He glanced uncomfortably at Anjele and realized her mind was a million miles away. What could be preying so heavily? Certainly not romantic woolgathering over Raymond Duval. He suspected she regarded her forthcoming marriage as what it was—the fulfillment of a commitment, as he had done when he married Twyla. But Anjele was still young. She’d settle down, have her own family, and be happy. Whatever was bothering her would smooth itself out.
He tried to concentrate on the food set before him but could not help thinking how he wished Anjele and Raymond would be living at BelleClair after they were married. He’d never had the sons he wanted but was proud of Anjele. A pity her home would be the city, because she’d make a fine planter’s wife, like her mother, who found time to be a mother and a hostess, as well as a commander and tutor of the household slaves. She also kept many of his accounts. BelleClair produced hay, beans, Irish potatoes, yams, peas, and raised swine, oxen, horses, mules, sheep, and cattle. Common slaves were involved in sugar making, cobbling, wagon and brick making, along with working the cotton fields. Skilled laborers were abundant—blacksmiths, mechanics, engineers, tanners, cartmen, and millers. And Twyla kept up with every bit of it.
It had all been started by his father, Leveret Sinclair, who had come to America in the late 1700s to eventually become a prosperous cotton grower. He built the mansion and named it BelleClair.
When Elton had taken over complete control of BelleClair on the death of his father, he shared the philosophy that prime field hands, costing as much as eighteen hundred dollars apiece, should not be committed to the more hazardous tasks. Consequently, he hired Irish immigrant laborers to dig canals and ditches, level forests, and clear wastelands. Finally, it became necessary to hire the Cajuns to help work the fields.
Twyla’s father and Leveret had been close friends in Europe. And though Elton had never laid eyes on Twyla till she stepped off the ship in Philadelphia that summer day so long ago, he had fallen in love on sight. Her mother was French, and Twyla, small and dainty, with a radiant smile and dancing brown eyes, charmed everyone she met with her pleasing personality and delightful accent.
All went well, but as the years passed, they experienced a deep void in their lives despite the love growing between them and their life of opulence. They desperately longed for something their love seemed unable to produce, nor wealth able to buy—a child of their own. Elton’s two brothers had drowned in a flat-boat accident during flood season one year. He and Twyla were both without siblings and found themselves longing for a large family to fill the huge rooms of the great house. But time went by, and they were sadly not blessed in that way.
When Leveret and then Adelia passed away, Elton and Twyla found themselves even lonelier. No matter that they were surrounded by hundreds of slaves and Cajun and Irish workers. They wanted the sound of children’s laughter in their world.
Elton glanced at Claudia. Such a pretty girl. So sad she had such a nasty disposition. As a child, she’d had terrible tantrums and would sometimes hold her breath till she passed out. She was demanding, complained constantly, was forever screaming at the servants, and no one liked to be around her. Twyla said Claudia behaved that way because she felt unloved, unwanted, and merely craved attention. Elton disputed that theory as being just the opposite, for it was obvious to everyone around them how Twyla actually deferred to Claudia over her own daughter. And while he would never dare say so, many was the time he wished they had never adopted her. Lord knows, he had tried to love her as his own flesh and blood, and managed to pretend he did, but the harsh reality was—Claudia was just not lovable. But how could they have known such a pernicious disposition existed in an innocent, newborn babe? Their hearts had gone out to the motherless child, and they had been delighted to take her into their home, naming her after her poor, dead mother. Even when they joyfully realized a few months later, after giving up all hope, that their own baby was on the way, they still adored Claudia. It was only when she grew older that she became insufferable.
Elton was well aware Claudia was in love with Raymond and secretly wished she were the one marrying him. At the time the pact had been made between him and Raymond’s father, Vinson, a close friend and prominent doctor, Elton had no way of knowing Raymond would ultimately grow up with a disinclination for anything resembling work. Sent to study in Europe, he couldn’t make passing marks and had returned within a year. Confessing he’d never wanted to be a doctor, anyway, Raymond further declared he also had no desire to be a planter. He talked his father into staking him to a stable of purebred racehorses and now spent all his time at the courses or gambling on the riverboats.
A servant brought dessert, a tangy-sweet lemon glacé, but Twyla held up her hand to decline coffee afterwards. “We don’t have time.” With a nod to Claudia, she prompted, “Better hurry, dear.”
Claudia excused herself, but Elton did not miss the gloating smile she flashed at Anjele, who ignored it. He was prompted to ask, “Don’t you need to be getting ready, too, Angel?”
Claudia, almost through the door, giggled. “She’s no angel, Daddy. That’s why she’s not going. Just ask Mother.”
“What’s this?” He looked to Twyla for explanation. “What’s going on here?”
Anjele listlessly stabbed at the glacé as she listened to her mother dully repeating Claudia’s lies.
“She needs to be punished for doing something like that.” Twyla sighed, then continued as though Anjele wasn’t there. “Frankly, Elton, their bickering is getting worse, and I can’t stand it. I wish we’d set the wedding date sooner. Poor Claudia. It’s breaking her heart to see Raymond marry someone besides her, but that’s the way it has to be. The sooner it’s done and Anjele is out of the house, the quicker she’ll start to get over it.”
Elton knew, somehow, that it hadn’t happened the way Twyla described at all. He could not imagine Anjele being so churlish. Turning to her, he softly commanded, “Tell me, Angel. Is what your mother says true?”
Before Anjele could respond, Twyla sharply cried, “Of course it’s true. I took the dress away from her myself, and it was soaked. Poor Claudia was beside herself.”
Anjele had long ago painfully accepted her mother’s favoritism for Claudia and stopped trying to defend herself, as it always proved fruitless. But, in this instance, she could not let her father believe she was guilty of doing something so awful. Drawing a deep breath, she looked him straight in the eye and declared firmly, “No, Daddy, it isn’t.” She hurriedly described how it had really happened.
Twyla shook her head from side to side. Finally she admonished, “You’re only making things worse, Anjele. Now go to your room.”
Elton found himself in quite a dilemma. He believed, without a doubt, Anjele was telling the truth, yet to defend her meant taking sides against his wife. Pressing his fingertips against his temples, he desperately wondered how to keep peace and still do what was right.
Anjele relieved him of that decision. She could sense he believed her, which was all that mattered. Reaching to pat his hand, she whispered, “It’s okay, Daddy. It doesn’t matter. I really didn’t want to go, anyway.”
Biting back tears, she promptly excused herself.
Anjele thought they would never leave. She stood in the shadows of the veranda waiting for what seemed like forever until, finally, they were on their way.
Without hesitation, she climbed down the trellis at the end of the porch, trying to be very careful lest she break the wisteria vines. She didn’t dare go through the house, for it might not be Kesia on duty but one of the other slaves who couldn’t be cajoled into turning her head and not reporting what she saw.
Fireflies flickered in the misty shadows of the oaks. The night was warm, the air thick with a sweet, loamy smell from the fields, for hoe gangs kept the soil around the cotton and cane freshly turned as they chopped daily at the choking weeds. She could smell the river, too, still muddied and swollen from recent rains.
A quarter moon cast enough light to guide Anjele to the woods behind the slave quarters. Simona was waiting there. Familiar with the intricate trails in and out of the bayou, she was able to move by instinct rather than sight.
“I’m so glad you come.” Simona gave her a delighted hug. “I start to worry you afraid, but I should know better. My friend, she never turn from a dare.”
Anjele knew she would wish she had if she got caught, and said as much, but Simona laughed at her nervousness. “How you get caught? When they come back from party?”
“Midnight. Mother always comes home by midnight.”
“No reason to fear. We make it back in time. What you wearing, anyhow?” She stood back to look, only to frown at the peach-colored cotton dress, at the neckline, embroidered with dainty white rosebuds. She gave a low whistle, and Emalee seemed to appear out of nowhere, carrying a bundle of clothes. Simona hastened to explain, “The older among our people, they don’ welcome outsiders. They would ‘specially not want master’s daughter. The young ones, like us, we have tol’ you are comin’, and they be delighted. But, to keep the old ones from bein’ upset, maybe makin’ you leave for fear of the master bein’ mad, we tellin’ them you our cousin from Bayou Teche. So, you put on these clothes, and we quick braid you hair. Say nothin’ and nobody know nothin’,” she finished with a satisfied grin.
When she was ready, both the Cajun girls clapped their hands in delight, satisfied Anjele could pass for one of their own kind.
With Simona leading the way, they moved into the dark forest and the land of the lonely moss-gloomed bayou. Thick with cypress knees, the banks were pitted by crayfish burrows and fiddler crabs. Above, there seemed to be an umbrella of willows and oaks, with funereal streamers of grey, dolorous membranes of moss.
The scant moonlight struggled to lace the way in a sheen of silver, fighting through the heavy masses of foliage. Somewhere in the distance was heard the baleful growl of a bull alligator seeking his mate amidst the living darkness. A few feet away, the water lapped secretly, almost soundlessly, thick with murky shadow.
“Snakes…” Anjele said with a shudder, “I always think about snakes.”
Simona sagely said, “And the snake, they think about us, too, and the other way they go…most of the time.”
“Most of the time,” Anjele mumbled under her breath, straining to see the ground.
The flat-bottom boat was right where they had left it, and Anjele balanced in the middle while Simona and Emalee took their places at either end, rhythmically stabbing the water with long poles. They barely made a sound as they moved through the sluggish water. After a while, perhaps twenty minutes or so, they could hear the sound of music. Fiddles and banjos and accordions, with merry voices singing along.
Excited, Anjele was ready to leap from the boat the instant they glided up onto the bank.
“Remember,” Simona gave a last warning, “the old ones not be happy if they find out who you are. It best you stay in the shadows and jus’ watch the fun. We bring you stew and drink and we take you home before late.”
Anjele could only nod in agreement, all the while longing to move into the circle of things and savor every moment. Already she could see this was a different kind of party than she’d ever been to before. Everyone was relaxed and enjoying themselves, dressed casually and unconcerned about what anyone else thought. No stiffness or formality. But her eyes really widened when she saw the way some of the men and women were dancing. It was not a waltz or a reel but a kind of bouncing jig, up and down, legs kicking, and every so often they would clutch each other by the waist and whirl round and round till they were giggling with dizziness. But it was the occasional slowness of their movements that truly astounded. The music would suddenly change in tempo to a kind of ringing, undulating beat. The dancers would then stand close together, arms on each other’s shoulders, moving only from their waists down. The almost hypnotic way they were staring into each other’s eyes was absolutely searing.
Anjele remembered the time Simona had confided how it felt the first time she and her husband made love on their wedding night, how he touched her in secret places that made her feel as though she were burning with fever. Her flesh, she’d said, seemed about to burst into flames.
And the way those people were dancing, Anjele realized, she could almost feel the heat emanating from them, as well.
Instructing Anjele to stand at the edge of the clearing, Simona brought her a bowl of turtle stew and a mug of scuppernong wine, then left to go and join her husband Frank. Emalee at last spied her beau—and Anjele found herself all alone.
At first she enjoyed just watching, for it was a treat to witness such revelry. Never again, she realized, would she be satisfied with staid old balls and tea dances, for she was swishing her hips from side to side in time with the music and soon her feet had even picked up the beat of the jigging rhythm. Setting down the bowl and empty mug, she clapped her hands softly, laughing out loud over the way Frank lifted Simona up in the air and whirled her about till they were both dizzy and drunk with merriment.
The evening wore on, and Anjele became apprehensive that maybe Simona was getting drunk on something besides merrymaking. Frank carried a small jug, even as they danced, and both took turns drinking from it. When the two of them at last stumbled over to where Anjele stood watching, she knew her suspicion was confirmed.