin’ to be the same with him gone.” Milly wiped the corner of her eye with a bony forefinger.

“He favored the ground he walked on.” Milly caught her breath with something like a sob. “I can’t believe it ain’t two weeks yet. . . . He was sorter troubled-like that mornin’. . . . Sayin’ to me, ‘Milly, thishere is a strange world . . . can’t tell where things is a-headin’ you to. . . .’ ”

“An’ you, with your signs from heaven . . . never knowed.”

“I don’t get em clear as Mammy done—she got em keen. Thishere was once when the signs didn’t gashuate.”

“What hep is they, then?”

“Heish up!”

“Ham oughter looked that horse in the eye and seen he was feelin’ expeditious,” said Sam peering out the window where the crows were cawing like old Satan was in them. Milly wiped her nose on her dust rag. “It warn’t Al Sufi’s fault. It was that goddam-son-of-a-bitch Rooshan that done it . . . ole fool, he might have got kilt hisself.”

Sam would stand up for Henry’s horsemanship. “No rider could have stuck on when Al Sufi rared against the fence.”

“Only the back of his head was broke—there warn’t no other mark,” said Milly.

“Them rocks done it—knocked the life out of him. Rocks we piled for that old fence.” Sam’s eyes looked far-seeing. “Gawd, gawd! The times we had, a-pilin’ em!”

Milly leaned out of the window to get a breath of air. A shadow moved over the grass and Milly peered up, where a lone buzzard in the bright sunshine threw its outline on the waving bluegrass that was almost at the blue-blooming time.

“Ole Miss is workin’ on young Master tryin’ to toughen him . . . hopin’ he’ll do things his daddy wouldn’t—heart’s sot on him.” Milly sucked her breath through her teeth. She must be careful not to let Sam in on too many family secrets; they were her special province; but Sam was knowin’!

The old buzzard went on throwing his shadow on the grass—he worried her; made her think of the day the buzzards found something in the ravine that was bad; something you’d like to forget and couldn’t—it was after Maxwell Meredith and the dogs went on that nigger hunt—but Sam was talking.

“I heard em fussin’ and fumin’ about Oxford; Miss Ann wantin’ the boy to go like his daddy done; Marse Henry listenin’ and sayin’ nothin’. Old Miss against goin’—dead sot; against goin’ to Boston, too; no more furrin’ and Yankee doin’s for her.”

“Yeah, Ole Miss thinks Fayette College good enough for any youngster.”

Sam’s voice changed its sound. “His daddy would a-freed us all effen he could’ve. I read it in him plain as day.”

“You don’t want no freedom, Sam.”

“I’m plumb satisfied, but freedom’s like that bumblebee buzzin’ around—better git it out the window.” Milly went after it.

“Hold yo jaw, old son, you better. . . .”

“I ain’t said nothin’,” said Sam, down deep in his belly.

“Miss Ann’s tryin’ to act like her heart ain’t broke.” Milly gave a heavy sigh.

“You couldn’t tell sorrow on Ole Miss, though, stony as a rock fence.” Sam looked behind him.

“She lives up to her lights, Sam.”

“I reckon she do, Gawd’s truth . . . but I sometime wonder if she does sorrow.”

Milly stuck her head far out the window. “Listen at that old cowbrute at the gate, bellowin’ his head off.”

“He wants company. Who don’t?”

“Shut up! You menfolks make me sick!”

“Not too sick!” Sam gave Milly a dig in the ribs but Ham came in with fresh logs.

“Boy,” said Sam, “you done wet these logs with yo cryin’ and snufflin’; Old Miss’ll git after you!”

“Sonny, you mustn’t give way like this,” said Milly, “it ain’t good and it ain’t right. Take up with young Master. He don’t want no cryin’ nigger.”

“I’ll try,” said Ham, “but there’s so many things—this coat of Marse Henry’s Miss Ann give me . . . I can’t hardly wear it. It’s the one he had on, that mornin’ . . . .”

“It’s a mighty fine coat, boy,” said Sam. “There ain’t no stain on it. You’ll git used to it.”

“Yassir—I reckon.”

“Miss Ann would’ve put it away and kept it,” said Milly, “but no, no, Ole Miss wouldn’t! Clothin’ so expensive and niggers needin’ so much. Miss Ann she give in.”

“It never do to cross the old ooman,” said Sam.

“You’ll git used to the coat, son,” comforted Milly. “Afterwhile you’ll love to wear it—like somethin’ he give you.”

“Maybe.”

“You sho look handsome in it.”

The slow tears gathered again in Ham’s eyes. “It brings him back so strangelike, Mammy.” He laid his head on Milly’s shoulder. She let him cry there. It would do him good, once in a while. Milly put her motherly hand on Ham’s breast. “There, there honey, don’t take on!” Her hand disturbed something in the pocket—something that noised under her fingers—that crumpled.

“What’s thishere, son?” She drew out two letters. “One’s been opened; the other’n’s ready for the post.”

“Must’ve been the letter he was goin’ to mail—he told me it was special,” said Sam.

“Reckon I better give ’em to Old Miss.”

“Of course, son,” said Milly, “you can’t keep nothin’ of hizzen like that. I see Miss Ann a-comin’; you give ’em to her.” Milly slipped the letters into Ham’s hand.

As Ann came in with John Henry, Milly was proudlike to see her still lookin’ good—hair red as ever, skin smooth as a peach, dark eyes fringed deep with sorrowin’, and eyebrows like they was drawed there a-purpose. God has give her twenty years of ontroubled lovin’. . . said Milly in her heart. He ain’t took no toll on her yet!

John Henry’s arm was about Ann’s shoulders. Milly made mark he was looking tall and splendid—his reddish curls and his wide blue eyes were good to see, and the way he walked, like he was goin’ somewhere.

“Mother, remember—no grieving, not even today, for my sake.”

At the first pause in the talk, Ham pressed forward, “stop that crying, Ham; we don’t allow it here.”

“Yassir, I know sir. Miss Ann, mam, I found thesehere two letters in the pocket of Marse Henry’s coat.”

“Lay them on the table, Ham; Mother will go through them later. Give them to her.”

Ham put the letters on the table under the key basket. “Here’s the best place, I reckon.”

Milly, standing back, was high-minded that that doin’ was over and Ham got through it without her help.

“Mother, let’s run out and see my young filly—your little namesake. Her foal will be here any day, now. Al Sufi’s get should be the fleetest thing going!”

At Al Sufi’s name, Milly saw Ann shiver.

“Now, Mother, be brave!” said John Henry, as he caught her hand and held it close and warmed it in his own.

“Little Annette, she’s kinder nervous-like,” said Ham.

“Keep a watch on her.”

“You bet, I will sir!”

“Open the gates for us, Ham. Come, Mother!” While Milly stood back, out of sight, they ran for the stables, Ham far on ahead. Ham would feel better now.

Anabel came to the door and watched them skim over the turf. She took a long breath as she saw them go. Her own steps were not so fleet as they once were; but age was outside her mental plan. She never thought of death or age as being meant for her.

A dark cloud moved across the sun, only its edges burning with live gold; it made a darker shadow on the grass, the bending grass stirred by the wind that blew softly, lightly over her land.

The Underground was working overtime—inciting, aiding, and abetting slaves to escape. Times were changing in Fayette—but not Anabel.

A fair army of abolitionists was abroad she knew, organized from somewhere, operating successfully, mystifying everyone.

Stoneholt was near the river and the river meant escape. It was still whispered that there were stations—if you could find them—secret walls, false attics, hidden chambers, tunnels leading from cellar to river.

Runaways were increasing and suspicion rode the winds. Who was responsible? Nigger stealers armed against nigger catchers; slaves “making it” for Canada following the North Star in absence of other guide—fear and breath-need urging them on. To be suspected of being an Agent of the Underground was still a taint no Southerner could well bear. It was the deadliest of all poison Anabel thought.

“Sam, tell Grubb he won’t get a holiday this tenth of May.”

Sam grinned and Anabel watched him roll a chew of slick venom under his tongue. “He’s out on the porch; wants to see you about the sale on Cheapside. I’ll git him.”

Grubb clumped in, a little stiff now in the joints. “All right around about agin last night, mum.” Today Grubb qualified his jargon. “It’ll never be the same agin, mum, but it’s been quiet.” It was plain that Grubb had the slave block on his mind, today; a slave sale on Cheapside. Anabel knew how he loved it—the blood excitement that healed the monotony of life on a farm. She understood.

He rubbed his spiky chin—grizzled now—running the brown ooze of ambier. “Would you like to put up a nigger for the sale today?”

“I think not, Grubb. As long as the field hands are obedient and useful I’ve no wish to unsettle their lives. Unless—it were necessary.”

Grubb looked around for a place to spit, but there were no spittoons in a house with every other contraption. Anabel saw his lips gather but she offered him no help. She let him ease toward the window and void his mouthful, and recognized his necessity without comment.

“I think I’ve the good of the servants at heart, though my family pretends I’m made of flint. You can’t be soft in slave matters, Grubb, they are raw and you have to cope with them—no slush and no foolishness!”

She had coped with them for years; with every sorry phase of them.

“You sometimes is hard, though, Ole Miss. There was Venus . . . that time. What would you a-done effen you had caught her?”

“Plenty!” Anabel’s eyes flashed. “If I could lay hands on that mulatto wench today, I’d put her up for sale.”

“She ain’t no longer a wench—she’s more likely a crone by now.”

“Oh, no, it hasn’t been so long ago—sometimes it seems like yesterday.” Anabel paused in her talk, “like yesterday . . . .” she said.

“She shore was a high stepper, claimin’ she was pyore white.”

“She had white blood of course—but how many have it!”

“Haw, haw!”

“If she’s living, she still belongs to me and her child belongs to me; my property . . . just as much as Sam is, or Milly here.” Sam and Milly stirred, as dogs stir when their names are spoken in casual talk.

“I knowed we was bound for trouble minute I seen her. She’s gone for good, though; we won’t never hear of her no more—she’s over the river now.”

“They tell that lie of being pure white to rile up the Yankees. She may have been in cahoot with them.” Whether or not Anabel really believed this, it went well with the legend.

“The Underground’s workin’ in the open, now, Ole Miss.”

“Yes, right smartly.”

“Times is shorely changin’. When I think of that mob that come after Mr. Henry! Sweet Christ, they’d mob right and left today, if they dast to run down all the Abolition in this town; it’s plumb crawlin’ with it.”

Grubb could hold his juice no longer. He made a dash for the window, but returned to say, “Ole L’Hommedieu is here from N’Yorleens; he’s roundin’ up all the blue-veins he can lay his hand on.”

“He’s an old fox!” Anabel had long ago taken L’Hommedieu’s measure; she knew him; knew what he was up to.

“He goes after ’em,” said Grubb, “but he pays the price. Them high-yallers sell mighty fine and he’s got a batch of ’em aready.”

“In the slave jail?”

“Yassum; in the furnished end. He’s groomin’ ’em for his new whore house in N’Yorleens; beggin’ your pardon, mam.”

“You can’t turn my stomach, Grubb.” Anabel flicked back the curl from her ear.

“I hear he’s hopin’ some more lily-whites will turn up at the sale.”

“Well, my negroes are all black and I aim to keep them that way, sure as you’re born.”

Grubb shifted his weight and pulled a crumpled paper from his belt. “I picked up thishere handbill in front of the gate. I reckon it blowed down from somewheres.”

Anabel read aloud the flat, familiar words: “A man by name of George Grizzard, did, on last Friday steal a remarkable likely bright mulatto woman about twenty-five years old. Light hair inclined to curl. She would pass as a white woman. They will undoubtedly try to reach the Free States. Reward $250.

Signed, Jo Perkins.”

Grubb’s eyes grew more watery as he said, “I’d shore like to git thatthere reward!”

“Fat chance you’d have of stopping them! A slick pair!”

Grubb’s tone took on the pitch and cadence of nostalgia; he rubbed his wet nose with the back of his hand. “I lay they got Venus acrost the river in some such a way!”

“A pretty figure you cut in that chase, Grubb!”

Grubb scratched his armpit under his shirt. “I sorter spicioned Mr. Gaitskill put a heppin’ hand to the business.”

Anabel wouldn’t deny or confirm; let Grubb think what he pleased. “It was damned thievery! They stole her. . . .” Anabel shot a keen glance at Grubb. “Bye the bye, what about that crazy girl of yours that ran off with the hillbilly?” Anabel was thankful the little skunk was gone, out of her sight and smell and hearing.

“Lobelia, she never had much of a chanct with her mammy pickin’ on her. Always pickin’—nickin’ all day long. Never givin’ her a chanct; never givin’ her a show; always after her! I knowed she couldn’t stand it forever. But maybe, she’ll come to her senses some day and sneak back home.”

“If she has any senses—which I doubt. She’s a sneak wherever she is,” said Anabel with a long memory and without pity for a father’s exiguous defence.

“She might have done better on a kind word,” said Grubb with a reproachful look.

Anabel closed the interview; she had had enough of Grubb and his troubles. She lowered her eyelids and raised her brows slightly in dismissal; Grubb should read the signs, knew them.

“I may attend the sale, Grubb. I don’t mind being the only woman there; and I keep my eye on prices.” She wouldn’t admit she enjoyed the hectic, mounting excitement of the sale quite as well as horse racing. The men disliked her presence because it flouted their damned quixotic notion of woman’s place, but what did she care!

“I may drive in at two.”

“I’ll be there,” said Grubb. As he shuffled out Anabel heard his greasy leggings screech against each other, crying against the movement of his heavy legs.

She leaned back in her high chair and rested her hand on the armrest where her fingers counted the small brass nailheads she admired—she liked to see them catch the firelight and glint it. The room warmed her with its comfort—its peace. Her eyes passed over the secretary. On the open desk John’s writing things still stood. Henry would never let them be moved—the Dresden inkstand with its sand and sealing wax and underneath in the drawer, the old pistols. Anabel’s mouth tightened and she put those thoughts away. She would think of the spinning wheel that used to stand in the corner but now gone to the garret and the cobwebs. No more spinning or weaving, thank heaven. Clemence for style, now, and old Rooshan for slave wear; but plenty of stir going on in the servants’ sewing cabin . . . handwork. No new fangled machines for Anabel. Keep the servants’ hands busy with hand-sewing—no machine for her; leave that to the Yankees.

Henry was gone. She would sorrow for him after her own fashion. She missed him but there was a compensation in the great joy she felt in her grandson. John Henry promised every hope, every ambition of her heart—fulfilled.

Anabel was in a quiet mood. She breathed in Lucinda’s cooking smells that came to her strong enough to eat them—all the way from the kitchen. Air heavy with moisture today; the humid air brought odors in; meat smells; browning in the oven; thick clouds of kitchen mist and aroma . . . wafting in upon the moist air . . . home smells, safe and quieting, that would go on being what they were—go on forever—and to bottom them all there came cattle and horse smells. Good strong smells of hide and hoof and breath! Life . . . time . . . moving, living; home! Stoneholt! It was good—even with Henry gone—it was good . . . would be good forever.

She put on her glasses to take a sharper look at the handbill and noticed two letters on her table, partly hidden by the key basket.

“Milly, who put these letters here?” Anabel’s questions were always charged with some putative offense or offender against her discipline. “Who put them here?” She saw Milly jump and come to attention with close heed.

“Ham found ’em in the coat Miss Ann give him—the one Marse Henry was wearin’ that mornin’.”

But Anabel was deep in the letters. She gave no thought to Milly’s chatter.

“Ham says wearin’ that coat makes him feel sorrowful, but I says. . . .”

Anabel’s fist came down like a thunder clap. “Milly, there’s enough gunpowder in these two letters to blow us all to hell!”

“Who you cussin’ out now, Ole Miss?”

Anabel’s eyes felt like burnt holes in a blanket as she stared at the letter. Her lids were hot and dry. “This letter is from the daughter of Venus.”

Milly began to scratch her head. She fumbled in her apron pocket for her fine-tooth comb, but it wasn’t there. “Gawdamity!” she said.

Anabel held the letter tightly crumpled in her fist. Her nails went through the thin paper into the palm of her hand. “Henry’s long hunting trips took him across the river! I suspected with my insides—but now I know!”

Milly gaped like a fish and swallowed her spit; her head bounced forward, and then back. “Gawdsakes, Ole Miss! Think he kep Venus all these years . . . twenty, most?”

Anabel smoothed out the letter. “Milly, this child was begot on impulse but he was responsible for it and you know how he was.”

“Bestheartedest white man in thishere world!”

But Anabel was at the letter again, shaking its ambiguities, cracking every bone and sliver of its meaning—its implication; while Milly waited.

“The girl writes Henry that she’s coming to see him on his birthday! Do you get it? On his birthday!”

“And that’s today!” Milly’s jaw hung loose. Under her breath she said again, “and that’s today! She’ll walk into a trap—a snappin’ trap!”

“The other letter is from Henry, ready to post. He warns the girl not to come; dangerous, he says, dangerous.” She looked again at the letter.

“I reckon,” Milly gasped.

“He’ll explain some day. He’ll tell her many things. Her name gives the whole story away—‘Felicity Roland.’ The name of those people in New Orleans was Rolland. I see it all—clear as lightning.”

“He was aimin’ to mail the letter!”

“He never posted it. This is what you call Fate.” Anabel drew down her lips between her teeth to look as though she had no teeth. “Old Erinys at work!” she said.

“And who was she; where did she work?” said Milly. But Anabel didn’t answer; there was no use.

Milly’s lids were blinking hard. “Is Venus still livin’, you reckon?”

“I doubt it; but this fruit of her womb is alive and belongs to me!”

Milly’s eyes popped—hungry eyes—bright with barbarous instinct, zestful and sharp. “Ef this gal comes, what you gonna do?” Milly’s gnarled fingers crept to her mouth.

“Wait and see.”

Milly’s shoulders moved, shivered. “I’m waitin’, but I done seen somethin’ black in the air.”

“There’s going to be a sale today on Cheapside.”

Anabel drew herself up. She would stand, if she must, stand for a pattern of abstract identity—monolithic—impervious; she would stand.

“Lawdamitygawd! You ain’t agoin’ to send her there?”

Anabel looked at Milly and guessed the delicious envy that stabbed Milly’s inside—envy of the high yellow. Anabel knew this was Milly’s moment of ribald joy. Anabel liked and approved. It was Milly’s way. “She’s my property; but I can’t keep her; you know that. I’ve John Henry to think of.” Anabel fingered her breastpin; over the smooth surface her fingers traveled back and forth several times. “Lubricity is not to my taste. I’ll not free her on any account!” Principles . . . she would die for them . . . yes die for them.

“I got a pity in my bowels,” said Milly. “It’ll be turrible, turrible to run into Grubb and the slave block when the gal thinks she’s free and maybe white, like her mother said.”

Anabel gathered up her knitting and unpinned the knitting sheath that she wore at her belt—a fish of silver with a hollow quill inside. She looked at the fish as though she had never seen it before and laid it, with her finished sock, on the table; her movements meaningless to her—mind far away. She was talking to herself, out loud . . . thinking.

“My country rests on the Institution. I’ll never fail it—never! I’ll die for it, first. . . .”

“Yassum,” said Milly who could think back and read Anabel’s thoughts even when she didn’t say them—even before she thought them. “And effen you’d die for it, you’d sell this gal for it rather’n let her go.” Milly covered her mouth with her whole hand and waited.

“You’ve a long head, Milly.”

“Kinda. I studies white-folks.” Milly swallowed the phlegm of anxiety that gathered in her throat. “But Lordy, I feel sorrowful for that high yaller; in my bones and marrer—in my guts I feel sorrowful.” Still there was the gleam in the eye. Milly’s little hag face drew into concentred wrinkles; the kinky fuzz of her neck quivered in the warm air from the open window.

Anabel braced herself. Yes she would stand; What was that scripture . . . having done all, stand. Yes she would be a five foot tower. She would stand! The Peculiar Institution was in the balance! Anabel wouldn’t falter.

“Fathers have eaten sour grapes and children’s teeth are set on edge. . . .” Scripture was a bulwark . . . feel it in front of you . . . and you are sure and strong.

“On aidge . . . on aidge,” grated Milly who knew Bible idiom and maxim after her own lights.

“Milly, concupiscence is a bad-sounding word.”

“Yassum. It sounds turrible—whatever it is.” Milly’s face screwed into a thousand crooked lines; her eyes, yellowed by age, looked into Anabel’s with a flash of tribal cruelty, savage cruelty; though Milly’s pious though said “uk, uh!” to this doing. Anabel wouldn’t even disapprove. She knew a nigger would be a nigger in spite of civilized talk and church, of evenings.

Anabel rose from her chair. “Call Grubb. Tell him to come to the office where we can be quiet.” The office in the yard was the best place for private conference—much the best.

Anabel put the letters into her basket. She nodded her head. “Old Erinys at work,” she said again as she walked out. Her silk dress over her starched petticoat, blew about her. The wide skirt made a small noise like wind blowing—a kind of sumptuous rumor. Anabel pleasured in the rich sound of it, while Milly followed in its elegant whisper.

The handbill had fluttered to the floor but no one thought to pick it up till Sam came in and threw it into the fire.

The room was empty, and to Sam it seemed to be waiting for something to happen. Sam could feel its augury. He had heard echoes of the talk that still shivered in the air; his African premonition was sharpened and subtle. He wagged his head as he went to answer the call of the front door knocker.

Tom Gaitskill stood at the door. Sam liked his ways and his boyish face that showed little sign of age and his soft eyes that encouraged confidence and the long lock hanging over his forehead that looked rightful there.

“I couldn’t stay away, Sam. I remember too well the day.”

“Yassir. His birthday and him gone.”

Sam thought he saw tears and looked away. “The ladies—how are they?”

“Miss Ann, she’s plumb heartbroke.”

“And Madam Ashe . . . or has she a heart to break?” Gaitskill lowered his voice; Sam caught the mood.

“Ole Miss’s heart is what you might call . . . oncrushable,” he said in a whisper with a snatch over his shoulder.

“You are right, Sam—flint.”

“She don’t allow no mournin’ in public; but everybody on this place most worshiped him.”

Gaitskill turned his head away and wiped his eyes. “Goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels. . . .” Sam comforted as he could. “He was mightnigh like a angel, at that; as nigh as it’s give us to be, I reckon.” Gaitskill was silent. “I manytime think how you and him got Venus out of her trouble.”

“The old lady’s been skittish ever since.”

“She spected you had a hand in it more’n likely.”

“Yes.” Gaitskill dropped into Sam’s own talk. “You never let on?”

“Gawd, nawsir! And I never knowed for sure. It was a good deed, I reckon, whoever done it. That ooman hadn’t no business being in the cabin. She lowed she was pyore white.” Sam was fishing for denial. He had never believed the story but he wanted a white man’s word on it. Venus had black blood in her; he was ready to swear to it.

“She was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever painted.”

“I never thought like that . . . but howcome you had a chance to paint her with Ole Miss all eyes?” But Sam knew. He remembered the lights . . . and Sam revelled in the secret and obscure—it warmed him good; inside . . . deep down.

“I sketched her, here, and finished the piece from memory. It was a miniature—a little piece. I gave it to your master, he liked it so well.”

“I ain’t never seen it.” Sam’s eyes were wary.

“If you find it among his things, tell Miss Ann I’d like to have it.” Gaitskill straightened his loose tie and lowered his voice, “But use diplomacy, Sam—you know what I mean.” He threw back the long lock that strayed over his forehead, “no hint to the old lady.”

“I sho know!” Sam’s mind expanded under the trust, till he almost felt himself to be somebody. “And I lay Miss Ann wouldn’t want it, nohow.”

Talk between them ceased abruptly as Ann and John Henry came in.

“How are you Tom? You remembered!”

“Yes.”

“You’ve loved him almost as long. . . .”

“And no less truly.” Gaitskill laid his hand on John Henry’s arm. “You’ve a reminder here, made in his image.”

“You please Mother, sir,” said John Henry. Ann saw her son flush as he moved to the window and looked out. “Is that your carriage at the stile?” he asked.

“No, I rode.”

Ann leaned over John Henry’s broad shoulder. “It’s the stage slowing—it hardly ever stops here . . . and never, going out. It must be someone from the river.”

“There’s a girl—I’ll show her in.”

Ann and Gaitskill watched him as he swung down the driveway—handsome and tall—as he bowed with grace over the visitor’s hand and walked by her side to the house, toward the open door.

“Women, women!” said Ann, “I hope to heaven. . .”

“Pray, if you must, dear lady, but there’s no protection against the ancient magic.”

Ann in silence watched from the window. The girl was quietly dressed, but her warm, dusky beauty glowed under her traveling bonnet. Her eyes, dark and luminous, showed a faint border of white under the brown iris; a note of sadness denied by the full, sensual lips and the soft chin, cleft with a dimple. Ann went to the door, her hand extended.

“How do you do? I am Ann Ashe.” Ann was puzzled, disturbed.

“This is Mr. Gaitskill . . . and you’ve met my son. . .”

The girl turned to John Henry and smiled, and Ann’s memory came alive. She told herself she was overwrought—delirious.

“I’m Felicity Roland. You’ve guessed. . . .” She smiled again. “Mr. Ashe has told you about me, I’m sure.”

Ann gasped; shock broke the rhythm of heartbeat and the heart itself went crazily. She nodded, but no words came. John Henry’s eyes were troubled; puzzled, and Gaitskill stood holding back the tears like an unhappy boy. The girl looked from one to the other.

“I should have waited to hear . . . I wrote him I was coming; for his birthday; but . . . oh, Mrs. Ashe . . . you are in mourning . . . surely not . . . not for your mother?”

“No,” said Ann, freed at last from bitter silence. “No. My husband.”

The girl’s eyes widened, she made no sound.

“Mr. Ashe is dead,” said Ann in a level voice. The girl gave a quick sob. No one spoke. Outside in the outer world a cock was crowing—raw, irrelevant. Inside the silence was heavy—heavy enough to be heard, felt. After a while the girl whispered, “No, no . . . . It can’t be true.” She sank into a chair and tears rolled down her cheeks, evenly, unchecked.

“It’s a shock to you,” said Ann, dry-eyed, as she took her seat on the sofa and leaned back. “He was killed by a fall from his horse ten days ago.”

“I can’t believe it,” sobbed the girl, her hand against her throat.

At that moment, Anabel glided into the room near the wall and stepped into the window’s deep embrasure. She waited and watched and listened, and then slid noiselessly away.

Ann almost heard something—but Mother was slipping out when she saw her—a half smile on her grey lips. No one else but Sam would catch the swish of black silk—that faintest crepitance—as Anabel eased out of the room. Sam’s rolling eyes told Ann he heard, he saw.

The eyes of the others were on the girl and the girl’s voice was gaining, now, in strength. Ann remembered a voice like that—husky, vibrant. Through the past, through time, it sounded in her ears. Again she saw Venus bending over the pink cashmere.

“You know, of course, that Mr. Ashe was my guardian. I saw him rarely but he was so kind; from the time I was a little child.” She turned to John Henry. “You’ve always had someone to care. It’s different when there’s no one . . . Father and Mother dead and my foster mother, with a cold heart. I had nobody. He was kind to me . . . I’ll never forget.”

John Henry leaned forward to ask a question any Fayette dweller would ask another. “Who were your parents?”

“You’ll be surprised . . . I don’t know. Some day I was to know the whole story . . . some day—now, perhaps never.” She closed her eyes a moment, heavy lidded, brimmed with tears. “I do know that my mother had a tragic life. I hardly remember her. She was a beautiful woman—too beautiful. It isn’t well to be too beautiful. Her father was killed somewhere on the high seas and what happened after that I don’t know. The family came from Portugal. I’ve nothing of theirs but an ancient ring.” She held up her hand to show the heraldic stone, “and this miniature of my mother.”

From her neck the girl lifted an ivory pendant hung on a velvet ribbon and laid it in Gaitskill’s hand. He had reached for it. “Do you know who painted this?” he said.

“A Southern artist, from memory, I believe.”

Sam leaned forward; his eyes popped; his jaw fell open. Ann watched him edge out of the room, his knees wobbling slightly. “I gotter git out,” he muttered in his throat. “White-folks secrets . . . never dast to show ’em you know ’em—never.”

John Henry got up to look at the painting in Gaitskill’s hand. “You are like her. I’d have thought it was your own face.”

Ann wouldn’t look. Her lips felt stiff, her teeth chattered. She put a handkerchief to her mouth to control this last humiliation. She wouldn’t let them guess that she knew what she knew—not yet, not even Gaitskill . . . yet. And what was the matter with Mother that she acted so strangely. The air was charged with unuttered things.

Below the level of speech the girl whispered, “since I came in that door everything has been unreal—like a dream, when I dreamed I was dreaming, but couldn’t wake.” She leaned back and put her hand to her heart.

Sam stepped cautiously into the stream of happening; his black face wore a tinge of grey—scared grey. His eyes looked into Ann’s; eyes big and yellow-orbed; but his hurried voice broke into the quiet, soft, and bland, as he turned to John Henry. “Young Master, the Mistiss says for you and Mr. Gaitskill to come to the stable, post haste!”

“What for?”

“She says your mare is in labor trouble and she wants your help right away!”

John Henry sprang up and put his hand on Gaitskill’s shoulder. “That little mare is my one passion! Come with me. Come! I may need you.”

Gaitskill still held the miniature as John Henry urged him out of the room—pushed him with haste.

The two women sat quiet as the men’s footsteps sounded firm and heavy on the rear porch, then more faintly on the steps, to diminish into silence of sod underfoot.

Ann lifted her head to say a word of comfort to the girl, whose trouble she dimly guessed, was only beginning.

Grubb opened the door—banged it open. In his hand he held something that glittered—that gave off a clink of metal. Ann was shocked at Grubb’s misdoing; at the outrage, his sly leering.

“What does this mean, Grubb?”

“Nothing, Miss Ann, that you’ve got to know. My comin’ is for this young woman.”

His words struck Ann a blow, beat into her brain—scarred it—but she would order him out . . . Grubb knew his place. “Leave the room!”

Grubb’s loose lip stuck out; he caught it between his yellow teeth before he spoke. “Now, hold yo hosses, Miss Ann. My comin’ is for thishere gal!”

Felicity gasped, her eyes grew big with fright. “What does he mean?”

“See thesehere bracelets?”

“Bracelets?”

“Some calls ’em handcuffs,” he grinned. “Come, easy now, let me slip ’em on you.” He grabbed her forearm but she wrenched it loose, shook him off.

Ann forced herself between Grubb and the girl. She pushed a chair before her in defense. “Get out of here . . . leave the room!”

Grubb shoved back on his heels, but blustered, “Yo orders don’t hold no water, Missy. I got higher orders. Them orders is handcuffs—handcuffs fer this yaller gal.”

“He’s crazy!” the girl screamed. She clung to Ann. “What does he mean? What?” Her mouth was wide open, her eyes wide.

Grubb, sure of his prey, stuck one hairy paw into his breeches pocket. “It means that you is the child of Venus.”

“My mother!”

“Our runaway!”

“No, no!”

“Yeah! Nachel-born of her and Mr. Henry!” Grubb put his muddy foot on the rung of the intervening chair.

Ann shrank from him. She knew he felt the itch of power. He would enjoy his moment—take his time.

“Venus was a slave-wench of our’n. She was a high yaller. You are her little not-so-pyore-white-child—Mr. Henry’s child.”

“No, no! It isn’t true!” The girl had her arms about Ann’s waist, hiding behind her.

“She was a runaway. The onliest runaway we ever had!”

“For God’s sake! Don’t let him touch me!” The girl seemed half dead now, half fallen to the floor, clasping Ann’s waist.

Ann made sudden challenge; Grubb had taken Henry’s name in vain. Standing close to the secretary, the girl still clinging to her, she opened a drawer and pulled out the old pistol. She aimed it straight at Grubb. She would scare him off.

He drew back; lost his brag. “You ain’t aimin’ to kill me, Miss Ann? Me? Doin’ my duty? Doin’ your mother’s biddin’?”

“I’m aiming to stop you right here!”

“Takin’ a leaf out of Old Miss’s book.”

“Run, Felicity! Get to the stile! Run! Get up!” But the girl was frozen; immovable.

Grubb’s eyes looked into Ann’s; they were like dead fish eyes, but they wore a sinister film. “Shucks, I ain’t afraid of no gun that ain’t had a load in it for twenty years. Haw! Haw!” But the laugh choked on him.

Ann thought of Al Sufi . . . but she wouldn’t think . . . she’d shut her eyes and shoot. Do it! Shoot! The girl dragged at her, drew her down, but Ann shut her eyes and pulled the trigger. The walls quaked. Smoke bit her nostrils, filled the room. She was weak with horror of the deed, the shot—not to kill. Oh, no. But to scare away Grubb, embodied evil, the devil. Scare him off.

Grubb grappled with her, twisted the pistol from her hand and threw it out of the window. His nasal voice broke on him; his bleary eyes watered and drops ran down his cheeks. “I don’t hanker to look in the business end of no gun.”

The hot blast seemed to free the girl—to revive her blurred senses; she loosed her hold on Ann, her legs moved, carried her out of the house. As Grubb wrestled with Ann, Felicity dashed from the door, into the hall, out to the yard. Just as she reached the stile, Grubb caught her. Ann saw through the window; saw and heard. She covered her ears to shut out the single ragged scream that tore through nerve and flesh. She saw Grubb smother all further screams with his hairy hands. Ann fell into a chair, tearless.

Milly, all stirred up, poked her head in the door; her face looked small and wizened, her eyes darted like a hunting animal’s completely alert.

“That’s a awful ruckus out there; but it’s orders! Nothin’s goin’ to stop Ole Miss. Nothin!”

“Where is she? Where are John Henry, Tom Gaitskill? Why did they leave me like this?” Ann’s breath was hollow in her; hard to take.

“I low that was just a rusin’ trick to git them menfolks out the way, so Ole Miss could send this gal to the slave jail.”

“Is that where. . . .”

“I reckon,” said Milly.

“The girl was brought up white, Milly, white!”

“That’s her bad luck, Miss Ann. Marse Henry hadn’t no business messin’ up with slave doin’s—they’re too pecuipin.”

Ann would defend him even to Milly, whose omniscience negated defense. But John Henry and Gaitskill came in. John Henry was laughing. “Granny’s wrong; the little filly is just nervous. It may be a week yet. Mr. Gaitskill still has the miniature—think he wants to keep it.” He looked around the room. “What was the noise I heard—sounded like trouble.” His face changed. “What’s the matter, Mother? Are you ill? What’s happened? Where is . . . where is . . .”

Ann could hardly speak. “Grubb has taken the girl . . . away. . . .”

“Grubb . . . the girl . . . what do you mean?”

“Ask Mother; she knows . . . ask her.” Ann’s breath was short; light faded out.

John Henry knelt by her and rubbed her cold hands. Milly brought a glass of sherry and Ann drank it ruggedly. She must hold on to reason; she must not let go.

“Mother is responsible,” she gasped, “Mother!”

Anabel stood in the door and looked down on her daughter-in-law and grandson with grim authority. If they were weaklings, at least her own strength was dependable. In her blood was no bilgewater, no dubious pity. She would tell them.

“Doom comes by way of meddlers—Abolitionists—criminals!”

“Mother,” said Ann, “you had a son.”

John Henry stood dazed and staring, in the cross current of bitter forces.

“Yes, I had a son. I don’t forget. Tom Gaitskill had a friend—I remember that too. Vicious acts stick in the memory. He still favors us on holidays with the honor of his friendship.”

“I’ll relieve you of it, Madam.” Gaitskill left the room as Anabel stared him down, but he lingered in the hall; and loud enough for her to hear, he said, “if looks could kill, I’d be dead. Carcass nailed to the barn door.” But he waited and Anabel knew he waited while the surf of outrage beat against the old walls.

John Henry, his eyes dark and stormy, cried out, “why did you insult Gaitskill, Grandmother? My father’s friend! Are you insane? Where is the girl?”

“Shut up your bawling!” said his grandmother. “Shut up, and I’ll tell you!”

She saw Ann rise from her seat and stand against the wall, as if for execution. Anabel’s voice carried impact like a gunshot. “That girl is your father’s byblow; begot on my mulatto wench, in my house! The girl belongs to me; my property; her mother a runaway, with your father’s connivance!”

John Henry put his arm around Ann. “Deny it, Mother. Deny it!”

Ann laid her head on his shoulder; tears came in a flood. Milly whispered in her ear, “Don’t take on for old sorrow. Menfolks’ll be menfolks; can’t hep it . . . made that way.”

“Mother, nothing can change my love for him—nothing,” said John Henry.

“Thank you,” said Ann, “I need your help.”

John Henry turned to Anabel. “What will you do with the girl, Grandmother?”

“I’ll put her where neither you nor Gaitskill can get her out.”

“Not the slave jail! You couldn’t!”

“I can.” She saw John Henry’s face go white, but she must defend the Institution, the worshipped, the apotheosized.

John Henry’s hands clenched. “So you get Gaitskill and me out of the way while Grubb does your dirty work?”

“I meet cunning with strategy. I’ve had dealings with your friend Gaitskill,” she thumbed toward the door, “and with your father too.”

“Leave Father out of this!”

“I can’t very well.”

John Henry looked at her and gave a short laugh but tears were back of it. “A good woman!” he said.

“I’ve been pretty good to you, I think.”

“Yes, you have,” his voice trembled, “and how can you.”

“Renounce my code, shall I?”

“Yes, if it comes to this.”

“Boy,” Anabel pushed back her whitening curl, “I fought Indians in my day.” She could smell her own breath, fouled with rage—would John Henry smell it . . . well she didn’t care. She wouldn’t move back. She stood her ground, though his face showed her his disgust.

“Father and Grandfather were under your curse and your code but I’m not. By God I’m not! I’m not tied to you or to Stoneholt or to the trade. My father was against your code and against you. I see things I never saw before. I’m going to be free even if you are not and Stoneholt is not. I’m through!”

Anabel looked at his face where beads of sweat gathered. Here was rebellion . . . brawl let loose.

“Mother,” said Ann, with her hand on John Henry’s arm, “free this girl. She can’t. . . .”

“Who knows what she can do . . . certainly you don’t.”

“Oh, but not a public sale!”

“Yes, poetic justice: delivered to me by her own hand. This is duty I owe to Stoneholt.”

“Duty,” said John Henry, “damn the word!” His hot anger thrilled Anabel; but here was desecration; sin against the holy South—the Institution. She would fight him to the last ditch. She loved him as she had never loved her own son—he was splendid in his wrath. He might have been a young Greek standing there, ready for Eleutheria. In him her hope was centered, the hope of her blood, her line; Stoneholt. He was to be everything his father had defaulted. She spoke now with milder speech. He might listen to reason. “The wench is my property just as your mare is yours.”

“Damn it, think I’d put my mare up for public sale?”

“Why not?”

“You wouldn’t know,” but he turned to her in a desperate last appeal.

“Grandmother, try to be human!”

“Human!” Anabel’s lip curled. Was the boy crazy? Couldn’t he understand? Of course the wench was comely and the Yankees had had her; raised her. She was Henry’s brat too—mixed breed—the curse; child of a runaway—in a category apart.

You can’t be chickenhearted when you own slaves. See how Henry was ruined by his puking pity; the System would be destroyed by pity—destroyed.

With John Henry at home Anabel might soon have incest staring her in the face. She dared not keep the wench. She would not free a runaway—she must sell her—and sell her quick.

“I obey the law of my land—written and unwritten,” she said to herself.

John Henry caught her by the shoulder. “Grandmother, you’ve got to let the girl go! This is hell’s own business!”

“I’ve got to—eh? And who says so?”

“I do!”

Anabel threw back her head and laughed—the last rough insult.

John Henry clenched his fist, “Don’t dare sell this girl or disgrace my father!”

“He disgraced himself.”

“That’s a lie!”

John Henry’s fist tightened. Would he strike her? Anabel’s heart skipped a beat. His face came close to hers. Hot blood in his neck—in his forehead; blazing furious blood. “Damn you, I hate you!”

“Much good it will do you, little Squirt.” Her eyes glared into his eyes and she laughed again.

“Pull up your clout before you step on it.”

She could feel him holding back from outright violence—and when he couldn’t keep his hands off her he ran out of the room. He cursed her as he ran.

“You hate me! And how about my money? You hate that too, I suppose!”

But John Henry was gone.

“Idiot, idiot!” But he was out of hearing.

He had joined Gaitskill and together they were running toward the stables.

Milly listened and looked. Ole Miss on the rampage—Ann in the doorway ready to faint again. Calamity everywhere! It was godawful!

A trickle of pity ran down Milly’s spine into her marrow-bones. Pity for the girl to be sacrificed. A mulatto and near white. But Milly’s feeling was weak. Slavery was part of living as she found it; she didn’t question its validity, its justice, its permanence. It was wrong but it had to be. The girl was high-yaller—why should she be spared the block? From her crouch against the wall, Milly drew near to Anabel. She waited a moment and then crept up close to her.

“What you goin’ to do, Ole Miss?”

“Stop these idiots while I can. John Henry is a young blatherskite. When I’m dead and gone, he and his dirty crew may tear down all I’ve built.”

Ole Miss didn’t believe she could ever die, or that Stoneholt and the world could move a peg without her. This was just her way of putting it—her kind of talk. “But while I live I fight them to a finish. The wench goes to the block.”

“John Henry’s twenty, Ole Miss. He’s a man now. Thinks like a man. Better watch out!”

“Shucks!”

Milly ventured further—thin ice but she ventured on it. “A ooman gits awful lonesome when she gits old. A old ooman is the lonesomest thing livin’. Better hold on to him, Ole Miss.” Milly could see the sharp eyes waver, the thin lips tighten, the lashless eyelids half close. Ole Miss was thinkin’ hard, but she never flinched.

“Shut up, Milly! When I need advice I ask for it.” She wiped her nose quick with the knuckle of her thumb—too quick for Milly to see was she snufflin’.

“John Henry and Gaitskill will try to stop me . . . but I’ll stop them . . . cold!”

“Kin you?” Milly whispered. Milly’s eyes were bright with wildness, ears keen and there was Sam listenin’ hard as he could, in the back hall, in the shadow. It was big doin’, goin’ on, and Sam too would relish it. He would git it all.

Anabel stood still for a moment. Yes, Milly was right as she often was. Anabel was lonely and alone, like everybody. Even she could wake sometimes in the black hour after midnight . . . and know she was alone in a vast and perhaps malign universe, naked and alone. She knew the shiver that comes at that bleak hour . . . heard the puling whys and wherefores. But no use to think of such things in broad day—they got you nowhere, even if they couldn’t shake you or swerve you. “From the alone to the Alone. . . .” Was that old John Ashe spouting Plotinus? How the mind did flit about—even at a time like this.

Head high, Anabel stalked out of the room.

Anabel had ordered Grubb to take the mule wagon and be hasty about it. She wanted no slip this time.

Grubb held the girl while a field hand drove the mules at rattle and bang, down the pike, into town. The nearness of Grubb’s body, the sweat and evil stench it gave off seemed to stifle the girl. The smell and the fear and the fast run to the stile had halted her heart beat, disordered it, till she sank into blankness—unconscious.

Grubb carried her into the slave jail—into the furnished end and laid her on a straw mattress and covered her with a moth-eaten red quilt that dangled over it.

Grubb knew every step—every black foot of the slave jail from the high stone wall to guard it from the street, to bar escape, to shield the secrets of its mildewed inner walls—Grubb knew it, to the end. Grubb knew every black hole of it. His curiosity was always hottest at the rear of the building where space was set apart for the high yellows, whose future masters would pay the price exacted for immunity from the filth and woe elsewhere—furnished apartments they were called, but even these were fed and saturated with black doom.

Grubb liked the place. There were always curious things going on—brandings and maulings below the furnished apartments, and deeper, far below—terror.

The jailer had opened the iron gate and Grubb had staggered on ahead of him under the dead weight of the girl. “What’s the matter?” said the jailer as he pushed back his ragged hat.

“She’ll be all right,” said Grubb. “I ast you for the furnished end. I didn’t have the heart to thow her on the ground. I don’t know what Ole Miss will say.”

The jailer turned back the red quilt and looked at the girl. He unfastened her dress and pulled it wide apart; drew down her chemise and looked at her flesh. “She’s a good’n.”

Grubb’s eyes bulged; his ambier slavered from the side of his mouth. After a keen look, he said, “I reckon you better button her up. Ole Miss give strict orders . . . sight unseen till the sale. I donno why.”

“She can stay here till two o’clock, I reckon.”

Grubb still panted, his mouth open, as he watched the jailer fasten the disordered dress.

“Ain’t nothin’ the matter with her. Thishere sale was a big surprise, that’s all.”

“She’ll come to,” said the jailer. “There’s a nigger around somewhere that’ll thow water on her if she needs it.”

Grubb licked his lips and wiped off his chin. “I got to git back to Ole Miss and come agin by two o’clock. I got to hustle like hell!”

The jailer went to the door and called, “Crippy!”

A limping draggletail slattern in a filthy calico shift looked in, blank and bug-eyed.

“Draw up some water in a can, Crippy.” The jailer turned to Grubb. “Haccum Ole Miss git such a high yaller? She never had no use for none but coal-black niggers.”

“This’n come by accident. You keep watch on her; she’s liable to do somethin’ raw.” Grubb couldn’t refrain a further word; it was too delicious to hold inside himself, even if he was in a hurry. “Thishere gal is the misbegot of our onliest runaway, Venus.”

“Aw, haw!”

“Yeah, Venus was heavy in foal to Henry Ashe,” whispered Grubb, “when she run away. We tried to ketch her but we never did. They was too quick for us—she got acrost.”

The jailer was taking the story well, chewing fast and spitting all over the floor.

“The gal belongs to Ole Miss, no doubt of that; but gal didn’t know it when she come here. Yankees made her believe she was white.”

The jailer guffawed and Grubb was in a gale of talk.

“Ole Miss says to put her up at two o’clock. Ole ooman is steamin’ to git the sale goin’.” He looked at the jailer as one friend at another; he could speak freely; ease his mind. “You send word around town we got a fine light nigger for sale. L’Hommedieu will suck his tongue when he sees her and Ole Gal will get a hearty price for her!” Grubb snickered at his daring and disrespect—glad to git it off his stomach, for once.

“See you at two!”

He ducked out, and minutes later the hooves of his mules were deep in the dust of the pike, clattering toward Stoneholt. He had to get back in a hurry.

Felicity opened her eyes to see a scarecrow leaning over her; claw-like hands wiping her forehead with a wet rag. A black head bent over her; a blacker face stared down on her. The head burst into a woolly rash at the brow, and farther back into tighter kinks that sat close like a cap. The eyes were without focus, dull as buttons; gums and lips, blue-black. Huge feet beat the floor with blunt, soft thud.

Felicity had heard the soft sound without hearing, then she opened her eyes and saw . . . the scarecrow—the blue-black face. It came closer. “Where am I?” Felicity gasped.

Crippy’s teeth were jagged and ferocious, but her voice was kind. “You’re in the slave jail. Didn’t you know?”

Felicity jerked herself up; looked wildly about her, at the dreadful dripping walls. “What . . . what will they do to me?”

“Sell you, most likely. That’s what folks come here for.”

“No! No!”

“You otter be glad you’re in the furnished end.”

“Furnished. In this filthy. . . .” A rat darted out of a hole in a corner and Felicity screamed.

“Heish! He won’t hurt you none,” said Crippy. “Effen you could see other places, you’d be thankful to be here. Ain’t nothin’ in ’em but the nasty floor to lay on. There ain’t no small gear in a slave jail . . . lessen you git a high-tone apartment.”

“They can’t do this! They can’t!”

“You better heish, ooman! That’s back-talk! Can’t nobody use back-talk here. It ain’t healthy for no nigger. This here jail ain’t so good as some of ’em.” Crippy drew up closer and began to confide. “Furnished apartments in some of ’em is got cyarpets on the floor and maybe a lookin’ glass . . . yassum! A lookin’ glass!” Crippy licked her blue lips. “And the high-yallers sets around on their marry-bones and croshays like. . . .” She inched up closer. “But you go there and they’ll strip you body-necked to show you off before they sell you. So you better lay low here in this’n; though it’s full of rats and stinks . . . you got a bed anyways to lay on . . . and they won’t have time, maybe, to strip you necked before two o’clock. We got some furnished rooms too, upstairs; where they sets around and croshays and lives softlike. But you otter see them cages down cellar . . . and them coops where they keeps ’em—the cripples and the blind-eyed and them that has the scoffles and the headscabs. . . .”

“Oh, hush! hush! God! I’ll wake up . . . it can’t be true! I’m not . . . not that . . . I’m white!”

Crippy laughed.

“You ain’t white. You is got a yaller skin and you is plumb comely for a wench . . . but you ain’t white. They know what they’re doin’.”

Felicity turned over and began to sob out loud.

“You fuss, they’ll whip you good. But you act quiet, they’ll treat you fine at the whore-house, they says.”

Other rats sneaked out, but Crippy flapped her big feet at them and they vanished.

“I’ll never . . . never live through it.”

Felicity sat up and tried to get her breath; she felt suffocated in the thick air. The walls gave off the dry dead smell of rats and their offal. “My heart isn’t beating . . . I’m dying . . . I’m dying!”

“Oh, no, you ain’t. Don’t worry about that. Your heart’s goin’ all right . . . but you better be still and keep quiet. Niggers has a hard time. That’s a fac. Ef you could see some I seen and what happens to ’em. . . .”

Crippy squatted on the dirty floor and lifted her knees. She had nothing on her, under the ragged shift.

“Now ef I could go to the whore-house I’d be tickled to death. But they don’t want none o’me!” She stretched out her great feet,—flat and spraddled wide. “Ef you behave yosef they likely won’t hurt you none. You’ll git off easy because you is well favored. Now me! They’d sell me to anybody and bust me wide open ef I budged. So I lay low and don’t ast nobody no odds.”

Crippy turned over on her hands and knees and got up. The smell of her was vile. “I ain’t feelin’ so peart today; kinder puny-like. I reckon I’m gittin’ my grandmother. It’s about my time . . . and that ain’t so good today, because I done give you the onliest rag I got!”

“Take it! Take it, for God’s sake!” Felicity jerked the filthy cloth from her forehead.

Crippy stared at her open-mouthed. She scratched her kinky skull-cap and looked anxious. “Is you hurtin’ some place? Don’t you want a slop of vittles? There’s pot-licker bilin’ back yonder. Would you relish some?”

Felicity turned away and shook with panic sobbing.

“What’s the matter? Teched in the head? I seen ’em like that . . . and you is bad off.” She looked up at the small barred window above them. “Well, you can’t git out of here, nohow.” She showed her teeth in a sharp grin. “And anyways I got to git goin’. I got to go! I’ll give you a broomstick to keep the rats off.”

“Don’t leave me! For God’s sake, don’t go! I can’t stay here . . . by myself.” Felicity caught hold of the leathern, skinny arm of Crippy. The touch brought to her shuddering flesh a thought of their possible kinship. Her stomach heaved. Breath left her for a moment, but she held to Crippy. Any human touch was better than to be alone in that room—shut in—locked—bolted in!

“I got to go, anyways,” said Crippy sucking her blue-gum teeth, as sharp as if they were cut with a file. “You’ll have to stay here till two o’clock; that ain’t long. Here’s the broomstick for the rats. Slam at ’em good and they’ll run off. They’re skeered of you more’n you is of them.”

“Oh, let me have your key! I know you could! Please! Please!”

“Think I want to git kilt? They wouldn’t leave a smitherin’ of meat on my bones ef you was to git away. Mayhap they’d maul me to death—an’ say it was a accident.”

Crippy tore loose from the clutch of Felicity’s hands. She flapped out and fastened the door. The grinding turn of the lock—the great key in the rusty lock, turning, grating. The sound of Crippy’s steps in diminishing echo down the black well of the jail.

Alone. Felicity sat on the straw mattress and watched the rats peeping out of their holes with bright, wicked eyes. She must marshal the forces of sanity or she would destroy herself raving and lunatic. She must hold to herself—herself—Felicity. Her father gave her that name because he liked it . . . so they told her. She must not let go of herself—Felicity. She must not let go . . . even here . . . her mind must hold; even to sight and hearing and taste and smell she once knew. Even in this black tomb she must not let go. Hold—hold to life as she knew it . . . to sunshine and air—call of a bird—a taste of berry—smell of alder bloom. She could think of that—she could still remember it—feel of soft things. Alive . . . alive . . . she was still alive if she would still affirm it. She must hold to life . . . it was still going on—somewhere. God was somewhere! Good!

She got up and screamed at the rats. Crippy said they were more afraid of her than she was of them—remember that. She rammed the broomstick deep down into the hole—the biggest hole—and they were quiet now.

She could still let her mind loose but hold to it—let it race back over many things, plain to her now. She knew now why friends fell away—lovers vanished. Why loneliness washed over her like icy water . . . her mother, dimly remembered. She couldn’t believe—and yet, of that face—lovely, voluptuous, she now guessed . . . yes . . . yes . . . it was plain, now. Her friend . . . her father. Would he have told her, ever, the truth? He shielded her from it all these years, and now, at his death she had fallen into the pit of her own ignorance . . . into this black pit . . . this hell . . . not knowing.

She knew now, why no one cared—except the one; her father, she loved . . . now she knew why. It eased her, even now, even here to know he loved her—had always loved and cared. “My father! My father!”

The rats were coming back. She got up and struck at them and they ran. She must remember that they were more afraid than she was.

At last she knew the secret so long withheld. The doomed word she had never guessed: Negro. But Henry Ashe was her father and even in this death pain—in this trap—this agony, the thought of him helped her to live—to last.

“My father, my father!”

Tears came in a flood—wild tears. She breathed with quick, broken sobs, her mouth wide open for more breath—more air, but she would not start screaming, that would mean madness; and after a while she wiped her eyes dry on the torn sleeve of her dress.

Suppose she had black blood—many others had it, perhaps unknown to them as it was unknown to her. God was somewhere—good was somewhere.

She must find a way out . . . escape! This horror, stark and hideous, couldn’t be true—if God were true! Some way out—some way!

She threw herself on the bed again and listened to the filthy rats scamper under the floor and scuttle between the walls. Should she lie there and be dragged to the block a lump of senseless flesh or a shrieking mad woman? No. She would meet the appalling thing with her mind alert, keen; death was always a way out. They couldn’t lock that door.

She heard heavy steps and the key turned and grated and turned again. They were coming! Were they coming to strip her naked!

She gasped, sprang up and slid her foot to the floor. A rat ran toward her—slithering over her foot and clawed up, under her clothes, over her flesh. She jumped from the bed and tore the hairy beast from her body and beat it down. With a stifled shriek she fell back on the bed without sense or breath or conscious being.

The Jailer opened the door, Grubb and Crippy behind him.

“Go git yo can of water, Crippy,” said Grubb, “it’s just more high streaks. She’ll come to!”

The May sunshine bore down with assertion on Cheapside, the open square in the centre of town where the auction block stood near the curbstone—the whipping post, bare and undefended, on the farther corner. Country teams and wagons lagged about, purposeless. Noon passed.

As the hour for the sale drew nearer, a crowd began to collect, a straggling group of loiterers augmented by the better grade of citizen as the afternoon wore. It was bruited that Madame Ashe had a likely wench to put up today. The jailer saw that word got about.

Crippy was sent sidling around the corner to the tavern to blab the matter openly to the men there, among whom she spotted L’Hommedieu. As the news spread, the group about L’Hommedieu stirred; laughed with sly, wide-mouthed meaning. L’Hommedieu moved among them an alien, branded with the hateful name, slave trader.

This morning as he pulled on his finely tailored breeches and slid into his satin lined vest and sleek coat, he was thoroughly aware of how much they hated him; of how much he hated himself; but he would quietly outshine the neighboring gentry; it would give him pleasure to do that. With fastidious reserve, his air of elegant assurance, he would be a latent rebuke to the easy manners and styleless breeding of the Frontier. Although ignored, he couldn’t be overlooked. His savoir faire exacted a sour respect, and even from slave buyers, an unacknowledged privilege. He was a gentleman from head to slender-booted foot, in spite of the low matters to which he descended. The legend of noble birth clung to him he knew; how it got about, who spread it, he didn’t know. “Banished for cause to graceless America, where he lived on the degradation and dregs of humanity. . . .” so it went. He was a low dog agreed the Frontier—and he agreed—whatever his origin, a despicable dog. No gentleman took his hand in Fayette. Slave trading was a need, of course, since there must be slaves; but the Trade itself was too dirty for a decent man to handle or even to touch with his boot heel. Oh, yes, they hated him! Bien, he hated himself! The feeling was mutual. But he would survive!

He had shut his mind to the past. His day was now, today, this hour. Never travel back in time or space, to that earlier day, across seas, across time and space, to that past day, when, suddenly—in a flash—his world toppled; ended, tout à coup!

Here he was, in America . . . and today was his, only today, and however low or evil it was, it was his to live.

L’Hommedieu saw the effect of Crippy’s message on the loungers at the tavern. His teeth tightened on the cigar he was smoking. He tossed Crippy a coin and watched her bare her blue gums and zigzag out of sight. With bored deliberation, he walked toward the slave jail where the jailer stood outside the iron gate, chewing and spitting.

“Thank you for the word, Jamison.” He handed the jailer a silver piece. “I’d like to see the wench if you please.”

Jamison squinted as he put the money into his ragged pocket. “Awful sorry, but ole ooman Ashe made strict orders to keep the wench shut up till two o’clock: I give my word and it’s good as my bond.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Jamison. I’ve had many dealings with you; this is the first time. . . .” He shrugged his shoulder.

“But I can’t do no other. I done give my word.” As if that settled the matter, Jamison stooped and picked up a convenient piece of cedar from the bench by the gate, sat down and began to whittle with his pocket knife the pleasant-smelling, soft, enticing wood. “I can tell you, though, the gal is likely; looks nigh like a white gal if you didn’t know no different.” He peered up craftily. “Just your kind—that’s why I sent you word. I done that much for good favor.”

L’Hommedieu made no answer. He strolled over to the shade of a big catalpa tree in the courthouse yard. A breeze was blowing, but the humidity of the day pressed on him, interfered with easy breathing. He lifted his wide-brimmed felt hat and wiped his forehead and brushed his nose with a handkerchief of fine-spun linen. A countryman beside him, a backwoodsman, gaped and stared, ignorant of this item of personal wear, his own habit being the simple use of finger and thumb.

News of the sale must have got out in town. A high-yellow to be put up. An unusual offering. L’Hommedieu heard the whisper, “child of a runaway—tracked and caught—and now to be sold rather than kept—sold for good reason.” He knew such stories sounded well in the ears of those who craved excitement, who yearned after drama in a land face to face with the bare fact.

He heard the jailer tack up the sign of the sale. Tack, tack, tack, went the little hammer on the air, as the jailer stood upon a keg at the back of the block and nailed the notice to the upright piece, a log halved and set up straight against the platform, where it could be seen by all; and on the keg the auctioneer would soon take his stand; very soon now.

A crowd was beginning to gather. L’Hommedieu gauged it; rather a good turnout on such short warning. At the fringe of the crowd a few parasols fluttered; but the gathering was male, as always. L’Hommedieu smiled. Females forswore such doings. Yes, sights and smells forbade a ladylike part in slave sellings, discouraged intimate contact with Cheapside and the block. L’Hommedieu’s lip lifted. “They don’t like the Square,” he said as he saw the parasols veer away.

He sighted a rival buyer in Buck, from New Orleans; a bull-necked man, every inch a slave trader . . . symbol of his calling, heavy legs wide apart, mouth open, picking his teeth without shame. L’Hommedieu despised Buck. In him he saw the baseness of his trade, its degradation. For himself he preferred to say, “I deal in flesh much as I deal in objects d’art, in mirrors and ceramics. I confer beauty on fortunate others. I barter no black, foul nor sordid creatures. My search is that of the artist. I deprecate all else. My high-yellows suffer no real hardship at my hands.” But, the presence of Buck disturbed L’Hommedieu. Buck sat heavy on L’Hommedieu’s denials—the very sight of him stirred repugnance toward the trade, toward Buck, and deepest of all, toward himself.

As L’Hommedieu stood under the catalpa tree this hot May afternoon, awaiting the hour of the sale, the odor of the dependent blossoms above him, heavy and sweet, mingled with coarser smells of horse sweat, urine and ordure—the delicious mixed with the indecent and corrupt;—“My life is like that,” he said.

His thin nostrils quivered with offense. His slender hand flicked the ashes from his cigar as his upper lip lifted to show teeth, once vividly white, now darkening with time and tobacco stain. As he looked at himself that morning in the crazy mirror of the inn, his hawk-like face, infixed with the graver of age, had reminded him grimly of the mummy of Rameses.

While he leaned against the tree, bored and cynical, Grubb ambled up to him. Grubb cleared his throat, kicked the thick dust at his feet. “It’s most time,” he said, looking at the courthouse clock.

L’Hommedieu’s teeth tightened on his cigar. “I hear Madame Ashe has a likely wench for sale.”

“Right you are, L’Hommedieu.”

“May I have view of her?”

Grubb scratched his jaw. “Now that’s a hoss of another color.”

L’Hommedieu removed his cigar and put on a more friendly air; he really wished to see the wench and the hindrance nettled him. It wasn’t wise to stake big money on an unseen purchase, and the high-yellow was apt to go high. He would descend to Grubb’s talk. “I’m looking for a gilt-edged package.”

“Y’always are looking for one.” Grubb cocked his head.

“Oui, Monsieur Grubb!” He would honor Grubb as Grubb had not honored him.

“You’ll see one when you see her.” Grubb swelled boastfully. “Bet yo bottom dollar you will.” Grubb gave a ribald grin and slapped his buttock.

L’Hommedieu sighed. “I’m waiting, Monsieur Grubb, waiting with patience.”

“Look at thesehere scratches.” Grubb held out his hairy paw. “She give ’em to me. She’s a young wildcat, ef you ast me!”

L’Hommedieu’s eyes lighted with faint amusement. “You whet my interest, Monsieur. Let me have a look at her. I think I could manage a cat—I’ve trained leopards in my time.”

“Now quit yo funnin’. This ain’t no joke.”

“I’m not joking. Let me see her.”

“You’ll see her when she’s put up. That’ll be plenty of time.” Grubb was enjoying his adventure. He would keep the trader on tenterhooks.

“I ain’t got no chance to let you see her befo’ that.”

The crowd began to gather and congest. Dust rose from underfoot till the air was thick with it, heavy with underfoot filth.

Buck strode over to L’Hommedieu without greeting. “A run for my money, eh, L’Hommedieu?”

“You do me honor.” L’Hommedieu’s lip curled with disrelish. Buck’s touch was almost body sickness, the rough hand of the trade laid on his shoulder and L’Hommedieu hated the contact. Aloud he said, “I have little to spend; many orders to fill.”

“Your men must get their women; that sporting crowd is on the highroad to hell, the preachers say.” L’Hommedieu made no reply.

“They pay your price, though, there’s no denying that.”

L’Hommedieu loathed the talk but avoided insult. “Yes, if you can suit them,” he said.

“You’re way ahead of me in rounding up the wenches. How do you do it, L’Hommedieu?”

“No secret. Hard work; demands all my élan.”

“Greek to me; but you got a nose that does you.”

“Alors, a flair?”

“Yeah, I reckon.”

“These high-yellows! White, with just a rich drop—a passionate essence!” L’Hommedieu kissed his hand in their praise and to Buck’s evident disgust.

“Anyways, you run them to cover.” Buck straddled away and L’Hommedieu quietly edged up toward Grubb; not too close. “I like to get a view before a sale, toujours.”

Grubb shook his head. “Orders is orders; sight unseen till the gal’s put up.”

“But why—pourquoi?” ’

“Ole Miss got good reason, I guess.”

“I like to see them before a sale—look before buying. There might be some slight défaut . . . something small that would ruin my business.”

Grubb, watching L’Hommedieu’s Frenchy gestures and laughing in his sleeve, “Shucks! Ain’t I seen her?”

L’Hommedieu cared little what Grubb thought, though he guessed. “But you aren’t a salesman . . . small things might escape you.”

“Don’t you believe it! I got eyes an’ ain’t I seen her? And ain’t my eyes as good as yourn?”

“But there could be some mark or flaw . . . some hidden mole; a knock knee; a slue foot; that’s why I’d like to see her, tout nu.”

“Slue foot or dayfo or too new—there ain’t none I tell you. None!”

L’Hommedieu lifted a coin from his pocket. “For a sight of her I could spare a few of these. . . .”

Grubb’s eye glinted but at that moment Anabel Ashe swept through the crowd in bonnet and rustling silk.

“Good Gosh! Ain’t that Ole Miss . . . and ain’t she got eyes like a weasel?”

“You were a thought too late, Grubb.” L’Hommedieu admitted his defeat as he moved away. His eye travelled over the crowd that was now solidly packed about the block. It was making way for Madame Ashe although ladies were not welcomed at a slave auction. As clear a male function thought L’Hommedieu as putting the mare to the stud. The flies and the stinks and the horses stamping and about their business did not appeal to delicate taste and though a few petticoats might edge the square they didn’t court the dirt of closer contact; but as Madame Ashe acknowledged no such pettish queasiness, the crowd opened passage and admitted her to the male practice. “Madame is sexless now,” said L’Hommedieu to himself.

“Here’s the auctioneer comin’.” Grubb nudged up again. L’Hommedieu smiled without mirth; “In his usual regalia.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“Nothing. He is just what you call drôle, n’est pas?”

“Them’s all the clothes he’s got, I reckon. I’ll go now, quick and git the gal.”

Grubb dived through the crowd and there were young Ashe and Gaitskill coming around the corner arm in arm. They stood at the curbstone and faced the throng. Young Ashe’s hair was ruffled, his auburn curls blowing in the hot wind. Gaitskill’s long lock hung loose over his forehead, his necktie undone. L’Hommedieu saw Madam Ashe turn toward the pair the minute they appeared and beckon to the auctioneer. L’Hommedieu overheard, “Mr. Snails!”

“Yes, mum.”

“If my grandson or Tom Gaitskill bids on this sale, remember, the wench goes for cash only.”

Something was brewing. L’Hommedieu felt it. He kept his ear keyed and his eye sharp. It was needful in his business to be on the alert.

The auctioneer touched his hand to his once white beaver. L’Hommedieu felt that the hat sat on him as a symbol rather than as a covering. His spade-tailed coat, too, filthy and bedraggled, his red necktie flaming at his throat like a fleshly outgrowth; white-and-black waistcoat, streaked with food stains, and his calf-skin boots, scuffed and down at heel completed a symbolic effect. The dress was at once absurd and striking; a visible sign of something invisible. L’Hommedieu didn’t laugh at Mr. Snails. He was used to his looks and they no longer amused him. Snails was emblem of the slave trade in Fayette.

“Remember what I say, Mr. Snails,” Madame Ashe was speaking. “Those two over there on the curb have got hold of no big money. They haven’t had time to collect from their damned cronies. Money’s tight. They count on begging or borrowing later from those hyenas.”

“Cash it shall be. I’ll remember, mum!”

Snails raised his hat. Underneath it the sweaty mop of greying hair lifted, blew. The rank odor wafted toward L’Hommedieu who moved a few steps farther off.

“When does the sale begin, Snails?” asked Buck.

“At two o’clock—sharp.

How’s that for a pome out of my head—spontaneous!”

Buck scratched his red jaw, unsmiling. “It sounded like it,” he said harshly.

“Not everyone is a poet or even a poetaster!” Snail’s tone conveyed his thought. L’Hommedieu knew how displeased he was at the dead lack of approval. He was primed for the ready guffaw; but Buck was oblivious. Nothing could stir him so why waste time or poetry on Buck.

Several slaves clanked forward, handcuffed together—great hulking, coffled creatures, of no worth to L’Hommedieu; they only added weight and density to the heavy stench already prevailing.

Snails turned to the countryman who brought them. “Set ’em back for a while; set them bucks on the sidewalk; this here crowd is come for stylish goods.” The man grumbled and herded the bucks out.

“I’ll fix you up tomorrow, though. They are husky. You’ll get a good price for ’em.” Snails couldn’t afford to make enemies.

As the courthouse clock struck two, the jailer and Grubb appeared at the edge of the crowd with the mulatto girl between them. L’Hommedieu moved his thumb over his closed fingers as he saw Grubb snapping on the handcuffs. “You’ll look pretty in ’em and they’ll keep yo claws where they belong.”

The girl had the dazed look of a sleepwalker. L’Hommedieu tapped his fingers to his front teeth. He said aloud, “somewhere I have seen that face.”

The girl’s mouth was open as if she wanted to shriek, but hadn’t breath to shriek; to scream till the blood burst her veins.

L’Hommedieu lost nothing—the girl’s quick gasp, the whisper, “I’ll never live through it . . . my death!” She looked like,—yes almost like, a white girl.

The crowd moved aside.

“Here’s your prize,” said Snails, “and on the stroke of two.

“Punctuality is a virtue, gents.” He set his beaver at a rakish angle; he was keyed to the occasion. “Take them handcuffs off her, Grubb. We don’t need them nohow.”

“We just put ’em on for bracelets.” Grubb unfastened them.

Snails looked over his crowd, checking it professionally. L’Hommedieu knew him of old. He got his ideas out of the air he often boasted. They just came to him.

L’Hommedieu’s roving eye caught sight of the white face of Ann Ashe as she slipped in from the direction of the tavern; she must have ridden in; she was holding her riding skirt with one hand. What business had she here? “She’s trying to find a spot where she can see and not be seen.”

When L’Hommedieu left the shade of the catalpa tree for a better vantage point, he saw Ann take her station there. The tree offered support, its wide trunk shelter, concealment. His gaze followed hers to John Henry. “That boy’s in a dangerous mood.” He looked at the flushed face and wildly blowing hair. What was all the fuss about? Ann Ashe would leave before the others; her family shouldn’t know that she was there. No place for ladies.

Grubb was unlocking the handcuffs. L’Hommedieu eased forward to get a better view. He was tracing the outline of his lower lip. “Mon dieu! Somewhere . . . vraiment . . . I have seen that face! Where? Where?”

Grubb spoke to Snails. “Will I git her somethin’ to set on?”

“Good thought, Grubb. There’s some boxes front of the grocery. Git one.” He drew the girl up the single step of the block. Her body seemed inert, spineless; her bones yielding and submissive. She was rubbing her wrists where the handcuffs had left purple stains. Her breath came hard and grievous out of the deepest shaft of her lungs, as if the hot, fetid air were too heavy for breath—too corrupt for breathing.

Snails took over. L’Hommedieu would hear him harangue now for the good favor of his audience—humor them along. Here was stylish goods. He would handle it with discretion.

“Ladies and gents. . . .” Snails stood behind the girl holding her by the shoulders. The crowd pressed forward. “You see here a mulatto gal . . . raised almost like a lady.” The crowd warmed him with its sanction. Grubb returned with the box which he shoved against the rough upright at the back of the block.

“Come forward, gentlemen! Have a look befo’ the sale starts proper. There’s nothin’ improper in that. Gently now—one at a time. No crowdin’—no pushin’, no scrabblin’. This gal won’t never do no dirty work. I’ll bet that.”

The crowd pressed forward to take the proffered look. The girl closed her eyes.

L’Hommedieu stood near by. He heard her breath come in fitful sobs as though tears were wept now and done with. She shivered, but stood.

“You stand when I say stand and set when I say set!” Snails nodded to the crowd and grinned indulgently. “The cat’s got her tongue! Anyways, you can set, now.”

He stepped from behind her and she sank upon the box and leaned against the upright post at the back. Above her head the sale placard flapped in the feeble wind. Dully, she rubbed the purple circle of her wrists where the handcuffs had been.

When Snails saw the girl seated and outwardly calm, he stepped behind the block, mounted the keg and leant over the halved log above her head. From there he could dominate the scene and the buyers would have a fair sight of their buy. L’Hommedieu knew old Snails; he would get a high price and a good grab for himself.

L’Hommedieu was gazing at the girl with a puzzled look. Snails eyed him cunningly. They measured each other.

John Henry and Gaitskill edged nearer, but not too near; they were trying to avoid the eyes of the old woman. L’Hommedieu could tell from their directed looks that they didn’t like him or his ways—slave trader. That was clear enough. He could see too that young Ashe was wildly excited. Ann Ashe leaned against the tree for support, her handkerchief to her eyes, crying. Something was at stake; something was afoot. The old woman had a baleful squint as she stood tightly grasping her hand bag, her knuckles white and bony. Why did she want to sell . . . so hot . . . sell this house servant . . . so quick. Madame was tight-fisted with house servants; sold only field hands, black and sturdy. The devil was in her eye today. It wasn’t money, surely . . . some ancient spite at work . . . some vieille rancune. . . . But L’Hommedieu’s big puzzle was the wench. Where had he seen her? A beauty she was . . . worth bidding for . . . and bidding to the limit—sky high!

“She goes to the highest bidder, gents. Goin’ to the highest. . . .” roared Snails.

A drawling countryman spoke from the rear, mouth full of tobacco. “Two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“Gentlemen! I hafter laugh. Sholy this is a little joke, sir.”

Another farmer spoke up. “Three hundred!”

“Gents all and ladies also,” Snails bowed to Madame Ashe. “It’s only when we git up in the thousands that this gal can feel her mettle.” He was calling for another bidder.

A gentleman shifted his cravat and offered five hundred.

“Thanks sir! We’re beginning to begin.”

L’Hommedieu saw Gaitskill get up from the curbstone where he sat beside John Henry and take the boy’s arm . . . they would bid as one.

“Six hundred!” he called.

Under the catalpa tree, Ann Ashe clutched her bosom. A light breeze drifted the catalpa blooms about her in soft flakes and from where L’Hommedieu stood, the picture was a snow storm, Ann Ashe standing in the midst.

He would let the little bidders bid on. Give them time! His time would come. He waited. He would get the girl. He had made up his mind.

Another voice called, “seven hundred!”

John Henry put his hand on Gaitskill’s shoulder, his eyes bright with excitement. Plain to see he wasn’t used to slave bidding or trading. “Eight hundred,” his voice trembled.

Snails looked at John Henry sharply. He gave a swift sidelong glance toward Madame Ashe, rubbed his nose with his dirty forefinger, scratched his ear. Dealings with the quality were difficult. Involved circumspection. L’Hommedieu felt for him.

“Gent’s all, I wish you to unnerstand thishere is a cash-down sale. I got my orders. No credit today. And so gentlemen, cash down—and ef you ain’t got the money in yo jeans this minute there ain’t no use in yo biddin’.” He whispered to the old woman, “there! That’ll fix ’em . . . and no hard feelin’s.” She smiled; her empty insides gurgled.

L’Hommedieu whispered to himself, “elle remet le coeur au ventre.”

Again she gurgled noisily. “They shan’t have her,” she said. “I’ve had my lesson, Snails! I’ll not let those two get her. I’d bid her in myself before I’d let them . . . They should know that if they had a grain of sense.”

L’Hommedieu looked toward John Henry, whose hand was on Gaitskill’s shoulder. He was whispering something . . . L’Hommedieu would like to hear. Maybe he could piece out . . . put together what was going on.

“I am bid only eight hundred dollars for this Venus in human form. Her mammy’s name was Venus. That’s right!”

L’Hommedieu clapped his hand to the lapel of his coat. Out of the sludge of his thought—out of the deposit of memory, rose an image.

“Venus and the candlestocks! Yes . . . I remember! ‘Are you hurt, Monsieur?’ ” Venus! Her voice a Latin voice—no other—reminding him of someone long lost—forever lost; that same translucent skin; the dark luminous eyes; the perfect lips; no negro there. . . .

She looked at him not as a slave looks at a master; but as one lonely being looks at another; as one looks who, also, has known abaissement—desesperance, douleur.

Old days could flood back upon you; break over you and overwhelm you, if ever you opened the flood-gates. . . . In one moment, this woman had laid her hand upon those gates. “Are you hurt, Monsieur?”

“What’s that you say?” said Buck.

“Nothing.”

“Yes sirree!” cried Snails. “This is Venus come to life. Riz out of the waves she is! How’s that for po’try? Raise the bid, sirs!”

Buck pressed nearer the block, “nine hundred!” His face was beginning to purple. L’Hommedieu read the signs.

“Not an unhandsome bid, Buck.”

Gaitskill put his head in his hands while John Henry stood beside him, tight-mouthed. L’Hommedieu was quick to get their hostile reaction. A restless spirit was in the air. Even Snails seemed to feel it.

“Now don’t get mad at me gents! This type of goods goes for cash. I’ve a bid of nine hundred! Who’ll top that?”

“One thousand dollars,” said L’Hommedieu without emphasis.

“Thought you’d be chimin’ in.” Snails lifted his hat. “Do I hear eleven? Young mulatto claims she is pyore white. Never git a chance like this again!”

The local buyers seemed somewhat dashed by the four figures . . . wench was going too high for either taste or pocketbook . . . practical matters . . . women at home to be placated or deceived . . . mulattoes were mazy domestic problems. L’Hommedieu knew all about these problems . . . dealt in them day and night. But this girl he must have! Buck shouldn’t get her!

“Eleven hundred,” said Buck gruffly.

“Bully-boy, Buck!” Snails turned his head and looked at L’Hommedieu narrowly and L’Hommedieu felt his own eyelid quiver. He knew Snails was saying to himself, “old vulture, he’s keen on the buy,”—watching him. Snails was hammering the post with his fist.

“Listen, gents! Thishere wench is the daughter of the runaway gal, Venus.” Snails undid his filthy waistcoat and gave his diaphragm a chance to expand. “Venus borned her baby acrost the border. Pyore white, she claimed though she was bought and sold on the block at New Orleens. I got my story from the jailer and he got it straight. Do I hear twelve hundred?”

L’Hommedieu nodded, half smiling; tense.

“Salute you, L’Hommedieu. Twelve hundred onct . . . twelve hundred twict . . . buck up, Buck. You ain’t goin’ to let this prize git away from you! Goin’, goin’ . . . . Nobody never warned the gal about the spot of ink she’s got . . . or about that yaller river that separates the sheep from the goats like . . . or we’d never a-had this sale. Goin’, gents at twelve hundred.” Snails pushed back his coat and set his thumbs in the armholes of his vest but the sweat was running down his nose and he had to wipe it off. Sweat almost broke his line of talk.

“This onknowin’ gal crossed that yaller river and come down, plop, into the lion’s den!”

The old boy is getting out of his allusive depth thought L’Hommedieu. Surely Snails felt it for he said, “not to make no mixture of metaphors, gents, or to implicate that thishere is a den of lions.”

“Cut out the poetry and knock her down Snails,” yelled Buck. “I bid thirteen hundred!”

“Yo Waterloo, L’Hommedieu?” Snails made a ragged grin.

L’Hommedieu gave the signal.

“Fourteen hundred!”

L’Hommedieu breathed a little faster, teeth showing at the side of his lip. Buck was pressing him hard. Buck shouldn’t get her, “a Dieu ne plaise!”

“Never play favorites, gents. She’s goin’ to the highest bidder, gents, RE-gardless!”

Snails got down from the keg and stood beside the girl on the block. “Stand up, now, like I told you!” He drew her to her feet. “Look, gents, at that lovely arm, that luscious. . . .” his heavy hand outlined her bosom. “Ain’t there nobody from Fayette, itself, to keep this treasure at home?”

A feeble “fifteen hundred” came from somewhere. But it was scared and whispery.

“I thought it was time I heard from the citizens. A genteel bid, sir. Look at that superb neck, that opulent . . . .” Again his hand traveled. He pulled open her dress at the throat, dragged the bodice down to her waist, exposing her breasts, warm and rounded. The sun touched them and lighted the luminous skin, the nipples brownish and rosy-tipped.

The crowd gave an audible gasp as one man.

A glimpse was all Snails allowed. He let the girl cringe back into her clothing and hold it about her. L’Hommedieu felt sure she would have killed Snails, had she held a knife.

There were a few grumblings from the crowd—but Grubb was on fairly solid ground.

“Sixteen hundred!” came from the outer ring of the tense circle.

L’Hommedieu could feel the purple vein throbbing in his forehead, beating there. She was lovely; bidders were pressing him hard; harder than he looked for. He wiped his face with his handkerchief.

“I thought that would stir a bid, sir,” said Snails. He slapped the girl’s thigh.

L’Hommedieu felt the blood beat in him—push into his throat—into his temples. He was in a light sweat. Again he wiped his forehead.

Snails stepped to one side. “There ain’t nothin’ like the human form, if you ask me.” In his two red hands, as huge as hams, he caught the girl’s skirts and tore them to the waist, again exposing her nakedness.

The girl gasped; her eyes flamed. She was near screaming but she didn’t scream—she had no breath.

From the crowd there came rumblings of disfavor—as well as a few stealthy cheers.

L’Hommedieu drew up to his full height, lifted his head. “Five thousand dollars.”

Snails had reached the limit. “Sold! Sold to L’Hommedieu, for five thousand dollars!” he roared. “You know a bargain and you know how to git it!” He bowed sweeping the ground with his beaver hat.

L’Hommedieu took from his pocket a roll of bills and counted them out into the auctioneer’s hand. His own shook slightly as the large sum of money slipped through his fingers. It was only a slight tremor, but Snails was eyeing it.

L’Hommedieu must now meet the cross current of thought that surged about him. He braced himself. Let the crowd think or say or shout what it pleased. He had got her; that was the main thing; he had also outwitted and out-bought Buck. That was good too, though the sum was big, astronomical, even for the slave trade.

The girl, with a gasping sob sank back on the box, her head against the upright log. “I’m still alive,” she whispered.

The crowd began to thin out. It seemed content. Snails had outdone himself. Madame Ashe was smiling with glacial satisfaction as Snails handed her the roll of bills. L’Hommedieu saw her drop them, uncounted, into her reticule.

He stepped up on the block. “Gentlemen! Gentlemen, wait a little; I have a word for you. I am among you; not of you. You make it clear. Many hard curses, said and unsaid . . . ‘Slave Trader.’ Yes. I know. But I have my standards too. This year I’ve bought my women for easy money.”

“Well, this one wasn’t easy,” cried Buck rankly bluffing. “What’ll you take for her?”

“Nothing! I bought her to free her. I’d have freed her mother if I’d bought her. Some mulatto women, beautiful women, are not for the trade—not for the block.”

A shout went up from the crowd. L’Hommedieu could hardly tell whether it was protest or commendation or rank insult. Never mind what it was. He didn’t care.

John Henry and Gaitskill pressed forward to shake his hand. As he tightly grasped it, John Henry said, “A generous act, L’Hommedieu. I’ve been unjust.”

Gaitskill said nothing—words forsook him. He shook L’Hommedieu’s hand and turned his face away.

“Messieurs, this is unlooked for,” said L’Hommedieu through close lips, but his eyes were moist; at that moment his show of proud insolence—of ineffable effrontery,—wore thin.

The girl on the block did not seem to understand. She was breathless, drugged. She had sunk back on the box and her head had fallen forward on her knees, her clasped hands outstretched before her. L’Hommedieu touched her shoulder. She started and looked up at him, horror in her eyes.

“Listen,” he said. “Don’t you understand; you are free!”

“Free! Oh God!” Her head fell back against the log and she stared at him with wide, unbelieving eyes.

“You are free—as free as anyone is free.”

The color slowly tinged her cheeks. L’Hommedieu stood watching, waiting her slow return to life and belief and reason. While he waited he began to repeat to himself, under his breath, a verse he liked once long ago, old Voltaire said it:

He watched the blood flow back into lips and cheeks. “You are a free woman. You are free as any of us is—to come and to go. I’ll sign the papers in the Courthouse and you can go where you please.”

When he lifted the girl to her feet he saw Madame Ashe turn away in disgust.

“Damned sentimental fool,” the old woman muttered.

“I’ll sign the papers now,” said L’Hommedieu.

“Oh, yes . . . yes.” The girl’s eyes glowed, unnaturally bright.

“Coach starts in half an hour for the River. Take it! Leave all this behind you. Forget! That is what I do.”

“Oh, my dress!” she said, holding together her torn skirts.

Mr. Clements, in the crowd, lifted his hand. Clements, ready for a sale on any terms, L’Hommedieu knew him, if it provided cash, “I’ve just the thing for her in my shop. I’ll run and get it!” He whiffled in his haste to be gone.

“Très bien!” said L’Hommedieu, as he tossed him a bill. “Hurry! Bring it to the Courthouse. She can change there.”

John Henry called, “I’ll hold the coach for her! Gaitskill and I will see her to the River.”

“I’d like that,” she said.

“Here’s your miniature,” said Gaitskill taking it from his pocket and holding it out to her. “I wish I could keep it.”

She smiled faintly and put it about her neck. She turned to L’Hommedieu, “What can I say? Oh what?”

“Nothing! Nothing!” He took her hand. “I saw your mother once . . . I’ll tell you . . . come!” She swayed a little and he put his arm about her as they hurried toward the Courthouse door.

Ann watched from the catalpa tree.

He has the air of high birth, the manner . . . but no one will ever know.

Ann had a sense of her own deliverance. She could feel again the girl’s arm about her as she shrank from Grubb. “I’d have slept no more if she had been sold to Buck or taken to the whore-houses of New Orleans!”

Ann wondered if the girl were really white . . . her skin was hardly a betrayal . . . only a few shades darker than that of Barbara, the doctor’s daughter . . . but it was hard to believe the mother’s story of the pirate ship . . . the Portuguese ancestry. Certainly L’Hommedieu had a human heart. She recalled the night of his visit, so long ago. Even then she had felt he was above his calling . . . a gentleman; that name so often miscalled.

But she must hurry home. In some way the girl would be taken care of—she must see to it. Now that Henry was gone, she wouldn’t fail him—She could still feel the girl’s arms about her. She would find a way to help.

Snails hung around. Anabel knew he was waiting for his money but she would let him wait awhile. She overheard his whisper to Grubb, “Ole Miss got a ramrod in her bones.” She let him wait.

“It was a good sale, mum, even if it ended informal like.”

Anabel took the bills out of her reticule and slowly counted off several of them and handed them to Snails.

“Thank you, kindly, mum,” he crushed the bills into his pocket. “I got you a good price anyways. Don’t take on, mum! There’s always fools in the world.”

“Who said I was taking on?”

“Nobody, mum, nobody,” said Snails backing away.

Anabel still held her bills as John Henry ran toward her. “He’s got over his madness,” she said to herself.

“Count them. Grandmother . . . thirty pieces?”

“It’s more’n any thirty,” Snails shrugged. “She give me mor’n thirty . . . myself. She’s got big money there.”

He whispered to John Henry but Anabel caught it. “This freein’ business is stuck in the old gal’s craw. It’s give her a crick in the neck aready.” Aloud he said, “Landsakes, my crowd’s all driftin’ away . . . no more nigger sales today.”

Anabel coldly watched him take his waddling course to the tavern and the whiskey keg where the tin cup hung at the back bar. John Henry waited a moment, but Anabel’s lips tightened with silence. “Gaitskill and I will see the girl to the River.”

“You dare . . .”

“I dare to go . . . yes.”

“You know what people will think of you.”

“Oh, yes.”

“She’s a mulatto—a servant—a bastard misbegot! Go, and I’ll cut you off with a shilling!”

“You’re generous, but I don’t want any of that money you’re holding.”

Disrespectful brat! He was trying to make her mad, but she wouldn’t be goaded. Anabel breathed heavily. Every raw nerve in her ached. “You young. . . .”

“Careful, Grandmother!”

“You unregenerate young jackass!”

John Henry laughed aloud—a gust of relief. “There, you’ll feel better now!” He smiled his disarming smile. He waved to her as he ran down the street.

“Sam,” he called back, “look after Mother and my little mare. You and Ham take care of them. I’m lighting out! Good-by, Grandmother! Good-by!” All the way down the street he waved until he was out of sight. All the way Anabel’s eyes followed him.

“Little devil!” She could see how gay he was, now he had won, if not at her expense, at Stoneholt’s.

A sense of sudden quiet came to her. Everybody gone. Square empty; the stink of it rose to her nostrils; a stray dog sneaked in the dirt and excrement. No sound. For the first time in her life she had a sense of her streams run dry . . . of her body aged, otiose. When she looked about, there was not a soul in sight.

Sam crept up behind her . . . inched toward her . . . gave her the comfort of his servant presence, the comfort of his African voice, “The carriage . . . the carriage is here, Ole Miss . . . the carriage. . . .”

At the tavern John Henry joined Gaitskill. The coach was waiting; no other passengers. “We’ll go with her and put her on the ferry,” said John Henry.

“What will your Grandmother say?”

“Mad as the devil; I can’t help that. Mother understands. I’m leaving the place. Air’s too thick here. Got to get away. The sale today was the hell of a jolt. I see the system for what it is. Ruin . . . ruin for us all. Ruin! Look at Grandmother—cruel and utterly consistent; living up to her lights . . . with human feelings, too . . . It’s the Institution that turns her into a seller of flesh. The thing’s inhuman.”

“This is a grave step, boy. Think it over.”

Felicity and L’Hommedieu turned the corner. There were deep circles under the girl’s eyes. “Life and joy gone—drained out of her,” said John Henry to himself. She put her hand to her throat as if breath were painful.

“We’ll go with you—see you to the ferry . . . to the River,” he said.

“No, please! I’ve decided . . . I’ll go by myself. I know the way home.” Turning to L’Hommedieu she said, “I can never really thank you; never; but. . . .” Tears stopped her. “But I do thank you for the lovely dress.” She smiled through her tears. “I’m very gay in it.”

A mist in his eyes too, he slipped a purse into her hand. “Your fare is paid to the river—and across.”

“Thank you, forever . . . and good-by!”

She leaned from the coach window and held out the miniature to Gaitskill. “Here! I want you to have it.”

The purse dropped to the ground at L’Hommedieu’s feet. He held it up but she shook her head.

The coachman, impatiently waiting, whipped up his horses. From the window the girl leaned far out. Again L’Hommedieu held up the purse, and again the girl shook her head. “No,” she said, “no.”

As long as they could see her, the men waved. Gaitskill’s eyes were full of tears. He was holding the miniature against his breast. L’Hommedieu put the purse back into his pocket . . . his face gave no sign. John Henry could feel his heart beating very heavy—very hard—blood pushing up—beating hard—many things at stake today.

The three men separated at the door of the Tavern. They couldn’t speak further. “Sachons nous taire,” said L’Hommedieu as he left them.

After ordering a room for the night, John Henry went outside and mounted his horse and rode to Stoneholt. His mother, he found, at the stile waiting for him.

“I’m going, Mother.” John Henry took her in his arms. “Father wished it,” he whispered, “only Grandmother stood in the way. This is the time to go. I’ll write.”

“Keep the money I gave you this morning. I’ll help the girl—something will be done.”

He kissed his mother and kissed her again; and she went into the house looking long at him; weeping, she closed the door. John Henry ran to the stables where Murk’s grandchildren whined about his knees. Ham looked up from his work, currying the little mare.

“Seemlike,” said Ham, “when the air smells fresh and my hearin’ is good, I hear Al Sufi stompin’ in his stall.”

“Wake up, Ham! Wake up!”

The mare whinnied and rubbed her soft nose against John Henry’s cheek. “She’s kissing me good-by, Ham. I’m off!” John Henry brushed his hand across his eyes. “Take care of her, Ham!”

As he mounted at the gate, John Henry looked back at Stoneholt. He loved it—every stone of it. He looked over the rolling fields . . . his land. Land of the wider South he loved—loved with all its bluster, its assumptions, self derived and absolute—its sins. His beautiful and beloved South; it’s unquenchable thirst for power . . . cooled in the wells of its own arrogance.

Today, John Henry saw it for the first time in the light of morally shocking irony; in paradox, the Southern picture took form. Within it he saw his grandmother . . . her code that brought her where she was . . . her hot identifications . . . her cold compromises. He was old enough now to understand . . . to reason. He was a Southerner. The South was in his bloodstream, in body and bone. If his land ever needed him he would give it back his blood in its defense. Now, he must get away. It was needful.

He dashed out of the gate as the carriage turned in. He took off his riding cap and waved it.

“Good Gawd,” said Sam, “that’s the boy!”

John Henry saw his grandmother flash a wicked look at him. “Little devil! What’s he up to now? I’d like to skin him alive!”

“He’s in a shonuf plumb hurry. Maybe it ain’t so good!” said Sam.

Next morning John Henry set out early to have long hours of daylight ahead of him. He would ride part of the way and take the stage farther on—somewhere along the road.

He was refreshed after a sound sleep at the inn; the struggle of yesterday over and done—above all, the girl was saved; freed. Vigor of youth was strong in his heart—in his lungs. He was glad to go with the thin dawn wind blowing on him, sky as green as chrysoprase—the morning star paling.

The hooves of his horse still echoed as a traveler came back from the ferry with word that a woman had fallen into the river—a young woman had fallen from the boat into the river—a young woman who had crossed over from Fayette, alone. Soon it was noised that it was the mulatto girl, Felicity, the daughter of the runaway, who was bought and freed by L’Hommedieu.

The town heard; and there were those who whispered, “L’Hommedieu got his desserts, for once; after spending five thousand dollars on the wench and letting her loose. He deserved exactly what he got. Nothing! Just nothing!”

What L’Hommedieu felt, no one knew, but Gaitskill’s tears were without shame. He understood why Felicity had given him the miniature to keep. He could imagine what Anabel would say when she heard. He could guess. “Good riddance! Mulattoes are trouble breeders. This all comes of meddlers: Henry and Gaitskill. This misery was their doing—their fault, not mine. What could I do but sell the wench? She was my property. To free her would be to play right into the filthy paws of the hyenas—to keep her would encourage lechery on my own farm. I’ve had enough of that, God knows! What could I do but sell her; not for money . . . I have plenty of money . . . but for the Institution . . . that must be upheld . . . for the South . . . for Stoneholt.”

When Ann awoke that morning, no word came yet from town or from the River. Ann had tossed all night on her high bed. These nights time worked to paroxysm from hour to darker hour. The bed beside her empty—pillow untouched. Night! If only there were no night—no waiting for the silver chime to strike and mark the hour off.

A ragged moon threw a pale, bluish light into the room, across the bed, over the pillow. She thought of the sunrise of love that first morning and she lay on her breast to ease the ache of her body. Would the icy logic of loss ever blunt its edge—its sharp edge.

She forced her mind to turn to the hap and custom of day, and to live one hour at a time. Perhaps she could bear the hours counted separate; daylight hours. Henry was on a journey and would return. Love was ever present, could never be lost. She must reshape her life. She thought of the girl on the block. Henry’s daughter. Hers was a ruin more rending than her own.

Again she saw Venus; again she heard her warm voice, saw Venus bending over her work; saw her dark, sad eyes. Even after twenty years Ann felt the unruly stab of jealousy. But the girl, Felicity, was innocent—a victim. She would help her for Henry’s sake. “Mother can’t stop me. My boy wishes it. My boy!” She turned her head; her pillow was wet. Toward morning she drifted into sleep.

Milly waked her in time. Nothing could change the round of habit—of order—of household consuetude. Nothing! Inflexible law of domestic need.

“I suppose it keeps us sane!”

“Sayin’ what?” said Milly.

“Nothing, Milly, nothing.”

“Now quit yo sayin’ and sorrowin’; you’re dressed; now come look in the glass.”

“I’ve aged twenty years, Milly, in ten days.”

“You ain’t! Come here. Look in that glass! Hair’s red as ever. You’re good. Not a wrinkle; not a scuff! Brighten up them eyes a bit and you’ll be chirpy as a dickcissel. Come look!”

Ann looked. A small warmth stirred at her heart.

Milly gave a crafty blink.

“First thing you know, Tom Gaitskill will be after you ag’in! I’m watchin’ him!”

“Hush, Milly, hush! Aren’t you ashamed!”

Ann went down for prayers. Religion must be served at Stoneholt, for Mother was religious.

Downstairs, Anabel was already seated, Bible on her knees. Sam and Milly and Ham and Lucinda filed in and moved along the wall to take places on straight chairs.

Ann sat on the sofa after kissing the withered cheek, a cold ritual, but never slighted.

Anabel began her reading; her tone cut into Ann’s ears with sharp pain. Ann turned her thought away, she wouldn’t listen; but the words bored into her hearing with grim intent: “I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock. . . .”

Milly began to lament, like a dog at a dismal sound, “Oh, Gawd, oh, Gawd!” It wasn’t a very loud lament; but Anabel heard. She shot Milly an evil glance.

“Hush that howling!”

Ann felt a mounting hysteria. She put her head in the bend of her arm and sobbed out loud.

“Stop it, I say! Stop the devilish noise, both of you!”

All the negroes begun a muted, plangent wail. “Ole Miss,” said Sam, “we’re thinkin’ and moanin’ he won’t never come back.”

“Just wait till he gets good and hungry!”

Ann knew the old woman’s heart was cold lead in her breast; her mouth dry and bitter. She loved the boy. All her hope was on him; hope for Stoneholt.

She took out a handkerchief and touched her nose. Ann thought she saw a small heavy tear escape the lashless eyelid and roll down; but Anabel wiped it hastily; they wouldn’t catch her mourning for that young nincompoop.

“Ole Miss,” said Milly, “I believe you’re cryin’ yourself!”

“Nonsense!”

Milly dared where others feared. “You is, you is!”

Anabel stamped her foot. “Shut up! You’re all as crazy as yahoos! Shut up, I tell you!” She swallowed hard her inward tears and the lesson went on. The old voice, sterile and toneless, droned on to the end: “And the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house. . . .”

The End

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

[The end of Stoneholt by Sally Bullock Cave]