Although I had a couple of black drivers to help me, I became quite expert with my hide — you could make a sleepy nigger jump his own height with a well-placed welt across his backside, squealing his head off, and if any of them were short-weighted at the end of the day you gave them half a dozen cuts for luck. Mandeville was delighted with the tally of cotton picked, and told me I was the best overseer he'd ever had, which didn't surprise me. It was work I could take a hearty interest in.
After the first few days he left me alone to the job, for he frequently had business in Helena, about fifty miles away on the other side of the Mississippi river, or in Memphis, over the Tennessee border, and would stay away for nights at a time. He always went alone, leaving his wife in the house, which seemed damned indiscreet to me. I didn't realise, fortunately for my self-esteem, that while a Southern planter wouldn't have dreamed of leaving his wife unchaperoned in a house while there was a white man there, he'd never think twice if that man was a hired servant living in a cottage fifty yards away. However, she kept out of my way in those early days, and I out of hers.
Knowing me, you may think that strange. But all my thoughts at this stage were on my own plight; Greystones seemed to be just the kind of out.of-the-way spot I required; it was isolated in the woodland and marsh, and was seldom visited, but even so I had my heart in my mouth every time hoofbeats sounded on the drive, and I kept well out of sight when one of Mandeville's neighbours called. It didn't seem likely that if there was a search going on for me, it would reach this far from the river, and there was nothing to connect the steamboat fugitive with Mandeville's new driver, but even so I kept a sharp eye open at first for any hint of danger. As the days passed, and none appeared, I began to feel easier.
Another reason why I kept out of Annette Mandeville's way was that I disliked her, and she me, apparently. I had guessed twO things from our first brief meeting: one was that she was an unpleasant, arrogant little piece, and the other that she had her big, powerful husband on a string. He was more than twice her age, of course (she couldn't have been above two-and-twenty), and I've noticed that there are few things that a middle-aged man will go in such awe of as an imperious young wife; he'll face a wounded buffalo, or go headlong into a sabre charge, but he'll turn pale and stutter at the thought of saying, "I'd rather not, dearest." Well, I can understand it, when the wife holds the purse, or is bigger than he, or can get the law on him. But even without these things Mandeville went in awe of her.
And she knew it, and enjoyed using her power to torment him. She wasn't just spoiled and petulant — she was cruel, in a subtle ways and I say it who am a recognised authority. I saw enough of them together to judge the pleasure she took in fretting and hurting him with her ready sneers and icy disdain; the more eager be was to please her, this man who was so coarse and masterful in other things, the more she seemed to delight in making him uneasy and bewildered.
Much of this I learned from Mandeville himself — not that he dreamed he was instructing me. But he loved to talk, and there not being another white man on the place, he took to inviting me up to the house at night, after his wife had retired, for a booze and prose; he was a decent enough fellow, I suppose, in his rough way, and greatly given to foxing himself on corn toddy, and nothing pleased him more than to yarn away about his niggers and his horses, and — when he was well maudlin — about his wife. And this most often after she had set him down, which she did most days.
"Yes, suh," this infatuated idiot would say, smiling blearily at his glass, "I'm a lucky man, an' she a won'erful li'l lady. Yes suh, 'deed she is. Well, you kin see that, Tom; you a travelled man, I guess, you kin see she is. Course, she git a li'l short, time to time — like today, now — but it ain't nuthin' at all. My own fault, I guess. Y'see, the truth is, although this here's a pretty fair spread at Greystones, tain't altogether what she bin used to. No-suh. She come from one o' the best French families in N'Awlins — the Delaney's, likely you heard o' them, gotta tre-mendous big estate out to Lake Pontchartrain. Trouble is, ol' man Delaney, he a bit stretched, an' I helped him out over a couple o' deals. Five years ago, that was, when I married Annie. Here, Jonah, light a see-gar for Mist' Arnold; fill your glass, suh."
By now he would be well launched, convincing himself for the thousandth time, against all reason.
"Ye-es, five years ago. Happiest day o' my life, suh. But I'll admit — you take a gel who's bin brought up a real lady, who's got real blood, bin to convent, had a half-dozen yaller maids waitin' on her, an' who's used to livin' in the top so-ciety in N'Awlins — well, I do her pretty good here, I reckon, but it ain't the same. Not much society, even in Memphis, an' the local folks ain't 'xactly the kin' o' bucks an' belles she used to meet at home. So it's natural she gits these fits an' starts now an' then. But you 'ppreciate that, Tom. An' no denyin', either, me bein' older'n she is, a little, she get kinda bored. I don't talk quite her way, you see, an' I ain't got her — tastes, so to speak. So she get a mite res'less, like I say. An' boy, don' she dress me down then!" And he would giggle drunkenly, as though at some good joke which he thoroughly enjoyed. "Say, you oughta hear her when she got a real head o' steam. My stars! Course, tain't often."
Not more than twice a day, and three times on Sundays, I would say to myself. Serve the clown right for marrying out of his class.
"Say, but don' get me wrong! Here, have 'nuther drink. Don' get me wrong — she a real lovin' gel. Yes-suh. She the lovin'est little creatur' you ever did see. When I say she sometimes bored, don' think I mean she goin' short! Ho-ho, I guess not!" And he would nudge me, winking ponderously, with a lewd leer. "I tell you, I'm 'bout wore out pilin' inter that li'l darlin'! Fact. She cain't seem t'get enough o' me. 'Do it again, Johnny lover, do it again.' That what she say. An' don' I do it? Oh, I should say not! I should jus' 'bout reckon not. An' don' she know how to rouse a man on, hey? Why, I see some men — like Parkins, down at Helena, an' young Mackay, who got the Yellowtree place — they jus' itchin' for her, jus' at the sight of her. Why, I could see you fancy her you'self — no, don't fret you'self, don't fret. I don't mind one li'l bit. It's only natural, ain't it? I don't take no offence, cos I know she never think o' no one but me. 'Do it again, Johnny lover.' That what she say. Talk 'bout your nigger wenches — pish!"
It was from drunken meanderings such as this that I formed my conclusions about the Mandevilles — an obvious one being that they didn't bed together, and probably never had. Well, that could explain a lot about Madame Annette's behaviour, and in other circumstances I would probably have Set myself to supply her want, for she was a trim little half-pint, bar her shrew face. But she was so damned unpleasant that the thought didn't cross my mind; when we met she either looked straight through me or treated me as though I were no better than the blacks. If I hadn't needed the work I'd have taken the rough side of my tongue to her, and as it was I gave her back sneer for sneer as far as I dared, so that before long we hated each other as cordially as man and woman can. And mind you, I don't like this sort of thing; it ain't usual to find a woman who isn't prepared to be civil to me, and I'd grown my whiskers long again, and a rakish little black imperial, too.
However, I had my own affairs to attend to. I was working quietly away towards the day when I'd have enough saved to be able to move off north again. I reckoned two or three months would see me set and ready, and by that time all the haroosh caused by my flight from the Sultana would have died down, and I'd be able to take the road in safety.