Darkwater Read Free Page B

was immensely fat, but when she moved, it was with a surprising grace and with the lightness of movement of a nymph, and when she smiled, opening her vast cavern of a mouth to reveal a full array of teeth and pink flesh, she had a unique beauty of her own.
    Several blacks worked in the kitchen with her. Two young girls were busy just now peeling potatoes, but this woman, Bess, had an air of assurance that told you plainly she was the queen here, subservient to no one but the Deres themselves, and sometimes she seemed to manage them as well.
    She turned from the stove and, catching sight of her mistress’s grim expression, said, “Lord’s sake, you look like you’ve been through the war all over again.”
    Although it had been some fifteen years since the war to free the slaves, it remained in Bess’s mind as the yardstick by which all other unpleasant experiences were measured. Here at Darkwater it had not made much difference in the lives of the blacks. There had not been so many slaves here as on other plantations and those who were here had lived pretty much the same before the war as after and with nearly as much freedom. The Deres had always been humane people and very progressive in that respect.
    Indeed, Bess sometimes pointed out that in some ways things had been better before the war for the blacks here. Prosperity had benefited them as well, and blacks had not always fared well at the hands of Union soldiers either.
    She knew, however, that elsewhere blacks had not had it so nice as here at Darkwater. The Deres were the exception, not the rule, and other blacks had plenty of reasons to celebrate their freedom.
    These days only a few blacks remained, and they did not do so much farming as in the past. All over the South great plantations had been laid waste, and even many of those that had not been ravaged lay fallow, because the Northerners who had taken them over, breaking them up into little farms, were not farmers, or did not understand cotton or the Southern climate or the intricacies of growing cane.
    The Deres had been fortunate in that, even before the war, much of their money was invested in the industrial North, so that their fortune had not suffered so much as their neighbors’. Moreover, Durieville was only a backwater town, not on the road to anywhere, and so had experienced little actual damage from the war.
    â€œIt’s Walter,” Helen said absentmindedly. “He looks so strained. All this business of an invalid wife....”
    Bess gave a disdainful snort. “Invalid? I’d say puttin’ on, if you was to ask me.”
    â€œNow, Bess, I can’t believe anyone would voluntarily go through all Alicia’s gone through,” Helen argued, but without the strength of conviction to her voice. “You’ve seen her when she is having her spells, she really does suffer.”
    â€œThe doctor said,” Bess began, but Helen had heard this tirade countless times before.
    â€œLest I forget,” she interrupted, “we have a guest. I’ve put her in the green room and we will need an extra place for dinner.”
    â€œYes’m,” Bess said. “This’d be the new nurse for Miss Alicia?”
    That there was a guest in the house was hardly news to her. In fact, she had been informed of it when the cart first turned up the drive, as she was promptly informed of nearly everything that went on about the plantation. She had seen the newcomer even before Helen had. Peeking through a crack in the door as they alighted from the cart, her eyes had become wide circles of white in her black face and she had murmured to herself, “Land’s sake, wait until Miss Alicia has a look at her. Umm hummm.”
    She looked now entirely innocent, however, as she turned her attention once more to the pot on the stove. The boy had brought her a huge bowl of peeled potatoes, which she snatched from his hand wordlessly, making him look