Property(23)

My dear Manon,

I write to tell you of events after your departure. As we discussed, I joined the patrol at Chatterly. We routed 15 negroes from the swamp. 10 are dead, 5 awaiting sentencing. The leader was a devilish mulatto from Plaquemines who had escaped from his master four years ago. None of our party are seriously injured, but I am sorry to report that I took a fall from my horse and my ankle was badly sprained. I am slowly recovering.

I trust you arrived safely in town and I pray that your mother’s health has improved. We receive such worrisome reports. I will expect word from you by this messenger and look forward to your earliest return.

With loving affection,

His signature, as always, was his initials scrawled together to make both completely illegible.

I laid the letter across Father’s journal, then pushed it aside, so strong was my sense that one should not touch the other. I rested my head in my hands. My brain was suddenly raging, my chest tight, my face hot. Everything about the letter appalled me: the condescending tone, the charmless conceit, the element of command at the end, offset by an absurd pretense of warmth in the salutation and the closing. His letter was a perfect miniature of the monument to falsity he has made of my life. Tears filled my eyes, and I made no effort to stanch them. There was no one to help me. When Mother was alive, I had some vain hope that she might come to understand what I have had to bear and take my part, but now even that was gone. How am I to arrange for her burial? I thought frantically. Why has my aunt not written to tell me what to do? I looked around helplessly, wiping my eyes with my sleeve.

Sarah was there in the shadows, watching me. Her bodice was open, her breast exposed. The baby lay still in her lap, breathing peacefully, its dark mouth open to reveal a flat pink tongue. She had rested her head against the back of the settee and her eyes were lowered, her shoulders relaxed. The flickering light from the lamp bronzed her skin and made her eyes glisten like wet black stones. She was enormously still.

I wiped the last of my tears away as I looked at her, my head awash in pain. Why did he let her keep that child? I thought. What had she done to make him agree to it, what bargain had she struck, what promise given?

And then, as if to answer me, a white drop formed at her nipple and clung there. She made no move to wipe it away, indeed she seemed unaware of it. Her eyes closed, then she looked back at me steadily.

It was for his own pleasure, I thought.

The room was stifling, the air so heavy it seemed to clog my nostrils. I fancied I could smell the decay taking place in Mother’s body there in her bedroom, though Peek and I had bathed her with scent only a few hours before. When I stood up, everything whirled around me so that I clutched the chair. We receive such worrisome reports, I thought, and I could hear my husband’s nasal voice. I steadied myself and took a few steps toward the shadows where Sarah sat. “Put the child by,” I said.

She leaned forward, lifting the sleeping creature by its shoulders and sliding it onto the cushion next to her, where it made the slightest murmur, moved its thumb to its mouth, and drifted back into sleep. I am sorry to report. My husband’s world was full of reports. He’d managed to use the word twice in a letter of ten lines. I pictured him, limping across the dining room on his bad ankle. When we got back, he’d use Sarah for support. If he were dead, I thought, my heart aching in my chest.

Sarah was sitting forward, her long hands folded in her lap, her eyes resting on the child. The drop of milk still clung to the dark flesh of her nipple; it seemed a wonder to me that it should. I dropped to my knees on the carpet before her and rested my hands upon her wrists. I could feel the smooth, round bones through the thin cloth of her sleeve. I leaned forward until my mouth was close to her breast, then put out my tongue to capture the drop.

It dissolved instantly, leaving only a trace of sweetness. I raised my hand, cupping her breast, which was lighter than I would have thought. It seemed to slip away from my fingers, but I guided the nipple to my lips and sucked gently. Nothing happened. I took it more deeply into my mouth and sucked from my cheeks. This is what he does, I thought. At once a sharp, warm jet hit my throat and I swallowed to keep from choking. How thin it was, how sweet! A sensation of utter strangeness came over me, and I struggled not to swoon. I could see myself, kneeling there, and beyond me the room where my mother’s body lay, yet it seemed to me she was not dead, that she bore horrified witness to my action. And beyond that I could see my husband in his office, lifting his head from his books with an uncomfortable suspicion that something important was not adding up. This vision made me smile. I closed my eyes, swallowing greedily. I was aware of a sound, a sigh, but I was not sure if it came from me or from Sarah. How wonderful I felt, how entirely free. My headache disappeared, my chest seemed to expand, there was a complementary tingling in my own breasts. I opened my eyes and looked at Sarah’s profile. She had lifted her chin as far away from me as she could, her mouth was set in a thin, hard line, and her eyes were focused intently on the arm of the settee. She’s afraid to look at me, I thought. And she’s right to be. If she looked at me, I would slap her.