Deep Summer (21 page)

He took the lid off one of the barrels and dipped in the pitcher. The water was fresh, for it had rained that morning and he himself had gone out to cover the barrels as soon as the shower was over so the water might absorb as little as possible of the poison in the air. He set the pitcher down in the hall and went to get a bottle of wine for Dolores. One should be careful about drinking water during a plague.

Caleb reached among the bottles and found a heavy port, nourishing for an exhausted woman. When he went into the dining-room for a glass he stood awhile looking out at the hot, heavy-dewed night, trying to picture her life in that dilapidated neighborhood with that man Upjohn. He remembered bitterly that if he had not sent her away those other children born to her would have been his and not Upjohn’s and he would not now be threatened with the loss of the only thing on earth he had to love.

The striking of a clock reminded him how long he had been away from Roger’s bedside. He put the bottle under his arm, and holding the glass in one hand and the pitcher of water in the other he tiptoed down the hall.

The room was quiet. That was surprising, for even when he fell asleep Roger groaned and mumbled, and when he was awake Dolores was generally trying to soothe him with soft endearments. Caleb set down the pitcher and lifted the latch noiselessly, but as the door opened he congealed with terror.

Roger’s limbs lay perfectly quiet under the tumbled sheet. Dolores was on her knees by the bed, her face buried and her hands clasped over her head. Caleb stood still, feeling as if his heart had come up into his throat and was choking him, and wishing this was true so he could not have to go on living. He set down the bottle and glass and went to her, and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Dolores,” he said.

She started back, putting her hand to her mouth. “Hush!”

There were tears on her cheeks, sparkling in the candlelight. He helped her up, his face turned away from the bed, and she stumbled as though it was hard for her to rise. But she caught him with both hands to hold herself up.

“Caleb—” her voice was a thick whisper, and the words were not very clear—“Caleb, the fever’s out of him—he’s sleeping natural—Oh, God be praised—”

He let her go suddenly, hardly noticing that she swayed and caught the bedpost, for he was bending over the bed with a flood of unbelieving thankfulness rushing over him. He felt Roger’s face and hands. They were cool and faintly damp, and though his breathing was faint it was peaceful. Caleb turned around. There was a sob breaking his words when he spoke.

“Oh Dolores, my dear, my darling—he’s not dead! He’s going to live because of you—I couldn’t have saved him.”

She was holding herself up by the bedpost, and when he was about to take her in his arms she pushed him back.

“You—you’d better not touch me.”

The words were indistinct. In sudden fright he gripped her shoulders and turned her around to face the candles. Her lips were flaming red and swollen and her eyes were bloodshot. She tried to say something else, but this time the words were only low noises in her throat. Her legs gave way under her. Caleb caught her in his arms as she fell.

Christopher walked into the vegetable gardens. One should not venture out into the foul, fever-reeking night air, but he wanted to think, and he couldn’t think in the house. It was quite awful in the house. David was wildly delirious, and only a little while ago when his mother had tried to hold him up in her arms to make his breathing easier he had struck at her with such force that the blow had knocked her down. A chair-leg had cut her head and the cut bled badly, so his father made her go to bed.

Christopher sat on a stump and smoked a pipe. His father didn’t like him to smoke yet, but it kept off the mosquitoes. He wondered if David was going to die. He was fond of David, but if David should die it would mean more to him than his personal sorrow; it would mean—Christopher faced it grimly—that he himself would be locked in a prison for the rest of his life. Queer to think of this vast plantation as a prison. But could he help it if he was bored to exasperation at dirt-grubbing? This passion for land which David and his father shared, this thrilling to a new acre of forest drawn into the circle of indigo—it was all strange to him. He could not to save his life glance at a field of indigo and tell whether its yield would be scant or plentiful, and what was more, he could not care. But little Philip was dead, and if David died he would be the only son left. He would have to accept the plantation as his inheritance.

He didn’t want it, and hellfire and damnation, thought Christopher with black resentment, they didn’t have any right to make him take it. His father and David loved growing plants as if they were something human. Christopher could understand that since the crops were their living good indigo was preferable to bad, but the sight of the leaves unfolding and the stalks ripening in midsummer gave him no experience of creation. His father saw the plantation going on long after himself, an enduring expression of the vitality of his house. David saw it that way too, like a crown prince proud of his heritage.

Oh, David—of course David would see it that way. David was so damn perfect. When they were children David had always been bigger and stronger than himself; David learned faster, and when they played games his father would beam with pride at the way David would stir dead leaves in a bowl and pretend it was an indigo vat. When they began going to balls girls couldn’t get their eyes off David. He was a magnet when it came to girls. Not that he disliked David, but Christopher couldn’t help feeling a bit triumphant now that David instead of himself had taken the fever.

It had all been so simple before David was taken ill. His father, of course, had counted on founding a line of great landowners, but he had been fair enough the day he had called Christopher in and rebuked him for his lack of interest in the plantation. “I know what you’re thinking, Chris,” Philip said—“that because you’re a younger son it’s no use for you to cherish a love of the place. Don’t worry. I was a younger son myself. No child of mine is going through what I did. There’ll be two thousand acres for you, and if you manage that wisely you can add to it by purchase till your holdings are as large as David’s.”

Christopher blurted, “I don’t want to be a planter.”

His father was astounded. But once having got out as much as that, Christopher rushed on:

“Nigger-raising and indigo-churning! Watching the sky for rain like it was a sign of the second coming of Christ! I hate it!”

That a son of his should not want land was nearly as incomprehensible to Philip as if he had not wanted food. “But what do you mean to do?” he asked wonderingly.

“I don’t know,” Christopher owned. “But father, there’s lots of men who don’t grow crops! Mr. Purcell runs the wharfs, and Mr. Durham builds boats—”

Building boats—that was something exciting, Christopher thought now as he bit the stem of his pipe. Controlling boatyards and arguing with traders. Keeping great ledgers of accounts in colored inks. In a business like that one was master of one’s own destiny, not subject to the sun and rain and wind and whatever else the Lord chose to send. There was a career for a man. But if David didn’t get well—Christopher blew a puff of smoke toward a mosquito that was plaguing his knee. He’d miss David if he died. That would be bad enough without having his father tie the plantation around his neck, expecting him to be a second David, when he couldn’t be a second David because he wasn’t born that way. Christopher angrily watched the sky lighten with daybreak. He wasn’t going to let any such thing happen to him. He’d show them.

The morning exploded above him, and Christopher went into the house. He got washed up and had the servants give him some breakfast in the kitchen. Calling Josh, he ordered him to saddle a horse, and if anybody asked for him he’d ridden to town. He went to the big moss house where the Durhams lived.

Alan Durham was at home. Christopher asked about Mrs. Durham. She was very much better, and they took him in to pay his respects. She was lying white and querulous on a long sofa with cushions piled around her. He thought her a disagreeable silly woman, but he was polite, and she told him it was very sweet of him to come and inquire. He was glad she was getting well because now Mr. Durham was relieved of anxiety and was able to return his attention to his business. Christopher asked if he didn’t need an assistant in expanding his boat-building.

“My father has promised me two thousand acres,” said Christopher. “I’ll ask him to give me forest. That will be enough timber for thousands of barges.”

Alan Durham was astonished. Christopher was only seventeen.

“I can’t contract for the land till you’re of age,” he said. “Of course, if you’re really in earnest—”

“Yes sir?”

“I can apprentice you at keeping accounts, assuming that your father consents. You’ll have to start pretty low to learn the business. But—” he hesitated—“what makes you think he is going to let one of his sons be an apprentice?”

“If he won’t,” said Christopher stubbornly, “it’s only four years before I’m twenty-one.”

“Hm. You’re quite sure you won’t mind starting as an accountant?”

“Quite sure, Mr. Durham.”

Alan Durham fiddled with the window-latch. He smiled faintly. Christopher guessed that it was not every day he had such an offer as two thousand acres of timber. Though he was not sure of the present extent of Ardeith, Christopher knew that before buying any land his father made certain it was as good as there was on the bluff. When those acres were cleared any planter would be only too happy to buy them at a good price.

“All right, Christopher,” said Mr. Durham. “I’ll take you on now if your father consents; if not, as soon as you’re of age. How are you at accounts?”

“Very good, sir.” Christopher recalled that arithmetic was the one subject at which he was better than David.

“I see. We’ll draw up an apprenticeship contract now, if you like, but remember it’s no good unless he signs it. Still, if he doesn’t, come back when you’re of age and we’ll talk it over again.”

“Thank you,” said Christopher.

That was all he said. He had never had his brother’s glibness at words.

Chapter Sixteen

T
he fever raced through Dolores and killed her in three days. Caleb suspected she had felt it gripping her long before she fainted in his arms and had held herself up with a furious effort of will until she saw Roger through the crisis. In a flood of self-reproach he tried unsuccessfully to find her other children when a season of cool dry weather ended the plague. But the Upjohns had moved out of the alley where Judith had visited them, and the inhabitants of Rattletrap Square were anonymous except to their immediate neighbors.

When he was sure David was recovering, Christopher went to his father with Alan Durham’s contract. Philip read it and his eyes fastened on the date at the end.

“Chris, that wasn’t necessary.”

“What, sir?”

“If you hate the plantation so much that you tried to escape it when you thought David was dying, I wouldn’t have forced you to stay here in any event.”

Christopher looked away. It did make him feel rather heartless. After a pause Philip said:

“Being an apprentice won’t be much fun.”

“I don’t think I’ll mind,” said Christopher.

Philip smiled reluctantly.

“I suppose I ought to be glad you’re so sure about what you want to do. So many men don’t get their minds made up until it’s too late to begin.”

He dipped his pen into the ink and wrote under Christopher’s signature, “I authorize my son Christopher Larne to fulfill the terms of the above agreement during his minority. Philip Larne.”

“I’ll have to live in town,” said Christopher. “It’s too far to ride in every day. Mr. Durham says I can have a room at his house.”

“Very well,” said Philip.

Judith was angry and hurt when Philip told her Christopher was leaving home. Though David was nearly well she was distraught with what she had been through. The house seemed empty with little Philip gone, and would be emptier still without Christopher. He was a good boy, quiet and dependable, and she would miss him sorely. “But how can he leave us now, Philip?” she exclaimed. “Now, when I need my children so?”

But Philip was more tolerant. “He’ll like us better if we let him go,” he reminded her. “I’m not particularly pleased with the idea of his being an apprenticed accountant, and I don’t think he’ll like it, but I’d rather let him try.”

“Doesn’t this mean he’ll never live with us again?” she asked sadly, fingering the keys at her belt.

“I think not,” he answered smiling. “He’s got to stay there till he’s of age whether he wants to or not, and I’ll wager by that time he’ll be heartily sick of it and glad to get out. But to tell the truth, most of the escapades I got into at his age were because of resentment at not being allowed to do what I wanted, and I’m not going to coerce my children.”

She had to yield. But she found it hard to forgive the undisguised eagerness with which Christopher left them.

The house did seem big and quiet. She had not realized how much she had come to depend on the companionship of her children, and she clung to David more closely than ever. Nursing him through the threatening torments of yellow fever had made clear to her how frightful it would be to lose him. Now that he was stronger Philip suggested sometimes that she was over-mothering him. “He’s grown, you know,” Philip reminded her. “He won’t like it.”

“Nonsense,” said Judith. “He’s very fond of me.”

“Yes, dear, and I’m glad he is, but that’s no reason why you should have interrupted when I started to tell him that as much wine as he and that Durham boy drank last night isn’t good for a youngster just up from a wasting illness.”

“He doesn’t get drunk,” said Judith.

“No, but he will if he starts drinking before he’s nineteen. And after I’ve spent my life building up this plantation I don’t want to leave it to a young fellow who hasn’t any more sense of responsibility than David has now.”

“You needn’t worry about the plantation,” she countered. “David loves every acre of it. I doubt if he’ll ever love a woman as much as he loves his land.”

Philip smiled. David’s zest for the crops filled him with pride, and he was willing to condone a good deal of recklessness in other matters because of it. When David came to them in January with a new plan for Ardeith, Philip was delighted, though the scheme did sound impractical. David announced that he wanted to go to New Orleans. Judith objected—David was still thin, and hardly strong enough for the journey, but he laughed at her.

“Just because you fed me with a spoon last summer doesn’t mean you can do it forever, mother.” He sat on the dining-table, swinging his legs over the edge, and grinned from her to Philip, who had just come in from the tobacco fields. “Listen. I want to see a fellow named Etienne Bore. His plantation is on the river just above New Orleans. He’s been doing things with cane.”

“But my dear boy,” Judith protested, “anything you want to know about cane you can learn here. Ours will be coming up next month.”

“No, wait a minute,” Philip interposed. “What has he been doing, David?”

“Well, this man Bore doesn’t grow cane for chair-bottoms,” David went on eagerly. “Maybe he’s crazy but I want to find out. He crushed the juice out of the cane, and found if you boil it just so and cool it just so and refine it just so—” he paused impressively—“it
sugars
, very fine like sand and unbelievably sweet. You can pack it in bricks and ship it.”

When Philip frowned incredulously at this idea, David persisted. “Father, can’t you see what that means? My Lord, we could ship it to the American states, to Europe, everywhere—if I can find out how it’s done, and if you’ll give me some land and Negroes to try it—”

“And take Negroes out of good proven crops,” said Judith, “to set them boiling cane-juice on the chance that when the stuff cools it will be fit to eat.”

But Philip, though he was generally careful about accepting David’s impetuous ideas, had listened with interest. “It might be worth trying. We do need a new crop—”

“Instead of indigo?” Judith asked with sudden eagerness, thinking of the summer influx of grasshoppers.

Philip dashed her hopes. “No, instead of tobacco. They’ve begun growing tobacco in Kentucky, and it’s better than Louisiana tobacco. The only reason the Kentuckians haven’t ruined our market already is that they have to pay foreign port duties at New Orleans. The Americans are trying to negotiate a treaty giving them free passage of the river, and if they do we can plow our tobacco under and be done with it.”

“I’m pretty sure they can’t grow cane up there,” David urged. “Cane takes lots of sun, and they say it gets awfully cold in Kentucky. May I order a boat, father?”

“Yes, but don’t be too confident. Sugar from cane sounds mighty dreamful.”

David, however, too exuberant to be subdued by warnings, went off to New Orleans in high spirits. Judith still nourished a secret hope that cane might be made to replace indigo. Though she had lived twenty years surrounded by indigo she still hated it—the grasshoppers pouring into the house gave her shivers of loathing, and the stench of the vats made her ill. The piles of rotting stalks around the vats drew swarms of flies reminding her of the Egyptian plague. Civilization and indigo were simply impossible to cultivate in the same place, she sometimes said despairingly when the effort to keep her house clean in summer wore down her nerves.

One day when David had been gone about a month Philip rode over to call at Lynhaven. The Purcells were still in mourning for their father, and he had not seen much of Gervaise or her children during the winter. As he rode through the gates Gervaise’s daughter Emily came running through the garden to meet him. She was the youngest of the Purcell children, a pretty little girl eight or nine years old with a lot of dark hair and a small-featured French face like her mother’s.

“Good morning, Miss Emily,” Philip called as he dismounted. “How are your folks?”

Emily curtseyed. “My folks are fine, Mr. Larne,” she said, and chuckled as she tucked her hand into his. “But they’re having an awful row indoors.”

“A row?” he repeated.

She nodded, and laughed again softly. “Mother and the boys.”

Philip was astonished. He could not imagine Gervaise engaged in anything that might be called a row. He had been walking toward the steps with Emily, but now he paused.

“Maybe I’d better ride on, Miss Emily, and come back later. Just tell your mother we had a letter from David, and he saw your sister Babette in New Orleans. She’s doing fine, and so are the children.”

“I wish you wouldn’t go,” Emily protested. “Mother’ll want to see you.”

But he was about to turn back toward his horse when Gervaise came through one of the long windows to the gallery. She waved and called to him.

“Why, come in, Philip! I thought I heard you talking. How’s Judith?”

Philip smothered his surprise as he greeted her and gave her the news about her married daughter. If Gervaise had been quarreling with her sons she didn’t look much upset by it. Neither did she look as a woman widowed six months ago ought to look. Gervaise had discarded her mourning, and she was amazingly dressed in a rose-colored gown, with a pink ribbon binding back her hair. Her face was almost impish with some secret merriment.

“It was dear of David to call on Babette,” she said. “Now do come in and have a glass of wine with me. Lord knows I need one. My devoted children have been all but ripping me limb from limb.” She laughed. “Did Emily tell you?”

“She told me there was a row,” returned Philip, laughing back at her.

“Was?” said Gervaise. “Is. Come on in.” She caught his arm and pushed back the curtains. Her two older sons were in the parlor glowering. They greeted Philip as if they wished him a thousand miles off. “I’m getting married tomorrow,” said Gervaise. “Harry and George are behaving as if I’d announced I was going to rob a counting-house.”

She was pouring wine from a decanter on the table. Philip glanced at the two boys. Harry was about David’s age and George a couple of years younger.

“Did you tell Mr. Larne the rest of it?” Harry demanded.

“No, precious.” Gervaise, still unruffled, handed Philip his glass. “You may do that.”

“Mr. Larne,” exclaimed George, “maybe you can bring mother to her senses. What do you think of it?”

Philip took the glass and bowed to Gervaise. He was startled, but to save his life he couldn’t find her announcement as shocking as they seemed to. “Frankly,” he said to her sons, “it’s none of my business, and since you ask me, I don’t think it’s yours.”

Gervaise laughed aloud. The young Purcells began talking at once.

“Mr. Larne, he’s six years younger than she is—”

“And he hasn’t a picayune—”

“And father only died last August—”

“He does nothing but dance and play the clavichord—”

“I think mother is losing her mind!”

Philip began to laugh too. Their fierceness was ridiculous against such a barrier of cool amusement as Gervaise presented. Little Emily, though not understanding the complexities of the situation, giggled as though enjoying the excitement.

“My darlings,” said Gervaise, “why don’t you tell him the truth? Never mind, I’ll do it.” She put out a restraining hand. “You see, Philip—”

“Yes ma’am?”

“I’m really marrying a very charming young man. His name is Louis Valcour and he came up from New Orleans last year. Harry wasn’t quite right when he said he hadn’t a picayune. He has a few. But only a few. And my excellent husband, not wanting me to have to ask Harry’s permission every time I went shopping, left me a very good widow’s portion, which if I marry goes with me, and they pretend they object to Louis because he plays the clavichord.”

She poured herself a glass of wine and stood leaning an elbow on the back of a chair while she drank it. The rose-colored ribbon twinkled in her dark hair. She did look like a bride—not like a young and flustered bride, but like a very self-possessed person who was so sure she was getting what she wanted that she had the quiet joy brides were supposed to have and rarely did. Philip thought of a volatile Creole girl of fourteen handed over to a New England colonial to be a docile wife and housekeeper. Gervaise had not been unhappy. Walter Purcell was upright and conscientious; he had done his duty by her and she had done hers by him, so well that until now Philip had never suspected any passionate yearnings under the compromise Gervaise had made with life. He faced her sons.

“Can’t you see what your mother is doing?” he exclaimed. “She’s marrying a Creole. Maybe you don’t understand it, but if I were you I’d try to.”

“Thanks, Philip,” said Gervaise. She faced the boys too. “Listen. For twenty-two years I’ve done what was expected of me. I’ve been placid, obedient, housewifely, sweet and bored. Now I’m through. I’ve fallen in love. Yes I have—absurdly or divinely, depending on how you look at it. I’m going to marry Louis Valcour tomorrow. We’ll have a house in town and you won’t have to speak to him unless you’re so minded. But I’m going to do as I please for once in my life.”

There was a stubborn silence when she had finished, except that Philip whispered:

“I’m proud of you, Gervaise.”

She smiled, as though it was good to have a champion, though she had already been too sure to need one.

Harry and George sighed together. “At least,” said Harry with an air of final protest, “we’re old enough to take care of ourselves. But what are you going to do about the children?”

“I’m going to put little Walter in school in New Orleans. Emily can stay with you at Lynhaven or live with me, exactly as she pleases.”

Philip smiled down at Emily, who sat curled up in a big chair. “What are you going to do, Miss Emily?”

She raised her eyes artlessly. “What do you think?”

“I think, Miss Emily, you’ll have more fun living with your mother.”

“Then I’ll do that.”

Gervaise bent and kissed her. “I thought you would.”

The ladies of the bluff professed to be scandalized at Gervaise’s hasty marriage. Ignoring them as serenely as if they had been rustling leaves in her back yard, Gervaise moved into a little house in town with her Creole husband and for several weeks minded her own business with ironic tranquillity. Her honeymoon over, she invited her chattering friends to a dinner-party.