Duet for Three Hands (24 page)

N
athaniel

N
athaniel knelt
to smell the lilacs that hung in fragrant abundance near the back gate of his house, the late afternoon sun hot on his shoulders. He felt preoccupied, bothered by a comment the dean had said to him that morning. “Saw a woman coming out of the tavern the other day, midafternoon, who could’ve been your wife’s sister.” Nathaniel had peered at him closely afterward, to detect either malice or insinuation, but saw nothing. It was only a genuine, innocent remark. Yet, it agitated Nate all morning, and he’d decided to walk home and simply ask Frances if she’d been there or not. He couldn’t imagine that she would set one dainty foot in the joint, rumored to be full of old drunks and women of ill repute, but he would ask just the same, he decided, to ease his mind.

Using his pocketknife, he clipped a bunch of the lilacs. It was then he heard a screech through the kitchen’s open window. “What have you done?” It was Frances.

Dropping the bouquet, he ran toward the kitchen door. He heard Jeselle say, “I’m sorry, Miss Frances. It was an accident.”

“This was silk from India, you stupid girl,” Frances said, loud and shrill. Jeselle screamed.

He burst into the kitchen, tripping over the top step. Jeselle stood at the ironing board clutching her right arm, her face twisted in pain. Frances, her eyes wild, waved a dress with a hole the size and shape of the iron through the bodice. In the other hand she held the electric iron, its cord dangling at her feet.

“She burned me,” Jeselle whispered.

Nathaniel felt bile rise to his throat. He grabbed the iron from Frances. “Get out of my sight.” Frances opened her mouth as if to protest, but Nathaniel put up his hand. “Get out.” She ran through the door to the living room.

He guided Jeselle to a kitchen chair, and she buckled into it, gazing at him with big, scared eyes.

“Will I have to go now?”

He didn’t answer as he opened the door to their electric refrigerator, searching for something cold to put on her arm. He pulled out a glass container of milk.

“Put this on your arm.” The burn was a pink mark the shape of the iron, but there was no blistering. “Stay here.” He ran to the shed, filled a bucket with ice, and returned to the kitchen. “Put your arm in here.” He went to the phone and dialed the operator. “Doctor Landry, please.”

The doctor picked up after the third ring. “Jesus, boy,” he said, after Nathaniel explained that his maid had been burned by the iron. Nathaniel could tell he had a cigar in his mouth by the way the words came out pinched. “How long you lived in these parts now? I don’t know what you Yankees do up north, but down here white doctors don’t treat colored folks. Take her out to her own people. I hear there’s a colored doctor. Voodoo type.”

Nathaniel hung up and glanced at Jeselle. “I could’ve told you he wouldn’t see me, Mr. Nate,” she said.

He leaned against the counter, trying to think what to do. “You want to see the other doctor?”

Her lips trembled. “No, I don’t want any trouble. It’s not that bad. I burned myself worse on the stove one time.” She held up her other hand to show him a skinny scar across the top of her hand. “See, I got that taking Mrs. Greer’s roast out of the oven.”

Her unburned arm rested on her belly. Was she plumper than he remembered? She seemed bigger around the middle, especially compared with the slenderness of her arms and legs. And then it came to him: she was with child. From the size of her belly he guessed she was around five months along. That was around the time Frances had begun to show. He sank into the other chair. “Are you going to have a baby?”

She met his eyes. “Yes.”

Frances’s heeled shoes paced the floor in the other room. “Is that why your mother sent you here?” he whispered, indicating the door with his eyes.

She nodded, slumping forward. The clatter of Frances’s shoes stopped. She listened at the door. “Get your things. I’ll drive you home. You should rest this afternoon.”

“But what about the work?”

“Don’t worry about that. It’ll still be here tomorrow.” He pointed toward his parked car in the driveway. “Go wait in the car for a moment. I need to talk with Frances.” Frances’s shoes clicked away from the door. He waited for Jeselle to leave the house before he walked into the front room. Frances poured a whiskey from the glass decanter and pretended she didn’t see him. He wanted to shake her, to make her teeth rattle, but he took a deep breath and turned her to face him, holding her arms firmly so she couldn’t wriggle away. He spoke through gritted teeth. “Why? I simply want to understand what goes through your head.”

She looked up through her lashes. “It was silk from India.” She pouted.

“Frances, you burned her, for God’s sake.”

Frances waved her hand dismissively. “She should be more careful. She’s a thoughtless, clumsy girl. First day here and already she’s wrecked something.”

“You cannot hurt someone in my house.”

“Our house.”

He let go of her and went to the window, pulling back the curtain to peer outside. Jeselle leaned against the car, holding her arm. “Your mother wrote to me about a place. A resting type of place that might be good for you. Maybe they could help you learn to control your temper.”

Her voice was even, careful. “You wouldn’t really send me to one of those places, would you, Nate?”

He turned to face her. She had rearranged herself into something pitiful, childlike, which angered him further. “I will do whatever is necessary. Do you understand me? You will never hurt another human being in my home again. Or so help me God, I’ll send you away. As your husband, I have the right to do so.”

She smoothed her hair. He noticed her hands shook, but her words came out haughty, unconcerned. “You don’t have it in you.”

“That was true once, but you’ve managed to suffocate most of my natural instincts.” He moved closer to her, wanting to watch her answer his question. “The dean told me he thought he saw you coming out of Mitchell’s Tavern the other afternoon. Were you there?” He paused and studied her face as it went from white to scattered with patches of red.

“Of course not. Why would I be at that dirty old place?” Sighing, she flounced onto the couch. “Anyway, I haven’t felt well all week. You know that. I’ve been in bed. It’s my nerves, Nate. Really, I’ll behave. I promise.”

“I want to believe that, Frances, I really do. But you lay another hand on this girl and I will take the necessary steps to have you sent away. Do you understand?”

She nodded, pulling on the front of her dress. “I understand.”

J
eselle stood
near Nate’s car, cradling her arm against her chest, staring at the ground. The image of a fawn with a broken leg he’d once seen in the woods when he was a child suddenly came to mind. Jeselle’s cheeks were hollow; she couldn’t be more than a hundred pounds soaking wet, despite the pregnancy. “Let’s go,” he said, gently.

She darted a look at him. “Do I sit in the front or the back?”

“Where do you want to sit?”

“In the front.” She met his eyes.

He opened the car door for her and held it as she slipped inside. “Careful of your head now.”

Fifteen minutes later, per Jeselle’s instructions, they turned down a dirt road from the road.

“You walked all this way to work?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

They turned a corner and came upon a shack. Jeselle shifted in the seat. “This is it. Bess’s place.”

Bess’s place was no more than some boards thrown together. How was a family living here? “Jeselle, does your mother know what it’s like here?”

“I guess.”

Nathaniel pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and stuck one in his mouth, unlit. “There enough to eat out here?”

“You want the truth?”

“Of course.”

“They have four children, and the landlord takes most of the profit from their crops every year. Doesn’t leave them enough to live on. Doubt there’s ever enough to eat. Especially to feed me.”

He nodded, wrinkling his brow. “I see, tenant farmers. Cotton?”

“That’s right.”

“Where do you sleep?”

“Porch.”

“No, no. This isn’t right.” He gestured with the unlit cigarette. “I’m sending you home. Your mother wouldn’t want you here.”

Jeselle gazed into her lap. Tears fell onto her folded hands. “Please, don’t send me back. Mrs. Bellmont doesn’t know about the baby, and we don’t want her to. Please, I have no place else to go.”

He reached into his front jacket pocket for his lighter. Oh, dammit. He’d vowed to quit smoking that very morning. A man of absolutely no discipline, he thought. Look at what this poor girl endures, and yet he couldn’t quit smoking? He shoved the cigarette back in the pack. “Do you have a plan for the baby, Jes?”

She kept her eyes in her lap and spoke, barely above a whisper. “Mama arranged for me to give the baby to Reverend Young. She wants me to go to Oberlin.”

“Is that what you want?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where’s the father?”

She glanced up at the sky. “I don’t know.”

“Have you told him?”

“No.”

“Best give him a chance to do the right thing. He might surprise you.”

“No. It would ruin his life.”

“A child could never ruin anyone’s life.”

She turned to him, a searching look in her eyes. “Do you think that’s always true, Mr. Nate?”

“I do.”

Her fingers clasped and unclasped in her lap. “Well, I best get on.”

“Wait.” He tapped a finger against the dashboard. “All right, here’s what we’re going to do for now. Make enough food for our meals like you’re cooking for four hungry adults. Serve small portions to Frances and me. We don’t eat much. Bring the rest of the food here. You eat at my house, whatever you like, however much you need.”

“What will Miss Frances think?”

He kept his voice steady. “She won’t notice.” He stuck his elbow out the car window. “She doesn’t understand practical things.”

“Thank you.”

Uncomfortable, he avoided looking at her by watching a sparrow fly from an oak tree to the top of the house. “When you’re working, you’ve got to stay out of Frances’s way. If she seems restless or if she starts in on the whiskey, make an excuse that you have to go to the market or something. Just get out of the house. Her moods usually pass once something else catches her interest.”

Jeselle wiped her eyes. “I burned her dress. I’m clumsy lately. I’ll work to pay for it.”

“Don’t worry about that. She has enough clothes.” He turned to her, his concern for her outweighing his innate shyness. He attempted to sound stern but gentle. Was that possible? “You tell me if anything else happens with her. You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

He went around and opened her door, offering his hand. She stared at it for an instant before taking it. “Get a little rest if you can. Take care of your arm tonight. Put some butter on it.” She nodded, though he realized there wasn’t any butter inside that house, nor milk or cheese. “Well, anyway, try to get some rest if you can.”

Looking up the dusty road, he imagined Jeselle walking in the heat. Unacceptable, no matter the circumstance. But pregnant and probably hungry was more than anyone should have to endure, especially sweet Jeselle. So many times in life we were unable to help others. But this time he could offer something that could ease another’s discomfort. Unfortunately, this was all he could do—offer meals and transportation. For now, anyway. Perhaps something would occur to him to help Cassie’s daughter. A quality in her eyes told him she had no intention of giving the child away. Hadn’t he felt the same about John? No one could have pried him away from his baby. “I’ll come get you in the mornings. You shouldn’t walk in this heat.” His eyes went to her stomach, and he felt himself blush. He walked around to his side of the car and said over the roof, “I’ll be here at seven thirty tomorrow morning.”

She smiled and nodded. “I’ll be ready.”

N
ot wanting to go home
, Nathaniel drove downtown, parked near the deli, and went for a walk along Main Street and then down a side street he’d never walked before. He looked up to find a Presbyterian church, built in the spare and simple way of the Presbyterians that Nathaniel knew so well from his childhood. The doors of the church were open. He walked up the steps and went inside. It was a familiar sight to him: oak pews, a small pulpit, and an unstained wooden cross, similar to those of his home church in Maine. An older man with thinning white hair and stooped shoulders stood on a tall ladder perched in the frame of an open window. Nathaniel squinted in the dim light, making out a dark robe and black shoes.