Deep Summer (3 page)

“It’s beautiful,” said Judith, and thought feebly of her immortal soul.

“We’ll build a manor,” Philip went on, “and have a city of slaves in the cabins behind it. Our house will be made of clay and this gray Spanish moss plastered over cypress lathes. Clay is more durable than wood and keeps out the heat. We’ll have a double line of oaks leading to the door, and before we’re old they’ll be vast and spreading like these in the forest, with long draperies of moss brushing our shoulders as we ride underneath. You’ll be a great lady, Judith. We’ll found a dynasty, you and I, and a hundred years from now the rulers of Ardeith will be proud to remember us, first of the house, who came down the river together.”

Judith stood up slowly, catching her hands across her breast. She looked around at the oranges and palmettoes, the dark pomegranate trees and the creeping seductive river, as though she were seeing them for the first time. With a protesting movement she put her hands over her eyes, seeing too the little white house among the hills of corn and herself a little girl on the doorstep working a sampler that said “Thou God Seest Me, Judith Sheramy, July 4, 1768,” three letters in red cross-stitch every morning before she could go out to play. She remembered the cruel beauty of storms and trees etched as though in ink against the bitter sky, and knew with sudden nostalgia that she would never see snowdrifts again, nor icicles a yard long hanging from the eaves, nor the parson giving thanks for the coming of a cold timid April on the hills. Slowly she took her hands off her eyes and looked at Philip, recalling through an enormous distance the words of the royal governor that the king’s soldiers were going to found another New England on the river.

Philip, who had stood watching her, seemed to understand what she was thinking. He took her hands in his and came very close, saying simply:

“Tomorrow if the boatmen are right we should come to the port that the English call New Richmond and the French Baton Rouge. Your father is going to tie up there several days to give his boatmen a rest. I had planned to rest there too, but I won’t. I’ll press down to Dalroy. And when you come I’ll find you.”

She said tremulously, “Yes.”

“But until then,” Philip went on gently, “you’ll be with your own people, to do all the thinking you like.”

She said again, “Yes.”

“You darling,” said Philip. He drew her to him, and this time she did not resist nor even try to make herself do so. She put her arms around him and held him close in a surge of adoration that thrust out of her everything but the awareness that Philip loved her. How long they held each other there she did not know, but suddenly a stern hand caught her shoulder and flung her back. She staggered and nearly fell, but as she caught her balance she saw that her father was there, speaking furiously to Philip. Judith thrust the topaz chain into her bosom and heard Philip answer:

“Very well, Mr. Sheramy. But I haven’t hurt her.”

Mark held his gun at his side. “Mr. Larne,” he said, hardly opening his lips, “if you touch my daughter again I shall kill you.”

Philip bowed. “Mr. Sheramy, it has been my intention for some time to ask your permission to marry your daughter. I trust you will do me the honor of granting it.” He smiled at Judith as though to assure her that her father’s answer would not matter very much.

Judith felt the chain cold on her breast as her father returned:

“Under no circumstances, Mr. Larne, would I consent to such a marriage. Good evening.”

“Good evening,” said Philip, and went off through the wood.

Mark came up to Judith and put his arm around her. “Come with me, daughter,” he said gently. He did not seem angry with her, only grave and very sad, and it made her feel more guilty than any reproaches could have done. They walked along in silence, but when they came in sight of the campfire he asked:

“Do you want to wait here awhile before we join the others?”

“Yes sir,” said Judith, and her voice broke and she began to sob. He made her sit by him on a fallen tree, holding her like a child and stroking her hair. After awhile she managed to ask:

“Why did you say you would kill him?”

“Because I will if he touches you again.” There was a pause, then Mark added, “I love you too dearly, Judith, to give you to a man like that.”

“Like what?” she demanded rebelliously. “He hasn’t told
you
anything about himself!”

“No, he doesn’t need to. Dear child, can’t you see that he’s godless, improvident, untrustworthy—that he’d neglect you, and put his own love of pleasure before your need of protection? No, Judith. You are not to see him again.”

Judith held to a broken branch jutting out of the trunk. “He says he loves me very much, father.”

“Daughter, trust me,” said Mark. He moved his hand along the bark until it rested on hers. “You would be cruelly unhappy with such a husband. More unhappy than I can tell you. You’re too young to understand. When a worthy young man comes courting you, I’ll be as glad as you. I want you to have a husband. But a good husband, Judith.”

Judith was silent. A week ago she would have marveled that any girl could dare to doubt her own father. But in seven days Philip had shaken all her standards, though his values were still so new that she had no words with which to explain them. Mark said:

“Marriage isn’t a moment’s desire, Judith. It’s a holy sacrament that lasts a lifetime.”

“Yes sir,” said Judith. And then, because he seemed so troubled, she added, “I want to do right, father.”

“I know you do,” he said, and pressed her hand.

Caleb called them. The men were untying the boat for the afternoon journey.

“What on earth were you and Judith doing off in the woods?” Mrs. Sheramy asked as they came near the fire.

“Just talking,” said Mark. “We’ll have to get along if we want to reach Baton Rouge tomorrow.”

It was not until they were under way that Judith remembered she had left two good cooking-pots by the pool. Her mother scolded her for being so careless, but Mark said, “Don’t be too stern with her, Catherine. She’s more biddable than most girls her age.”

Judith walked away and sat down on deck, watching Philip’s boat rounding the curves a long way ahead. Evidently her father was not going to say any more to her about Philip. He was taking it for granted that she would obey him now as she had done all her life. A pirogue from Illinois came alongside, the traders singing a lusty French song as they pushed ahead. Behind it came a canoe piled with beads and blankets, paddled by Indians who took the swirls with silent ex-pertness. After awhile she heard her father responding to greetings from another flatboat belonging to a family named St. Clair from Pennsylvania. She caught sight of Philip’s boat again, further ahead now. He was keeping his word and leaving her as fast as he could.

Judith clasped her hands around her knee and leaned back against the cabin wall. No matter what her father said or did, Philip would find her. And what was she going to say to him?

She wanted him so! Knowing he would not be there when the boat tied up tonight gave her a sense of dreadful vacancy. She wanted him there, talking to her of pirate fights or duels or anything he felt like talking about, telling her again that he loved her and holding her in an embrace that would not have to be interrupted. She was aware of a new, unconfessable need of him that was no less real for being beyond her own comprehension. Judith began to wonder again what it was men wanted of women. It was something beautiful or terrible or perhaps both—strange that though she knew so little about it she could be sure it was something beautiful now that she knew Philip Lame wanted it of her.

She felt a vague urge to cry. Idling like this was wrong. One should be always doing something useful—or was that only another of the New England rules that had no meaning under the river sun?

She went into the cabin and got out a kerchief she was hemming. How mousy her clothes were by Philip’s blue and claret satins. And if she obeyed her father how mousy her whole life would be. Until they built a house of their own they were going to be guests of Walter Purcell, son of her father’s oldest friend. Walter Purcell was an industrious young man with all the virtues. Judith puckered her mouth distastefully as she sewed. No doubt his house would be crisp and staid, where she would be expected to be a sober young person in a cap and kerchief sitting at her spinning-wheel until another sober young person in a fustian coat and nankeen breeches came to woo her into a sober marriage. Oh, she didn’t want any of that! Why should God create this delirious landscape but for frivolity and laughter and men like Philip Larne?

At last they came to the Dalroy bluff.

Below Baton Rouge the river banks had been low and soft, but suddenly the east bank went up in a hump and a bluff hung like a shelf over the water. At the lower end was the wharf, so wild with flatboats and keels and pirogues that the Sheramys thought their boatmen would never land at all. But by what looked like a creation of space they tied up the boat. Judith scrambled ashore after her father.

They stood together on the swarming wharf while the men shoved their boxes ashore. Judith was suddenly frightened to think that this wild place was where she was going to live. This confusion of shouting flatboatmen, Negroes rolling hogsheads down the planks, Indians singing to the incoming boats and catching the melons and coins their hearers flung to them, this muddle of wagons and wheelbarrows and fruit-crates—this was the town of Dalroy in the province of West Florida in the country of Louisiana. This was home. Philip would like it. Philip would laugh at her for being scared. She looked around, wondering if he was here, but all she could see was a mob of strangers and merchandise. Of course he was not here. He was back in the forest, and it might be days before he even knew she had arrived.

Then, jumping over hogsheads and ordering Negroes out of the way, came a figure that she recognized with amazement as that of staid-minded Walter Purcell of Connecticut. But Mr. Purcell was burnt brown as an Indian and his coat was of apple-green satin and his breeches were buckled with silver. He shouted and waved to them, leaping over a wheelbarrow to grasp Mark Sheramy’s hand with delighted welcome.

Judith took a step backward and stared at him with sudden secret glee. It was really true, then. Nobody could bring New England to Louisiana. Somewhere on the river they all crossed a dividing line, and Philip belonged on this side of it.

The wagon bounced along a trail through the woods, here and there passing an indigo clearing with a cabin or sometimes a more pretentious house of pink clay-and-moss plaster, till they came to the home of Walter Purcell. The estate, he said, was called Lynhaven. His house was bright pink, built with a passage down the middle and five rooms on each side, and in front a white wooden porch that Mr. Purcell called a gallery, explaining when they asked him that the Creole word was galérie and in Louisiana the English language was enriching itself with a great many Anglicized Creole words. Mark asked dubiously if one had much association with the Creoles. But certainly, said Mr. Purcell. He himself had a wife from New Orleans. Charming people, these colonial French.

Half a dozen Negroes ran out of the house to meet them, and while they jabbered and unloaded the boxes a small black-haired girl came out on the gallery. She looked like a doll with her gown of pink dimity and little curls dancing on her neck, and so young that Judith was surprised when Mr. Purcell said, “My wife, ladies and gentlemen. Gervaise, my friends from Connecticut.”

Gervaise smiled and curtseyed, her little hands holding back her panniers. “You are so welcome,” she said in a soft exotic accent, and with as little fluttering as if receiving four guests was the most ordinary of occurrences. “Every day for a week my husband has looked for you at the wharfs.” She gestured toward the bowing Negro man holding back the door. “You will step inside?”

As she followed her mother indoors Judith glanced sideways at Gervaise. She had never seen any girl who looked so self-possessed and cityfied. Judith wondered if she wore those curls and ruffles every day. She must; there was no way for her to have known in advance when the Sheramys were coming and so be dressed up in their honor. Gervaise was speaking to her husband.

“Walter, the chambers at the left back are for monsieur and madame and the young gentleman. I will conduct the young lady.” She tucked her hand into Judith’s, paused to give orders half in French and half in English to a cluster of black attendants, and led Judith into a pink-walled room with long windows reaching to the floor and a high narrow bed draped with a mosquito bar. A Negro girl whom Gervaise called Titine came after them carrying a wooden tub and a jug of hot water.

“You’re being very nice to us,” Judith ventured as she untied the strings of her sunbonnet. “I hope we aren’t going to be a lot of trouble.”

“But certainly not.” Gervaise laughed a little as though in surprise. “I like having guests. Walter is out half the day, and one gets bored with only servants and a baby for company.”

“Have you really got a baby?” Judith exclaimed.

“Yes, a little girl. Her name is Babette. What makes you so astonished?”

“Why—you look like such a little girl yourself.”

Gervaise laughed again. “Because I’m so tiny, I suppose. But I’m seventeen. I’ve been married three years.” She put her hand on the latch. “If you’ll excuse me I’ll tell the girls to put on the extra plates for supper. Ask Titine for anything you want, and please don’t feel shy. We want you to be comfortable.” She curtseyed and closed the door, leaving Judith looking after her while Titine uncorded the box holding her clothes. Judith was conscious of a sense of awe. Such a casual, self-confident little person Gervaise was, as though she had never had a disturbing moment in her life. It must be women like her Philip had known on the gullah coast, women who knew how to meet strangers and supervise slaves and wear exquisite gowns, and move always with an air of smiling sophistication. Judith tossed her bonnet on the bed with dissatisfied vehemence. She was sophisticated about things like mutton-pies and chilblains. She felt out of place.