Next to Father’s portrait lay the latest letter from my husband, a thinly veiled command to return at once to his house and bring my father’s money with me. I recalled Mother’s last words to me, her complaint that I had failed as a wife because I neglected my duties to my husband. How could she chide me, when she had found fault with a husband who never gave her a moment’s anxiety, who was faithful, steadfast, industrious, loving, everything my husband was not? No. I acknowledged no duty to the man who has forced me to live these ten years in the madhouse of his cupidity, perversion, and lust. The fire in the grate burned low, but I took no notice. Another smoldered in my heart. I sat late in the cold room tending it, feeding it, until sparks ignited the dry tinder of my resentment, and it was as if I were sitting in a furnace.
THERE IS NO escape, yet how can I resign myself, when the world that is denied me tantalizes me at every turn. In the afternoon, as I stood with my sleeves rolled up, supervising the housecleaning, I received a note from my aunt inviting me to supper. Joel Borden called this afternoon, she wrote on the back of the card. He will join us after supper to offer you his condolences.
“Go to my aunt’s at once,” I bade Peek. “Tell her I will come at seven. And ask her for the loan of her black cashmere shawl.” Then I had Sarah leave off beating the carpets and spend the rest of the day washing and drying my hair.
Stupidly I enjoyed an inappropriate euphoria, as if I were going to attend some festive occasion, but as soon as I was seated next to my uncle in my aunt’s dining room, I came to my senses. He had just returned from visiting a planter for whom he is factor and was still much burdened by the shock of Mother’s sudden death. He took my hand in one of his, dabbing his handkerchief to his eyes with the other, and avowed the well-known scientific fact that Creoles are rarely taken by the yellow fever. This was the reason my mother had given for declining his invitation to their house on the lake. My aunt, teary-eyed, pointed out that she had lost a cousin in the epidemic of 1822. How fortunate, my uncle observed, that I had arrived in time to bid my mother farewell.
Every mention of Mother causes me to relive the last minutes of her life, which leaves me speechless, gripped by panic, but it would not do for me to beg for a new subject. Joel would doubtless speak of nothing but the pain of my loss, of his sincere attachment to and affection for my mother. What would he think if I said I’d rather hear the gossip from the latest fête he had attended? I was quiet through supper, eating little, which my aunt and uncle did not remark upon, attributing low spirits and lack of appetite to my bereavement. At last we took our coffee into the drawing room, the bell rang, and a servant showed Joel into the room.
What a strange effect the sight of him had upon me. He looked strong, masculine, with that combination of languor and gaiety that is so appealing, yet his features were composed in an expression of sympathy that was unmistakably sincere. As his eyes met mine I found no trace of his habitual irony; only sadness and a tender care for my feelings. He came to me at once, holding out his hands. As I rose to meet him, I was weakened by an unexpected surge of grief, so that I clutched his hands for support. A thousand regrets crowded my brain, a hard sob broke from my throat, and tears streamed from my eyes. The impossibility of collapsing in Joel’s embrace drove me back into my chair. There, bent over my knees and still clinging to his hands, I gave myself over to a storm of weeping. Joel released one hand to stroke my cheek, my hair, murmuring softly, “My poor Manon, my poor, dear girl.” Through my sobs I heard my aunt say, “She has been marvelously brave,” and then my uncle, after blowing his nose into his handkerchief, reminded Joel that it was unusual for a Creole to contract the yellow fever, and very odd of my mother to have succumbed to it. I regained control of myself and sat up, concentrating on extracting my handkerchief from my sleeve. “Please forgive me,” I said.
“Always,” Joel said.
“There is nothing to forgive in natural feeling,” my aunt said. My uncle got up and went to the sideboard, taking out glasses. He poured a brandy with water for me, which he pronounced “strengthening,” and two more without water for himself and Joel. “Just a thimbleful of my berry cordial,” my aunt requested. Joel brought my glass to me and took a chair next to my aunt. Our conversation lingered upon the sadness of the occasion, then gradually moved to my plans for the future. “What will you do with the house?” Joel inquired. “It is such a sweet little place. I have spent many happy hours visiting there.”