The black swan (28 page)

"Get up those stairs!" her mother screamed in a tone she had never heard before. She ran up and turned the corner, still listening.

Snatches of conversation floated up to her, "Ah've nevah been so shamed—never expected mah Mammy to do this . . . mah innocent child!" There was the humble entreating tone of Mammy's voice but no words. Then the pronouncement of doom: "Mr. Jem will sell you tomorrow!"

"Please, Miss Trishy . . . please . . ."

Dulcie ran back down the stairs. She clutched her mother's hand. "No, Mama, please don't! Don't sell Mammy. I'll be good! I promise forever and ever!'*

Patricia Moran, with a terrible expression on her gentle face, turned her daughter over her knee and gave her the only spanking of her life. She took her by the arm and marched her to her room and locked her in. Then she

went to find Jem. He and his grand scheme had brought this on them, and he could provide the solution.

Mammy had been right about one thing. Neither of the Morans wanted a Mammy with a newborn baby. Her job was to train Dulcie to become a vSouthern lady having no knowledge of carnality or its consequences. Almost too quickly to comprehend, Mammy found herself locked up. For Jem, Mammy no longer existed. She was too old to breed; she was a disobedient servant. Worst of all, she had bred indiscriminately, lowering the quality of his stock. In two days, the soonest Jem could reach Spig Hurd, she and her child were on their way to the auction block.

Dulcie, confined to her room alone, was desolate. Even when she had been flouting Mammy's rules, she was very fond of her. Getting into trouble from now on wouldn't be so much fun without Mammy on her heels.

Even mealtimes and dressing and bathing weren't any fun. A house servant, a tiny sixteen-year-old named Clau-dine, brought her meals. Dulcie tried to engage her in conversation, but Claudine would only look scared and say, "Hush, Miss Dulcie. Ah ain't s'posed to talk to you."

"Why doesn't my mama come up and see me?'*

"Hush, Miss Dulcie."

"Where's my daddy? I want to see my daddy!"

"Miss Dulcie, finish up that breakfast an' hush your talkin'."

Dulcie, after two days of the silent treatment, was getting more and more frightened and uncertain. Her mama and daddy didn't love her anymore! They had sold Mammy, for Spig Hurd came and got her in his wagon.

"When will I get to go outside again?"

"Hush, Miss Dulcie. I'm not 'lowed to speak to you."

Dulcie sat at a small table, napkin tucked under her chin. She looked at Claudine, standing with her thin arms folded. She looked at the plate of soft fried eggs, biscuits with jam, bacon, and milk and strawberries. Dulcie picked up the plate and hurled it at Claudine, then cast herself onto the bed, crying loudly.

Jem heard her and came in. Ignoring Claudine's bespattered condition, he made straight for the bed. He picked up his outcast child and held her close. "There, there, Dulcie, it's all right."

"Daddy, Fm scared! And I want Mama!" Dulcie wailed.

"Mama's still asleep. Now stop cryin'. I'm takin' you down to breakfast with me. This damned foolery has gone on long enough."

Released from durance, Dulcie tried to be a model child, a real li'l lady Mammy could be proud of. For several days she sat in nerve-wracking peace, playing listlessly with her dolls, reading books, doing her needlework without being told, and sighing fit to drive her mother wild.

"Dulcie, wouldn't you like to go outside and play in youah swing?"

"No, thank you. Mama. I'll just finish hemmin* your kerchief I'm making."

Later: "Ah can have Hersel take you for a carriage ride. You could visit the Saunderses. Wouldn't that be nice?"

"No, thank you. Mama. I'm readin' Redburn again. It's a very interestin' book by Mr. Melville about a sailor's first voyage."

By week's end Patricia was heartily irritated by the constant sight of her suspiciously well-behaved daughter. Though there were no past parallels for her angelic behavior, Patricia feared that, as Mammy used to say, "Miss Dulcie jes' gwine bus' out in a new place." Surely, with a houseful of servants, she should not be expected to entertain her daughter along with her other duties. Patricia talked to Jem about it.

Afterward she said to Dulcie, "Your daddy an' Ah have decided youah almost a young lady, old enough cot to need a mammy anymore."

Fleetingly the old fire lit in Dulcie's eyes, but she looked down at the shining toes of her slippers. "Yes, Mama. Whatever you say."

"We've decided to give you a servant—a maid. Would you like that?"

Still watching her slippers, Dulcie said tonelessly, "Who?"

"Daddy an' Ah . . . thought you might like to have Claudine."

Privately except for the two days of imprisonment, Dulcie liked Claudine immensely. Claudine had been bom in the quarters, Rosaleen's sixth child. She was a frail infant, unwanted by her mother, who shoved her aside and let her milk dry up. But huge Violet, the cook, who had a

new baby of her own and milk for half a dozen, took Claudine into the kitchen to raise as her own.

Claudine was clever-minded, as quick-moving as Dulcie, a happy girl eager and open to all the wonders life could hold. When Jem began his breeding farm, it was already apparent that Claudine would never carry a child in her narrow pelvis. Patricia began teaching Claudine to do her hair and hook up her gowns and to recognize what ladies might properly do and what they might not. Claudine seemed suitable in every way.

Dulcie didn't want to acquiesce too readily. Mama might take Claudme away. "No, thank you, Mama. I don't like her."

"But you've always gotten along so well with her!"

"Not anymore. I'd rather have Grace."

"Grace! But Dulcie honey, Grace is so stupid. Claudine is—"

Dulcie's eyes met her mother's defiantly. "I don't want Claudine!"

She cloaked her triumph when her father insisted. "No more o' this hagglin', Dulcie Jeannette. Claudine is going to be your maid!"

With Claudine in attendance Dulcie was once more interested in going outdoors. She reestablished old patterns, her first stop being Fellie's cobbler's shop.

"Wheah you been, Miss Dulcie? Ah got a heap o' sweets pilin' up since you ain't been 'round." Fellie opened a box on his workbench, disclosing small molasses candy treasures Ester made for him to give the children. Fellie was the favorite of every child on the plantation. He loved his own with a possessive pride and enjoyed the company of the others.

From Fellie's shop Dulcie and Claudine went to the orchard. They climbed trees and sat perched on convenient limbs, sucking on Fellie's candies and talking. Dulcie already rode well, preferably astraddle and bareback. In time, Claudine learned to manage a horse well enough to keep up with her mistress.

Claudine did not, however, neglect her duties. Her gentle affection carried far more weight with Dulcie than Mammy's heavy-handed dictums. She managed to keep her hair and clothing in order and to arbitrate dissension among Dulcie and her playmates, children of neighboring planters. Mostly the arbitration was needed between Dulcie

and Glenn Saunders, who generally came out on the short end of Dulcie's pranks and needed soothing. It was not without setbacks that Claudine was slowly molding her young mistress into the outward forms of a lady. But her quick mind and strong passions that Jem had spoken of remained private and independent.

Patricia, in her literalness, saw her daughter's struggles to behave properly and was pleased. "Dulcie honey, Ah'm goin' ovah to Saunderses' to take tea this afternoon. Would you like to go along?"

"Do I get to play with Birdie and Blythe and Blossom?*'

"Of course," Patricia smiled. "Weah youah white organdy dress with the bluebirds embroidered on it, so you jes' be lookin' youah prettiest."

The Saunders plantation was several miles from Moss-rose, facing, as Mossrose did, the Savannah River. Here grew pecan and hickory groves and peach orchards. Set among the trees were bee gums, hives made from a hollow black gum tree, two feet in diameter and height, with a board nailed on for a cap and a hole bored at the bottom for the bees to enter.

Mrs. Saunders's lemonade was cool and refreshing. Her finger-sized cakes with the rosebuds on top were delicious. Dulcie had three before she caught the warning eye of Claudine from the hallway. Giggles were not far below the veneer of her good deportment.

Blossom, who was fifteen and already receiving serious attention from Mr. Chilcote's son, Jan, led the teatime chatter. Birdie and Blythe exchanged glances with Dulcie, and the game was on. For each subject Blossom attempted to discuss, the three younger girls each had an opinion, sedately phrased, deferential to elders, and infuriating to all concerned. Finally, tea was cleared away.

"Mama, can't these children go outside and play jack-stones or somethin'?" asked Blossom, brown eyes flashing.

All three girls cast down their eyes to hide their elation.

Out in the backyard, safe from the view of Mama, Dulcie said, "Race you. Birdie! First one to the jessamine bushes!" Ofif they ran, ruffled gingham and organdy flying. Blythe, who was twelve to the other girls* eleven, ran not to race, but just to be running.

"Beat you, Dulcie!" said Birdie happily.

"Race you again to the first pecan tree! One, two, three, go!"

This time Dulcie won, but as she generously pointed out. Birdie was already tired from her first r2ice. They walked in the grove, arms around each other, crinolined full skirts brushing and bouncing airily.

Dulcie stopped suddenly. "Are those things really full of bees?"

Blythe said, "My daddy says there's ten thousand in one bee gum."

Not sure if she believed it, Dulcie said only, "Huh!'*

"And there's honey too," said a voice from the tree above them.

As it was expected of them, the girls shrieked in surprise. Dulcie knew, of course, that Glenn would be in the groves, either following them or hiding behind a tree waiting to jump out and yell, "Boo!" She would infinitely have preferred it to be Todd Saunders who followed them, but it was always her old playmate and adversary, Glenn. Glenn was thirteen, blonde and soft, not exactly a girl, but certainly far from being a boy yet. Being Todd's brother didn't improve his image in Duleie's eyes. Todd was older, slhn-mer, and more agile than Glenn. The only problem was that Todd paid not the slightest attention to the younger girls.

Glenn landed with a heroic thump on the ground in front of them. "Want to see a whole bunch of bees, Dulcie?"

"What for?" she asked suspiciously.

"See what they look like, goose. Unless you're afraid . .."

Dulcie picked up the gauntlet. "Afraid of what? An ol' log full of bugs? I'll bet you're too scared to take the top off a bee gum!"

"That's not bein' scared, only sensible," he said loftily. "That's not the way you do it. Depend on a girl to be too dumb to know." He ignored the snickers of his sisters. "I'll show you." He took one of his father's cigars from a hiding place, put it in his mouth, and lit it, sending clouds of blue smoke into the trees. Then he bent near the bee gum and blew smoke into the little hole at the bottom. "That's to let the bees know you're there." He blew in several more puffs.

"I don't see a single bee!" said Dulcie indignantly, bending so she could look up the hole. "That's an empty hole, Glenn Saunders, you're just tryin' to homswoggle me.

Glenn, starting to pale from the cigar smoke, puffed harder.

Impatient, Dulcie picked up a stick. "I'll see if there's any bees," she said, and poked it into the little hole.

Bljrthe and Birdie had started edging away the moment Glenn lit the cigar. When he began smoking the hive, they ran pell-mell. By the time the swarm began to pour out of the bottom of the hive in an angry brownish stream, Glenn's sisters were safely out of sight.

"Dulcie, runi" Glenn said, grabbing her arm and following his own advice. **The pondl"

Dulcie started to argue, but a sting on her arm, then on her neck, spurred her to a speed she had never before attempted. Glenn was left behind, yelling, "Jump inl Jump inl'* She reached the duck pond and kept right on running until the water closed over her head.

Glenn splashed in beside her. They stayed underwater, coming up for quick breaths, until the swarm buzzed angrily back to the grove.

"Glenn Saunders, you made me ruin my dressl"

Glenn's face was covered with reddening lumps, each with a little brown sprout coming out of it. One eye was swelling shut. He looked at Dulcie through the other one, "I don't feel very good,'* he said.

Dulcie looked up to see Claudine running down the path toward the pond. ''Whatever we gwine tell your mama dis time. Miss Dulcie? Ain't no way we can hide dis onel'*

Dulcie climbed out of the pond, her dress streaming mud and water. "I think you'd better tell Mama I'm ready to go home now, Claudine."

Chapter Two

By 1860 Mossrose had the look and the reputation of a successful plantation. And Jem's daughter was the most sought-after belle in the county. Jem's pride knew no bounds when it came to his wife, his daughter, and his land. For them there was no second best, and Dulcie's

coming of age was a time in their lives to be marked grandly.

Dulcie's sixteenth birthday party began at nine o'clock on a warm October morning. She had been dressed and nervously waiting for nearly two hours. She had tried to see her father, but he had been closeted in his study all morning, talking a cotton deal with a shipper. Now, hearing the smooth roll of wheels on the sandy drive, she said, "Quick, Claudine, touch up my hair in the back. Oh, dear, I just know I'm going to sweat today. Do I look all right?'*

"Yes, ma'am, you sho'ly do. Mastah Glenn jes' 'bout eat you up. Have you got it in yo' mind what you gonna say when he p'poses?"

Dulcie whirled toward the door, her hoops making the full skirt of her amethyst silk dress sway like a bell. "Dear Mr. Saunders, while I do not disregard your expressions of esteem and affection and find your attentions not unwelcome, still I must ask you to wait your turn in line, as I am most desirous of catching myself a more suitable husb—"