Deep Summer (16 page)

There was a knock on the door. She jerked up. The knock was repeated and she heard Christine’s voice calling:

“Miss Judith! Supper’s on table.”

“I’m not coming to supper,” said Judith. “Go away.”

How strange her voice sounded. Clinky, like the sound of a key striking a brass candlestick. She wondered if Christine knew about this. Perhaps Angelique was not the only one. Angelique was the most attractive of them, but she was not the only pretty quadroon in the house. Oh yes, probably they all knew about it and had laughed at her innocence or had been sorry for her. They had talked of it in the kitchen and in the quarters, furtively. “Po’ Miss Judith. Wonder if she’ll ever find out how Mr. Philip’s carryin’ on.”

“Shut yo’ crazy black mouf. You know what you’ll get for talkin’ too big.”

They wouldn’t tell her. They were Philip’s slaves and they knew too well what punishments there were for slaves who displeased their master. He could do this to her because the very sheltering he had given her made her helpless; she did not own a farthing nor a slave nor a pound of indigo. She bit the flesh of her arm to keep from screaming.

She had not bolted the door. The latch was lifted from outside and Philip came in. Judith raised up again, her hands on each side supporting her as she looked at him. Philip stood there a moment, then he came to the bed and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Judith,” he said, “I’m so horribly ashamed and sorry.”

She did not reply. She sat there looking at his handsome face with the laughter-crinkles about the eyes and the scar across his cheek, the white linen stock about his throat, the ruffles that went down into his yellow satin waistcoat, his long blue coat, the dark breeches buckled about his well-turned legs, and wondered that she had never known it was possible to hate any human being as much as she hated him. She hated his virile beauty and the strength in the hand that held her shoulder, the fine chiseling of his features, all the details she had loved so much and that made him as irresistible to other women as he had been to her.

“What do you want me to do, Judith?” he asked at length.

“I want you to take your hand off me,” said Judith, “and let me alone.”

He released her. Judith got up and walked to the bureau at the other side of the room. The candle had melted down to a shapeless mass. She pinched a drip of tallow as she asked him:

“Do you know what you’ve done to me, Philip?”

He said, “Yes.”

“No you don’t,” she returned in a low voice, still watching the guttering candle. “You don’t understand. You never will. It isn’t in you.”

She was surprised to hear herself speaking so evenly. Temper storms came readily to her when there was nothing of importance to be angry about. She went to the door and put her hand on the latch.

He came after her and took her by the shoulders with both hands, turning her around to face him. “You aren’t going yet.”

“Yes I am. I’m not going to stay and talk to you.”

“But you are,” said Philip.

She tried to free herself, but he held her where she was. “Very well,” she said wearily. “You’re stronger than I am. What is it?”

For a moment he did not answer. His mouth was shut so tight that it was like a line across his face. At last he said, “Judith, I know what you’ve been thinking of me. I’m not going to let you go till I’ve told you it’s not true.”

She gave an exasperated little sigh. “Don’t try to tell me it’s not your child Angelique is carrying.”

“It is,” said Philip. “I’m not trying to lie to you.”

“It doesn’t make any difference,” she answered. “I couldn’t believe anything you said anyway.”

“You’ve got to believe me,” he exclaimed. “You’ve got to understand that this never happened before and never will again. I’m surer of that now than I was the night I married you. I never could let women alone before. I’ve told you that. I thought I’d done with that sort of thing. Then you went to New Orleans. You were gone nearly four months.”

He stopped. She was looking past him at the darkness beyond the window, where there was a magnolia tree with white flowers like great dim stars.

“Are you listening to me?” he demanded.

“No,” said Judith. “I suppose men always think women are going to believe tales like that.”

“It’s true,” said Philip.

She looked around the room where he and she had lived for so long. Nothing about it had changed since this afternoon, only everything looked bigger and darker in the faint light. She had loved it so, and had worked hard to make it attractive. The curtains she had hemmed herself, and she had crocheted the bedspread and only this morning she had arranged the roses on the bureau.

She said, “Philip, will you please let me get out of here?”

He let her go. She opened the door and walked down the passage without looking back. In the hall she saw Angelique, standing there as if she had been waiting. Angelique stepped away from the wall as she passed.

“Miss Judith,” she began.

Judith caught her breath. “Go to your room,” she said. “Stay there till you’re sent for.”

“All right,” said Angelique quietly.

Judith went on down the hall and opened the door of the room where David and Christopher slept. In the dark she could just make out the outlines of their little figures in the big bed. David slept straight, on his side, with his hands out in front of him. Christopher was cuddled up in the shape of a question-mark. Judith shut the door softly behind her and began taking off her clothes. Letting her dress and stays and petticoats lie on the floor where they had fallen, she slipped into the bed in her chemise and drew the little boys into her arms. They were so soft and sweet. David’s fluff of golden hair was like silk under her fingers. She thought how much she loved them, and wondered if they would grow up to hurt her as their father had done.

She shut her eyes, but she could not go to sleep; she turned away from the children and buried her face in the pillow. Her numbness began to pass, leaving her with a flaming sense of fury. She felt a wild desire to make Philip and Angelique suffer as they had made her suffer. Angelique—she had been so good to Angelique to be used like this! Judith began to think of all the things she could have done to Angelique, ordering that she receive twenty lashes for burning her hair with the curling-irons—some women did. She wanted to do it now. How she would love to see Angelique’s beautiful slim body tied to the post, quivering under an overseer’s whip!

Only now she couldn’t do it. Philip would not let her. Philip who had gone to sleep last night with both his arms around her—he would protect Angelique from her, because Angelique was his mistress.

She wished she could shed tears. Her eyes were hot as if she had a fever.

Day was breaking when she finally went to sleep. But the children woke noisily at sunrise. They were surprised to find her with them, and thought there should be some sort of celebration, a pillow-fight or a game, and David got one of the petticoats off the floor and tried to dress up in it, marching up and down in his bare feet with the flounces trailing behind him. Mammy was astonished too, or pretended to be. Judith told her to have Christine bring coffee to her here.

She was aching with sleeplessness, but the children were too rackety to let her try to sleep again, so she told Christine to bring her fresh clothes and hot water. Christine obeyed timidly, as if frightened. She said Mr. Philip had ridden early into the fields. As she did not see Angelique about the house, Judith supposed she was still in her room. She tried to give David his lesson without much success, for he was restless and she herself too unhappy to care whether he learned his letters or not. He went out to play and Judith told Christine to move her things from the master bedroom into the room where Dolores had stayed. She stood in the window, looking out at the gardens and the fields beyond and the dark border of the forest, with a feeling of empty deadness. Christine brought her dinner on a tray, but she sent back nearly all of it. Most of the day she spent walking from one wall to the other, too tormented to sit still and too tired to do anything. The house was hushed, as if somebody had just died in it. Nobody came near her. From the windows she could see the children playing, and the servants wandering about, talking in undertones. Toward evening she saw Philip riding up and Josh leading away the horse. She put her hands over her eyes, but she only shivered and did not cry. She had not even tears to give him. At last she called Christine and let herself be undressed and put to bed. It was late when she remembered that she had not even gone in to say good night to the children.

When she woke up the sun had risen. There was no bell in this room and she had to go to the door and call Christine to bring her coffee. She did not put on her clothes, for there was nothing she wanted to do. Instead she pulled a dressing-gown around her and began walking again. What a hideous room it was, with its smooth pink walls and stiff walnut-stained bed. Square, like a prison cell, and there was a grasshopper on the floor staring at her. She must remind the girls to put arsenic in the cans under the legs of the beds before the summer influx of ants. The men must bring in some moss, too, for restuffing the mattresses; this one was getting lumpy. Oh, but what for? She didn’t care what happened to the house. Somewhere in another room of this house was Angelique, and Philip’s child within her—at least she did not have to endure seeing Philip’s face on a half-breed child. Angelique could be sold down the river, or up the river, or any place on the face of the earth if only it was out of sight, and her child sold with her before it was born. Anywhere, if only her enticing golden beauty was away from Ardeith, and her slave-child who would look like David.

Judith shuddered, thinking she could have stood anything if only she were not carrying this other child.

The door opened and Philip came in. Judith started.

Philip came over and leaned against the bedpost.

“Judith,” he said, “I can’t go on like this. I let you alone yesterday.”

“Yes,” said Judith. She added ironically, “Thank you.”

“But you can’t keep this up. Staying shut in here.”

“Why not?”

She was angry to see how well he looked. Already he was getting his summer tan.

“The household is dazed,” he exclaimed. “The servants are wandering about in a mist, the children aren’t half cared for, nobody knows whether there are to be any meals—”

“Oh, can’t you stop for five minutes being so damnably physical?” she cried. “You’ve sent me to hell and all it means to you is that you don’t get a good dinner. Maybe I should be grateful to have some slight value to you as a housekeeper!”

Philip regarded her levelly. “Judith, will you in the name of God stop this? I made up my mind yesterday that I was going to leave you alone to work it out. I can’t. You see, I love you, whether you know it or not.”

“Nice that you told me,” said Judith. “I don’t know it.”

“I never knew it so well,” said Philip.

Judith said nothing. She stood playing with the loose sleeve of her dressing-gown.

“Judith,” he said at length, “won’t you believe me? I’ve told you what happened between Angelique and me. If you haven’t got sense enough to understand it there’s nothing else I can tell you. A boatman brought me the letter from you saying you were coming home. I took it to Angelique and let her read it. She couldn’t finish for the tears running out of her eyes. I told her I was sorry and that it was over. She broke down then, telling me how she loved you and how overwhelmed she was with her feeling of disloyalty. I said she was not to tell you anything. This was going to be as if it had not happened. She didn’t tell me she was with child.”

“So I came home,” said Judith, “and you told me you loved me better than anything else on earth. That no woman in the world mattered two pins to you but me.”

“I meant it.”

“And you think nothing else matters. You think when I take myself out of the house you can make love to any pretty woman who happens to be around and I shouldn’t care. If you discard her as soon as I’m available I shouldn’t mind you discarding me as soon as I’m out of reach. You make me feel like an animal. Oh Philip, is that all it means to you?”

Philip doubled his hands into fists at his sides. “No,” he said. “No. Judith, can’t you understand?”

“Can’t
you
understand?” she cried.

There was a silence. Finally Philip asked, “Is there anything you want me to do?”

“Get Angelique out of the house.”

“She’s not in the house.”

“Where is she?”

“I told her to move to the quarters.”

“That’s not what I mean! Get her away from Ardeith. Sell her down the river as soon as a trader comes by. Take her to the market tomorrow. Get her
away
!”

Philip stared at her. There was astonishment and incredulity in his expression.

“Judith! Do you know what you’re asking?”

“Of course I know. I’m asking that she be put where I won’t ever see her again.”

“I won’t do it,” said Philip.

“Oh, you won’t?” She almost screamed. She had thought he would acquiesce instantly. This was too much. It was beyond what any woman could bear. “You won’t sell her down the river?”

“No,” said Philip.

“Are you telling me you’re going to keep her? In case I take another trip to New Orleans?”

Philip took a step nearer. “Judith, do you know what those slave-boats are like? You’re asking me to murder her.”

“I’m not. Plenty of women go down on the slave-boats. I’m asking you to get rid of her. It’s so easy for you to say you don’t want her again!”

“I don’t want her again.” Philip folded his arms and stood where he was. “But I’m not going to put her on a slave-boat. You’ve seen them go by. You know what they are. A woman in her condition—chains on her ankles—”

“Didn’t she have chains on her ankles when the boat brought her to Dalroy? She’s a nigger, Philip, though I suppose you’ve forgotten it.”

“She’s a sensitive decently-bred woman,” he retorted, “though I suppose you’ve forgotten that. She’s with child. Judith,” he begged her, “you’re generous. You’ve got sympathy and tenderness. I’ll do anything in the world for you if it’s within reason. But I won’t send Angelique down the river.”