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

give him up?” she answers brightly. “I’ve loved him so well, though. I don’t know if I could.”

“Well, then, here’s someone we can ask,” he says as the doors swing open. “Give us your opinion, Jarry. Is Byron proper reading for a bride?”

“I can’t see, offhand,” the steward answers, with a suggestion of embarrassment, “why he shouldn’t be. Unless marriage is the death of love—in which case, yes.”

“I agree!” cries Addie. “I’ve always thought of him in just that way—as the poet of true love.”

“Well, let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments,” laughs Percival. “You both, though, are at an age for him. But, let me see, I knew some verses once….

‘From the wreck of the past, which hath perish’d,

Thus much I at least may recall,

It hath taught me that what I most cherish’d

Deserved to be dearest of all….’”

“I’m not familiar with the poem,” she says.

“We’ll have to see if we can find it for you. If you admire him, it’s one that you should know. And the sentiment? Do you agree that what we most cherish deserves to be dearest of all?”

“It seems inarguable.”

“I wish it seemed inarguable to me!” And now, like an old fire that has struck a hidden vein of sap and flared unnaturally, he seems to gutter and sink back upon himself.

“I was thinking of some lines of his today,” Addie says, to fill the silence. “‘Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle / Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime?’ How very like South Carolina they seem, and in fact the very landscape we passed through on the boat.”

“‘The Bride of Abydos,’ is it not?” says Percival.

She confirms it with a smile.

“And how does it continue?”

“‘Where the rage of the vulture, the song of the turtle…’I can’t remember now.”

“‘Now melt into sorrow,’” Jarry offers, “‘now madden to crime.’”

She smiles at him. “You know the poem….”

“There’s a verse in it that I admire.”

“May we hear it?”

“Perhaps another time.”

“Come, now,” says Percival. “Don’t play coy. Do you mean to mystify us?”

“Father…”

“He thinks, because he is a Negro,” Percival says to Addie, “that I take undue pride in his erudition and put him on unfair display, but what he fails to understand is that if Harlan knew a line of verse, I’d be no less quick to show him off. And it is not for me, Jarry, after all, it is to reveal yourself, the temper of your mind, to one who may turn out to be a friend. Come, then, in a trusting spirit, give it us. ‘’Tis vain—my tongue cannot impart…’ Will you help?”

Jarry stands in conflict, flushing over the request in a way that both elicits Addie’s sympathy and makes her curious to see how he’ll respond, who he will prove to be. And in this fraction of a second, she thinks of young freedmen she’s passed in Charleston on the street, black men soberly dressed, their collars starched, their ties correct and rich. These men—and, on occasion, women, too—have met her eyes and held her stare, not defiantly, the way some servants will, but with intelligent and friendly curiosity, like her own toward them, and perhaps a trace of irony as though to ward off a judgment experience has taught them to expect in a white woman’s eyes. Addie has rarely said more than “Good morning” to such persons, but she’s watched them disappear around a corner into their own lives and wondered what those lives consisted of, certain only that they were not delimited by the borders of a cotton field, or the clay embankment circling a square of rice.

“‘’Tis vain—my tongue cannot impart,’” Percival prompts once more, “‘My almost…’”

“‘…drunkenness of heart…’” Now Jarry picks it up.

“‘When first this liberated eye

Survey’d Earth, Ocean, Sun, and Sky,

As if my spirit pierced them through,

And all their inmost wonders knew;

One word alone can paint to thee

That more than feeling…’”

Now there’s a slight hitch in his voice. He turns to the window. And Addie, whose face is bright, who is sitting forward in her chair, thinks, Yes? Yes?

“‘I was free.’”

The answer, when it comes, hits her like a soft blow to the chest.

And it is Percival now who looks at Addie, who gazes deep into her eyes, curious to see how she’ll respond, who she will prove to be.

“How beautifully you recite,” she says.

“And that surprises you?” Jarry asks.

Addie smiles and holds his stare. “It does not surprise me in the least.”

“Nor me.”

They all turn, and there is Harlan frowning in the door. “We’ve yet to cut the cake, and already you’ve started your campaign to turn my wife against me. How should I be surprised?”

“No, dear, it’s not like that,” says Addie, rushing to his side.

“Not at all, my boy,” says Percival. “We’re just reciting poetry. Don’t let it provoke you.”

“But I’m not, Father,” he answers, coming in. “I’m not angry in the least. In fact, I’m grateful to you, for this conversation is one we need to have, and Addie should be part of it. It concerns her just as closely now as it does everybody here.” He turns to Jarry. “Our entire spring order is jetsam washing up along a fifty-mile-long stretch of South Carolina beach. I’ve been called to serve my country, and here at Wando Passo there are four hundred of your people who need new clothes, who have no shoes or stockings, no candles, no salt for their food or animals, and the only thing you can think of is pursuing your own selfish pleasure.”

“That is not—”

“No, excuse me,” Harlan cuts him off. “Let me tell you a little story about ‘freedom,’ Jarry. I heard it just today.” Harlan reaches into his coat for a cigar. “Jules Poinsett told a group of us. A week or two ago, this old Negro, Pompey, showed up at the Poinsetts’ gate. Jules had no idea who the fellow was. One old woman in the quarters remembered him. It turns out Jules’s grandfather—not