New Mercies (9 page)

“She said she didn’t bring any of Miss Amalia’s goats with her.”

“Why, whatever would she do that for?” The woman drew back and looked at me in astonishment. Then she realized I was joking, and she, too, began to laugh, her face turning almost the color of the rouge spots on her cheeks. The spots were round and the size of half-dollars. “I will say to you Miss Amalia’s goats produced the best milk I ever tasted,” she said. She asked if I were going to sell milk.

“Odalie, dear thing!” Pickett turned to me, explaining they weren’t quite sure how to take me.

“And I bet she doesn’t know how to take
us
, either,” said the man who had laughed first. He had a military bearing and looked something like the formal portraits of Southern officers. He introduced himself as Stephen Shields. “And this charming woman,” he said, reaching over and patting the shoulder of the woman who had thought me a milkmaid, “is my wife, Odalie.”

“And you are the Yankee,” Odalie said. She held a lace handkerchief in her hand and touched it to her temples. Although the French doors were open and the blades of a black metal fan clicked from across the room, the air was stifling.

“Oh, honey, she’s not a. Yankee. She’s Miss Amalia’s niece,” said the other woman, who was somewhat younger and wore a silk pongee dress with a flowered pattern. It looked as if it had come from one of the store windows I’d seen earlier. “That makes you next to royalty here in Natchez. Even if Miss Amalia did give up entertaining before the invention of the motorcar, we still hoped for an invitation to Avoca. Miss Amalia was a very superior lady.”

“Now, Parthena, northerners don’t care about pedigree,” said her husband, a jolly, balding man who introduced himself as Merrill Carter.

“That’s because they don’t have any,” Parthena replied with a disarming smile that made me think she was not insulting me as much as stating a fact.

The remaining person in the room was a sandy-haired man in his mid-forties, leaning against a marble fireplace—Buckland Long, Pickett’s husband. He snuffed out his cigarette, threw the butt into the fireplace, and walked to a table where a heavy silver tray held an ornate tea set—a large urn on a stand, a teapot, creamer, sugar bowl, and waste bowl. Bottles, an ice bucket, and glasses were crowded onto another tray. I was transfixed by the tea set because it was exactly like one I’d given to David just last Christmas.

A few years earlier, David had helped a wealthy client fight a provision in her husband’s will—he had left a stipend to his mistress. The widow won, and in gratitude, she presented David with a silver tea set that had been in her family for generations. The lovely set was put into use whenever we had tea parties. When the woman died last year, however, David gave the set to her daughter.
I was so touched by my husband’s kindness and sensitivity that I contacted an antiques dealer in New York and asked him to find a replacement. It was the last present I ever gave David. “You are such a swell girl, and I am the luckiest boy in the world,” he’d said. I let myself remember how my heart had once filled with love for him, then forced my thoughts to the present to avoid the bitterness that always followed those memories of David.

Buckland Long was staring at me, waiting for me to reply to some question he had asked. When I looked at him blankly, he said, “Oh, you do drink, don’t you?”

“Of course she does,” Merrill told him. “Colorado just voted for repeal. Sensible people. Join me in a Rob Roy, Miss Nora.”

I said a Rob Roy would be fine, then sat down in an uncomfortable rosewood chair.

For a minute, everyone stared at me, and there was an awkward pause, but after my remark about the goat, I didn’t intend to risk another attempt at humor.

At last, Pickett said, “You must have been admiring the tea things. That’s an old family set, dented, as you can see. Grandmother buried it to keep the Yankees from stealing it. One of the servants must have hit it with a shovel when he dug it up after the War. I could have it repaired, but in the South, we take such relics seriously.”

“Weren’t you the lucky one to have had honest servants,” Odalie said. “We never got our silver back.” She picked up her glass. It had left a wet ring on the table, which she ignored. “Our family is quite old, you know. My great-grandmother opened a ball with General Lafayette.”

“Didn’t they all?” said Pickett, cutting her off and thus
winning my gratitude for what I was sure would have been a recitation of Odalie’s pedigree. “Miss Amalia had splendid silver.”

“Which she sold, I’m sure,” I said.

“Why would she do that?” Odalie asked.

“I assumed . . . ,” I began, then fell silent.

After another pause, Parthena said to me, “I’m just so strongly reminded of Miss Amalia when I look at you. You favor her, you know, only you’re younger.”

“I hope so.”

“Cleaner, too,” Odalie added. Her husband touched her gently on the arm. “Now don’t fuss with me for being indelicate. I am just honest.”

“And we love you for it,” Buckland said. He rolled his eyes as he handed me my drink.

It was very strong, and I set it down after one sip. Then I asked what Aunt Amalia looked like. Besides the picture in the newspaper, I had seen only one photograph of her.

“She was sizable, tall as a man, just like you. It’s odd, because it’s said that when she was born, her father displayed her in a silver cake basket, just like she was a bundt cake,” Parthena said.

“Miss Amalia was presented at court, you know,” Buckland interjected.

Pickett turned to me. “We buried her in her presentation dress. It was white satin, very elegant, with hundreds of little pearls stitched onto it.” She took a sip of a martini. “Not so long ago, I was driving past Avoca and saw her wearing the dress. I stopped because there was a light flickering in one of the rooms, and I thought it might be fire. That’s a terrible problem in these old houses. But the light went from the library into the great hall and
then on into the front parlor, so I assumed someone was wandering through the house holding a lighted candelabra. Then I saw that it was Miss Amalia, and she was wearing that court dress.” Pickett looked at me before she added, “She was dancing. There wasn’t any music, not even a Victrola, but Miss Amalia was dancing all the same, and she was as graceful as anything I ever saw. It seemed like she had a partner. Then the moon disappeared, and I didn’t want to move closer, for fear she’d hear me. She would have died from embarrassment.”

“You, too, if you’d been caught snooping,” Odalie said. “What in the world do you think she was doing?”

“Waltzing with ghosts.” Pickett gave a little smile. “The gown was water-stained and there were mildew spots, and the pearls were dull, but we arranged the dress in the coffin so that you couldn’t see how badly damaged it was.” She squeezed my hand in a gesture of sympathy, and I was touched at her kindness in making Amalia presentable in death.

“Miss Amalia herself was a little water-stained,” Odalie said, lifting her shoulders and giving me a naughty grin.

“Odalie—” Pickett said disapprovingly.

But I interrupted and said, “Indeed she was.”

“Oh,” Odalie replied, disappointed that she hadn’t offended me. “I was just baiting you. I adore to do it.”

“Well, you did not get my goat this time.”

They all laughed. “She got you there, dearest,” Stephen said. “You ought not to go after her like you do.”

“Then please kindly forgive me,” Odalie said. I decided she was nuts.

Then Mr. Satterfield told them that I had never met Amalia,
and they nodded, so it was obvious that they had indeed discussed me earlier.

“You didn’t miss much. She was a queer one,” Buckland said.

“That’s because you didn’t know her when she was young, Bucky,” Mr. Satterfield interjected. He was standing beside the tea table, where he had spent a great deal of time bruising mint, adding an inch or so of sugar and bourbon whiskey to a silver cup, then tasting and stirring and adding more liquor. “Very fine.” He dusted the drink with a grating of nutmeg. “I’d have married her in a minute.”

“You were twenty years too young for her,” Pickett told him.

“Ten,” Mr. Satterfield said. “Nonetheless.”

“And not solely for the money, either, you opportunistic old thing, although the Bondurants had a great deal of it, didn’t they, Mr. Sam?” Stephen asked.

Mr. Sam raised his eyebrows but didn’t reply.

“What happened to it?” I wriggled a little in the chair to find a comfortable position. The chair was very low, and my legs were cramped. The others, clearly embarrassed at the question, looked at one another instead of at me, and it occurred to me then that perhaps there were things about Amalia they did not want to talk about.

“Bucky, would you be so kind,” Stephen said, holding up his glass.

Buckland, who was sitting on the bench in front of a grand piano, took the glass and poured a healthy slug from a bottle whose silver label identified it as bourbon. He added neither water nor seltzer and handed back the drink. “What happened
to the Bondurant money happened to most of the fortunes in Natchez,” Buckland explained. “Most of us pretend we haven’t lost them. Some of us live as if we haven’t.” He glanced at Odalie, but it was impossible to tell from the look whether he was referring to her or just waiting for her to speak.

“Some of these old places may look like they’re held up by wisteria vines, but they are the homes of the first families of Natchez,” Pickett said. “The houses may not have indoor plumbing and the gasoliers have not been electrified, but the owners still throw the most desirable parties in Natchez.”

“It’s harder to get an invitation to a Natchez party than to Mrs. Roosevelt’s White House,” Pickett said.

“Well, of course. Who’d want to dine with the Roosevelts?” Odalie asked. I laughed, although I was not sure she was joking.

“Mostly what we do is sit around counting ancestors. It’s perfectly mortifying,” Pickett said. “Still, Natchezians do put on the dog—cut-glass goblets, silver cutlery made by hand. Why, one family still has a thousand-piece set of Old Paris china. Natchez people would sooner go to the poorhouse than part with their finery. Your Aunt Amalia was one of them,” she added. “Oh yes, she kept her silver. You’ll probably find that cake basket somewhere.”

“Too poor to paint, too proud to whitewash,” Buckland said.

“Too poor to pay their taxes, too. Bayard Lott was at the treasurer’s office last year, fussing about his taxes. The bill was eighty-eight dollars and two bits,” Stephen told us. “He said, ‘I’ve got all of it except for the eighty-eight dollars. The county will just have to be content with two dimes and a nickel.’ ”

“Funny thing is, the county must have been, because Bayard never lost the house,” Buckland said.

“Who would want it?” Stephen asked. “I know for a fact he had a little something stashed away, although it’s anybody’s guess where he got it.” When the others looked at him inquiringly, he added, “I am president of the bank, after all.” Now I knew why Amalia had kept her account in New Orleans.

I suggested that the war must have wiped out just about everyone in Natchez, but the others shook their heads. Mr. Satterfield explained that Natchez had avoided the shelling, which devastated Vicksburg and other cities, and many Natchez families came through the war quite nicely. “The Bondurants kept all four of their plantations, as well as Avoca, and lived almost as well as they always had. Miss Amalia and her father went on a tour of the Continent, and Miss Amelia had her a season in New York, where she danced with President Grant at a ball, not that we thought so highly of that.” Stephen pinched his nostrils together in distaste.

Pickett said, “Captain Bondurant not only got his plantations up and making money during slack-water times but he went into the lumber business, too. The captain ran the plantations. Frederick was in charge of the lumber company.”

“You mean Amalia’s brother?” I asked.

“Yes, that would be your uncle,” Mr. Satterfield said, leaning forward. “He suffered from the southern infirmity of alcoholism. I never saw him when he wasn’t squiffy. Miss Amalia hated that about him—and other things.” Mr. Satterfield drained his silver cup and started to get up, then, perhaps in light of what he had just said, thought better of it and set the cup on the table
beside him. The room was very hot and close, and I wondered how people could drink heavy liquor in that atmosphere. I had taken only one sip of my Rob Roy.

“Then my aunt and uncle weren’t close?”

Pickett exchanged glances with the rest of the guests. “You could say they were purely hating each other, and if you did, we wouldn’t argue with you. Miss Amalia hated Frederick as much as she did Bayard Lott.”

I asked why.

“Partly the drinking, but mostly . . . there was some secret between them. Frederick made her as nervous as a bug on a hot stove,” Mr. Satterfield said.

He looked uncomfortable, and Pickett came to his rescue with a nervous laugh. “The Old South is all about secrets, isn’t it? We pretend to have secrets even when we don’t. There was a secret between Bayard and Miss Amalia, but God knows what that was.”

Mr. Satterfield explained that things between my aunt and uncle were so contentious that the captain was afraid Frederick would turn out Amalia if he were left the Bondurant properties. So the captain left the plantations to Amalia and the lumber business to Frederick.

Mr. Satterfield had said nothing to me earlier about the plantations being part of Amalia’s estate, so I asked what had happened to them.

The boll weevil wiped them out, Buckland explained. The boll weevil had come in twenty-five years earlier, and many of the planters couldn’t make a crop, he said. “It wiped us out so bad, we didn’t even notice Mr. Hoover’s Depression when it
came along in nineteen and twenty-nine.” He added that Amalia had sold off the properties one by one to pay taxes and upkeep on the remaining plantations, and in the end, she lost them all.

“What about my father? After all, he was Captain Bondurant’s son, too. Wasn’t he left anything?”

The silence lasted a long time. “Apparently not,” Mr. Satterfield said, looking at the others and not at me. After another pause, he added, “By the time your father came of age, there wasn’t much of anything left to give. After Miss Emilie passed, the captain lost his grip. Miss Amalia tried mightily to save the plantations, but it was too much for her, even before the boll weevil. Course, Frederick ran the lumber company into the ground, and he died of alcohol poisoning. His family moved way up north to Virginia, and they’re all gone now, I expect, just like the Bondurant money.”