She slapped him, and he cried out, not from pain, but astonishment. It was the first time in his life she had ever struck him.
“Laubache would see you dead first. Never would he allow his daughter to marry a Cajun!”
“She says it doesn’t matter,” he dared argue. “She swears nothing is going to stop us.”
Mavaline Cody threw up her hands and offered a whispered prayer to God to make her son see that he had surely lost his mind. “Where would you take your bride, my son? Here? In the bayou? You think a girl like her would be happy as a Cajun wife?
“Oh, my son, my son.” She cried even harder. “Did I raise you to be so blind and stupid?” She sank to the cot beneath the window, lowered her face to her hands, and began to cry.
He had left her then, knowing he had but a few precious hours to spend with Margette—and also aware nothing he said would make any difference, anyway.
Margette had been angry that he was late. He’d tried to tell her about the ugly scene, wanting assurance his mother was wrong, but Margette didn’t want to waste time talking. She stripped him of his clothes and cast aside her own, wild with passion.
As the first fingers of dawn clawed at the eastern horizon, they clung together, bodies slick with perspiration. “I’ve got to have you all the time,” she gasped, her tongue circling his ear as she danced her fingers up and down his belly. “I want you in a house, in a real bed, and where I can have you any time I want you. This meeting in the middle of the night, with the mosquitoes and gnats all around, rolling on these hard planks, is terrible.
“And I can’t help thinking,” she added huskily, “how much better it’ll be somewhere else.”
He was used to Margette’s rambling on about their future, but this night, needled by his mother’s grim foreboding, he found himself on edge, alert for any sign she might be right.
“I think I’ve finally convinced Daddy to buy a house in town,” Margette was saying, “so I can use it for the social season, or shopping trips, and what I can do is just tuck you away there for my very own. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Of course, Mammy Lucy would have to be with me when I stayed there. It wouldn’t be proper for folks to think I’d stay there alone, but she won’t say a word about you being there, because she knows if she did, I’d have her whipped, so—”
Brett sat up so quickly, she fell away from him with a squeal of protest. Anger rising, he cried, “Wait a minute. You said when grinding season was over, we’d be getting married. What the hell are you talking about?”
She sat up, began pulling on her gown as she petulantly explained, “I have to wait till the time is right. We both know Daddy isn’t going to like it, and neither is Mommy, but till I can convince them, you can just stay in town, and I’ll take care of you.”
“And what happens if they never agree?”
“Oh, well.” She picked aimlessly at a strand of hair that had tumbled onto his forehead. “We’ll be together, anyway, and that’s what counts. I mean, you’ll have a good life, Brett, and I’ll make sure you always have the best of everything. You’ll never have to work or do anything—”
“Except keep you properly fucked,” he snapped.
“What’s wrong with you? Are you crazy? It’s a wonderful arrangement.”
“I’m a free man, Margette, not one of your daddy’s breeding bucks.” He got up and jerked on his trousers. It was getting light, and besides, all of a sudden he couldn’t get away from her fast enough.
“Wait, Brett. Don’t go, please.” She threw herself against his chest and clung to him, pleading, “Don’t you see? This is the only way for us right now. I’ll come into town as often as I can. We can make love all the time.”
She began to rain tiny kisses over his face, but he stood motionless, his expression granite. When he did not speak, she took the silence for assent, albeit reluctant. Pressing closer, so her breasts rubbed provocatively against him, she whispered huskily, “All you’ll ever have to do, my darling, is fill me up with your love.” Her hand dropped to his crotch.
He pulled from her grasp. “I’m not for sale, Margette, so why don’t you just go pick out one of your daddy’s slaves, a nice, big buck for your very own?”
For the second time that night, he was slapped.
Face twisted in a furious grimace, she cried, “Who the hell do you think you are, talking to me like that? You should be grateful, damn you! I’m offering you a life of luxury.” She raised her hand to hit him again, but he caught her wrist and held it.
“No more, Margette.”
“Bastard! You’re nothing but a—”
“Cajun, right?” he interjected.
“Exactly,” she fired back, “and you should be grateful I’d even consider making you such an offer.”
“And flattered you thought I was a good enough stud to keep you serviced in privacy, so you could play the role of vestal virgin for the blue-blooded beaux your family approves of. You never had any intention of marrying me.”
Her lips curled back in a snarl of contempt as she pushed her face against his, demanding, “And what else would a dirty Cajun be good for? Do you think I’d actually want to marry a swamp rat? That’s all you are, you know, you and all your people. You were run out of your own country, because you weren’t wanted, and you’ve bred with the Negroes and the Indians, and—”
“And hypocritical young girls who masquerade as prim and proper ladies by day and romp like wild, wanton whores by night.” Disgusted, he shoved her harder than intended.
She fell, yelping with pain as she hit the floor, scraping her elbows. “You’ll be sorry, you dirty bastard!”
Her hysterical cries had rung out in the stillness of the dawn as he ran from the gazebo.
Brett shook his head viciously to clear away the painful cobwebs from the past.
Margette had been right.
He had been sorry.
Very sorry, indeed.
Her screams had brought everyone in the house running to see what was going on. She said he had tried to rape her, and he figured the only thing that had saved him from being hunted down and lynched was the question of what she was doing out in the gazebo at such an hour.
Margette’s indiscretion, however, had not excused his daring to cross the invisible, forbidden line.
That same day, Haskill Laubache had sent a foreman to the field to summon both Brett and his father to his office.
Grim-faced and obviously fighting to keep from lunging at Brett, Laubache choked out the edict that if either of them were ever seen on his land again, they’d be shot on sight.
Leo went into a rage, for he’d known nothing of his son’s involvement with Haskill’s daughter. His job paid more than any he’d ever had before, and the working conditions were superior to other plantations. He begged Haskill to keep him on and make Brett leave, but Haskill stonily refused.
That night, with his mother begging him to stop, Leo had beaten Brett mercilessly.
Brett hadn’t lifted a hand to his father, but as he lay on the floor, battered and bloody, he swore out loud he’d never take a licking from him again. “And don’t worry,” he said, spitting blood. “I’m getting out. And I won’t be back.”
Brett grimaced to think how he’d kept at least a part of his vow. The very next morning, he had left to wander for nearly a year before winding up in Massachusetts to sign on with a whaler ship. Whale oil for lamps was in great demand, and the idea of traveling around the world was intriguing. So, for the next three years he found himself sailing the Pacific and Indian Oceans and on into the Arctic Ocean and Bering Strait.
When at last he had returned to America, he wanted to see his mother. He’d never enjoyed a good relationship with his father, but always, he had loved her.
Making his way back to Mississippi and the Black Bayou, he discovered his parents had moved. He kept on searching and finally traced them to Louisiana and Bayou Perot, just in time for his mother’s funeral.
His father had dispassionately described her last months. He had taken her to a hospital in New Orleans, where they could do nothing to ease her suffering from some strange malady. When she finally died, Leo couldn’t even pay for her casket. Brett hadn’t saved anything from his earnings at sea. He’d had no reason, instead throwing his money away in every port they came to, on whiskey and women. But he made up his mind to honor his mother’s memory by paying all her bills.
He laid aside the jug of wine, too restless to sit still any longer. He wanted to walk the forest as darkness closed in, to try to escape the invisible clutches of the past.
His father liked it at BelleClair and had progressed to become one of the overseers. He assured Brett that Elton Sinclair had his eye on him for the same kind of promotion. But all Brett wanted was to get the bills paid and then move on. Meanwhile, he kept his distance from his father because he despised him.
The sound of a distant whistle and the sight of lights offshore caused him to realize he’d traveled farther than he’d realized in his reverie. He was on the levee, overlooking the river, and not too far away was the huge, draping willow where he’d followed Anjele Sinclair that day.
He smiled to think of the encounter, for his first impression of her had been dashed. Though quite beautiful, she wasn’t at all the spoiled rich girl he’d taken her to be. Instead, she seemed possessed of a zest for life, eager to experience everything it offered.
He started to turn back, but a movement caught his eye. A figure emerged from the darkness, skipping merrily across the lawn leading from BelleClair Manse. It was a woman, a girl, he could see now, for her long hair was flowing behind her in the wind, along with the sheer garment she was wearing.
The moon peered out from behind a silver-tinged cloud, and he saw the flaming tresses and knew it could only be Anjele Sinclair.
He watched with interest as she disappeared inside her leafy sanctum.
Something told him to leave, while another part of him reminded he was no longer an innocent boy of sixteen. He was a man. He had been around the world and few things fascinated or frightened him.
So there was no harm, he rationalized, in speaking to Anjele this warm, sweet night.
He headed for the willow tree.
It had been a particularly boring evening for Anjele. Raymond and his parents had been invited for supper, and afterward, his mother had insisted she play the piano. She hadn’t wanted to, but polite protests went unheeded. Claudia had stood by glowering but expertly changed her expression to sweetness and light whenever she could catch Raymond’s eye.
The men had eventually drifted into the smoking parlor for cigars and brandy, anxious to continue the political discussion they’d been forced to abandon at the dinner table, due to the disapproving glances from their wives. Abraham Lincoln had been chosen by the Republican Party of Illinois to challenge the incumbent Stephen Douglas for the senate. Mr. Lincoln, it seemed, had antagonized many staunch proslavery Democrats from the South when he’d said in his acceptance speech at the convention that he believed the government could not permanently endure if
made up of half free states and half slave-holding states.
Anjele would have much preferred to listen to them criticize Mr. Lincoln than hear her mother and future mother-in-law prattle on about wedding plans.
Finally, the evening had ended, with Ida Duval setting a date for yet another party to celebrate the coming wedding. “Christmas isn’t that far away,” she’d gaily reminded them as they all exchanged good-byes on the porch.
Elton, a twinkle in his eye, had pretended to grumble, “Seems to me you young folks could’ve set a more convenient wedding date than a busy time like grinding season.”
“Oh, listen to him.” Twyla laughed. “You’d think there’s a time at BelleClair that isn’t busy.”
“And that’s exactly why I’m glad I married a doctor instead of a planter,” Ida said. “I much prefer the excitement of New Orleans. But don’t you worry, dear.” She turned to Anjele. “Soon you can leave all this behind you and move into the city.”
Anjele’s smile was forced, because thoughts of leaving BelleClair made her sick. The last thing she wanted to do was live in town, but it seemed she had no say in her life anymore, and dismally realized she’d never had.
Finally, she had gone to her room. And once the house was settled and quiet, she had sneaked out and down the trellis to her special place.
Here, at least, she could dream about another kind of existence.
Spying the lights of a passing riverboat, she wondered what it would be like to travel the mighty river north. If she were a man, she knew she’d probably never be able to settle down, wanting, instead, to see as much of the world as possible.
Startled by the sound of movement in the darkness, she called nervously, “Is someone there?”
Brett pulled the draping fronds apart and stepped inside, barely able to make her out in the darkness. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I was out walking and saw you come down here. Mind if I join you?”
She was glad to see him. Despite all her resolve, she’d thought of him constantly since their last meeting. “You might as well,” she replied, laughing. “But I find it strange after all my years of coming here without anyone knowing, that suddenly my secret is discovered.”
“I won’t tell anybody.” He lowered himself to sit beside her. “I’m surprised nobody noticed before now. Pretty as you are, somebody should watch you all the time.”