Anjele didn’t respond. Experience had taught her it was best to let her mother rave on, even though silence was considered further insolence.
She shut her out by concentrating on the beautiful blue skies beyond, picturing fields of sugarcane dancing in the wind in a rainbow hue blending from near white to yellow and on to green and purple and red and violet, even striped stalks, all nearly six feet high, swaying proudly in the rhythmic breezes. How she longed to be out there amidst it all, and—
She came back to reality with an excited rush, for suddenly her mother had caught her interest.
“…and I’ll expect you to practice the rest of the afternoon,” she was saying, changing her tone from anger to disappointment, which meant the scene was, mercifully, coming to an end. “Miss Melora says the new Beethoven piece needs more work, and she’ll expect you to have it mastered by the time she returns. She’ll be in Baton Rouge only a week.”
So, Miss Melora wasn’t coming today. Anjele burrowed her face in the pillow so her happiness wouldn’t show. There was absolutely no way she was going to stay indoors if she could help it. This was her first chance to get away for a few hours in so long she couldn’t remember.
She was relieved to hear her mother leaving.
Twyla paused at the door to deliver the final punishment. “To teach you a lesson, since you ruined the dress you were planning to wear to Rebecca’s party tonight, you won’t be going. Raymond can just escort your sister, instead. I’m truly sorry, Anjele, but that’s how it must be.”
I really don’t care, Anjele silently answered, though she knew Raymond wasn’t going to like it. He had told her how Claudia made him uncomfortable, fawning over him as she did.
She waited till she saw their carriage leave, then hurried to slip on a light muslin dress. The house was quiet. The servants were, no doubt, out back in the kitchen, preparing supper.
She made her way down the rear stairs but was met by Mammy Kesia as she stepped into the service hallway.
“And where you think you goin’?” the old woman said. “Your momma told me you was to practice the piano till she comes home around five this evenin’, and from the way you’re sneakin’ around with that gleam in your eyes, I’d say abangin’ on them keys is the last thing you got in mind.”
Anjele thought a moment. Kesia was easily persuaded to look the other way, as long as she didn’t get in trouble doing it. Impishly she inquired, “And what might be your plans for the afternoon?”
Kesia knew her for the scamp she was, just as she sympathized for the way Miss Twyla went too far in her determination not to show favoritism between the two girls. Kesia was also well aware of how Miss Claudia was always lying and scheming to cause trouble, only she managed never to get caught. So, feeling sorry for Miss Anjele, Kesia kept her expression stern as she replied, “I’m gonna be in the garden, pickin’ peas, that’s what I’m gonna be doin’, and even though I can’t hear you at that piano, I know you gonna be doin’ what your momma said for you to do.”
With that, she walked away.
“Bless you,” Anjele whispered, waiting a moment before also taking her leave.
She headed towards the rear, where the kitchen was separated from the big house because of the danger of fire. The
pigeonniers
and gardeners’ sheds were nearby. Then came the long twin lines of slave cabins—the older ones built of brick, the newer constructed of whitewashed wood.
As she passed, Anjele cheerily waved to the young girls busily weaving dried palmetto fronds into fans.
There were many other buildings, as well—icehouse, laundry, smithy, tannery, gristmill, stables, barn, and dairy.
Farther back, to one side, lay the sprawling cotton field sand cotton gin, to the other, the great, flat fields of cane. Intersected by an elaborate grid of canals, the land could drain surplus water into the swamp at the rear of the plantation, where a second levee had been constructed to hold out the backwater. A bucket-wheel, driven by steam, dipped water from inside the levee at the back and poured it into the swamp.
The sugarhouse was situated at a convenient point for transporting cane from the fields and hogsheads of sugar down to the pier at the river, but was now devoid of activity. Harvesting would not begin for several more months.
Anjele knew where to find Emalee and Simona. It was their task to carry jugs of water out in the fields to the hoe gangs. Amidst the glistening waves of cane, their backs bowed to the unmerciful sun, workers moved slowly up and down the rows, chopping away the choking blades of grass.
Not wanting her father to see her, should he be around, she entered the dark bordering forest and suddenly felt swallowed up by the great phantasmal cascades of moss descending from the huge serpentine limbs of the oaks and pines above. She watched every step, lest a deadly water moccasin be in her path. The way was familiar, for she had skirted along the woods at the edge of the cane fields many times.
As she moved along, she peered out now and then through the foliage, finally spotting the girls, together as always. Waiting till they moved in her direction and were only a few feet away, she called softly.
They did not hesitate. Glancing about to make sure they weren’t seen by master, overseer, or drivers, they broke into a run and crashed into the woods, giggling and hugging Anjele in their delight.
“Where you been?” Simona wanted to know. “We not see you for many days. Been prettying up for the beau, eh?”
Anjele made a face. “Not hardly. You know how I feel about getting married.” She proceeded to confide the latest incident with Claudia and finished with how she’d managed to sneak away for the afternoon in hopes of persuading them to join her for a swim.
Emalee slapped her on the back. “You no gotta ask twice. What for we waiting?”
Anjele loved to hear the Cajuns talk, for they had their own patois, a delightful combination of archaic French forms with idioms taken mostly from their Indian and Negro neighbors.
Emalee turned to lead the way deeper into the woods, but Anjele happened to glance back toward the cane field, and that was when the stranger caught her eye.
His tanned shoulders were incredibly broad. He was bare chested, his skin bronzed from long hours in the sun, and his muscles gleamed like liquid gold. His waist was narrow; his trousers stretched tight across rock-hard thighs.
Slowly, Anjele tore her fascinated gaze from his body to move upward, only to gasp at the realization that he seemed to be looking right at her. But that wasn’t possible, was it? She was swallowed up by the dense foliage between, yet there was the play of a knowing smile on his lips. She saw, too, even from her distance, that it was a nice face, boldly masculine but handsome. His sable hair, thick and long, was pulled back behind his neck. Even from so far, she could see the cool arrogance in his dark, smoldering eyes.
Emalee and Simona continued a few feet before Simona realized Anjele was not following and turned to scold, “Hey, what you waiting for? If the driver see us, we get in big trouble, and he might say we can’t work no more this season. What you be lookin’ at, anyhow?”
Suddenly embarrassed, Anjele hastened to join her, but Simona strained to look past her and promptly teased, “Ah, you be lookin’ at Gator.” She flashed a knowing smile. “All the girls, they look at Gator. He very fine to look at, too, no?”
“Very fine,” Anjele did not hesitate to agree, surprised to realize she’d never so boldly expressed her feelings about a man before, particularly someone she didn’t know. “Who is he? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him around here before.”
As they followed the path, Simona confided what little she knew about the enigmatic man known only as Gator. “He just come here a few weeks ago. Somebody said his poppa is an overseer in the cotton fields.”
Anjele didn’t want to appear interested but for some strange reason felt a burning desire to learn more about the intriguing young man. “Why do they call him Gator?”
Emalee proceeded to explain. “I heard some of the menfolks talking, and they said this Gator, he wrestled a bull alligator when he was only sixteen. It happened someplace else, ‘cause he ain’t from around here. Anyway, he was out in a swamp, huntin’ for hides, but this one, it was maybe twenty feet long, biggest ever seen, and it took him by surprise and dragged him down in the waters. You know gators, they do that with their prey, hold on and drag it down and roll it over and over till it drowns.”
Anjele shuddered to imagine such horror but urged, “Go on. What happened?”
“Well, those watching say that fight went on fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. That gator, he kept draggin’ the boy down, and finally, he come up, and the gator, he was dead. Ever since, nobody, they say, ever know Gator by any other name.”
Anjele marveled, “It’s a wonder he’s not scarred.”
The Cajun girls giggled, and Simona dared suggest, “Maybe he is—where you no can see.”
“But maybe where she would like to see,” Emalee teased.
Anjele was used to their good-natured bantering and laughed with them.
They left the main trail into the bayou and skirted a levee before making their way to the banks of the secret pond. “Nobody ever find it, because no one ever go around the levee,” Simona pointed out happily.
As they had done when they were children, they stripped off all their clothes and dove into the cool water. They swam and splashed and laughed and ducked each other and when they were finally exhausted, stretched out on the grassy bank to bask in the late-afternoon sunshine.
Conversation eventually turned to Simona’s marriage, as she was always eager to talk about her husband.
With a knowing wink at Anjele, Emalee dared to prod Simona, “Tell us something besides how nice he is. We want to hear how good.”
Anjele chimed in to urge her on, and Simona audaciously obliged, describing her personal life in detail.
Anjele listened, entranced, but not without a cold ripple of apprehension moving down her spine as she thought of doing those things with Raymond. To have him touch her that way, and to do that to her body, filled her with dread.
Too soon, it was time to leave, and Anjele was secretly glad, because listening to Simona had depressed her. She became even more dispirited when the girls began to talk excitedly of a party that night.
“Crawfish gumbo,” Emalee cried, “and a big turtle stew. The menfolk, they got spirits abrewin’, and old Sam, he gonna tune his fiddle right.”
Simona exulted, “Frank, he know the close dancin’ they do in Bayou Teche. He teach me, and, oh! We get as hot as the crawfishes and the turtles boilin’ in the pots.”
This time, Anjele did not join in the laughter, and when they asked what was wrong, she reminded them how she had to miss the birthday ball, adding, “And I’m not jealous over Raymond escorting Claudia. I wasn’t even looking forward to being with him anyway. It was just that I wanted to go to a party and have some fun.”
With a sage grin, Simona declared, “You got to learn you got to make the good time yourself. Nobody gon’ do it for you, my friend. Say!” She snapped her fingers as the reckless idea struck. “How come you can’t come to our party tonight? Who’s to know if you sneak out?”
Anjele allowed herself to savor the idea. She might never get another chance, and it wouldn’t be the first time she had shimmied down the trellis from her balcony to the terrace below, though not since she was a little girl. Still, she knew she could probably do it and get away with it. Her mother and father would both go to the ball to pay their respects to Rebecca and her family and toast her birthday. The Saunders’s plantation was an hour’s ride away, at least, so they wouldn’t be home till nearly midnight.
Simona and Emalee looked at each other in delight, and then Simona spoke the magic words, “We dare you.”
At that, Anjele accepted, silently blaming her inability to resist a challenge.
The possibility of seeing the handsome stranger again had nothing to do with it, she told herself, even if thinking about him did provoke a strange, warm rush inside.
Chapter Two
Elton Sinclair knew something was
wrong. Twyla had not said a word during the fresh strawberry appetizer. Anjele, also strangely quiet, hardly touched her crawfish bisque. The only one eating with relish and apparently in a good mood was Claudia. Her eyes were glittering, as though she harbored some kind of delicious secret. He hated to ask what was going on. Twyla had a rule against certain subjects at mealtime, and family problems was one of them. Still, the tension was getting the best of him. He held out his glass for a refill of cool muscadine wine as the main course of fried shrimp and collard greens was being brought in, and decided to attempt conversation himself. “Looks like this season’s sugar is going to be better than last year’s,” he announced proudly to no one in particular. “I figure we’ll produce over a thousand hogsheads.”
Twyla offered a perfunctory smile and murmured tonelessly, “That’s nice, dear.”
Claudia gasped, “Is that all you’ve got to say? That it’s nice? Mother, each hogshead weighs over a thousand pounds. A thousand hogsheads will be a record for BelleClair.”
“I know, I know,” Twyla said, adding dully, “I keep the books, Claudia, remember?”
“That’s all the more reason for you to be excited.” She turned to Elton. “I think it’s wonderful, Daddy. Just wonderful.”