Passion's Joy (45 page)

No, the duchess realized, the reserve hiding Lady Barrington's boredom went deeper. There was more there, perhaps hinted at by those passions mentioned. She smiled faintly to herself, deciding to unveil the real Lady Barrington.

The duchess signaled an end to the card games while their hostess Lady Brett called for aperitifs to be served. Two servants immediately entered carrying trays, and the ladies retired to the sitting chairs and sofa for quite conversation before the men returned.

Joy accepted the crystal goblet, a Kir Royal, and resisted the urge to use a finger to blend the layer of champagne and crème de cassis in her glass. Lady Barrington was all about resisting urges; she resisted the urge to say anything important and to do or be anything she was, anything that might embarrass him. Smile, keep your small finger away from the glass, don't cross your legs, do sit up straight, address a duchess this way, a marquis that way, and on and on it went, this oppressive list of the endless dos and don'ts.

She lived in the glass cage again, and like a porcelain doll, she was left on the top shelf, never taken down to know a child's play, only stared at from a distance for display. She was so tired of Lady Barrington, of these endless teas and parties and dinners. They were all the same, only the color of the gowns changed. The subjects, the people and their pretenses were all the same. She was tired of dressing in nothing but silks and ribbons, looking like an over done Christmas package, tired of smiling and nodding, pretending to care about that guest list, who that lady will marry, lord so-and-so's gaming debts, or how prettily that lady plays the pianoforte. She had quickly grown weary of people telling her how lovely she was, how miraculously she'd overcome the debit of her background. So tired of it all...

Throughout dinner, her mind had teeter-tottered: these faces contrasting with those of Cory, Reverend, Sammy; the length of the great dining table contrasting with one for four; the delicate Spanish lace over the table cloth contrasting with a red checkered cloth; the engraved silver of the utensils contrasting with the wood ones Cory and she had been so proud to own; the pale blue silk of her dress contrasting with crimson and gold cotton. Joy stifled her homesickness, fighting for composure, a composure she still struggled for as she listened to the chatter around her, wondering how she could love gossiping with Cory so much while this left her empty and cold.

"... Lady Barrington?"

"Pardon." Joy looked up at the Duchess, "I'm afraid I didn't hear that?"

"Madame Merle had just shared her impressions from her recent trip abroad to the states, where she stayed on her son's plantation in North Carolina. How many slaves did you say he owns again?''

Madame Merle Kempster could hardly believe the duchess would condescend to show interest in her son's plantation. "Over two hundred," she announced proudly. "He's the youngest, of course, and while at first we were naturally displeased by his decision to take his inheritance away from Britain, he's done so well." She smiled broadly. "I'm afraid you must forgive me a mother's pride."

"Slaves! Imagine it in this day and age!" the duchess exclaimed, watching as Joy's fingers tightened noticeably around her glass. Relentlessly she pursued, "I understand that slaves are treated no worse than our own servants? Is that how you found it, Lady Barrington?"

All eyes turned to Joy, watching a magnificent play of emotion in her eyes, but she seemed to hold her breath.

"Yes indeed," Madame Merle answered for her. "My son treats his Negroes kindly and fair. Why, in my entire stay, I never heard one complaint from a person of color. Not one!" she repeated happily. "The house servants, why they're almost like family, and the colored woman who cares for my grandchildren, even more so. They call her mammy, isn't that just so quaint... so provincial!"

"A mammy!" the duchess repeated in a tone dripping with sarcasm. "Lady Barrington, did you know any of these charming American equivalents to our cherished English nannies?"

At first no emotion showed in Joy's eyes as she encountered the expectant stares of every lady in the room. "Why yes," she said so softly everyone leaned forward expectantly. "I once knew a mammy. Her name was Delilah. Perhaps my present company would like to hear Delilah's story?"

“Yes, do tell.” The Duchess never hesitated.

"Delilah’s story is uncommon only by its ending—that the well-known and prominent family who owned Delilah had her sold, sold with the barest hint of suspicion that it was she, Delilah, the loving family mammy of two generations, who had been putting arsenic in her young master's food."

Shocked gasps came from all around but she had captured them all, including the men who just threw open the drawing room doors. Once caught, she held them mesmerized as with a haunting sadness, she told the story of Delilah, almost word for word as she remembered Delilah telling it a long time ago:

"Weren't too bad as a youngin," Delilah had explained. "My mama is the mammy then. I get everthin' lil master get—food aplenty, a room beneath de stairs, even a genuine feather bed. Ain't much work for a house nigger chile, either. Until I was 'bout twelve an' master starts eyein' me funny. First time was on the kitchen table. Never said a word neither, but after, he puts a nickel in my hand. I was cryin' so hard I never even know w'at he gives me till I tries to get up. Then I see it

—a nickel! He thinks a nickel even us up! A nickel for the pain an' hurt, for the scared that choked my insides fer near a week!

"Soon I had enough nickels to buy a white folks bank. I had me three youngins by de time I'm seventeen, and oh lawd, but I tell you, those children almost make the nickels worth hit. Two boys ah' a girl! The boys is trouble an' the girl is sweet an' pretty! '

"The oldest boy gets on to six an' my girl is 'bout four, an' the older they get, the plainer it is where I'm gettin' all the nickels from. I know the mistress don’t like lookin' at them none, an' so I tried real hard to keep 'em away. But one day, I'm out pickin' apples an' I get back after the noon sun. I look for my children but I can't find 'em. 'Mama, where's those youngins run off to? But she don’t answer none. Weren't till I look everywhere and I start screamin' an' hollerin' that she says they been taken to town to get sold. She says the mistress, she sells 'em, so she kin get some peace of mind.

"I couldn't talk none for near a year, an' I take to weepin' most all de time. I miss them fiercely! The mistress never did say a word—like my youngins never took breath in her house. This, when I am carin' for her five youngins like they my own—I feeds them, play with ‘em, sing to 'em, nurse 'em. I’m their mammy since the day they be born and every day afterwards. It warn't right; she should’a known it warn't right.

"One day I’m out in the garden pickin' close to the house when I hear the master speakin' to the oldest little master—he was oh, 'bout ten an' five. He says, 'so if’in you gets an urge, pick one of our darkies an' give the girl a nickel. They don’t mind none for a nickel, he says. Delilah's been servicin' me fine for years. I was sick; sick right over the carrots. Not enough that I get nickels from the master, but now I got to get 'em from his boy, too.

"My last babe is born the first day o' summer, and that's what I name her, Summer. I'm scared right off cause—you ain't gonna believe this but her eyes is blue. Yes suh! Summer got these big blue eyes that never did change. Lawd,"—she shook her head—"I tried not to love her. I tried so hard it hurts, but weren’t possible not to love Summer. Even the white folks love her! She ain't like no one else, you see. First off, she's touched. She never learn to talk. Never, but Lawd, ain't never seen a child with so much love an' happiness. She's always a smilin' an' she love everyone an' everythin'—she loves flowers, the ole’ barnyard dog; she loves cats and mice, bugs and peoples.

She were somethin'! Ah Lawd, when that child laugh, everybody laugh. Weren't no sound, but her body a shake and shake, an' she be grinnin' ear to ear. "About when my Summer is four an' its plain she ain't never gonna talk, I suddenly see the lawd made her touched so's that I can keep her. Pretty soon, I know that’s why! An then it seems that all the love for my other youngins is for Summer. I never stop to know that no one cares if in a nigger can talk or no.

"One day I swallow my fear, and I ask the mistress please to let me keep Summer with me.

She says fine, if’in Summer is truly my last child, if in I stop she-cattin' it 'round. She says she hopes I can, 'cause she doan reckon she could part wid Summer neither. That’s what she says. I never knew she been thinkin' it my doin' an' that I deserve to lose my youngins. To dis day, I’se shock.

"Well, I get to feelin' its all gonna be fine anyway cause the young master marries an' moves, an' the ole' master don’t come round no more. But one day the mistress is gone an' I be upstairs with a dust rag an' the master comes with a nickel. I say, 'No,' an' he says he don’t take no from none of his niggers an' he force me. I know how bad it is, lawd, I know. She comes home early— don’t never know if she saw or heard or what. She acts like nothin' happen. But the next day she says she's goin' to town an' wouldn't it be nice to take Summer. I panic, I say no; I want Summer with me. She said I bein' foolish. I start crying and doan never stop for years, cause it was the last time I ever lay eyes on my Summer."

The collective group remained trapped long after the last word, held and mesmerized by the story. Silence reigned, for several seconds too long, shock slowed the reactions. The men waited helplessly, as if waiting for the proper protocol to present itself, but this would be long wait indeed. They were collectively stunned by the contents of the story as well as the fact that it had been told, not just in front of ladies, but by a lady. The shocked silence reigned for several minutes too long.

The ladies fared no better. Lady Brett watched curiously as the room blurred; it being so long since she'd shed an honest tear, she first thought her shock triggered a vision malady. Lady Catherine felt her husband's hands lay across hers and she grasped them fiercely, welcoming his touch for the first time in her three years of marriage. Lady Ann had not in the total of her twenty- six years heard anything like it—the knowledge was bane; after several minutes she realized she was no longer breathing, and with the realization, she swooned. As Lady Ann swooned, Madame Merle conjured horrid visions of her grandchildren at the hands of their mammy, and though her swoon was not nearly as convincing as Lady Ann's, her face paled as she gasped for smelling salts.

Abruptly, chaos overtook the group.

Men called for servants, chairs toppled over in the sudden rush to aid the ladies. Only the duchess remained composed and collected. She would always consider this moment her greatest social triumph: the uncovering the real Lady Barrington. Which was not to say she wasn't affected by Delilah's story. Heavens no! She was as moved by the story, as by the real Lady Barrington.

In the midst of the clamor, Joy felt strong hands gently come upon her shoulders. "I think it's time to leave," was all he said, all he had to say. She rose obediently and quietly, though rebellion rose in a potent force through her heart, mind, and soul. He might have pulled her initially into the depths of despondency, but no one, not even him, could keep her down. A wise old woman's words rose to echo over and over again in her mind. "You might not be happy, but happiness is but a small price for a good life."

Joy now understood what that meant.

If only she had the courage to meet Ram's gaze then; she would have seen that love was not and never had been the issue. He never once thought of the small fortune Delilah's story cost him. No, not once. It was after all only money, and money was nothing when placed against the emotion in his heart—the tragedy of loving the only woman he could not have.

Joy paused nervously outside the hall, hearing the intense argument inside between Ram, Sean, and eight or nine of their captains inside. She hated to interrupt anything important. She hated to interrupt anything period. Yet, the hours she was home and the hours in which Ram was free had not overlapped for the past three days, days which she had anxiously awaited the right time to make her appeal. Mr. Cutler just informed her Lord Barrington planned to leave Barrington Hall again on the morrow, and it was now or never.

She had sent Ram a note through his secretary requesting an audience—the painful irony of having to ask an audience with your husband unfortunately did not escape her-—and she had been told she might come immediately. Now or never. She took a deep breath, smoothed her poor skirts and knocked on the door.

No one answered, the arguing continued about Gibraltar, corsairs, the French. Voices raised and lowered, laughter occasionally interrupted the words. No more frightening group of men existed on earth than these captains. One did not reach their lofty position with any trace of meekness; they each had enough strength, ambition and power to lead hundreds of the most ribald and hardened seamen across the oceans, often to battle and more often than not to victory and and an ever accumulating pile of riches.

Riches, think of the riches they're arguing over!

She knocked harder, more insistently. Ram's secretary, Mr. Mitchell, finally heard and opened the door. Silence descended as she stepped through the door, uncomfortably aware often shrewd and hard gazes, none the least of which was her husband’s. With quiet determination she politely apologized, "Gentlemen, please forgive the interruption." She looked to Ram, "You said I might speak with you now?"

Ram had already opened the adjoining room of his study doors, and with a rustle of skirts, she followed him in. As the door closed, the battle of words resumed again, but she never noticed. She tensed, holding her breath as she felt his gaze wash over her.

The tumult of confusion his nearness always brought! Would it never cease? Do not think of dreams now!

She swallowed nervously; the unreadable expression in his gaze, taken with his overwhelming physical presence as he leaned back against the door were the first obstacles she forced herself to overcome.