Passion's Joy (52 page)

Joy's brows drew together in confusion, but the Reverend was suddenly reliving the emotional content of the dream. "Then, this here lady's upset with me, too! I can't tell you the utter frustration and helplessness I feel as Joshua stands there yelling at me—like I'm too dull-witted to know what he's ravin' about!''

"Yelling?" She turned to look at him. "Joshua never yelled—"

"Aye, but he does a fine job in my dreams. He says over and over! It's plain to see! Right there in the eyes! Look old man—look!' So I look at his eyes, and I look and look— what's wrong darlin? Have I done gone an' upset you with my rambling?"

Joy's eyes darted back and forth across his face. "I had the same dream!" "What?”

"Does this lady have dark hair and blue eyes? Does she wear a cross about her neck?" "Aye! She has dark hair, and I know her eyes are blue 'cause I'm lookin' at their eyes; and

aye, she's got a cross on her neck—" "She's Lady Barrington!" "You're Lady Barrington—"

"Ram's mother!" Joy opened her mouth to speak, but at first no sound came. "What can it mean?" She finally managed. "In my dream, Joshua said the same, and he was agitated, upset. He kept saying, 'Look! Look at the eyes,' but when I look, I see nothing but darkness. Darkness all around. I can't see through it—"

"Not in my dream," the Reverend interrupted. "I see fine in my dream, but it's just this room

—" “What room? Can you describe it?"

"Aye. It's a fine room like I said. Dark pink sofa and chairs. There's this rug—the expensive, imported kind— fancy furnishings. I see a gold or bronze gilded clock on the mantle, pictures hanging on the walls—"

"The portrait gallery at Barrington Hall! It must be! Are the pictures portraits?" Excitement coursed through them both, but the Reverend said, "Can't say for sure—" "Oh, but there's a maroon damask sofa and chairs, an imported carpet—"

"It matches—"

"Yes! Yes! Is the furnishing Louis IV? French?"

"Wouldn't know that from a cobbler's bench." The Reverend never had a mind for such things. "But they're fine—“ He stopped, mystified by the coincidence. “What's this now? What can it mean?"

Joy shook her head. "I don't know." She had heard of such things before, and of course the mystery of the old woman's vision would always be fresh in her mind. This was different though, for— "It's like Joshua's trying to tell us something, something about his eyes—"

"But his eyes are fine! That's what I keep seeing when I look." "Then it's not his eyes, but something he sees."

"Aye, something he sees in that room. He says it's plain to see—" "What? What is amiss in the gallery?"

There it was, the question spoken out loud. They stared at each other in sudden silence as there was no answer. For two days afterward, they talked about it, trying to put the pieces together with wild guesses and leaps of imagination. Upon first hearing about it, Sammy tried to convince them the mystery, like so many others, lay under the great canopy of coincidence. Naturally both Joy and the Reverend explored this avenue many times, only to dismiss it with suspicion rising, not from rational thought. but rather from feelings.

There was a mystery in that room; she just knew it, and as she lay in bed on the second night after the discovery, turning the pieces over and over again for the hundredth time. Somehow, in some way, the mystery of it was connected with him. The mystery of Ram Barrington, the patch and the scar—

Joy sat up abruptly, frightened by her train of thought. Was that it? Was Joshua trying to warn her about little Sean? That Ram was in fact like his father? That he would hurt little Sean as his father had hurt him?

She released her fear in a sudden sigh. She was the one going mad! The dream had nothing to do with little Sean. Ram stood as the most sane, most intelligent and clear witted man she knew, and like his son, there no madness spun in his thoughts or actions. The only madness was her emotions.

Her thoughts spun predictably. Emotions manifest in the intense longing that overwhelmed all other feelings and thoughts. Her love blossomed as a physical need and passionate. The poet's song rang false in her mind; she could live without him—her existence was proof—but she did not want to live without him. Like that child's fairy tale of the mermaid who fell in love with the prince and then sacrificed everything to be with her love, she too, would do anything for Ram's love; she would pay any price—her very life. She would pay anything, but the one thing more precious than her life—the life of a child. She could not knowingly drink that tea.

She turned on her side, gathering the blankets and pillows tight in her arms before shutting her eyes on the darkness. Her memories refused to loosen their tenacious hold on her mind; she

remembered falling asleep in his arms, wrapped in his warmth, their bodies as entwined as their souls, merging to dance in dreams. She remembered waking to feel his lips...

Late fall sunshine filtered through the pale mint green curtains on the kitchen window. With a smile, Cory watched Joy try to go through the motions of being alive, chasing her gregarious little boy about the kitchen and making a game of getting him dressed. One look at Joy though, and Cory knew what had transpired in the night.

If only there was something she could do to help!

Sammy came in with his arms full of wood for the stove, and a basket of eggs. Turning back to the stove, Cory threw a huge slab of fresh butter into the frying pan, just as the Reverend ran down the stairs and announced into the busy kitchen, "It happened again! Joshua came in my dream!"

Little Sean grabbed his unlaced boot, as his mother slowly stood to her feet.

"Twas the same, only now I tried to speak back, but, oh god, I couldn't... I choked ..." "Lawd a tellin'." Sammy sighed loudly as he sat down. "We ain't goin' through this again,

are we?"

Moving into the kitchen, Joy set the pewter pitcher of Meredith’s milk and the basket of bread on the table. "Oh Sammy," she half pleaded, half scolded. "You just don't know how it feels."

"I know plenty. For instance, I know there is nothin' queer about it. Dreams change with the tellin', is all. Sounds like you two had the same dream, but that’s it—it only sounds like you did."

"Maybe," the Reverend admitted as he sat down, and Joy poured coffee in his cup. "But more than anything it's like the lass says—it’ s the feeling that Joshua's tryin' to tell us something."

"Yes." Joy nodded, vigorously. "I only had the dream that once, but I had the same desperate feeling; and then too, Sammy, it's not so easy to dismiss the Reverend's description of Lady Barrington and that room."

"Rooms are all alike—chairs, sofa, pictures. Hey, what's this little Sean?” He grinned at the little boy.

"Boot!"

"What's a boot sound like?" "Moo," he said. “Cow.”

"An' boo!" Sammy scared him into a fit of giggles. "Like ghosts and goblins and things that foolish ole women believe in!"

"Sammy," the Reverend said irritated. "Just for a moment pretend Joshua is tryin' to tell us somethin' important."

Sammy agreed, but reluctantly and with a roll of his eyes and another sigh.

"It's something we're to look at in a room that has portraits of Ram's parents," the Reverend thought out loud. "What about Ram's parents, though? What's the missing piece?"

Cory set down the food. Joy's brows drew together in concentration. Now Cory sighed with frustration. "You two are missin' the point."

"What?" Joy asked distractedly.

"You see a puzzle, yet you are missin' a piece. You lookin' everywhere for the missing piece, but you can't find it. Don't you know why?" This solicited everyone's attention."'Cause it ain't here! It’s in that room back at Barrington Hall."

"She's right, Joy. The answer's in the room."

"But what is in there?" Joy cried in abject distress, right back at the starting point.

Cory threw up her hands. "Pictures of Lord and Lady Barrington," she answered. "There's chairs, a sofa, rugs and all, too, but don't you folks get the sense it's the pictures that’s important?"

"Boo!" Sean said to Cory. "Boo yourself!" Cory said back.

The Reverend, deep in thought, looked up to agree. "Maybe it is somethin' about those pictures ..."

"They're just pictures of two people," Joy said.

Sammy gave up trying to fight them. "Well girl, you are the only one who’se seen 'em. You close your eyes and tell what you see. Hey Sean," he laughed. "Can you get that boot on ole Rake?”

Closing her eyes, she visualized the portraits. Lady Barrington's picture came to mind with remarkable clarity of detail. "Lady Barrington looks pretty, delicate, yet tall and regal, as though one can tell she's a lady of noble birth. She wears a gray silk dress and that cross, all rather austere

—almost like a Puritan."

"That's the cross you found on your vanity, right?" Cory said.

Joy had told them about the incident, how she never got a chance to ask Nanny Collins if it was her doing. When she had mentioned it to Ram, he agreed it must have been the senile old woman's queer way of welcoming her.

"That's another mystery, ain't it?" Cory asked. "Yes, kind of, but—"

"Well, go on," the Reverend said impatiently.

"She's beautiful with dark hair like Ram's and Sean's, and her best feature being pale gray eyes, sad eyes—"

"Nothin' there but that cross, and that don' seem to help none."

"Aye and you'll have to ask that old nanny about that. Drat," the Reverend released his frustrations in another long sigh. "What about the other one?"

Joy closed her eyes again. "Lord Barrington's portrait is remarkable only in that it's unremarkable. One sees no madness there; he looks like a jovial good fellow. Save for his long large nose, there's little resemblance between Ram and his father." She closed her eyes again, resting her head in her palms.

Sammy abruptly wondered why no one was eating before he served up healthy portions. A full day of work waited for him.

"Lord Barrington is not as clear in my mind." She realized. "He leans toward corpulent, I remember, and he has blondish brown hair, a faint smile. I remember his eyes— a beautiful color like aquamarine stones—"

Cory interrupted with laughter, despite the serious subject, for little Sean stood by his mother, and thinking this a game, his eyes closed and he held his head. "Sean, you rascal," she said. "Open those big brown eyes!"

Sammy's fork stopped midair between the plate and his open mouth, and he turned to stare at the boy's enormous brown eyes.

"Oh hell," the Reverend cursed. "Maybe we are just playin' a fool's game."

"Mayhaps it's not the pictures?" Cory asked as she lifted little Sean to her lap for breakfast. "Somethin' else in that room, anything else besides a couch and chairs?"

Sammy was shaking his head, but his eyes were fixed on little Sean's big brown eyes. "What does Joshua say in your dream again?"

"'It's plain to see, look at the eyes,' and oh hell, that's it! Like you say Cory," the Reverend shook his head. "We're going to have to go there to see it."

Joy looked at the Reverend. "Oh goodness, would you really come back with me?"

Sammy's fork dropped, he no longer listened. "My God!" He stood up. "Don't you get it? It is plain to see!"

Sammy met three anxious and confused faces, and he said, 'Remember the Flaubert's babe?" Quite suddenly all four of them were reliving a shared memory. After church one special

Sunday morning, Sammy, the Reverend, Cory and Joy headed out to Bonaparte Street. Monsieur Flaubert's apartments sat atop his prosperous merchandise store and there, sometime during the night, Joshua had attended his wife for the birth of his fifth child. The four Flaubert girls were well known and everyone, especially Mr. Flaubert, was praying for a boy this time.

Cory and Joy sat in the back of the cart with their legs, arms and fingers crossed over each other for luck. Generous beyond belief, if Monsieur Flaubert had a boy child, no doubt she and Cory would land a piece of candy from the huge glass jar on the counter. The Reverend would get a cigar, which would be split in two for Sammy. True, in the last year, Cory and she were acutely conscious of maturing, and though they pretended not to care about the candy, nonetheless as they climbed into the cart and sat down beside each other, their arms, legs and fingers had crossed of their own independent volition. Seeing it caused giggles to interrupt Joy's reading of the psalms in French as they moved along.

"Some men are just girl makers, is all," Sammy said to the Reverend up front in the driver's seat as the cart rolled along.

"Aye." The Reverend chuckled, musing; "I once came across this man who had nine daughters, not a single boy, and lord, each one of those girls was not just as homely as they come, but toothless to boot! Imagine tryin' to get all nine of 'em married out."

"That would sure give me cold feet headin' to bed!" Sammy laughed. "Hell, I’d go for castration at that point." The Reverend laughed.

Cory and she exchanged confused glances.

"I thought only horses were castrated?" Joy asked with a fourteen-year-old's keen knowledge of the world.

"Never you mind about that," Sammy said.

Joy started an indignant protest, but the Reverend interrupted with a reminiscence about his last cigar, and Cory nudged her side, triggering another eruption of giggles. The cart turned down Bonaparte Street, pulling up in front of the wide awning and painted window of Flaubert's Store.

The streets bustled with churchgoers and Negroes, free for the Sabbath to enjoy their music at Congo Square. Yet, with the exception of the marketplace, all stores and shops had closed.

Flaubert's was no different, though as the cart came to a complete stop and four gazes greeted the unnatural quiet and dark store, they knew something horrible had happened.

Joy remembered Cory's hand slipping into hers, the solemnity descending upon the four of them. Of course, it was sadly not unheard of, but after four healthy births, one was not prepared to hear of a tragedy. "Something's happened," she said what they all knew.

"Aye," the Reverend said. Abruptly he spotted little Michael, the Flaubert’s' Negro boy, peeping from the alley. "Hey Michael, run up and fetch the doctor. Tell him we're here."