Nan Ryan (41 page)

She pitied them.

At first light Nevada and Johnny lay wide awake in the middle of his big, rumpled bed. Johnny was flat on his back. Nevada, on her stomach beside him, was leaning over Johnny, playfully biting and kissing a wet line down his flat belly.

Johnny put a hand atop her moving head and said, “Honey, let’s get out of here, just you and me. Head downriver for New Orleans.”

She gave the taut brown flesh one last lick, laid her cheek on his belly, and sighed. “Mm. All right. And get married in New Orleans.” She felt him immediately stiffen. She lifted her head to look at him.

“Well, now, honey, I don’t know, I thought—”

“Damn you to eternal hell!” she said and shot to her knees.

“Jesus, what’s wrong?” He sat up immediately but Nevada was already off the bed and gathering up her discarded clothes.

“Nothing! Not one dammed thing!”

Johnny rose from the bed and went to her. “Now, honey, I didn’t say we wouldn’t ever—”

“Oh, yes you did!” she hissed, holding her blue dress up before her. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

Johnny took her arm and pulled her to him. “Will you calm down so we can talk?”

She wrenched away from him. “No! There’s nothing to talk about! You told me once you’d never love anybody, but I refused to listen. Well, shame on me for continuing to be a fool!” she jerked her gown over her head.

“You’re not a fool, honey. If you’ll just wait—”

“No, you wait!” she said, her angry red face poking through the folds of blue silk. “Wait forever! Wait until you’re a lonely old man, for all I care. I’m not waiting. I’m marrying Malcolm Maxwell!”

“You can’t do that, sweetheart. Not after—”

“Not after tonight? Is that what you were going to say?” She glared hatefully at him as she pulled the dress down over her hips. “Tonight meant nothing. Nothing at all! Not to you, not to me. Not to Malcolm.”

“Ah, darlin’, stop it.” Johnny reached out to touch her but she drew away, baring her teeth at him like an enraged animal.

“The only thing I will stop is
caring
about anybody but myself. I’m slow but finally I’ve learned. What difference does it make that I don’t love Malcolm Maxwell? None. None at all. I’ll have a safe, secure life with him and that’s all I want!”

“You don’t mean that, Nevada.”

“Oh, but I do. I’ve finally decided exactly what I want.” She stepped closer to him and the wild look in her flashing blue eyes raised the hair on the back of Johnny’s neck. “And I’ve decided what I don’t want.” Johnny flinched when she reached her small hand out to his flaccid groin and wrapped her fingers around him. Coldly she said, “I don’t want this. And I don’t give a damn where you put it, as long as you never again try to put it in me!”

38

Nevada felt her throat begin to throb and tears spring to her eyes. But she did not allow the tears to fall. The promise she made to old Andrew Jackson one lonely winter’s night was not forgotten.

With the dignity of a queen she stepped back, her head held high. She turned away and left the
garçonnière
—and the big, naked man in it—just as the first pink tinges of the summer dawn streaked across the eastern horizon.

Her first impulse was to run as fast as she could to the safety of her room. She did not do it. She refused to allow any man—be he Johnny Roulette or Malcolm Maxwell—to make of her a frightened, spineless jellyfish. They could both go to blazes for all she cared.

Back erect, chin lifted, Nevada walked leisurely across the dew-beaded lawn as though she were out for a Sunday stroll, not particularly caring if everyone inside the townhouse was watching her. Let them! Let them ask her where she had been. She would tell them! Might be enjoyable to see the whole stuffy lot of them swallow their tongues in shock!

As it happened, the whole stuffy lot of them did not see the blue-gowned woman leave Johnny’s
garçonnière
and cross the vast grounds. Malcolm, Quincy, and Miss Annabelle were all sleeping blissfully in their beds.

However, somebody did see her.

In his small Spartan quarters inside the carriage house old Jess was wide awake. He’d slept fitfully through the night, a feeling of tightness in his chest causing him discomfort. At four in the morning he had given up, risen from his narrow bed, and dressed.

As dawn broke, Jess, coughing and wheezing, sat just inside the open doorway of his small room, shivering despite the warmth of the July morning. He blinked his watery eyes when he saw a flash of shimmering blue silk, and slowly he rose from the cane-bottomed chair.

Scratching his graying head, he stood in the open doorway and watched Nevada walk slowly across the yard. At first Jess’s brow wrinkled with worry and his old heart tried to beat its way out of his aching chest But then slowly he began to smile. The smile grew broader and he bobbed his head up and down, murmuring to himself, “I knowed it! I knowed it all along. Mist’ Johnny not aim to let Malcolm and his mama keep that pretty li’l chil’ in dey greedy clutches forever! No, suh! Mist’ Johnny gwine save her. He gwine have her for hisself. My boy finally has somebody to love.”

Wiping the sweat from his glistening forehead, the ailing gardener went back to his chair, chuckling with pleasure.

Nevada first heard about old Jess being sick later that same morning. Meeting Quincy in the drawing room, she realized at once that the older woman was upset about something.

Quincy said, “Marie, dear, I don’t know what we are to do!”

Twinges of guilt plaguing her, Nevada replied, “I—I don’t understand, Quincy. Has something happened?”

Quincy said with great exasperation, “Jess has taken to his bed. Says he is sick!”

“Oh? I’m sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do?”

The older woman looked at her sharply. “Have you forgotten? We’re to attend Clara Lacy’s tea this afternoon. Now who will drive us?”

Nevada frowned. “Surely an afternoon tea can’t be as important as a man’s health.”

Quincy blinked at her. “For heaven’s sake, child, we’re not speaking of a person. We’re talking about a lazy old darkie who is more trouble than he’s worth.”

Tired from a sleepless night, nerves raw, in no mood to humor this self-centered, unfeeling woman, Nevada said, “Jess is a human being, just like you and me. And I’m going out to see about him right away.”

“You wouldn’t dare! A young white lady does not go inside the room of an old colored man—why, it simply is not done:”

Feeling reckless and ornery, Nevada smiled at the stern-faced older woman. “Then this will be a first. I like old Jess and I’m going out visit him.” She turned to leave.

“You come back here, miss! I’ll not have you scandalizing this family, do you hear me? I’ll tell Malcolm! I will, so help me! Marie, Marie, I’m warning you.”

Nevada paid no attention to Quincy’s threats. She walked determinedly down the long corridor, out the back door, and onto the gallery. Squinting in the bright morning sunshine, she looked in the direction of the carriage house but could not see it for the trees. She hurriedly descended the steps.

In moments she stood in the open doorway of Jess’s modest quarters. Blinking to adjust her vision, Nevada immediately stiffened. There beside old Jess’s bed sat Johnny Roulette. Unaware of her presence, Johnny was patiently bathing the sick man’s face and throat with a cool cloth and speaking to him in low, soothing tones of affection.

Nevada ducked back outside before Johnny could catch a glimpse of her. She returned to the townhouse, her rebellious mission of mercy forgotten. But it was almost impossible to forget that while Quincy Maxwell didn’t seem to care whether faithful old Jess lived or died, the heartless Johnny was at the bedside of the old servant.

Jesse was a very sick man. Dr. Timothy Bates, summoned by Johnny, arrived at Lucas Place that afternoon and diagnosed the patient as having a case of summer pneumonia. At Jess’s age it could prove fatal. There was really very little that could be done. Just keep him comfortable and see to it he got plenty of fluids.

Two days later, ignoring the reprimands of both Malcolm and his mother, Nevada again went out to visit Jesse. And there ran into Johnny.

“How very thoughtful of you,” said Johnny without a trace of cynicism when she ventured inside. Rising from his chair beside the bed, he stood towering over her, his handsome face haggard, his eyes red-rimmed from lack of rest.

Handing Johnny the covered basket she carried over her arm, Nevada said simply, “When did you last sleep?”

Johnny lifted his wide shoulders in a shrug. “I doze here in my chair.”

“Go get some rest. I’ll stay here with Jess.”

Johnny rubbed a darkly whiskered jaw. “Do you think that would be wise?”

Her eyes on the sickly black man, she said, “Since when have I ever behaved wisely?”

“Nevada, I—” Johnny began, but she quickly cut him off.

“I’m here for Jess and for no other reason.”

Johnny sighed wearily. “I know, but I wish you’d let me—”

“Well, I won’t, so kindly drop it.” At last her eyes lifted to meet his. “And don’t bring it up again.”

Her beautiful blue eyes had lost none of the icy contempt she had shown him the morning she left his
garçonnière
. He had the sad, sinking feeling that those magnificent eyes would retain their killing coldness each, time they met his.

“Good afternoon, then, and thanks for coming,” Johnny said, and left her there.

She did not respond. But after he had gone, Nevada drew a slow, painful breath and closed her eyes for a moment Opening them, she sat down in Johnny’s chair and scooted it closer to the bed. The chair legs scraping across the wooden floor disturbed the slumbering patient.

Sick dark eyes came open and tried to focus. Confusion showed in their depths, so Nevada, smiling down at Jess, patted his thin chest and said, “Jess, it’s Marie. Marie Hamilton, Malcolm’s fiancée. I’ve come to visit you for a while.”

“Miz Marie?” His voice was raspy.

“Don’t try to talk, Jess. You must get plenty of rest Are you thirsty?”

Shocked through and through to find a pretty young white woman seated alone beside his bed, Jess struggled to rise. He said, his chin quivering with cold and with fear, “Oh, Miz Marie, you has to git out o’ here. Miz Quincy have mah hide, she catch you. Mist’ Malcolm too!”

Gently easing him back down, Nevada said, “Nobody is going to have your hide. Nor mine. There is nothing wrong with a concerned friend visiting a sick friend. Lie back. Stop worrying.”

Jess shook his graying head back and forth on the pillow. “I ain’t nebber had no white ladies fo friends, Miz Marie.”

“Well, I’ve sure had black men as friends,” she calmly stated and told Jess about old Willie and their happy days on her father’s keelboat.

He listened and nodded and smiled, and when she fell silent, Jess, raspy though his throat was, began to talk, to tell her of times long past. And when his rambling conversation became focused on Johnny, Nevada was far too caring and considerate to tell him she did
not
care to hear it.

And so she learned, on that hot afternoon at the bedside of the delirious old black man, more than most had ever known about Johnny Roulette. The mysterious past was revealed.

“… den his papa dies when he’s jes’ four … leave the boy wif Miz Quincy and she nebber did like Johnny … nebber treat him de way she treat her precious Mist’ Malcolm … no, sun … shame too, ’cause Johnny was a cute, smart little fellow and needed attention and jes’ breaked my heart to see—”

“Jesse, I think you’d better try to rest,” said Nevada, gently interrupting.

“Ain’t right for no chil’ to grow up wif nobody ’cept a black slave what love him. Tol’ all de time he not as good, not as smart as dey is. Tol’ all de time his papa was no good either. Tol’ his own mama was common. Johnny’s real mama was a sweet, pretty girl and she love him, but she died with the fever when he jes’ two years old …”

Jesse continued to talk, to tell of the way the youthful Johnny had been an outsider in his own home, a home that the late Louis Roulette had built, a home Johnny owned, though he had long ago been relegated to the
garçonnière
.

Curious in spite of herself, Nevada leaned close to better hear the raspy words and learned that for years the young, lonely Johnny had tried his best to please his stepmother and stepbrother. He had been bright, well-mannered, industrious. He never drank or swore.

But neglected and ignored, Johnny eventually rebelled. At fifteen he got a job as a faro dealer on the riverfront. By the time he turned sixteen he had quit dealing and was on the other side of the table, winning more often than he lost. At seventeen he was roving the river, money in his pockets, women on his arms.

Nevada didn’t miss a word of Jess’s long, halting monologue. She was not untouched by the poignant disclosures. The stirring revelations made it easy to understand why the adult Johnny was incapable of love. At a time when he needed love most—as a sensitive, lost little boy—he had been unwanted, unloved.

Feeling a deep sadness pressing down on her chest, Nevada never realized when the old man had finally fallen silent and drifted back to sleep. In his awkward, ineloquent way, Jess had painted a picture in her mind she would have great trouble forgetting.