Deep Summer (26 page)

Emily accepted them smiling. She went to the others, to have her cheek kissed by the ladies and her hand by the gentlemen, and Judith put her arms around David. In the garden the slaves were singing. Judith whispered, “She’s a darling, David. You’re going to be very happy.”

David glanced after her. “I know it. But thanks.”

They reached the front door. Philip and Judith held it open, but David and Emily paused outside the threshold. Emily shook her head. Judith smiled as she went in first. How properly the child was doing everything. Nobody could say Gervaise had brought up an ill-bred daughter. From within the hall she glanced back at them. Emily turned her face up to David’s. She looked so happy and trustful that her somewhat irregular little features were beautiful for a moment as she put her arms around his neck and he carried her over the threshold.

Chapter Nineteen

T
he boss said there would be no more work on the wharfs this afternoon. The cotton boat would be loaded tomorrow right around sunup, and them as wanted jobs was to be on hand bright and early.

Gideon Upjohn sat on an empty wheelbarrow to rest. He was disappointed, for he had counted on loading that cotton boat today and having work tomorrow on the sugar boat. Now they’d probably load the two boats at once and a man couldn’t work at but one of them.

Damn them merchandise boats from downriver, he thought sullenly. Cluttering up the wharfs so there wasn’t no room for the cotton. Looked like them fancy-pants on the bluff would buy enough wine and shoes and mirrors to get satisfied sometime.

Maybe he’d better look see how Esther was coming along. If she’d sold all her fruit by now they could take a stroll through the park. Do her good. Esther sure had a bad time, working like a mule and her old man taking all her money to buy corn liquor so he could lie around drunk. Gideon skirted cottonbales and hogsheads, pushed his way among the men bringing crates to the Valcour warehouses, and went down as far as the slave-market. There were a lot of high-class ladies and gentlemen around the slave-market, bowing and curtseying and kissing hands and smirking like they were already dead and reading on their own tombstones how good they were. Gideon stuffed his hands into his pockets and got past them, closer to the riverfront, where some stevedores were lying around. He saw Esther walking about with her basket. She was so slim and nice, with yellow hair that had a soft shine like daffodils even though she said she didn’t have time to comb out the braids except on Sunday nights, she was so tired. Must be awfully hard on a girl, walking these hot docks all day long.

As he went toward her one of the men to whom she had offered her fruit leered and stroked her neck. Esther jerked back, and he tried to put his arm around her. Gideon rushed at them and shoved the man so hard he tumbled down.

“You goddamn grasshopper,” he cried, “you keep your hands off’n this here lady!”

The others laughed as the fallen stevedore blinked up at Gideon. He was too drunk even to fight. Gideon took Esther’s arm. “You come on with me, honey.”

Esther hugged her basket, looking like a scared rabbit. He led her away from the group to an empty goods-box near the stalls of the traders.

“You sit down here a little bit,” said Gideon gently.

She looked up, her eyes deeper blue than ever under tears. “There wa’n’t no need of you doing that, Gideon. Not that it wa’n’t mighty fine of you.”

“I ain’t gonta let nobody treat you like a dock-woman,” Gideon retorted hotly. He sat on the box by her.

Esther looked down, running her bare toe along a crack in the board floor of the wharf. “You might have got hurt,” she said in a low voice. “And I’m used to looking out when men pester me. I mean—” Her voice trailed off with a little choke. She reached for the basket standing at her feet, but her throat choked again and she burst into tears. Gideon put his arm around her and patted her shoulder.

“Don’t you go crying now, sugar,” he begged her awkwardly. “It ain’t no use.”

“Oh, I know it.” Esther dried her eyes on her sleeve and swallowed hard. “Only sometimes—” She put her forehead on her hands. “Only sometimes I go crazy, like, every damn day selling, and keeping off men, and two or three picayunes all you can make if you sell every banana you’ve got.”

“Sure, honey, I know.” Gideon sat forward and looked at the wharf-boards. After awhile he blurted, “Esther, you got to get off these here docks.”

“God knows I wish I could.” But she shook her head hopelessly.

“Honest, Esther,” he persisted, “it ain’t right. A nice girl peddling. You know where you’ll wind up.”

“No I won’t.”

“Yes you will. There ain’t a woman can hold out. “Specially one like you that ain’t tough. Some night your pa’ll beat you one lick too many and you’ll run down here and any drunk sailor’ll look better to you than going home—”

Esther sat back and gripped the sides of the box with both hands. “Why don’t you hush up, Gideon? You know ma ain’t fitten to work, and she’s gotta eat.”

“And your pa’s gotta drink too, I reckon.”

Esther sighed helplessly. “Gideon Upjohn, you drive me outen my head. Ma says he can’t help drinking. Him with his peg-leg and can’t work good and all. He worked all right when I was little, sure enough he did. But them keelboats jammed and he got his leg took off—oh, my Lord.” She sighed again, and she looked so tired and so powerless against the universe that Gideon was filled with rage. There had been six children in Esther’s family, but two of them had died as babies and three more in the fever year, and now Esther who was the youngest had been left to hold everything on her thin little shoulders.

“Them Durhams hadn’t ought to sent keels up the river in high water,” said Gideon.

“Ah, sure, but they pays extra for boatmen in flood-time, and I reckon pa figured it would be all right.” Esther did not even speak resentfully.

But Gideon was less cowed. He said, “Men’s all the time getting killed or having their bones broke trying to go up in high water. They ought to send niggers.”

Esther shrugged without trying to answer. Gideon spoke desperately.

“Esther, sugar, won’t you get married to me and let me get you off these docks?”

“Oh Gideon,” she said in a despairing voice, “don’t start that again! By the time I’d had two or three babies and you were having to pay some woman to look after them while I had another one—and pa yelling his head off seeing alligators climb the wall—and ma sick and needing somebody to make gruel—”

Gideon’s hands unconsciously doubled. Esther was so right, but he exclaimed, “Honey girl, you’s just plumb outen your mind. I been crazy about you so long.”

She patted his hand gently. “There ain’t many like you, Gideon. But I ain’t got no right making you take over my troubles. You better just go on looking out for yourself.”

“Hell,” said Gideon. “Why can’t I look out for you too? I’m strong and I work hard and I don’t go running to the bar every time I get money in my pocket like some. Why can’t I get enough to look out for my girl and her po’ old ma and young uns too if they gets born? I ought to!”

“Yeah,” said Esther. She looked around at the boats. “Tell that to them that owns the wharfs.”

They were silent. “I reckon I better be getting rid of this here,” said Esther after awhile. She reached again for her basket.

“I’ll tote it for you,” said Gideon.

They walked around, toward the stalls where rich folks were examining the goods brought by the trading ships. A carriage stopped above the wharf and a footman opened the door. He bowed as a gentleman got out, followed by a young lady in long fluttering skirts and a ribboned hat. Behind her came a maid in a tignon, who held a parasol over the lady’s head. As they passed Gideon and Esther the lady remarked:

“I hope they’ve brought some nice Irish linens.”

She was a soft-voiced lady, very blonde and lovely, but Gideon did not notice her very much. He was looking with eyes that were cold and angry at her husband’s high silk hat and fine-tucked linen shirt and long tight trousers. They met some friends, and the lady held out her hand to be kissed. She bought something at a stall and handed the parcel to her maid.

Gideon turned suddenly. “Esther.”

“Huh?”

“You see that air fellow buying leather? He’s got his wife with him in a yellow dress and the nigger woman holding the parasol over her.”

“Yeah, why?”

“You know who that is?”

“Ain’t it them Sheramys from Silverwood?”

“Yeah. What’d you say if I told you that air fancy-pants was my brother?”

“Huh?” She gave him an incredulous scowl.

“Ain’t it funny?” said Gideon. “Him strutting around in a tall hat and got mo’ niggers ’n he can count and buying his wife enough pretties to sink a ship—ain’t it too funny? Couldn’t you just bust laughing?”

“You better lemme get rid of this here fruit before you start any yarns,” said Esther practically. Gideon made her rest on a goods-box near the stalls while he hawked the fruit for her. When at last the basket was empty he came back and gave her the money. It was getting late, and the crowd about the stalls was thinning. Gideon and Esther walked arm in arm to the park above the wharfs, and he told her about his relationship to Roger Sheramy.

“Lawsy me,” said Esther, marveling. “But Gideon—how come he don’t pay you no mind?”

“I expect he don’t even know I’m living, honey.”

“But don’t you reckon, if you went around to Silverwood nice and proper like, and told him who you were—”

“Huh,” said Gideon. “Them snippy niggers’d throw me off the place. And he wouldn’t believe me. I’d be just one more wharf-rat to him, claiming kin.”

“Well, well, well,” said Esther. “I expect you’re right. But it’s queer, knowing.”

Gideon stroked the dust with his toes, making five marks in a line. Esther added:

“I better be getting home. Time I was cooking supper.”

They walked out of the park. The shops gave place to taverns and these to lodging-houses. The street got narrow and smelly, and noisy with children yelling and women quarreling indoors. Gideon held Esther’s arm and guided her close to the houses. They turned into an alley. As they neared the door of the house where she lived Esther started and drew back against him.

“Oh my God, Gideon, listen to that!”

“Just some drunks having a fight, sugar. I’ll get you home safe.”

Her hand tightened on his arm. “It sounds like pa. If he’s home again—”

Before he could answer she broke from him and pushed open the door. He came after her, and by the light of the cooking-fire he saw Esther’s mother crouched behind a chair that she held as a barricade, pleading with Esther’s father as he stormed about, his peg-leg thumping on the floor. The room had the smell of cheap stale whiskey. The man’s clothes were filthy and there were streaks of tobacco-juice down his shirt.

“Where’s Esther?” he was shouting. “I got to have some money. Brat—break every bone in her body—”

As Gideon sprang at him Esther screamed. “Please get out and leave us alone! He’ll kill you with that peg-leg!”

The man was raving drunk, but with a fierce twist he jabbed the peg at Gideon’s knee, knocking him down. Gideon heard Esther scream again and saw her father twisting her wrist. Her hand unclasped and the coins she had earned that day clinked on the floor. As Gideon pulled himself to his feet the man staggered out. Esther said, “Wait, ma,” and ran to Gideon.

“Is you hurt bad?” she panted.

He supported himself against the wall, shaking his head. There was blood creeping from a cut in Esther’s forehead.

“I can walk in a minute,” said Gideon. “You better look out for your ma. I reckon she’s fainted.”

Esther retreated slowly and knelt by her mother. Gideon moved his leg to see if he could walk. He got to the side of the room where Esther sat on the floor with her mother’s head in her lap. Gideon held himself up with the overturned chair.

“Can’t you bring her to?” he asked.

Esther looked up at him. She shook her head. After a moment she answered:

“Ma’d all the time get blue and not breathe right when pa tried to beat me. I reckon this time done for her.”

“Oh lawsy me,” said Gideon tenderly. He sat down on the floor by Esther. She had covered her face with her hands, and tears trickled through her fingers, reddened with blood from the cut in her forehead.

“You don’t know how I feel, Gideon,” she murmured. “Ma was all the time sick, but she was mighty sweet to me. And I reckon you don’t understand about pa. She was in love with him, I swear to God she was, and she said he was all right till he got his leg off—”

Her voice broke. Gideon put his arms around her and held her tight. Her mother’s body slid off her knees to the floor. She cried on his breast. He could hear people screaming and talking in the other rooms of the house. It was nearly dark, and the cooking-fire made only a vague glow in the shadows. At last Esther said:

“I wonder what I’m gonta do now.”

That roused him. “Don’t you know?” he demanded. “If you don’t I’m just before telling you. You’s gonta get married to me first thing in the morning and I’m gonta look out for you and if that drunk pa of yourn ever bothers you again he’s gonta get killed.”

Her face was still hidden against him. “He treated me right when I was a little thing,” she whispered.

“Well, he don’t no more. Ain’t you gonta marry me, Esther?”

She nodded. “I reckon I ain’t no count by myself. Oh, you
are
so good!” she exclaimed, and put her arms around him.

Gideon took her home with him that night, to his sister’s, where he had lived since his father died. His sister’s husband had a good job as watchman in one of the Valcour warehouses, and they had three rooms, so that Lulie and her husband had a bedroom all to themselves. That night Esther slept in the room with Gideon and the children. The next day he got a body-collector to come for Esther’s mother and they put her into a grave in the public burying-ground.

Esther said it wasn’t right for them to get married the day after her mother died, but Lulie said that was better than Esther’s sleeping in the same room with Gideon when they weren’t married. Lulie’s little girls slept in the room with Gideon but then they were children and besides they were related to him. So Esther and Gideon were married, and they rented a room in another alley. Lulie hated to have Gideon move, for he had paid for lodging with her and that helped out, but she could see he and Esther would want a room of their own.

Esther was a good wife. She worked hard and took good care of him. Every morning she cooked him a fine breakfast and packed him dinner of corn-pone and fried eggs and sometimes an orange, and she wasn’t all sloppy like some women. No sir, Esther was clean, and she scrubbed the floor till you could mighty near eat your dinner off it. She washed his clothes regular, and he had a clean shirt two days a week, ironed and mended, and what was more they always had a sheet to their bed, not lying on the bare mattress like some. Gideon didn’t know how he’d ever got along without Esther. Lulie was a good woman and did the best she knew how, but Lulie was always having children and she’d get careless. Not that you could blame her, she said it seemed like there was all the time a baby between her and the washtub and scrubbing gave her such pains in the back. But it was nice having Esther, young and well and sweet.