Long Distance Life Part 30

"Aaah..." he answered after a while, and kissing her told her to go back to sleep.

She watched him standing in the firelight with it for a while before he went out the door. He had put it on her dresser after rubbing some small spot beneath the lock that no longer had a key.

Later in the morning while he still slept clutching the rumpled pillows, she picked it up and tilting it toward the gray window saw the letters there that spelt Aglae Aglae all but rubbed away. It meant nothing to her this name, only perhaps that some lady had owned this long ago, it had a fine patina that might have been enhanced by this person named Aglae. Yet she wondered at it, and the way he had held it, as she put it aside. all but rubbed away. It meant nothing to her this name, only perhaps that some lady had owned this long ago, it had a fine patina that might have been enhanced by this person named Aglae. Yet she wondered at it, and the way he had held it, as she put it aside.

When he went out finally, promising to be back for supper, she had wrapped her cape around her, ignoring Zurlina's outraged protests, and walked the long windy streets to Madame Elsie's where she wandered alone in the rain in the backyard. A nest of ferns still grew in the shelter of the cistern. She dug up the best of these herself. It was in the window in a porcelain pot, its spears spreading in the steamy warmth of the cottage, when Monsieur Vincent came home.

VI.

IT WAS A MONTH after Madame Elsie died that Anna Bella learned she was pregnant. This was early spring, and the winter having retreated slowly still gave them chill damp days. Not a fortnight had pa.s.sed without a visit from Monsieur Vincent. He would come swinging through the gate with quick hard steps, carrying flowers, and sugar liqueurs in his arms. He had bought Zurlina after Madame Elsie's pa.s.sing, gotten Anna Bella's modest settlement from her out of the tangle of the courts, and matters had settled into a routine. He ate heartily, rose early, studied late by the fire. Sometimes in bed naked from the waist he read the papers he had come to New Orleans expressly to buy or went through treatises on economics, and the cultivation of sugar in other lands. after Madame Elsie died that Anna Bella learned she was pregnant. This was early spring, and the winter having retreated slowly still gave them chill damp days. Not a fortnight had pa.s.sed without a visit from Monsieur Vincent. He would come swinging through the gate with quick hard steps, carrying flowers, and sugar liqueurs in his arms. He had bought Zurlina after Madame Elsie's pa.s.sing, gotten Anna Bella's modest settlement from her out of the tangle of the courts, and matters had settled into a routine. He ate heartily, rose early, studied late by the fire. Sometimes in bed naked from the waist he read the papers he had come to New Orleans expressly to buy or went through treatises on economics, and the cultivation of sugar in other lands.

He had papers from the land office which he examined, always locking them up afterward, and went off to lawyers in the St. Louis Hotel, bringing back candy for Anna Bella or some fine article from a shop window he imagined that she might like. Sometimes she laughed at these gifts, they were so strange, so luxurious in their uselessness, little statues, a foreign coin in a minute rosewood stand, ancient bits of lace for her to copy that were themselves so fragile they required a frame.

As the weather warmed and the garden blossomed she felt as if she'd always known him, and she couldn't even remember him as that earlier remote and frightening young man. He seemed very young to her at times, a boy of twenty-two; yet at others, he was a specter at her door with his gleaming black hair, those magnetic eyes, his dark cape wrapped around him as if he were the figment of doom.

But in their day-to-day domesticity, he had taken on a perfection in her eyes. She loved the sight of him at leisure, his linen shirt undone at the throat so she could see the thin curls of hair on his chest. He had this same soft growth on his wrists where she liked to play with it and move her fingers through it as if it were a wild land of tall gra.s.s and they were little creatures on the run. But it was his face that was the perfect part, she often thought, loving the high cheekbones and the graven eyelids, and eyes like beads of jet.

The mere sight of him, unexpected at the gate, could make her weak. A shock pa.s.sed through her body often in her dreams, and opening her eyes in the empty bed she felt a craving all over when he was not there.

He would kiss her all the time as if he could not get enough of it, not in pa.s.sion but some lovely pleasurable tenderness such as one lavishes on little girls. And she, loving to touch him in any way, would come round him in his busiest moments to work the tired muscles of his neck and shoulders, even once in a while to run her hairbrush gently through his thick hair. She liked to roll his curls on her finger until with a tightening of his lips, he looked at the ceiling and reached out for her hand. But even then he smiled, kissing her fingers, it was impossible to think of him in a temper, the mere idea of it could fill her with dread.

But on the night that she was to tell him of the coming baby, she was uneasy. She had realized some time ago that he was skilled at interrupting the act of love just at the crucial point to prevent conception, and he had not consulted her in this, nor had she wanted to question him. But now that she knew for certain she was pregnant she was filled with a dull misery, fearing his unhappiness, and her own unhappiness, and that he would not be pleased, nor would he love this child.

The night was warm when he came, and he asked at once for a bath. Zurlina had long ago set up his broad boatlike iron tub in the small unused back bedroom of the cottage, and he peeled off his clothes as the water on the stove began to boil. Anna Bella got his soap and the towels and filled the tub. She lit the candle on the washstand, and turned her back demurely as he came from behind the screen and slipped into the steaming water. He let out a moan of pleasure. She picked up the soap and leaning over daintily rubbed it into the wash-cloth that she brought along his back.

"Do you love me?" he asked playfully.

"You know I love you, Michie Vince, why do you tease?" she said. She rubbed the soap well into his neck, lifting his dark curls and holding them up until she rinsed him. She touched them lovingly with the towel.

"And what do you do when I'm gone?"

"Think about you," she said.

"And when you're not thinking about me?" Vincent laid his head back on the curled edge of the bathtub, sliding deeper into the water, and looked up into her eyes.

"And when is that, that I'm not thinking about you, Michie Vince?" she smiled.

She came round the tub, dropping down on her knees with the grace of a curtsy, and began to gently soap his chest.

"So, tell me why you're not glad to see me," he said in a low voice.

"Why, Michie Vince, what do you mean?" she asked. But it was no use trying to hide it. He took the washcloth out of her hand. "Leave that, I'm clean enough," he said. "Talk to me, Anna Bella, what's wrong?"

She rose slowly, her hand instinctively moving around her waist. "I do so want a little baby, Michie Vince, I guess, I guess I would never want anything that made you unhappy with me..."

"Is that it, then?" he asked softly. She didn't dare to look at his face. She moved slowly to the coal stove and opened the door just a crack to let out some heat. He had stepped out of the tub behind her and drying quickly, slipped into his robe. She heard him padding across the bedroom, and took a deep breath. A strange thought pa.s.sed over her, clear and wordless, that gave her exquisite pain. She had not planned to love this man really. She had not ever expected it. She loved Marcel too much. And she knew too little of Michie Vince to expect anything, besides. But she had been utterly won over in the past months by his genuine gentility and his brooding charm. She loved him. It was that simple. She loved him and respected him, respected all that was decent in him, honorable, a code of behavior that seemed to extend to all human beings who had not lost his trust. She had sensed before now that this man would treat her decently long after he had ceased to want her, as he treated everyone decently, and that respect had so warmed her affection for him that somewhere, mysteriously it had turned to love.

That he was ecstatically happy with her she understood, but did he love her? She was not so sure.

When she went into the dining room, she found him sitting in his armchair by the empty parlor grate.

"Come here," he said wearily. And as she obeyed he put his arm around her waist. "It isn't fair of me, is it? To ask you to wait?"

"Michie Vince," she said. "It's already done."

"Aah," he sat back. She could see his relief. He hesitated for a moment and then rising wound her in his arms. He kissed her fervently, and sweetly at the same time.

"You know, I'm a fool," he said. "I can already see it, I can see the glow in your cheeks."

She shook her head, this was all flattery.

"No," he said. "It's true. You've got to have everything, do you hear me, everything that will make you comfortable. Do you understand?"

They dined early. She had not told Zurlina this news, and he seemed to sense at once that she didn't want to talk about it when Zurlina was near.

"And how long will it be, then?" he asked. "Before you must...well, stay in?"

"Oh, a few months," she said. "I'm not worried about all that."

"I am," he answered. "But why?"

"Because I know that when I'm not here, you're very alone."

She laughed suddenly with delight. "Well, when that little baby comes, it won't be that way anymore, then I'll have part of you here with me all the time." She stopped, not sure what she had read in his face. Perhaps she'd said too much.

"What about that girl?" he asked, leaning forward on his elbows, "the girl who gave you that little secretaire?" secretaire?"

"She only came that once," Anna Bella shrugged. "We were never really good friends, it was Marcel who was my friend, Marcel, her brother, you remember me telling you all about Marcel."

"And does he come...when I'm not here?" He had given his permission for this quite explicitly and there was nothing of suspicion now in his tone.

"No, he doesn't come," she said. She didn't want to talk of this, even to think about it, she wanted to think of the baby, or think of nothing at all. Just be in this room, with the light of the candles and Michie Vince sitting comfortably across from her, and she was very surprised when he said, "Would it help if I were to speak to him, to tell him that he might visit you if he likes?"

"Would you do that!" she whispered, amazed.

"I'm going to be gone for long periods this summer, there'll be too much work at Bontemps Bontemps. There'll be months when I can't come to see you at all. You told me once he was a brother to you, that you were the closest of friends..."

She studied his innocent, trusting face. His quick black eyes moved expressively as he spoke. He had met this boy once, Marcel, he was saying, it would be a small matter putting him at ease.

She experienced a jarring sensation then because she was suddenly flooded with memories that seemed to come from another world. And as these memories inundated her, she had the odd experience of thinking about two incidents at the same time. On the one hand, she was exquisitely aware of Marcel's presence as if he were in this room, not the Marcel who had kissed her, but the raw and deeply trusting friend who had parted from her that last time they'd been together alone in the garconniere garconniere. And on the other hand, she had an immediate and unexamined recollection of Lisette laughing in the back kitchen as she reported to Zurlina that Marcel was indeed spending his nights with Juliet Mercier. A sadness came over her. She was still looking at Michie Vince, and her love for him was so strong and so undoubted that she felt a bitter-sweet longing for Marcel as one might for a loved one who was actually dead. But was it possible that some ugly carnality had only arisen for a short time to mar that friendship which had been finer, more vigorous than any she'd ever known? Was it possible to somehow regain that innocence, that trust? Here she was with child, and there he was with a mistress, and in her mind she went back, way back to some evening in the parlor behind the boardinghouse when the two of them as children had been alone. The subject of the conversation had long escaped her leaving behind only the impression of closeness, of pure and certain love.

"Would you do that, Michie Vince?" she asked. "Would you really do it? I think if you were to tell him it was all right, he might come."

"You know, ma chere," ma chere," he said with a peculiar look of wonder, "for you I'd do almost anything, anything that is within my power to do." he said with a peculiar look of wonder, "for you I'd do almost anything, anything that is within my power to do."

He wanted to make love. He had given the series of indefinable little signals, rising without a word, wandering into the darkened bedroom without the candle. She heard the faint soft sounds of the quilts being folded back. As soon as she was in his arms, he alarmed her with his pa.s.sion, stunned her with rapid kisses, his hands exploring her body with a new boldness that neither of them had known. She did not realize that her condition had excited him and relieved him. He didn't have to be careful anymore, the blood was teeming in his brain.

Later she found him again in the parlor, alone. He turned to embrace her at once with such a frightening urgency that she brought up the candle and looked into his face.

"What is it, Michie Vince?" she asked. "Is it the baby?"

"No, no," he shook his head shutting his eyes. She believed him. Often she had seen this struggle in his face. And now, as always, he said it was "nothing, nothing."

"Just hold me," he whispered. It seemed that pa.s.sion did nothing to quiet this. But strangely enough she felt closer to him in these moments, when he needed her, clung to her. And all that was between them pa.s.sed through their bodies to one another, it had been the same many times when they'd parted at the gate and a forlorn being she did not know had peered at her from his black eyes.

It was that strange being, gentle, relentless in his silent and consuming need, who lived with her for the next few days.

And when it came time for him to leave again, she watched him go in the grip of his dark feeling, and felt a gnawing pain. She knew him better than she had ever known anyone, and yet something divided them, hopelessly, something she knew instinctively had little to do with any fault in herself.

But what she failed to understand about Vincent was this. All her life it had been easy for her to tell her troubles to others, to lay her head on Old Captain's chest, or let the tears flow from her eyes on the first night of love, whispering, "Monsieur, I'm afraid." She knew at once what troubled her, or broke her heart, just as she knew what was dishonest and wore on her nerves.

But for a man of Vincent's makeup such confidences were a luxury he would never enjoy. And even if he had somehow managed to overcome his profound disinclination, there were reasons why he could not confess to her the particular troubles on his mind. She knew the Ste. Marie family, his brother-in-law, Philippe. It was unthinkable that he could burden her with the turmoil at Bontemps Bontemps.

For in the months after his return from Europe he had found that the new overseer, far less scrupulous or experienced than the deceased Langlois, had been given a free hand. Money was missing from the coffers obviously, or wasted in inefficiencies, Vincent could not at first tell. And during his months abroad a pregnant slave woman had been beaten to death. A hole had been dug in the ground over which her body had been stretched for the whipping so as to protect the child. But she'd aborted during the night and been found in the morning dead. Older slaves took this to Michie Vince just as soon as they could find the chance with him alone. Nonc Pierre and Nonc Gaston, the elders in the cabins, laying it all out for him in low reverent whispers, didn't have to tell him that he was the only court of appeals. She'd been a lost soul, that poor slave woman, no man could claim or would claim to have been the father of that child, else the slaves might have been in a worse state than they were.

But these considerations barely entered Vincent's mind. She was a human being and Vincent had been horrified by this brutality and his subsequent discovery that without benefit of ceremony her body and that of the infant had been hauled away in a filthy cart. This struck to the heart of the very thing that terrified him about the entire system of slavery, the utter callousness and inhumanity which it bred in the worst of those in command. And clearly this overseer, having spent his early years on the vast industrial sugar plantations of the state, had learned to work his chattels as if they were mules. He had to be taught what was expected here! These were Creole Negroes, and they were the "people" of Bontemps of Bontemps.

Yet none of this had been mentioned by Philippe to Vincent, not even in pa.s.sing, and Vincent's antipathy for Philippe, which had grown so strong in its early years of dormancy had been fanned to a flame.

And of course there was the vexing matter of Aglae who was beside herself with her maids. Someone (someone!) had senselessly stolen her little antique lap secretaire secretaire, a treasure left her by Grandmere Antoinette. It seemed hardly worth p.a.w.ning, yet it had broken her heart. That Vincent could say nothing about this infuriated him, he had seen it in the parlor of the house he had bought for Anna Bella, he had no doubt who had given it to Marie Ste. Marie.

And had he not grown up under his brother-in-law's gentle authority, always the recipient of extraordinary kindness, he might have been less thoroughly confused. He respected Philippe, but had the long months in Europe given him a sharper perspective, a man's perspective? Had he been blind? Now all this was too momentous for a mention; were he to drag it out between himself and his brother-in-law, he could not have gone on living under the same roof. And of course he had no intention of leaving Bontemps Bontemps. It was his father's house. And he was not to dream of leaving Aglae who wept softly over the stolen heirloom, "It's always little things, your father's gold watch, books that he treasured, and now that little secretaire secretaire. Why don't they steal my jewels for the love of heaven? And who is behind it?" In her desperation she ran off the names of the black girls she'd reared from childhood. Vincent glowered at the fire.

But there was the master of the house, night after night, presiding at the supper table, lavishing on Vincent a splendid allowance both for his private needs and that new "pet.i.t household" sensing not the slightest hostility from wife and brother-in-law, or if he did, giving no sign. He was now taking two fifths of red wine with his dinner, and brandy afterwards without fail.

No, Vincent could not have told Anna Bella any of it, he could not have told anyone. Duty bound him to silence even as he calculated, becoming aware in himself of some vague but persistent ambition of which he was not entirely proud. He had long known he would not divide his inheritance from the rest of the plantation, so early marriage was quite far from his mind. Bontemps Bontemps was a grand enterprise which must continue as Magloire had designed it, to provide income for his sisters, their children, a life for them all. was a grand enterprise which must continue as Magloire had designed it, to provide income for his sisters, their children, a life for them all. Bontemps Bontemps would always be would always be Bontemps Bontemps, and for now Vincent was just a part of it, content to instruct his young nieces and nephews, to groom young Leon, Philippe's eldest, for the inevitable trip abroad. Yet he would continue to learn all that he could about the cultivation and management of this sprawling land. He would watch this new overseer, and break him if possible, he knew more of the workings of Bontemps Bontemps than anyone now that old Langlois had died. And Philippe with a careless shrug tipped the neck of the bottle to the gla.s.s, murmuring than anyone now that old Langlois had died. And Philippe with a careless shrug tipped the neck of the bottle to the gla.s.s, murmuring "eh bien." "eh bien."

But yet another burden, bittersweet and baffling weighed on his soul. Much as he had been drawn to Anna Bella in the beginning, he was amazed to discover that he loved her now far more than he should. He had never really thought to find virtue in this alliance, n.o.bility, or anything particularly fine. It was the satiation of pa.s.sion that he wanted, and some companionship in its least sordid form. And finding Anna Bella so sweet and pure, he had made the mistake of thinking her a simpleton of sorts. Actually, he'd thought Anna Bella was a fool.

He believed all Negroes were fools.

Not that G.o.d had made them inferior so much as they had somehow developed into a childlike race foolish enough to submit to the yoke of slavery. Born to the regimen of the immense plantation, he had judged them by their chains. He knew nothing of the horrors of the Middle Pa.s.sage from Africa, the utter dehumanizing brutality of the coffles and the auction blocks, and he did not even fully appreciate the extent of the tyrannical efficiency developed by his own father on his own land. And he had never guessed that those slaves closest to him, having long ago come to terms with their condition-that is, choosing to accept it rather than run the miseries of a fugitive's existence-knew that he believed them to be fools, and shrewdly chose not to disillusion him in the slightest. After all, he was benevolent when not challenged: they could do a lot worse.

Of course the gens de couleur gens de couleur posed a special problem and always had. Well bred and educated, they often invited optimism. Vincent, in fact, had only just installed on his plantation a refining process invented by a brilliant young man of color, Norbert Rillieux. But how could one account for their living here generation after generation in a country and a region that did not want them, that would never permit them equality, and sought ultimately to crush their heads? How could anyone as clever as Christophe come back to this place declaring sentimentally that it was his home? And still smarting from that humiliating encounter with him of the summer before, Vincent could not think of him without anger, embarra.s.sment, and scorn. posed a special problem and always had. Well bred and educated, they often invited optimism. Vincent, in fact, had only just installed on his plantation a refining process invented by a brilliant young man of color, Norbert Rillieux. But how could one account for their living here generation after generation in a country and a region that did not want them, that would never permit them equality, and sought ultimately to crush their heads? How could anyone as clever as Christophe come back to this place declaring sentimentally that it was his home? And still smarting from that humiliating encounter with him of the summer before, Vincent could not think of him without anger, embarra.s.sment, and scorn.

But the women of color, they were more pathetic really as women are always more pathetic, not the movers or the changers but merely the victims. Better that they be sweet, accepting, and un.o.btrusively pragmatic as women always are.

But quick-witted? Profound? Possessed of any real substance of mind or character? He had never expected it.

And Anna Bella had disillusioned him at once.

He had perceived in no time that her sweet pa.s.sivity was not indicative of a lack of intellect or a lack of character at all. And far from being some sow's ear fashioned into a Creole belle, she was a lady to the tips of her fingers, having imbibed the principles of gentility for the very best and most profound of reasons: that gentility makes life graceful and good. That gentility depends in its truest sense upon respect for others, love of others, it is the daily practice of charity refracted into manners with the most profound moral principle at its core.

She was admirable, this simple and pretty girl who did not comprehend the scope of her own pa.s.sionate appeal; and day in and day out she impressed him more and more with her candor, clear intelligence, and the very gracefulness of mind and manner that he might have wanted in his wife.

Yes, that was the worst of it, it was all that he might have wanted in a wife. In fact she was all that he could ever ever have wanted in a wife, and his happiness, despite himself and the gloomy exterior he often offered to her, knew no bounds. have wanted in a wife, and his happiness, despite himself and the gloomy exterior he often offered to her, knew no bounds.

When she had told him in the parlor that she was with child, he had one tormenting thought. Had she been white and all else been equal, he would have flaunted the old tradition and brought her, orphan that she was, to Bontemps Bontemps. But she was not white. And this was unthinkable. So that the very extent of his love for her, its peculiar profound composition, seeming as it did far more appropriate to the state of matrimony, weighed on his soul. What had he done? What had he done? He could barely endure being away from her, he needed her, how would he ever give her up? He could barely endure being away from her, he needed her, how would he ever give her up?

Eh bien, what had it been, half a year? He could pray that it would pa.s.s. But he knew theirs was a perfect match, it would not.

So pounding out the front gate to find Marcel Ste. Marie on this morning in May, he had only one desire, to obtain for her something that she wanted, some companionship to which he felt she was ent.i.tled. He shuddered at all thoughts of a lover's possessiveness and a colored mistress's subservience. He wanted this woman whom he loved to receive her friends with dignity, to have some measure of the full life he possessed. If someone had told him then that he had another idea in mind, he would have denied it. He did not understand the full character of his own fears.

It was only when he reached the Rue Ste. Anne, that he became aware that he had no immediate or practical plan. Certainly he would not enter the gate of that little cottage. He moved on. But a shock visited him as he headed towards the Hotel St. Louis. He and Philippe had long honored an understanding that they would not leave Bontemps Bontemps at the same time. Yet there was his brother-in-law walking slowly toward the corner of the Rue Ste. Anne and the Rue Dauphine with Felix, the coachman, who carried bottles of wine, and gaily wrapped parcels in his arms. at the same time. Yet there was his brother-in-law walking slowly toward the corner of the Rue Ste. Anne and the Rue Dauphine with Felix, the coachman, who carried bottles of wine, and gaily wrapped parcels in his arms.

"Bonsoir, Monsieur," Vincent gave Philippe a slight, courteous bow.

"Eh bien, mon fils," mon fils," said Philippe wearily. "I couldn't wait on you forever, besides I lost at cards to your cousin, and he's told his wife, and she's told your sister, and these days I never have any peace at all." But then he drew him close, affectionately, "You'll hurry back, won't you? I knew you would be back today or tomorrow, hmmmm?" said Philippe wearily. "I couldn't wait on you forever, besides I lost at cards to your cousin, and he's told his wife, and she's told your sister, and these days I never have any peace at all." But then he drew him close, affectionately, "You'll hurry back, won't you? I knew you would be back today or tomorrow, hmmmm?"

"I was on my way back now," Vincent said with his usual formality. He would have liked to point out that his brother-in-law had been absent only last week for several days, and the week before, and the week before. Indeed, it seemed Philippe had spent the better part of spring in New Orleans, it seemed they were never together at Bontemps Bontemps at all. at all.

"No, truly, listen to me," Philippe said confidentially as if they were the best of friends. "It's Zazu, the black woman I gave them years ago," he gestured vaguely toward the distant cottage with its banana trees pressing on the white picket fence. "She's failing, badly. I don't want to be gone too long until we see if the hot weather will bring some improvement, she was born on my father's land."

Vincent nodded when Philippe uttered a short laugh. He pointed with a quick un.o.btrusive gesture toward a bright blond-haired quadroon boy who was coming down the opposite side of the street. "Can you believe that is Ti Marcel? He's grown an inch a month for the past year."

Vincent's face flamed with a sudden and jarring humiliation. He saw that the boy, having averted his brilliant blue eyes, was walking on as if he had not seen the two men. A loathing came over Vincent, not for the immaculate young quadroon who pa.s.sed them as if he did not know them, but for all of this, his brother-in-law smiling covertly at his b.a.s.t.a.r.d son, Felix with that cache of presents, Felix who would be driving Aglae to Ma.s.s next Sunday, and the proximity of that little cottage, and his own position here, dallying with all of this around him in this street. A revulsion gripped him so that he was hardly conscious of his perfunctory farewells, and walking fast for the hotel he did not look back.

It was only when the steamboat was at last churning upriver that, standing on the deck he resolved not to keep his promise to Anna Bella, that he realized he could not bring himself to speak with Philippe's b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Marcel. He did not want the Ste. Marie family to touch his Anna Bella, and he would have liked to believe that she was not of their world. But she was was of their world! He had only to think of that little of their world! He had only to think of that little secretaire secretaire, Aglae's secretaire secretaire, which sat so proudly on Anna Bella's bedside table to realize that of course it was Anna Bella's world, too. And as dusk obscured the banks of the river, and the waters beneath him turned the color of the darkening sky, he realized more keenly the source of his pain. He He did not wish to be connected with that world. did not wish to be connected with that world.

With Dolly Rose he had had no sense of it, knew nothing really of those who surrounded her, and his pale and lovely daughter had been for him a creature fixed in some complex and ornate frame, painfully separated from him, but untouched by anyone else. And even so, her death had been a reprieve.

But this was over, Anna Bella was pregnant, he had surrounded her with a house which was his home. And in so many months she would bear a child who might very well be a boy-child, a child who would become a young man. And that young man would be half-caste, just as the blond-haired son of Philippe's was a half-caste, and that young man would be Vincent's son!

His youthful adventure with Dolly had never struck him with this curious intensity, he had never seen its implications, he had never understood. The thought of the boy-child made him positively shudder, and he wrapped his cape about him vainly, turning his back to the river wind. Pray it were a girl. But what did this really matter! He had made the same tragic mistake again. He had forged a chain for himself linking him inextricably to that dark society which was all too real to him now, and which for all the distinction and appealing rhythm of those words, gens de couleur libre gens de couleur libre, was the Negro world.

By the time the plank dropped at Bontemps Bontemps, he had resolved to give Anna Bella only a simple explanation. He did not wish to speak to her friend, Marcel Ste. Marie. Sensitive and clever as she had always been, she would not question him, and might quite likely even understand. Surely she knew of the connection. And it was the only promise to her he'd ever broken. She would forget in time.

And as soon as he set foot on his own land he put it out of his mind.

Old Nonc Pierre was waiting with two young black boys to take his bags, and the old slave led the way with a lantern, saying the usual, that he was glad to welcome the young master home.

"Things are well, then?" Vincent murmured, more out of courtesy than anything else. A sense of security slowly thawed his depression as they moved toward the warm lights of the big house.

"So, so, Michie," said the old slave. He did not turn to look Vincent in the eye.

"What's wrong, then?" Vincent asked almost irritably. He was dead tired. But nothing more could be gotten out of Nonc Pierre. And Vincent entered the house wearily, knowing there would be some unpleasant surprises for him in the morning when he stepped into the office and tracked that overseer down. Nothing out of the ordinary, he thought grimly, and Philippe gone for the week, no doubt.

Aglae was waiting for him in the big parlor, a wood fire blazing strongly beneath the high mantel. He could see she had been studying the plantation ledgers, which were always kept under lock and key. The sight of these bulky books annoyed him. He would have liked to change clothes before sitting opposite her, but she gestured for him to come in.

There was a wasted look to her as she poured his brandy, the firelight harsh against her sharp features. The brief ruffle at her neck, her only ornament, did not soften her but rather served to emphasize the heavy lines of her narrow face, the inevitable evening shadows under her eyes. And her countenance didn't brighten with affection as it so often did when he came home. Instead, she merely produced a letter from a packet of letters, all neatly opened, no doubt by the small ivory handled knife in her hand.

"Read it," she said.

He hesitated. Clearly, it was addressed to Philippe. But she said again, "Read it," and he did.