The Seige Of Dragonard Hill Part 18

But Naomi would not desert him. She said that she could not leave him-a white man-alone with the black people.

Richard Abdee was not frightened of the blacks. He treated them well and he did not think they would hurt him nor allow him to be hurt. But he repeated to Naomi how the Dragonard slaves hated her, were jealous of her position both as a rich free Negress and his mistress.

Naomi laughed at him, but her laughter was low, almost a growl, unlike its usual high pitch; it was nervous, showing that she was at last frightened. Her long black hair was brushed back from her prune-coloured face, her eyes painted with blue cosmetics, her fingernails freshly lacquered red. She told Richard Abdee that she knew black people better than he did. They would see her coming in her fine red dress and they would bow to kiss the feathers on her hem. She tried to laugh again, hoping to convince him of her bravery.

Naomi had come to the north end of the island to Draonard Plantation after Abdee's wife had abandoned him, ad sailed off to France with Ta-Ta, a slave boy, and Abdee's baby in her belly. Naomi had given up her bordello on Barracks Lane in the capital town of Ba.s.seterre to live with Abdee.

The last that Naomi had seen of Dragonard Plantation was the fire, the flames which climbed the fabric hanging from the walls in a garden room. She had heard Abdee lashing his whip at slaves rushing the house. She had known that Abdee was only a short distance behind her. She had heard a scream, then, a shout, and then she heard a ripping above her head and the last thing that she remembered was that the tented room was falling in around her, the flames enveloping Naomi as if she were being rushed into h.e.l.l.

Chapter Nineteen.

VENGEANCE.

The stone gate posts flanking the entrance to Dragonard Hill stood golden in the sunset, the iron arc announcing the plantation's name silhouetted by the fading light of evening. No traffic had pa.s.sed under the sign after Peter Abdee had ridden his horse down the hills this morning, going to Greenleaf to bring his young son, David, back home. The only other person to have left the plantation late this afternoon had been Posey. He had told Curlew that he finally wanted to take advantage of his offer of a wagon and a road pa.s.s but warned him not to tell anyone that he was going for a brief recess from the kitchen. Posey had already prepared the specially ordered supper for young Master David; he had instructed Belladonna how to arrange the food on the trays. Posey did not know how long he would be gone from Dragonard Hill, the duration of time it would take to travel to the crossroads near Treetop House and home again. The only person who would come to the kitchen annex in his absence would be Veronica. But Posey trusted her to hold the secret that he was not there. Belladonna had asked Posey what she should do if Imogen came to the kitchen. Posey had answered that Belladonna should keep Imogen away from her with his meat cleaver. But having second thoughts about that advice, Posey suggested that Belladonna should protect herself with a kitchen knife or to run to the main house for help. Then, Posey prepared the necessary equipment he needed for his brief 223.

journey into the outside world, and he departed from the kitchen to the stable, and, next, down the back road in a wagon hitched to a dappled mare. Posey thought that he saw a light in the attic room of the old house whilst he drove the horse toward the weed-covered road which led to the log gates. Telling himself that he was imagining things, Posey snapped the whip over the horse's head and quickly disappeared between the yellowing cypress trees which lined the old drive way. The sun was quickly sinking behind the hills behind him.

The thunder began at dusk, a rumble of horse hooves pounding down the public road from the direction of Troy, a cloud of dust rising in the growing darkness as a group of riders galloped toward the white-picket-fenced cemetery reining their horses in front of the stone pillars announcing 'Dragonard Hill'.

The main house set high, white, commanding on its lush gra.s.sy knoll in the distance. Lights blinked inside the front windows. Smoke curled from the tall white chimney in the kitchen annex. There was little to be seen of the main house except for the blinking window lights, the curling smoke, the white pillars standing tall and strong like proud sentinels against the public road below.

'Makes me sick just looking up there. They think they're G.o.d Almighty, they do,' muttered Emil Groggin. He took a drink from a brown earthen jug and pa.s.sed it to Billy Sandell.

Claude Fonk had explained the details to the rider who had joined them along the road between here and Troy. He now said, 'A normal man would swear respectable, clean-living white folks live there. But that ain't the truth. The whole pack of them is n.i.g.g.e.r lovers.'

Billy called, 'That fact you told me, Claude? It's true? That other Abdee gal we almost gang-banged up near Hor-ton, she's married to a c.o.o.n?'

'Married? h.e.l.l, she's got three brats by him.'

'Makes a man want to puke,' muttered Billy.

Fonk said, 'That Imogen, she ain't much better. She living with that black girl. How's that for something? Not 224.

only going to bed with your own kind but a n.i.g.g.e.r wench to boot! Two p.u.s.s.ies rubbing against one another. What do you say to that?'

Bell grumbled, 'Sc.u.m like them should be wiped off the face of this earth.'

'Any wiping done, it'll be them n.i.g.g.e.rs up there when they go on the rampage as soon as it's announced that their place is being sold at auction. You know how n.i.g.g.e.rs hate to be sold. Think they're as good as people, they do. But once this place is sold, by G.o.d, the n.i.g.g.e.rs will have to go, too. And then there's trouble.' Turning in his saddle, Fonk repeated the story about Dragonard Hill's financial crisis to the newcomers, magnifying the fact even larger now as he retold it to the newly-joined patrollers. There were seventeen men cl.u.s.tered on horseback at the foot of the hill 'Look!' Warren Bell called, suddenly pointing up the hill toward the main house. 'There's something moving on that front porch. By them pillars. You see it.'

Standing in his stirrups, Billy Sandell said, 'Yes I can. It could be Abdee himself. Or it could be... it could be that Imogen.'

'She dresses like a man but what she needs is a good man. You think you could take care of her, Billy boy?'

'I ain't never seen a p.u.s.s.y yet too tight for me. I guess if she's been with women all her life then she must still be a cherry,'

'Feel in a mood for a cherry tonight, Billy boy?' Fonl teased.

Taking another swig from the brown earthen jug, Bill> Sandell said, 'The woman asked us to keep an eye on thf place, didn't she? So let's the h.e.l.l do it!' He squeezed hi: legs against his horse's belly and called, 'Come on, men Follow me up this little hill.'

Imogen leaned against one of the white pillars flankin; the front gallery of the main house. She had been drinking liquor all day. She now was wondering who she should use her whip on first, the new black overseer who had taker her place or on Belladonna who had deserted her.

The sound of galloping horses attracted her attention 225.

She saw through her whisky blurred gaze a group of men riding up the sloping driveway. She first recognized Claude Fonk as one of the lead riders. She raised her brown jug in a salutation of welcome and lowered the b.u.t.t of the whip alongside her tall black leather boot.

'Where's your black gal friend?' Billy Sandell called as the horses surrounded the front of the house.

Imogen had expected friendly faces, not a group of leering men. Glad at least to see people she knew, though, she answered, 'The b.i.t.c.h is in the kitchen.' She nodded to the white annex attached to the mainhouse. She hiccupped and demanded, 'Who's asking?'

It was at that moment that Bell pointed to a ground floor window in the main house, saying, 'Hey, Billy! There's that feisty one peeking out through the curtains at you, boy. Too bad you ain't black, Billy. She'd probably invited you inside and spread open her legs for you.'

Imogen stepped forward, weaving in her drunkenness, and sank back to one of the pillars. She slurred, 'What is this? I asked you to keep an eye on this place. . . Not to ride in here like a pack of. . . fools.' She was beginning to move the b.u.t.t of her bullwhip with one hand.

'Fools is we?' Claude Fonk asked.

Imogen looked from Fonk to the jug of whisky she had bought from him and now held in her hand. She hurled it to the ground and, as it crashed against the flagstones, she shouted, 'Yeah, fools! The whole d.a.m.ned bunch of you!' She was in a mood for a fight.

Two riders jumped from their horses; they grabbed Imogen's arms whilst another group of men moved toward the kitchen annex. Billy Sandell was running toward the doors of the main house. He threw open one door, and called inside, 'n.i.g.g.e.r lover? Want me to give you a white baby to go with your little black ones, Miss n.i.g.g.e.r Lover?' He disappeared into the house laughing, calling, 'Somebody in here looking for juice to make white babies?' The sound of Veronica's screams rose from beyond the open front door.

Claude Fonk produced the ropes. Warren Bell brought his bullwhip from his saddle horn. Another man seized Imogen's whip. Four patrollers were now leading Belladonna from the kitchen, dragging her by the arms as one 226.

man shouted, 'There was a piccaninny but she got away from us. She was too little, though. Just a n.i.g.g.e.r kid.'

Shoving Belladonna toward Imogen, Emil Groggin asked, 'This your lover, girl?'

Imogen looked from one whiskered face to another. She was sobering enough to realize how much she hated males. The whisky gave her courage to speak this hatred, and she began, 'You trash . . . you rotten, no good 'Trash now are we?' Fonk said. 'We're all right when you're needing our whisky. Or protection. But we're just. . . trash when we finally see through you.' He nodded at the men holding Imogen, saying, 'Why don't you start on her first.'

Billy Sandell called from behind them, 'Look whoVe I caught!' He moved forward, pushing Veronica in front of him, holding her hands gripped behind her back.

Fonk ordered, 'Tie her to-' He looked around him, his eyes lingering on the white pillars. He said, '-tie her and the c.o.o.n gal up to them posts. Let's keep some order to this. The little lady here just says we're trash. We'll show her how orderly us trash can be when we has to. We'll start with . . . her.'

Imogen struggled against the male dominance. But she was no match for the strong grips of the men holding her. By the time that Veronica and Belladonna were tied with ropes to the Doric pillars, four patrollers pinned Imogen's legs and arms to the ground. Billy Sandell stood in front of her spread-eagled on the ground. He unb.u.t.toned his pants, saying, 'We'll see, if she's a cherry or not.'

'I got an idea, Billy,' Fonk said. 'I always wondered what these kind of women use for p.e.c.k.e.rs when they make love. What do you think?'

'They use fingers!' shouted one farmer.

'No,' called another. 'I think they use sticks!'

Warren Bell bellowed, 'No, I think they use one of these.' He raised his squirrel gun.

Laughter surrounded Imogen as she began to toss her head frantically from side to side, listening to the men debating what object they should stick into her v.a.g.i.n.a. One man had ripped at her shirt. More hands pulled at her belt, using the blade of a bowie knife to cut her breeches away 227.

om her groin. She felt a hand on one breast. She felt ressure against her other breast. She began to scream 'hen she realized that the slim end of a whip had been tied round the base of each breast. She then felt the coldness f steel between her legs. She next heard a patroller urging, Prime her first. Prime her with some grease.' Another oice asked, Is it loaded?' Imogen's b.r.e.a.s.t.s were now being lulled in opposite directions by two different whips. The men holding each whip tossed them and the tips made her sreasts shake, and feel as if they were about to be torn from icr body. Her thighs felt as if they were going to be spread intil her bones cracked. She felt the cold bluntness sink leeper into her v.a.g.i.n.a. She gasped; she screamed for mercy is the hammer of a squirrel gun c.o.c.ked between her spread highs and its barrel pushed deeper into her v.a.g.i.n.a.

A childlike drawing of a woman. A baby between her 'egs with the name 'Pierre' scrawled in crude lettering be-wath it. Another crude drawing of a child with a tail attached to it. A drawing of a long-gun placed across this second child. And many, whips, whips of all sizes but the Hp of each whip splayed like a snake or a mythical dragon's tongue.

Lloy studied all these drawings in the attic room of the old house as well as the outlines of maps and pictures of houses drawn in a primitive manner on the walls and ceilings of the room. Must and old age discoloured many of the drawings done with a child's crayons but Lloy saw that they all were the work of a disturbed mind, by a woman- his grandmother-who had adored her blonde-haired mistress, and the son sired by the 'Dragonard' of St Kitts.

Trying to piece together a chronological sequence of places, names, and maps, Lloy had decided to make copies of as many of the drawings as he could. He knew he might never be able to come back to this attic room. He would take the copies with him, using them in the future to construct some sense of his own background. He found dusty boxes of crayons and wax pencils still in the room which he used to start making copies of the crude work.

It was whilst Lloy was still working in the attic room by 228.

the light of a tallow candle that he had first heard the horse hooves moving up the drive. He immediately remembered Claudia Goss, of asking Posey to send somebody to the crossroads near Treetop House. He also thought of someone finally arriving from Treetop House to tell him that a letter had finally come from Boston to start the first slaves on their long journey north.

Quickly snuffing out the candle in the attic room, Lloy carefully found his way down the rickety wooden stairs as he stopped occasionally and listened for the sound of Imogen. But the house was empty, silent, creaking only with its own noise of time.

He reached the back door and, running quickly to the ehinaberry trees where he had left his horse obscured from sight, he then heard the distant sound of screaming. He knew that the screams came from women-from women near the main house. He remembered the sound of horses galloping up the front driveway. No black people rode horses. Not in that number. He then remembered the white patrollers who roamed the countryside.

Realizing that he was no match alone for a group of white patrollers-men who were often drunk and fierce haters of black people-Lloy thought of the one way to stop whatever trouble might be happening in the main house. He could not go to neighbours for help. They might be amongst the patrollers. He had no choice but to go to Town. Only the black people might help the Abdee Family.

Lloy kept his horse to the woodland far behind the main house, taking the longer path to Town, but staying as far away from the main house as possible for the moment.

Wrapped in the dark grey horse blanket he had taken from the stable to keep his white clothing from shining in the darkness, Posey waited in the copse of cottonwood trees near the crossroads until he heard the clatter of a wagon coming down the road. He stepped further back from view, waiting to see if the driver was Claudia Goss and, seeing that it was, he slowly withdrew the meat cleaver from the folds of the horse blanket and muttered, 'Now we'll see who's a pansy boy . . .'

229.

Claudia's mules came to a halt in front of the cottonwood copse. She lowered the reins and whispered, 'Lloy?' She sat on the wagon, repeating into the night, 'Lloy? Lloy, you here, boy?'

Posey considered answering that Lloy was here. But deciding that Claudia might want him to show himself for proof, Posey remained silent, hidden, prepared.

Claudia did not move from the wagon and, the longer that Posey stood in the trees, the more vitriolic his thoughts became as he remembered how Claudia's first husband, Chad Tucker, had ripped off his pants as a child and had laughed at his minutely sized p.e.n.i.s, had fingered the area behind it where there should have been t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, had repeated the story to his wife and the two of them had derided him constantly for being a freak in the world.

'Lloy?' Claudia whispered again.

She's no fool, Posey told himself. She's no fool. She might be trash through-and-through but that trash woman is crafty. She ain't going to go wandering in the bushes looking for Lloy. She's going to sit right there on that wagon and wait, and when she don't see Lioy, then she's going to leave.

Deciding to take a chance, Posey moved stealthily from the trees, stepping carefully not to crack even a twig. He kept his skirt held tightly around him as he moved-step by step-in the darkness behind the back of Claudia's board wagon. It was when he was a short distance behind the wagon that he threw a stone across the dirt road.

Claudia jumped at the sound. Posey rushed forward and, grabbing her by the arm, he jerked her to the ground. He pressed her to the dirt with one hand as his other hand raised the meat cleaver over her head. He hissed, 'You scream once, trash woman, and you . . . die T 'Posey!' she gasped.

'Miss Posey!' he corrected her and brought the cleaver down sharply onto the dirt, only a few inches away from the side of her head.

Seeing that he was intent on murder, Claudia now began to tremble. She whispered, 'Sure, Miss Posey. . . . That's what we always called you..."

'Who always calls me?'

230.

"Why. . . everybody. Why everybody knows you're "Miss" Posey.'

'They do, don't they, trash woman? And they know you nothing but. . . s.h.i.t!'

"Listen here . . . Miss Posey. I've got gold. It's in the wagon there. If you let me get it-'

'I don't want your gold you got from selling sick n.i.g.g.e.rs.'

I don't sell n.i.g.g.e.rs no more. I don't sell n.i.g.g.e.rs, Posey.'

'What you call me?' he demanded, raising the cleaver above his shoulder again. But as he lifted his arm, Claudia gave a shove upwards with her stomach, using all her strength to dislodge him. She knocked Posey sideways, muttering, 'd.a.m.ned n.i.g.g.e.r pervert!'

The sound of a loud thud echoed in the still night. A gasp followed. Then came a second thud. Next, a slice, the sound of a sharp blade cutting across flesh. The gasping soon became moans, then pleadings for mercy, but the meat cleaver moved up and down in the darkness, its steely edge catching the moon's glint as Posey now knelt over Claudia's body. He soon sat astride her, hacking away at her neck, her arms, her chest; he yanked off the b.l.o.o.d.y strips of her clothing and continued cutting and hacking at raw flesh; he rose to his feet and, jerking at her skirts, he tore the cloth with one hand and cut at her stomach, her fleshy thighs, her knees with his kitchen cleaver. He had stopped muttering to himself now, only silently stripping the cloth from her body and hacking away at her lifeless trunk and limbs, following no plan of butchering, only executing an ancient hatred on someone who had long ago ruined his most treasured world, a world decorated with the wild field flowers which he had loved to pick as a boy, the wild flowers from which he had got his name, Posey, the name which had no s.e.xual connotations-neither boy or girl, male or female-until this white woman and her husband had told him that he was a deviate, a pervert, a freak of nature in the world rather than representing something beautiful in nature like a... posey.

Peter Abdee rode solemnly up the driveway to the main 231.

house, holding young David's face to his chest, trying to protect the boy from seeing what he himself saw-he first saw the black people from Town standing with axes and pitchforks in a silent circle around the group of patrollers in front of the white house. He saw Veronica tied to one of the pillars. She was hysterically sobbing. He saw Belladonna tied to another pillar. As he continued riding toward the pillars, the white men backed toward their horses. It was then that Peter saw the object, the body which he did not immediately recognize. He at first thought that she was an animal, a slaughtered farm animal; he only recognized that it was a woman-his own daughter-when he saw one of Imogen's boots still snuggly gripping a leg which had once been attached to her body. Peter sat silently- dazed-on his horse, pressing David's face even more tightly against his chest as Lloy stepped from the circle of slave men and women who were holding the white patrollers at bay with hammers, axes, scythes, pitchforks. Lloy called to the white men, 'I think you should all go to your homes now. All of you. Just ride down the same way you came up that hill. These black folks behind me are peaceful. More peaceful than you've been here tonight. There ain't no uprising here. But there might be if any more . . . misery is caused here. Go. Just go now.' Lloy stood facing the white men, staring at them until-one by one-they began to mount their horses. The sound of the animals soon pa.s.sed down the hills; Peter remained seated on his horse, holding his head forward, pressing his young son toward him, beginning to take deep gulps of tears, shaking his head as he began to cry. Maybelle moved from the crowd of slaves to lift young David from Peter's arms. Croney and Ham moved with Lloy to untie Veronica and Belladonna from the pillars. A group of black men came to cover the remains of Imogen's body with a blanket before they moved her from the front of the main house.

Chapter Twenty.

THE TRAVELLERS.

The two lovers had been carefully chosen, great care gone into scouring the city of Havana to find a Negress with the correct hint of blueness to her black skin-making the colour almost prune-like-and a search conducted for a sinewy young white man with flaxen hair which swept back from his forehead and with eyes that shone blue like cornflowers. The two lovers-the young white man and the lithe Negress-had been coached separately, not even allowed to meet one another before their encounter. The young man was American but his nationality did not matter; the accent of his speech, unimportant; he would not be speaking at his meeting with the Negress. And although the young Negress was a slave girl, she had been coached in the ways of how to conduct herself as if she were free, rich, an independent spirit willing to be dominated by no one, a female who would submit to her dominating lover only if he, in turn, allowed himself to be subject to her femininity. When the correct att.i.tudes, confidences, desires, all the necessary traits were instilled into the two chosen people, they finally would be introduced to one another, an introduction following weeks of s.e.xual abstinence, a meeting planned to be a culmination of pa.s.sions between this sinewy young white man and the fiery young Negress with skin the colour of a prune. They had been separately coached by their tutors-their models-to go to their meeting feeling l.u.s.t for-as well as suspicion of-their partner. The 233.

actors contributed only their ingenuity . , . and youth. The long-awaited encounter finally arrived. The stage was in a windowless room-a heavily carved bed on which was slung a feather mattress covered with a white linen sheet. The room was lit by a black iron chandelier suspended from the ceiling by chains with its three tiers of squat candles casting shadows onto the bed. There was no other furniture in the large room except for two wooden chairs and an iron table, both chairs comfortably padded, and the table set with chilled wine and two stemmed crystal goblets. Naomi came to sit in one of the chairs. She entered the room wearing her long black dress and black veil covering her face. She wore white gloves as she held her wine gla.s.s. Richard Ab-dee entered the room after Naomi's arrival, glancing toward the bed where the two naked lovers lay as if asleep. Abdee looked at them rather than at Naomi. Although this was the first time that he had seen her since she had come to Havana, he did not greet her nor did he make any inquiries about her journey from New Orleans. Her first letter to him from New Orleans had explained how she had learned of his whereabouts from his granddaughter. Their exchange of letters following her arrival in Havana, the correspondence to arrange the careful plans for this evening had been their only subsequent contact. . . until now. He sank into the other chair alongside the iron table and, pausing before he poured himself a gla.s.s of wine, he asked Naomi if he could refill her gla.s.s. Naomi shook her head, raising the gla.s.s toward her mouth, lifting the veil from her scarred face to sip the sparkling white wine. She kept her eyes trained on the bed: The naked lovers were beginning to move. Naomi quietly set her gla.s.s down on the table and watched with interest as the female meant to be portraying her now rolled away from the handsome young white man. He-the facsimile of young Richard Abdee-pulled her back toward him. They struggled. He reached to slap her. She grabbed his hand and, locked together in a momentary test of power, they glared at one another like animals but, unexpectedly, they lunged into a l.u.s.tful grasp. They knelt kissing. The kisses turned into a gasping embrace; his white arms encircled her black body; her dark arms hugged his slim waist; their naked midsections pressed tightly together; the black girl then bent backwards into an arc as 234.

the white man held her by the hips and looked proudly down at his p.e.n.i.s driving in and out of her mound. He maintained the rhythm of his pumping motions as he rose to his feet, his knees bent, squatting now as he pulled away from and pushed harder against her thighs. The black girl herself then moved, pulling herself upright from the arc, springing to her feet, standing in front of the squatting man, putting the sole of one bare foot on his shoulder and holding her v.a.g.i.n.a toward his mouth. She no longer wanted him to dominate her. She wanted him to serve her femininity with his tongue like a slave. It was at that moment that Naomi felt Richard Abdee press the top of her white gloved hand resting on the arm of her chair. He patted her hand and, reaching toward her with his other hand, he removed the white glove and lifted the blotched skin-long ago marred by fire during the slave uprising on St Kitts-and he gently, slowly kissed each finger. He lay her hand back on the -arm of the chair and, looking at the white man and the prune-black Negress now wrapped into a double-coloured ball of deep fornication, he asked, Is that how it was, Naomi?' She answered in her raspy voice, the first words she had spoken to him in over thirty years, 'You bet your white a.s.s it was! And we were both bad enough to survive this long!' She turned her head to look at him. He studied the veil. The sound of ecstatic moans rising across the room from the bed were now obliterated by their laughter at this reunion, a long-awaited meeting in a windowless room deep in the slave house on the Calle de Eclavos in the district of Regla in Havana.

Vicky felt no remorse about not returning to Havana. She realized that her son would grow into a fine young gentleman, that his father would guide him into a world which would exclude her. She asked herself, Why suffer that pain later? Why give Juan Carlos more victories in embargoes he placed against me. I will live for myself. Vicky Abdee! To h.e.l.l with Condesa Veradaga! And, thus, the one and only remaining detail in Vicky's life as the Condesa Veradaga was Malou but she decided to get rid of her, too. Instead of selling Malou in a New Orleans slave 235.

house, though, putting her on the block as she had often threatened, Vicky suddenly felt generous in her new life, freeing Malou and settling a small sum of money on her to begin her own new life. She had heard that Malou bought a small shop on Ca.n.a.l Street where she sold herbs and spices from the Sea Islands. Knowing Malou's propensity toward a religious life, and that similarly p.r.o.ne black people gathered here in New Orleans, Vicky surmised that Malou's stock included more amulets and potions for her voodoo religion than it did condiments for a kitchen. But, then, Vicky no longer cared about Malou. She was too concerned with her own progress. She slept days and stayed awake nights for her work at Pet.i.t Jour on Rampart Street. She devised new theatrics for the upstairs theatre. She railed orders at the black men who worked as waiters. She constantly inspected the girls for cleanliness, attractiveness, and disease. She found that juice from a lemon squeezed into a v.a.g.i.n.a was one way to check a prost.i.tute for the pox. It was during such inspections that she enquired-and discovered to her surprise-that few girls knew about 'Jezebel's Grip'. Vicky gave them hints for this practise which increased s.e.xual satisfaction for a male. As well as pursuing such a busy schedule, she also closely surveyed all the male guests, eliminating the drunk, the pugilistic, and the poor. She had placed Jerome Poliguet's name on a list of people to be barred from the bordello. She decided that exclusion from Pet.i.t Jour would be his supreme punishment. With all this work and dedication, Vicky hoped to make Pet.i.t Jour more profitable in Naomi's absence than it had been under the old Negress's surveillance. Vicky often thought, though, that Naomi might never return from Havana. She told herself, Let Naomi keep the secret to herself that Richard Abdee is alive. Vicky had severed all ties with her family since sending the octoroon girl, Chloe St Cloud, north on a coach to Dragonard Hill. Vicky was too involved with her new role in life-a bordello's mistress-even to think about her own physical pleasure. She sat behind the desk in the office at Pet.i.t Jour, sipping coffee in the early hours of the morning after a prosperous night of business and, looking at money heaped in front of her, she asked herself, 'Why have I never discovered money before now? The power of money? Its magic? I work at night but- 236.

look-I have all this gold for my sunshine!" The only thought which troubled Vicky was that she might be similar to her grandfather in too many ways.

'Miss Posey?' the kitchen-girl, Lulu, asked as she sat on a stool next to the work table in the kitchen annex on Dragonard Hill. 'When we going to get us a new helper here, Miss Posey?*

'What you call me?'

The girl stared at Posey. She did not know what she had said wrong. 'I calls you-'

'Mademoiselle Posey!' the lanky Negro cook said, throwing up his nose. 'Mademoiselle St Cloud, she's a fine educated young lady and she's teaching me French-talk. That is when she comes visiting here from Greenleaf where she and young Master David lives now that Mister Barry Bres-lin done left with a coloured gal for Mexico.'

Posey suddenly took a deep sigh. He also sat down on a stool next to the table, shaking his head with bewilderment over all the changes that had happened here. Master Peter had freed Belladonna. She had gone North to Boston with Miss Veronica. Master Lloy had gone North for a visit with them. But before he had left Dragonard Hill he had suggested to Master Peter that Ham be made overseer here. Master Peter, though, Posey learned, had his own plans for Ham. He was giving him Greenleaf Plantation to run now that he had bought it from Mister Breslin. Ham and Maybelle were living there, along with Mademoiselle St Cloud from New Orleans tending young Master David. The changes, the movements, the alterations were all too much for Posey's mind.

'What's the matter. . . Mam'selle Posey,' Lulu asked.

'This travelling. Everybody's going or gone some place all of a sudden.'