Back to Wando Passo by David Payne (books to improve english txt) 📕

is what it is and what you see, which must seem strange to you. I must tell you, Addie, had it been up to me, Jarry would never have been made steward in the first place. It is unwise, most unwise—I can tell you from bitter, personal experience—ever to put oneself in dependent relations with persons of that race. I didn’t always feel that way, but time—maturity, if I may say so—has seasoned me. Sadly, though, this water’s long since passed the bridge. There are four hundred souls upon this property—from the crop hands to the coopers, gardeners, and smiths—all answerable to Jarry. This plantation is an immense wheel that turns upon its steward as the axle, and if Father were to die while I’m away, if Jarry were to leave, I honestly don’t see how it could turn. The place would go to ruin in a season—nay, a month!”

“I see,” says Addie, having finally, with some difficulty, grasped the central point. “You asked your father, then, to break his word.”

“Not to break it, Addie, to delay it merely. To wait until the war is done, when I return. There are many in my regiment—even the soberest heads—who think we’ll be in Washington by summer.”

“Do they? I know so little of military matters.”

“You saw how it went at Sumter—judge from that. Even in the worst case, I don’t believe the war can last beyond a year. The Yankees hate us, hate our principles, our institutions, our way of life—why would they not let us go? The Union’s like a bad old marriage. They may rail at ending it, but will they shed their blood to keep us locked in a relationship they—and we—abhor? I don’t believe they will, and so, you see, it’s really not that much to ask.”

“Of Jarry.”

“Of Jarry. How many Negroes in this state, I ask you, can boast of advantages like his?”

“Your father takes a different view….”

“He does. It is his word, you see—he’s punctilious upon that point.”

What gentleman is not? Addie thinks, but doesn’t bring herself to say. In this area, her upbringing has left no shade of gray. “What happened, Harlan?”

“It was, madam, as if a hornet’s nest had fallen from the eave and burst.”

“What did he do?”

“He? They, madam, they! They combined their regiments! I was cast as villain of the house. You may as well know, Addie, this is my accustomed role at Wando Passo—it’s been my role for years. They refused to speak to me, to acknowledge my presence in a room. They treated me, in short, as though I were a malodorous substance to be scraped from the bottoms of their shoes.”

“But Clarisse relented….”

“Yes, Clarisse, and only she. But I must tell you, Addie, I don’t entirely trust her motives.”

“What do you think they are?”

“Lord knows! She’s a woman, isn’t she? If I were to guess, I’d say she may have seen it as an opportunity to play hostess and receive the credit of the event.”

“A Negro? Here? In South Carolina?”

“Your incredulity—though shared by me—would be lost upon the other members of this house. In Cuba on a day like this, they would be congratulated and deferred to, Negro blood or no, and it’s by this principle that Father has run his house. Rather, it’s by this principle that he has let them run it for him. And I’m sick and goddamned tired of it. So, I told her, Addie, I said, ‘Clarisse, if you would like to give a party, have away at it, and please accept my thanks. But, I cannot allow you or your mother to mingle with the guests.’”

“What did she say?”

“Not a word,” he says. “Not one. Her expression, though, was eloquent. The human capacity for self-deception never ceases to amaze me, Addie. I honestly believe that till that moment, till that very day and hour, Clarisse thought I thought about her…” Harlan’s gaze returns to that dark corner, as though his train of thought has skipped the track again.

“She thought you thought about her how?”

“Like a sister.” Now his eyes come back. “A sister, who is white.”

“Oh.” Her hand goes to the button on her breast. “Oh, how terrible for her.”

“For her?” he says. “It was terrible for me, Addie, for me, to be put in that position.”

“Yes, dear, of course,” she says. “Of course, it must have been.”

“But what was I to do?” he asks, taking out his handkerchief again. “Present her and Paloma to Louisa Elliott, to Miss Blanche Huger, on a footing of equality?”

“No, of course. Of course not, dear,” she says, noting how he is perspiring, pacing faster, smoking more, smoking quite furiously, in fact, and accompanying his tale with large, emphatic gestures of his hands. It’s as though he stands accused and feels compelled—indignantly compelled—to defend himself, as though, moreover, his accuser is in the room, a ghostly third that he can see and she cannot. Addie can gauge its presence from his actions, though, the way he smiles mockingly in its direction, steps around it or angrily shoulders it aside. And gradually it dawns on her, not certainly, but only as a possibility, that in addition to what he’s telling her—which she has no reason to doubt—there is something he is holding back.

“To her credit, though, Clarisse made peace with it and went ahead. It was my father who exploded.”

“What did he say?”

“Words that I, as a gentleman, must forbear repeating in your company. I will only tell you that the recent events at Fort Sumter were mild compared to the detonations in this house.”

“Dearest!”

“But I granted him no quarter, Addie. I gave it to him straight, no water and no ice! Frankly, the sooner he’s gone, the better it will be for everyone. We’ll never put our house in order while he lives. The first thing I’d like to do as soon as he is cool upon the board is put Paloma and Clarisse on a boat to Cuba. It was a mistake ever to have brought