Property (Vintage Contemporaries) (10 page)

“I’m not sure whether you will be safer there or here,” he said. “That is the intolerable state we’ve come to.” He looked out at the waiting carriage. For a moment I almost pitied him. He is so bound by the lies he tells himself; he can only play at feelings he thinks he should have. He cast a furtive, wistful look over my head at Sarah, and my pity dissolved in a familiar wave of bitterness. “We must be off,” I said, signaling to the boy to come in for the trunk. Sarah went ahead, carrying the baby and the small travel case. My husband followed me. As I climbed into the carriage, he put his hand under my elbow to assist me. “Take care, Manon,” he said. I fixed my blandest smile upon my lips as I settled into the seat, arranging my skirts amid the bustle caused by the trunk being lashed into place, Rose handing up a package of biscuits and ham, the driver bounding to his bench and speaking to his horses, the creaking of leather, the crack of the whip, the jolt and groan of iron on wood as the wheels began to turn and we pulled away. I raised my hand to my husband, who stood on the step waving awkwardly. Walter burst from the bushes and ran toward him, his arms thrashing the air, his red hair like a fire burning up his head. He threw himself at his father’s legs, screaming, either from joy or pain, there was no telling, and my husband was forced to lean over the child to keep his balance.

“Perfect,” I said to Sarah, who was watching also, squinting against the sun. “A perfect picture to remind me of the charms of home.”

MORE CARRIAGES WERE leaving the city than going to it, though we were overtaken by two doctors on horseback. Both assured me that the danger was not so great as the populace feared. “They exaggerate everything in New Orleans,” Dr. Petrie of Donaldsonville assured me. “It’s part of the pleasure of living there.” But at dusk, when we reached town, I knew at once that it was Dr. Petrie who had exaggerated. How altered it was, how dark and shuttered the houses, how still the fetid air of the streets. There were torches lit at intervals along the way and a sulfurous smoke had spread like a dirty yellow blanket settling over the buildings. To my horror we passed a wagon laden with dead bodies. They were wrapped in linen sheets and a heavy canvas had been thrown over them, but their feet, bruised blue and swollen, stuck out at the back and sides, as if still seeking one last step upon this world. The driver, an aged, skeletal negro who did not so much as raise his eyes as we passed, could have modeled for death himself. Surely he was not much farther from the grave than his cargo. What if Mother was in that lot? I thought. I closed my eyes and made a vow that if she was not, and if she were to die, I would take her to the cemetery in my own carriage rather than see her carted off in so promiscuous a manner.

Sarah’s baby was mewing, then, as her mother tried to comfort her, she gave over to a loud, nerve-racking wail that made me want to pitch her into the street. “Can’t you make her stop?” I said, after a few minutes of this.

“She hungry,” Sarah said, shifting the child to her shoulder. Sarah was wide-eyed, her upper lip damp with perspiration, and she was holding herself in an unnaturally stiff position, her chin pressed in to her neck, her nostrils pinched as if she was having trouble breathing. She’s scared to death, I thought. She’ll be as much use as a cat when we get there.

At last we turned onto Rue St. Ann and pulled up in front of Mother’s cottage. It too was shuttered; I had rarely seen it closed up so entirely. I leaped from the carriage, ran up the few steps, and yanked impatiently on the cord. I could hear the bell clanging in the back of the house, then silence. For a moment I feared I was ringing a bell inside a tomb, then, to my relief, I heard footsteps coming toward the door.

It was Peek, Mother’s cook. She opened the inner door hesitantly, then, seeing me through the shutter, pulled the latch and floor bolt to let me in. Sarah had climbed down and stood beside me, her baby fretting against her shoulder. “Miss Manon,” Peek said. “Your mama is a little better today.”

“Go straight back and quiet that child,” I told Sarah. “All a sick person needs is a whining baby in the house.” I went into the parlor. How dreary and dark it was, and how still. Sarah continued out through the dining room to the quarter. Peek stood on the step waiting for the driver to unfasten my trunk. My eyes fell upon a framed portrait of Father on the side table. He’d had it made for Mother when they were first married. He said the artist had romanticized him; that his hair had never been so thick, his jaw so prominent, but Mother maintained it was a good likeness. “I wish you were here,” I said. “I miss you so.” Then I went through the dining room to Mother’s bedroom door.

MOTHER IS NOT an easy patient, and I am certainly not constituted to enjoy nursing duties. She is too weak to stand, petulant and weepy, unable to hold down anything but clear broth. Dr. Chapin has visited regularly and yesterday pronounced her to be improving, but he confided to me as we left the room that it is not uncommon in this disease for a patient to rally for a few days and then to be taken off suddenly. Her own view is that the doctor is killing her. Indeed, his treatment is bleeding and laxatives, which, to be effective, he insists must be administered at frequent intervals. As Mother’s fever has broken, he has relented, and the result has been a gradual strengthening of our patient. “Keep him away from me,” Mother says every time the bell rings. She prefers Peek’s poultices and teas, which smell strong enough to drive a devil from the room.

I look forward to the doctor’s visits if Mother does not. He brings news from outside the cottage. The yellow fever is generally lessening, having, as he puts it, lost its hold on the population. The cholera has carried off over one hundred people this week, many of them negroes, at great expense to the community. The graveyards are overflowing; there are not enough gravediggers to keep up with the demand. No one goes out but to obtain food, there are no parties, no public gatherings of any kind. The city is as it might be under enemy siege. Yet, as the days slip by, I am strangely at peace. I sleep in my old room at the front of the house, and take my meals alone in the courtyard.

Mother bought this cottage after Father died, to be close to her own mother, who was infirm. I was thirteen when we moved here. When I first saw it, I thought it would be too small for comfort or privacy; there are only four rooms in the front house, two on the street, two behind, but they are large, airy, and so designed that each can be closed off from the others. From the dining room two sets of casements open on to the courtyard, which is half covered by a gallery running between the kitchen and the two-room quarter. This creates a comfortable covered loggia which is always cool. There is a lovely old marble column dividing this space between two graceful arches, and beyond it a pool fed from the cistern. I sew there in the afternoons, and I can hear Mother’s bell should she wake from her nap. Sarah sits on the kitchen step peeling vegetables or skimming one of Peek’s noxious medicinal brews. She’s found a rocking cradle somewhere which she works with her foot. Even the steady creak of this device does not disturb me; in fact, it has a soothing effect, as if I were being rocked to sleep myself.

Of course it occurs to me that should mother relapse and be taken by her illness, this little house would be my own.

I HAVE BEEN through a living nightmare.

At noon I went in to feed Mother some broth. She seemed much improved. She asked to be settled in her chair and was strong enough to get there by holding on to my arm and taking small steps. She wanted various pillows arranged just so, then complained that the soup was not hot, which made me think of my husband. I called Sarah to take it to the kitchen and put it back on the fire. When Sarah came in, Mother gave her a long look, as if she could not think who she was. Then, when she had gone out, Mother said to me, “Why have you brought that one with you?”

“Why shouldn’t I? She’s mine,” I said.

“But who is serving your husband?”

“Rose, I imagine. She’s old enough. I left in such a hurry that was the last thing on my mind.”

“So you still have no proper butler,” Mother said.

“My husband does not wish to have one.”

She was silent a moment, studying me in a way that made me uncomfortable. “Can’t he afford one?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I lied. “I’m not privy to his finances.”

“Why did he choose sugar?” she fretted, more to herself than to me. “There’s no reliable profit in it.”

“No,” I agreed. “Cotton is more practical.”

“I keep hearing a baby crying,” she said abruptly. “Is there a baby here?”

“It’s Sarah’s,” I said. “She’s still suckling.”

“Why did you bring her here?” she asked again. Her persistence perplexed me, so I gave no answer. Her mind is wandering, I thought, from her illness.

“Whose baby is it?” she asked again.

“Sarah’s,” I said.

“Yes,” she said impatiently. “I know that. But who is the father?”

“How should I know?” I said. She blinked at me, as if I’d struck her.

“I thought you would manage better than you have, Manon,” she said. “You neglect your duties and so you have no control in your own house.”

I could not bear another lecture on my failings as a wife. “How long can it take to warm a bowl of soup?” I said, rising from my seat. Just as I reached the door, Sarah appeared with the tray. “At last,” I said. “What makes you so slow?” I reached out to take the tray, but as I did so I saw that Sarah was looking past me with a grimace of revulsion. She backed away, allowing the tray to slip from her fingers and crash to the floor. Hot soup flew up onto my skirt; a few drops burned my ankles. I shouted, turning away to pull a towel from the washstand, and, as I did, I saw a sight so terrible it will haunt my dreams until I die. Mother was sitting just as she had been, propped on her pillows, her hands folded in her lap, but from her mouth, nose, eyes, and ears, a black fluid gushed forth. I screamed. Sarah ran, calling for Peek. I took up a towel and went to Mother, pressing it to her mouth and nose. She didn’t struggle. Perhaps she was already dead. “My God,” I said, over and over, mopping the viscous fluid away, but to no avail. I took her hand to find even her fingernails blackened and wet, and when I looked down, I saw two stains unfurling like black flowers at the toes of her linen slippers. “Can you hear me?” I said, as the towel turned slippery in my hands. Peek came running in, trailing towels, went straight to the washstand, filled the bowl, and brought it to me. Together we washed Mother’s face and neck as best we could. Soon the water in the bowl was black, and still the liquid seeped from her eyes and mouth. Her skin had turned blue, as if she were suffocating, and the veins in her neck and hands stood out against the flesh like spreading black tentacles. “Mother,” I pleaded. “Please speak to me. Please try to speak to me.” Peek put her hand on my arm and said, “She gone, missus. Nothing more you can do.”