The Seige Of Dragonard Hill Part 9

Peter Abdee respected other people's privacy; he expected the same honour to be paid to him. He did not like to remind people about the generosity he had shown to them in the past but neither did he like them to forget it. He had not extended his sympathy and understanding to his daughters in expectation for their return sentiments. Nevertheless, he was maddened by the fact that Vicky had confronted him at tonight's supper table about the financial arrangement which he and Kate had offered to Barry in an attempt to save Greenleaf. He did not believe that any arrangements existing between him and Kate-even Barry Breslin-concerned Vicky. He had not dragged out facts at supper about Vicky's past life, mistakes which she had made which he had chosen to forget but he had been tempted to tell her that everyone makes a few mistakes.

Had it been a mistake to help Barry? Peter asked himself this question as he walked along a path leading from the main house. The fact that he was even weighing Vicky's accusation maddened him. He was giving credence to her questions by brooding upon them. He was beginning to have negative thoughts about the future of Greenleaf, to consider the repercussions on Dragonard Hill if Barry Breslin failed to harvest a successful crop this season.

Peter next asked himself, why would Vicky be so inconsiderate, so cra.s.s as to press me with these demands? And to ask questions about ledgers and old accounts co-signed by Kate? Has she no respect for the dead? At least through a period of mourning? Kate's body is barely cold in the ground!

The night was still; the indigo sky brilliantly spotted with an array of twinkling stars. The ferns drooped in luscious rows over the woodland path which Peter now followed farther and farther away from the main house.

He wondered again how Vicky had learned of the notes which he and Kate had signed. Had she gone to the bank? He considered the idea of approaching William Tyndale, the banker in Troy, and to ask him if his daughter had paid a visit today to the bank. He instantly rejected the idea. He did not want to add to the problem by asking questions in Troy. He knew how the townspeople gossiped, III.

Thinking of townspeople, though, Peter next thought of Curlew reporting to him that Vicky had only visited the general store. He wondered who in there would know of the notes-of-payment. When he envisioned the mercantile store in Troy, he only thought about the men who idled in the chairs by the front window, the men who served as patrollers on the public roads, a local element for whom Peter had little respect.

Considering the fact that gossip was probably already rife in Troy that Barry Breslin was in financial difficulties and that Dragonard Hill was now legally responsible for standing the debts, Peter's stomach knotted with tension. He tried not to curse Vicky for worsening the situation. He also tried not to wonder what his other daughters might unwittingly do to him.

Veronica? Where was she tonight? Vicky had claimed that her foray into Troy was for old-time's sake. Look what she's come home with, he told himself.

So what about Veronica? Why did she suddenly announce that she wanted to go traipsing into the wilderness north of here? Would she be the instrument of more problems?

It was at that moment that Peter saw the slim silhouette of a young girl standing ahead of him on the path. He immediately thought of the slave girl, Sara, when he saw two brown arms folded demurely in front of her waist. He realized that if he needed any s.e.xual release it was tonight. His resistance to making love with one of his slave-women was low. It was non-existent.

Imogen Abdee stood in the bushes alongside the path and watched her father's half-naked body pumping eagerly against Belladonna's naked thighs. Imogen had been amused at first when she had watched her father approaching Belladonna, knowing that he did not recognize the black girl dressed in such different, such alluring clothing.

Not knowing exactly how long it had taken her father to realize Belladonna's ident.i.ty, Imogen had stood concealed by the thickly growing brush and watched them finally II2.

embrace-of her father wrapping his arms protectively around Belladonna as she moved closer to his body.

It was then that Imogen pa.s.sed into her second stage of emotions. She next felt jealousy. She watched her female lover giving herself to her father-her father making love to her own concubine-and she felt hatred for both of them.

Reminding herself that this was all her own plan, Imogen controlled her raging jealousy and waited again to see if her father would abandon Belladonna once he discovered who she was.

He did not.

Perhaps, Imogen wondered, he still does not know who the b.i.t.c.h is.

Finally, Imogen knew for certain that there could be no doubt in her father's mind about whom he was giving his love. She watched him kneeling on the ground between Belladonna's spread legs. She watched him pulling the slim black girl up and down on this thickening phallus. She watched him spreading his hands over Belladonna's full b.r.e.a.s.t.s as she tossed her head from side to side as Imogen had instructed her to do to feign excitement for a man.

Yes, Belladonna's face was in full view. He could in no way not know to whom he was making love.

Imogen remained standing motionless in the brush and watched her father's p.e.n.i.s dart in and out of the furry patch between Belladonna's legs. Imogen knew that she could never have the s.e.xual equipment of her father, that a crude replica was the closest she could even hope to strap between her legs. But through Belladonna she could possess power. And she watched her father quickening his drives into Belladonna and she swore that she would have control, total control over Dragonard Hill.

Chapter Eight.

CHANT SANS.

A narrow cobbled street spined by a gutter. Lacy iron verandas overhanging board sidewalks. Vendors crying a variety of streetcalls for oysters-ori-the-half-sh.e.l.l, garlands of fresh tuberoses, sprigs of medicinal herbs. An aroma redolent with spices, perfumes, horse manure. A cacophony of noises ranging from lively Irish reels fiddled in saloons to the abandoned jangle of a.s.s jawbones clattering to the steady beat of a Cajun's drum. This was Rampart Street at night, a popular thoroughfare in the French-flavoured section of New Orleans called Vieux Carre, Black men dressed in satin waistcoats called to pa.s.sersby to eat in cafes, to visit girls in upstairs parlours, to drink ram concoctions which would make you believe that Heaven existed upon this very earth. Other Negroes-and whites-promised celestial pastimes by the wink of an eye to pa.s.sing strangers, by the flash of a bosom or the glitter of a coin. Snaggle-toothed old women leaned over iron verandas and called that they could tell fortunes from coffee grounds, read the future in Tarot cards, divine good luck by the casting of magic Indian stones.

Rampart Street was most enterprising after sundown; night-time brought out the hucksters, vendors, prost.i.tutes, gamblers, thieves. The world was divided into two types of people at night on Rampart Street-the buyers and the sellers.

The least conspicuous of the business establishments on II4.

Rampart Street set behind a pair of ornately wrought gates. The house was called Pet.i.t Jour but the only hint about the business which was conducted behind its wisteria-swagged walls was a fountain situated in the middle of the courtyard, a fountain centered with a statue of richly-carved cupids to depict that this was a house of love-prost.i.tution.

The proprietor of Pet.i.t Jour was a black person, a freed Negress named Naomi who had long since established herself as a landmark on Rampart Street. In the pa.s.sing years, Naomi still maintained her rule of offering only the finest- and most bizarre-s.e.xual pleasures to a gentleman if he had the money to pay for it. No man dared enter Pet.i.t Jour without his pocket full of gold, or a reliable banker's note for credit. Naomi's brothel, Pet.i.t Jour, was unrivalled in New Orleans either for expense or lasciviousness. And for those men who gained entry, Naomi offered special theatrics staged in a small room at the top of her house, visual excitements staged to transform the most impotent man into a stallion, the most frigid female into a shameless nymphomaniac.

The theatrics at the bordello, Pet.i.t Jour, varied not only from night-to-night but also differed throughout the course of one evening. Those habituees who had enough money to afford the price of admission often viewed all three performances on one night-or commencing at night and culminating in the late hours of morning.

Jerome Poliguet arrived at Pet.i.t Jour before the last theatric was about to commence. He left his outercoat and hat at the door, telling a waiter to bring a bottle of champagne upstairs to the theatre as he anxiously took three red-carpeted steps at a time so as not to miss a single moment of tonight's presentation, Chant Sans Paroles.

Sinking into one of the black velvet chaise-longues encircling a small stage area, Poliguet saw an object-he guessed it was a new prop for the premiere of tonight's presentation-which set in the middle of the stage. He immediately detected that the shiny wooden object looked like a grand piano but no ordinary grand piano. It was too II5.

deep, too wide, too bulky. But, then, Poliguet knew that at Pet.i.t Jour many things were not what they appeared to be.

Other men lounged and visited amongst themselves around Poliguet as, slowly, more and more of the chaise-longues became occupied. The room was surrounded by a black curtain behind which were small niches where dignitaries-or females-could watch the theatrics without being seen.

The waiter brought the green bottle of champagne to a table setting alongside Poliguet's chaise-longue. He popped the cork with calm expertise whilst Poliguet talked to him about the impressive turnout at tonight's premiere, his travels to the upcountry wilderness, a rambling account of his business there-nervous chatter which betrayed that Poliguet became a completely different man from his usual confident self once he entered this sanctuary, Pet.i.t Jour.

The black waiter departed as the candles in the crystal wall candles were snuffed out, leaving only a dim lighting near the stage area. The room fell to a hush when a tall, broad-shouldered black man walked slowly to the middle of the stage. He wore a cutaway coat, tightly fitting white breeches, shiny black leather boots. He bowed to the audience like a concert pianist and then took a seat in front of the keyboard of the wooden object representing an outsize grand piano.

The black man extended his hands toward the piano's keyboards but no music filled the room. As he continued to mime the act of playing a piano, though, the piano began to revolve and, on the s.p.a.ce in which would normally be keys lay a white girl who was totally naked.

The audience applauded as the black pianist began to twist the girl's nipples with one hand and finger her v.a.g.i.n.a with the other, occasionally running one hand down her legs like a pianist trilling the keys-but, then, giving the naked white girl a sharp slap on the thigh.

Although the black pianist continued his mild tortures on the girl lying where a keyboard would be, the piano again began to revolve and a Negress entered the stage, a voluptuous young black woman dressed in a red beaded gown which exposed both of her fulsome b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She stood facing the audience and, closing her eyes, she began to II6.

open and close her mouth-miming that she was a singer accompanied by a pianist. But the piano played no accompaniment: The song had no words.

The lid of the grand piano slowly opened behind the silent singer and the sudden crack of a whip pierced the theatre's silence. Then a second whip snapped from inside the piano. Next a third and a fourth whip echoed in the near-darkness, echoing like taut piano wires springing from inside a grand piano until, soon, six black girls slowly rose from the curved depths of the piano, flailing their Song whips to the offstage accompaniment of a drumbeat slowly gaining momentum.

The black singer now turned to the six young Negresses behind her and, ripping off her beaded dress, she stood in nothing but a small beaded patch covering her v.a.g.i.n.al delta. She then spun back around to face the audience of startled male onlookers and, as the six girls with the leather whips now backed her like a threatening chorus, the singer coldly began to scan the white men lying on their velvet chaise-longues.

Her eyes finally lingered on Jerome Poliguet. She slowly raised one arm and, pointing toward him, she motioned with her other hand for the Negro pianist to emerge from the darkness behind her to carry Poliguet to the stage where she stood.

Poliguet panicked as the black man reached to lift him from the chaise-longue. He knocked over his bottle of champagne. He shouted for a.s.sistance. But no one moved to help him. Nor was his own strength a match for the black man who now dropped him in front of the black singer's feet.

Poliguet began to tremble, to look nervously around him, but the six black girls closed their circle around him. They held the leather whips behind them with one hand and used their other to hold Poliguet into servitude, forcing him to remain kneeling in front of the singer who now ripped the beaded patch from between her legs, rubbed it against Poliguet's face and then spat upon him.

The audience finally began to applaud as the Negresses forced Poliguet to move his head forward; he opened his mouth; he extended his tongue; he began to lick, then to eat from the coa.r.s.e wool between the black singer's legs.

II7.

Only Poliguet-and the performers-knew that he had paid for this public subjection. That he himself had previously arranged to be debased in front of this audience of white men, to be included in the premiere, of this theatric at Pet.i.t Jour as if he were a helpless party to it all.

But as Poliguet now knelt in front of the statuesque black woman, mouthing his tongue deeper and deeper into the sweetness of her v.a.g.i.n.a, he lifted his hands out behind him for the other Negress to clasp his wrists tightly together with iron manacles.

Poliguet no longer cared if any-or every-one in the room knew he had arranged for this humiliation. That he realized what was to follow this act of c.u.n.n.i.l.i.n.g.u.s. The knowledge that the members of the audience might realize that he himself had asked to be subjected in such a public manner only increased the thrill for him.

Jerome Poliguet could not enjoy love-making unless it was forced upon him by a dominant female and the only place where he knew he could find it was on Rampart Street in New Orleans at the brothel called Pet.i.t Jour. That was the reason he went to Troy-to supplement his income and be able to afford the exorbitant prices at Pet.i.t Jour.

'Why do you bother me with details about that pervert?' asked Naomi, the-madam of Pet.i.t Jour. She was seated behind her desk in the office located on the brothel's ground .loor. 'Poliguet's paid well. He's upstairs enjoying it. Why do I care what he told you before the show started tonight?'

The Negro waiter stood in front of Naomi's desk, daring not even to raise his eyes. Although Naomi wore a black 'ace veil over her face-and had worn one since she had !ong-ago come to New Orleans as a free black woman from he island of St Kitts-the waiter also knew that she did lot like even to be glanced at by anyone. He had heard low her constant veil hid vile wounds, scars from a fire.

Also knowing that the Negress, Naomi, was interested n any matter pertaining to the family called 'Abdee' who ived upcountry in Louisiana, the waiter awkwardly ex-)lained, 'Poliguet's a bit of a braggart, Mistress Naomi. A braggart and a sn.o.b. He was complaining whilst I was open- II8.

ing and pouring his expensive French champagne that he was ail weary from dealing with people at someplace called . . . Dragonard Hill.'

Naomi jerked her head. She asked, 'Dragonard? Dragonard Hill?'

The black waiter nodded.

'Did he mention the Abdee family?' she demanded.

'Yes, Mistress Naomi. Not much. But he mentioned meeting a daughter. A young Abdee woman who's now calling herself a countess. A young woman at Dragonard Hill who's come home from Cuba. It seems her step-mother done died.'

Remembering that Vicky Abdee had long-ago married a Cuban aristocrat, Naomi's voice hardened. She said, 'Tell me! Tell me everything that pervert said!'

'He didn't talk too much sense, Mistress Naomi. He was nervous. Twitchy. He was thinking, I guess, about what he's up there getting right now.'

Naomi sat upright in the chair behind her desk. The black lace veil hung in neat folds around her head and fell around her thin shoulders. She folded her white-gloved hands in front of her on the desk and began to give the waiter instructions to watch this Creole lawyer, Jerome Poliguet, who talked so unguardedly-so sn.o.bbishly- about upcountry planters. The Negress madam of the bordello, Pet.i.t Jour, had a special interest in the Abdee family, their plantation, Dragonard Hill.

Book Two

RIPENING.

Chapter Nine.

TREETOP HOUSE.

I brief spate of early summer rain did not improve Claudia [Joss's ill temper. A steady downpour pelted against the .vindow pane of her small cabin in Grouse Hollow, dram-ning down onto the roof, creating a claustrophobic prison n which she had no other choice than to mull over the idea jf being civil to a black person.

The more Claudia considered Jerome Poliguet's advice rf visiting the colony of freed slaves called Treetop House ind being polite to a black man, the more annoyed she became with the prospect. She remembered the advice which Poliguet had given her-not to "antagonize" the free Negro, Lloy-and she brooded even more about the manner in which a white person was supposed to address a free black man.

Claudia had no one to turn to for advice on deportment. She briefly considered about acting her usual self, to forget about kowtowing to any person she called a 'c.o.o.n". But remembering the urgency in Poliguet's voice when he had instructed her not to vent any prejudices toward Negroes at this free farm called Treetop House, she ultimately convinced herself that she would not be paying court to some black person for his or her own worth but that she would be treating them as 'humans' only to strike a fatal blow upon the Abdee family living at Dragonard Hill. Claudia decided that, given a choice between the Abdees and black people, she would choose black people anyday-at least she could order 'c.o.o.ns' around when she finally won her cause! And, so, in such a frame of mind, she informed her farm slave, Jack, to hitch-up the mules to the wagon. She decided to seize the first break in the inclement weather to try her luck at Treetop House in making initial contact with Lloy.

The slave, Jack, stood alongside the wagon to which he had obediently hitched Claudia's mules. He had brought the wagon to the front porch of the cabin and helped his I22.

pudgy mistress step across the puddles left in the yard from the torrential three-day downpour.

Claudia held the hem of her linsey-woolsey dress above the mud and said to Jack, 'I won't be needing you to drive me today.'

Jack remembered the harangue which his mistress had delivered to him only a few weeks ago, that sharply delivered speech about white ladies never driving their own mules. He looked at Claudia in amazement, asking, 'You sure you can do it, Miss Goss, Mam? You being a fine lady and all?'

'You do it, don't you?' she snapped. 'Anything a c.o.o.n can do, I can do, too! Here! Give me a push, boy,' she ordered, motioning for him to stand behind her and to help her climb up into the driver's seat.

Once settled on the wagon, Claudia held the buckskin reins in one hand and repositioned the straw bonnet on her head. She pulled a black shawl tighter around her shoulders; she sniffed and, rubbing her stubby nose with one raw knuckle, she said, 'The fact is, Jack, I'm driving over to that place called Treetop House. It's some crazy danged place where c.o.o.ns gallivant around like white folks. It would be bad, real bad for you to see such nonsense with your eyes. You might get crazy notions in your head. And on top of all that, Jack, I don't rightly know what them n.i.g.g.e.rs over there would have to say about me arriving with a c.o.o.n slave driving my mules. They might keep you over there once I got you inside the gates. They might keep you for a free n.i.g.g.e.r. Then what would I have? Nothing!'

She reached toward the brake and, grunting as she tugged and pushed on the rod, she then snapped buckskin reins. She shouted, 'Hey! Get going you lazy critters!' The wagon slowly b.u.mped down the road pressed over the quack gra.s.s bedding the ground which belonged to Grouse Hollow.

The countryside was lus*h from the weekend rainfall, the sun glistening against the branches and boughs still beadet with raindrops from the deluge. The wheels of Claudi? Goss's wagon slipped and churned in the mire of the dirt I23.

puoiic road, ne wnippea ner rnuies naraer, uiuugn, < p="">

The farm appeared no different than many small plantations dotted throughout the countryside, its buildings well-kept and the fields planted with crops. Treetop House also boasted a quant.i.ty of out-buildings like other plantations-barns, dairies, looming houses, chicken coops, even potteries and brick kilns. Treetop House was a self-sufficient community having all the similarities of a slave-run plantation with one noticeable exception-there was no main house at Treetop House, no pillared or galleried big house where the owners lived. The black residents of Tree-top House lived in small communal houses and dormitories, the original building for which it had originally been named having long since been razed and its lumber put to more advantageous use.

CSaudia stopped inside the gates of Treetop House, sitting on the wagon and looking in bewilderment around her as she wondered how she was going to find the person here she wanted to see.

A voice called behind her, 'Good morning, Mam? May I help you?'

Claudia turned in her seat and saw a black woman dressed in a blue-and-red checkered frock. The black woman wore a white ap.r.o.n over the frock and carefully held one end of the ap.r.o.n to cradle a collection of brown eggs. She smiled at Claudia, not a subservient smile which Claudia was used to seeing on black slaves, but a smile of equality-a neighbourly welcome.

'I'm looking for a... boy named Lloy,' Claudia announced gruffly.

'Lloy? Oh, you'll find Lloy over in the school house. Least that's where he's suppose to be.' She nodded to a shingle-roofed building setting across a field of corn.

'School house?' Claudia repeated. 'He still young enough to be going to school?'

The amiable black woman laughed. She answered, 'No, Lloy is not attending cla.s.ses, Mam. He's teaching cla.s.ses. Three days a week now.'

Claudia took a deep sigh. c.o.o.ns! c.o.o.ns teaching other c.o.o.ns! She quickly reminded herself, though, that she had I24.

set out on this mission for revenge against other parties. That she must not let her personal convictions keep her from achieving the vengeance she desired more than anything else in the world, She lifted the reins to drive toward the school house.

The black woman called, I'm afraid you can't go to the school house now, Mam. Not in the morning. You see, you'd be disturbing school-teaching.'

Claudia's mouth dropped open. She could not believe that she was being told by a black woman what she could or could not do!

'You are welcome to come to the Refectory for a cup of coffee while you wait," the black woman kindly offered. If we're lucky, we might even be in time for some of Mary Ellen's raisin cake. That goes mighty good with coffee. And by the time we finishes that-'

Suddenly stopping, the black woman held onto the ap.r.o.nful of eggs with one hand and raised the other hand to shade her eyes to look in the distance. 'I do declare. You are lucky today. I do think I see the little children coming out for their morning recess. Yes, I do. They're coming out now. Why don't you head over and try to see Lloy for a few minutes if you're in a real big hurry to talk to him. I'm sure he can spare you the recess time. Then if your news is important and takes long, you remember my invitation to coffee and raisin cake. Lloy will tell you how to find your way over to the Refectory. You can wait there and talk more with him over lunch-time. My name's Deline Ford. See you later, Mrs. . . ?'

Claudia grunted again. She reached for the reins. She forgot about refectories and lunch-breaks. She saw no reason to thank the black woman for the invitation nor to introduce herself. What is she anyway? Claudia asked herself. Nothing more than just another c.o.o.n. And I don't like the idea of her having a better dress than me. Deline Ford? Hmmrnph! Snooty wench!

Lloy was a young man in his mid-twenties with skin the colour of coffee stirred lightly with milk, and gleaming black hair which curled in tight wool against his skull, forming I25.

a neat line across his forehead. He had a strong chin. His shoulders squared inside his white home-woven shirt. His waist was neat and stomach flat.