Property(45)

“Mississippi, I believe. She was from a plantation near Natchez. I assume that’s where she was born.”

“Perhaps she has gone there.”

“I think not,” my aunt said. “She was sold as part of a bankruptcy settlement.”

“Is that where Uncle Emile bought her?”

“No. He bought her from a sugar planter in St. John Parish. Actually, he took her in payment of a debt. He knew I was in need of a housekeeper. She was just fifteen or sixteen, very bright and willing, though she had a stubborn streak even then.”

“She is stubborn,” I mused.

“I still believe Mr. Roget knows where she is.”

I recalled my one sighting of Mr. Roget as he turned from Sarah, lifting his hat to me and walking away. “She told me she had a brother,” I said. “I didn’t believe it at the time, but perhaps it is true. She said Mr. Roget came here to give her the message that her brother had been leased to work on the docks.”

“Did she say the brother’s name?”

“Clarence,” I said. “But why would she tell me if she planned to escape with his help?”

“Perhaps she had not yet formulated the plan.”

“Could she have boarded an ocean vessel?”

“If she were in disguise, if she had money and passed as a free negro? I think it entirely possible.”

“But she speaks so poorly. Surely someone would notice.”

“Sometimes the dullest negro is discovered to have a perfectly good wit when it serves his purpose. And she might not be called upon to speak very much.”

I imagined Sarah, dressed in some borrowed finery, her hair pulled up in a good bonnet, her elbows propped on the rail of a ship, while the water churned below her and the miles between her and the world she knew slipped away.

“You are right,” I told my aunt. “We must tell Mr. Leggett about this brother and bid him make inquiries on the docks.”



JOEL BORDEN SENT flowers on the day I arrived, and again a week later, this time with a note asking if he might visit me. I examined my face in the mirror. The swelling and redness were largely gone, and a normal color had returned to my complexion. My shoulder ached, especially as the weather turned cooler, but the wound was closed over. I kept only a thin bandage on it to keep the cloth of my dress from rubbing against it. Yes, I decided, I would see him. I sent Rose with an answer, suggesting four the following afternoon as the hour for our tête-à-tête.

As that hour approached, I was giddy with excitement, a condition completely inappropriate for one so recently widowed. I had Rose take Walter out to the levee with strict orders to stay away from the house for several hours. Rose liked nothing better than strolling about the town with the poor idiot on a halter and leash that Delphine had fashioned for him. I had Delphine move an armchair close to the settee and put the coffee urn on a table in reach of my good arm. Then I waited for the bell, which sounded promptly at four. Delphine passed through the room to admit Joel, then scurried back to the kitchen while he stood in the parlor doorway smiling down at me. “At last,” he said. “I have tried to be patient until you were well enough to receive visitors, but I have not had an easy moment until this one.”

“I fear you will find me sadly changed,” I said.

He came in and took the chair near me, leaning forward to look into my face. “After what you have been through,” he said, “how could you not be changed?” There was no trace of revulsion in his scrutiny, only a fascinated admiration, such as I had seen in my uncle’s eyes when he visited. I had survived that which we all in some degree feared. “Your aunt told me that you spent the entire night hiding in the forest, wounded by a gunshot.”

I lifted my useless arm by the wrist and let it fall back into my lap. “This is the result,” I said.

“My dear,” he said.

“I try not to think about any of it.”

He sat back in his chair. “You are right. You must go on with your life.” He looked around the room at the fire, the paintings, the vase of flowers on the side table. “What a comfort it must be to you to be back in this house.”

“It is,” I said. “It makes me think of happier times.” I turned to the coffee urn. “Will you have coffee? Or would you prefer a glass of sherry?”

“Let me serve you,” he said, getting up. He busied himself with the cups and saucers, pouring the coffee and milk together expertly and talking all the while. “I have visited your aunt regularly to keep up with your progress. She tells me your brother-in-law is handling the sale of your plantation and that an American has offered to buy it outright with everything in it.”