Crescent City Part 32

That's what Andre said, as long as Vicksburg holds. But he is in Paris, for all I know.

At the far end of the library, through the tall windows, one could just catch a glimpse of the road on which droves of Texas cattle raised swells of golden dust on their way to the Confederate Army. Week after week they plodded through. All life, animal and human, was being fed into the armies.

They had taken the last horses for the army except for the three that had been hidden in the swamps. Angelique cried when they took her Angel, the pony with the delicate white ears. She had just finished currying Angel in the stable when they came.

"Sorry, little miss," the sergeant had said. "I know how you feel. But the army is short of horses."

Now there were more troubling thoughts.

"Blaise came back from New Orleans just now," Miriam said, drawing the two men's attention away from strategy. "They are saying the Federals will be coming this way soon."

"They can't break through," Ferdinand began. "Our troops-"

Eugene swept him aside. "Blaise! I don't trust him. He says it to taunt us, to scare the life out of us. I don't trust him, don't trust any of the servants."

It was true, there were many one did not trust anymore. Some stole. One knew they did and was afraid to make accusations. They neglected the animals, and the fences. Yet they could have run away. Blaise could have stayed in New Orleans instead of coming back. Perhaps he remembers, Miriam thought, when I saved him from being sold away.

"In case it is true, just in case it is," Eugene said, "you should start hiding the valuables. Do it at night when they are all asleep."

"My family's silver," Emma murmured. It was all she had left out of Ferdinand's debacle.

"The quarry would be a good place," Ferdinand suggested.

And Rosa advised, "We should tie the silver to our hoops, so they won't see it. You can never tell who's awake and watching."

To Miriam this was melodrama, faintly ridiculous. And with a small perversity which she could not have explained, she disobeyed Eugene in one respect alone: The diamonds that had been his mother's she gave to f.a.n.n.y for safekeeping. Was it to be a test of f.a.n.n.y's integrity or of her own perception of human nature? So be it! If the diamonds were lost, they would only be one more loss on top of all the rest.

All week it was quiet. Only the Texas cattle kept pa.s.sing on the road. Then, abruptly one morning, the dust clouds rose from the opposite direction. All rushed down the lane to the gate.

A string of riders, carriages, and wagons extended to the curve of the road some half a mile away. They were moving at great speed. A gentleman called down from his sweating hunter without halting.

"There's been a skirmish about ten miles back. We were way outnumbered! The Federals are pouring in, it's h.e.l.l!" And he spurred the horse.

"They're burning everything!" A woman, surrounded by little children, spoke as she leaned out of her carriage without stopping. "Hide your clothes. They take your clothes and everything you own. Everything!" she screamed.

"Stop!" Eugene cried. "Stay. Eat and rest. Where are you going?"

But the woman was already out of hearing.

And all morning on the rough road this traffic, nervous and fast as rapids tumbling on a streambed, moved past the gate. Galloping, trotting, panting, lathered, terrified, pop-eyed, weeping, shouting, pushing, fighting, bewildered, hysterical and grim, it moved on past.

Toward noon came the stragglers on foot, the poor with their bundles and fragile carts loaded with furniture and quilts. With their old men and their pregnant women, limping and stumbling they came; their dogs, whose tongues hung limp on their chests from heat and thirst, came, too. A cow, whose clumsy belly swayed over frail legs, swung its enormous bag, on which, long past milking time, the bulging veins seemed ready to burst; falling, the animal was prodded with a stick; it bawled its anguish with the blare of a cracked trumpet.

"They've burned the Haviland house!" a woman cried from the road.

"Oh," Emma said, "I hope they've saved that marvelous portrait of her mother!"

"They've saved nothing."

Sickened and unable to help, Miriam went back to the house.

When the last of the fleeing horde had gone, a silence, in its way more threatening, came down upon them all. Even a momentary rush of wind was too loud in that waiting silence.

"Why are we staying here?" Emma wailed. "Everyone else has gone."

"Gone where?" asked Miriam. "We are certainly better off waiting our chances here, whatever they may be, than taking to roads that go nowhere."

Eugene felt for a pair of pistols in the cupboard. "Oil the guns," he directed Ferdinand. "You take one and give one to me."

What did he think he could do with a pistol and no eyes? But Miriam said nothing. Instead, she commanded Angelique.

"Go upstairs to one of the attic bedrooms. Close the door and lie on the bed. You're sick, you have a highly contagious fever." And, as the girl looked uncomprehending, "Hurry! Do as I say!"

Supple and fresh. Her wet, bow-shaped lips, curled lashes, clouds of warm hair, newly washed. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, rising with each quick breath, stretching the waist cloth ...

First came a low murmur, like the sound of waves at night. Rosa, crouching in a window seat, leaned out.

"Do I hear something?"

"Shh! Listen!" The murmur became a roar. "Yes, unmistakably. They're coming."

"Papa, go upstairs with the pistols," Miriam said. "Please-you and Eugene. Guard the stairs to the attic."

Heaven forbid that they should flourish those pistols or, worse yet, discharge one! That much she knew. It was common sense, that was all. And those two men weren't showing much of it right now.

"I'm not going to leave you women down here alone," Ferdinand shouted.

"Will you listen? It's more important to protect Angelique! And, son, you go upstairs, too. I'll just wait here in front of the house."

She had walked as far as the verandah, when the first hooves clattered on the lane and the first shouts sounded.

"Halt!" A mounted troop, mingled in careless disarray with a ragtag following of men on foot, had come tearing up the lane. A rough lot, she saw at once, accustomed as she now was to the ways of armies; these were amok and inflamed, without an officer in sight who could possibly, if he were so inclined, control them.

Sisyphus came out of the house to stand with Miriam. His teeth chattered in his jaw, but his stance was brave.

The lead man, a sergeant, dismounted and stood a step below Miriam, looking up out of small, hard eyes, with his hands on his heavy hips.

His manner was scornful, with an affectation of languor. "Well, now. Who lives in this place?"

"The name is Mendes." To Miriam's satisfaction her voice did not shake.

"Mendes. You live here alone? You and that n.i.g.g.e.r there?"

"I live here with my husband." "Then where's your husband? Off with Lee getting trounced?"

And still her voice stayed level. "My husband is in the house. He is blind."

"Well, that's too bad. You'll have to show us around, then. We want food and drink, plenty of it."

"You can have what there is, which isn't much. There are more than a hundred of you."

"No, more like two hundred, missis."

And indeed they were still coming up the drive in a rush of dark-blue jackets, boots, breeches, and forage caps. Their sabers shot off sparks of painful light.

The sergeant drew his saber, pushing at Miriam and Sisyphus with the flat of it.

"Stand aside. Let the men in. We'll help ourselves. Go ahead, men," he bellowed.

In an instant the men were off their horses, up the steps, and through the door. In the next instant the sound of crashing and tinkling gla.s.s told that the liquor cabinet had been smashed.

"Make camp out there," the sergeant directed.

"Oh, not there! That's the cornfield!" Miriam protested. "You'll trample it down!"

"You don't say! Listen, missis, never mind the corn. Just tell us where the silver is, and don't lie about it, either."

"The silver was sent away long ago to relatives in Texas."

"You think I'll believe that?"

"Whether you believe it or not is up to you."

"Listen, missis. I won't stand for any nonsense from you, and you better-" He laid his hand on Miriam's shoulder.

"Leave this lady alone!" cried Sisyphus. "Don't you touch her!" He thrust the large red hand away from her shoulder.

In the middle of the flat red face the mouth opened with astonished amus.e.m.e.nt.

"What! You poor old fool, sticking up for folks that have taken the blood out of your old sack of a body! Why," he said, turning to Miriam, "he can hardly stand up, the bag of bones, and he wants to protect you! What's mofe, you're d.a.m.n glad to be protected by a n.i.g.g.e.r! Bah-" He spat.

The thick gob of spit lay on the step, and Miriam moved her foot.

"Go look for the silver, boys. Turn out the mattresses, dig up the yard, you know where to find it, you've found it before."

Two men brought Ferdinand downstairs, jerking him by the collar.

"This your husband?"

"No, my father. I told you, my husband is blind." Thank G.o.d, neither of them had tried to use the pistols.

"Where's the silver, old man?"

Ferdinand hesitated. "He doesn't know," Miriam said. "He wasn't here when we sent it to Texas."

To the left, at the foot of the slope, a stinging smoke streamed over the concealing border of young birches; a single flame shot up, sputtered, fell, and returned with a vigorous burst of orange and gold.

"The gin house," Ferdinand said forlornly. "The gin house. It's the cotton burning."

The spiraling flames were almost hypnotic. Helpless and dazed, the three stood on the verandah encircled by a crazy swirl of motion: mounting flames, men running, excited tethered horses stamping. The noise of destruction was maddening. With sabers and spades the men dug up the garden. With saws they hacked the century-old oaks. Miriam winced as though her own flesh were cut when the first heavy limb of Eugene's famous beech, laden with coppery foliage gleaming in the sunlight, came crashing down.

But when they began to chop away at the fences, she could not contain herself, crying over the din while Ferdinand tried to stop her, "Don't! Don't! The cattle will get into the crop! Don't, don't!"

"There won't be any cattle when we're through," said the sergeant. He had not moved from the steps, where he stood in command of all this activity. "So don't worry about it."

From the barnyard came the popping sound of gunfire. A huge dead sow, along with her dead young, was being dragged across the lawn to the nearest fire built out of the dismantled fences. At the far end of the lawn some soldiers chased a little flock of terrified, bleating sheep.

"You kill all the animals," said Sisyphus to the sergeant, "you only make us colored folks go hungry. You here fighting this here war for us, you say-"

"Shut your mouth, old fool. Go inside. We didn't come here to fight for you. Most of us hate n.i.g.g.e.rs." And suddenly remembering his earlier demand, the sergeant bellowed again, "Where's the silver?"

"My daughter told you," Ferdinand began.

"Suppose we hang your father if you don't tell us? Hey?"

He's drunk, Miriam thought, but possibly he means it. So if it comes to that, lead them to the quarry and be done with it.

They were diverted then by a tremendous b.u.mping and thumping behind them. Two men were dragging furniture through the front door, after which they shoved it off the verandah, where Eugene's Heppl white secretary, one of his particular treasures, fell with a crash, split open on the gra.s.s. A moment later it was attacked with an axe by a man wearing a red silk hat, Rosa's best winter hat. He was bent over with laughter.

It was like a hurricane in its senseless brutality and waste, but far more terrible. The hurricane at least didn't know what it was doing.

Miriam was surprised that she had spoken this thought aloud, for Ferdinand replied to it.

"Like the Hep Hep looting. Different causes, but the same savagery." He clenched his fists. "Here I stand, old, weak and worthless, can't do a thing to help you." His voice broke.

New sounds came now from within the house, sounds of heavy pounding feet. Then came shrieks, the thin, abandoned shrieks of women. Emma and Rosa: What would those drunken savages do to them? Or to me? Yes, I'll die, I'll die like my mother, violently- But my daughter, my girl. If they find her-If Eugene pulls the trigger and one of those men dies, then-Well, then it's all over with her, with all of us, with everything. But he must know that. Eugene must know that!

New sounds drowned the female shrieks. Furious male voices came from just over Miriam's head. Above, on the piazza, Eugene stood in violent altercation with three soldiers. He was waving the gun, which they were trying to wrest from him. For a moment the struggle held; all of a sudden Eugene had become again the powerful man he once had been, a man who got what he wanted; no longer, at this moment, was he the wounded being who had seemed to shrink from the world he could not see.

"We'll burn the G.o.d-d.a.m.ned house, we're not half through yet!"

"G.o.d d.a.m.ned if you will!" cried Eugene.

And backing up to level the gun, he fell against the railing.

"Eugene!" Miriam heard herself scream. And, "Look out! Look out, Eugene!" she warned, she implored, but too late, too late ....

He fell. Backward he toppled over the railing, the defiance on his lips turning into a howl of horror. His body hurtled, his hands grasped at nothing- And he lay twisted on the gravel at the verandah steps, at Miriam's feet.

"Dear Lord," said Sisyphus very softly.

For a moment there was a silence of disbelief. Then the silence broke into shock. Rosa and Emma emerged from the house, still crying. Young Eugene raced to bend over his father, Angelique knelt at his other side. Her hair, loosened in her terrified flight down the stairs, streamed over her face. Servants who, half curious and half afraid, had been peering out of hiding places in the quarters, now came running to view the disaster. The ragtag, roving mob of soldiery came, too. There, in a ring ten or twelve deep, they all stood, family, servants and enemies, looking down upon the still-conscious Eugene in his atrocious agony.

There was a babble of comment and opinion.

"Lift him! Carry him inside."

"Water!"