River Queen (13 page)

“Come in,” he heard faintly.

Darcy found his father sitting at his desk, staring at the mass of papers before him. When he looked up, with a slight shock Darcy thought that his father seemed to have aged. All of a sudden, he looked old, his face gray with strain, small spectacles perched on his nose, his normally square shoulders stooped.

Darcy sat down in an armchair in front of his desk and lounged back. Idly he asked, “Do you feel all right? You don’t look too well.”

“I’m fine,” Charles answered rather shortly. “I’m just really busy, Darcy.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Darcy said unrepentantly, “but I have to talk to you.” Throwing his papers down on Charles’s desk, he continued, “Guess I overspent my allowance again, Father, so I need some more money. And there’s these.”

Slowly Charles picked up the papers and perused them with a pained look on his drawn face. Appalled, he said, “Three hundred dollars? You gave out three hundred dollars in I.O.U.’s to Stephen Moak and Lucky Darden?”

Darcy shrugged. “Started out on a streak, but it fizzled out. And Lucky Darden’s name fits him all too well.”

Charles leaned back in his chair, took off his spectacles, and massaged his temples. Looking down, he said quietly, “I don’t have any more money to give you, Darcy. And I can’t pay these markers.”

“What! But they’re debts of honor! I have to pay them!” Darcy almost shouted.

Wearily Charles looked up at him and said, “Then pay them.”

A long heavy silence stretched out. Finally Darcy muttered darkly, “I can’t pay them, and you know it.”

“I can’t pay them either, and now you know it,” Charles snapped. “What were you thinking, Darcy? Haven’t you paid any attention at all to what I’ve been telling you for months?
We do not have any money!
I told you that I doubted I’d be able to give you your allowance, maybe for the next several months! I told you that, son!”

Darcy jumped out of his chair and began to pace. “You’ve been saying things like that for years, that we have to cut back and do without some things. But we didn’t. Julienne keeps getting enough clothes to dress the county, Mother got her new barouche, and you even tried to get Julienne to replace Tyla with a new maid! And here I am, with no body servant, and she’s had a maid all of her life! If we’ve got no money, where were you going to get the money to buy a maid?”

Charles’s dark eyes sparkled angrily when Darcy started speaking, but as his son’s rant went on, Charles seemed to wilt. Faintly he answered, “I wasn’t going to buy a slave, Darcy, you know that. There’s a girl at the plantation that I thought might do, and her pay would only be a little bit more as Julienne’s maid. I just thought, since she lost Tyla, that she would want another girl. But it seems she doesn’t.”

“But my point is that you’re willing to spend all kinds of money on Julienne, but you’re cutting me off,” Darcy complained. “It’s not fair.”

Charles started to speak, but then he seemed to think better of it, and shook his head. “Son, I misspoke before. I’m not feeling well, not at all. And I had already decided that we’re going to have to have a family meeting tonight after dinner. We’ll discuss all of this then.”

“I’m going out tonight,” Darcy retorted.

“I know I can’t stop you. But I am not giving you any money, Darcy, and I’m telling you right now that I won’t honor any more of your debts, so don’t try to borrow any money from your friends. Anyway, I would like for you to stay and have dinner with us tonight,” Charles said with evident weariness.

“I suppose I have no choice,” Darcy said, yanking the door open. “I’m going back to bed until then.”

THE ATMOSPHERE AT DINNER was strained. Charles and Leah were silent, and Darcy was in a foul humor. As usual, Roseann was quiet, seeming not to notice the strain on the conversation.

Julienne was oblivious to everyone else’s discomfort, as she talked about her calls that day. Since she had recovered from the accident, she had stayed ostentatiously busy, making calls every day that someone wasn’t calling on her, going to town almost every day, even when she couldn’t beg her father for any money to spend, accepting every invitation offered to her. In the springtime there were many parties and balls and barbecues, and she was out almost every night.

She said with artificial brightness, “I was calling on Felicia and Susanna, and Stephen was there, and we were having a wonderful time. And then Mary Nell and Sadie Stanford came driving up in that awful black landau that looks just like a hearse. Of course the Moaks have to receive them, even though they are such dreary women, with faces like puddings. And Sadie has gained so much weight that I swear I could see the seams splitting in her bodice. It really ruined my visit.”

No one said anything for long moments. Finally Julienne went on, “I suppose Archie will call tomorrow. He missed today.”

“No, he didn’t,” Aunt Leah said deliberately. “He did call, but you missed him because you left so early.”

“Oh. Well, he’ll live.”

Carley had been subdued, but now she giggled and said, “Archie-Bald calls every day, Julienne. He’s sooooo in looooove with yooooou!”

Julienne laughed. Leah glanced at Roseann and Charles, who seemed not to hear Carley. She said quietly, “Carley, children shouldn’t make fun of adults. You should be more respectful.”

“Aw, it’s just ol’ Archie-Bald,” Carley said with disdain. “Even Julienne calls him that sometimes.”

“Could you people stop talking so loud?” Darcy said ungraciously. “It makes my head pound.”

“Darcy got liquored up last night,” Carley announced. “Darcy’s got a hangover, Darcy’s got a hangover,” she went on in a singsong voice.

Grimly Darcy turned to his mother. “That child is a disgrace, Mother. I think she needs a good spanking and to be sent to bed without supper.”

Roseann’s eyes were downcast and she said nervously, “Please, Darcy, don’t be so harsh. She’s just a child.”

Aunt Leah’s mouth drew into a straight harsh line, but of course she couldn’t discipline Carley when her parents wouldn’t. And in spite of Darcy’s outburst, he and Julienne indulged her shamefully. That was why Carley would never sit through her lessons, she always ran out of the schoolroom the moment Leah’s back was turned. No one in the family ever tried to correct her, and Leah felt that it wasn’t her place.

Little was said the rest of the meal. As they were finishing up, Charles sighed deeply and said, “All of you please come into the sitting room. I need to talk to you.”

“Even me?” Carley piped up.

He hesitated, then finally said, “No, no, Carley. Libby will take you upstairs and you can get into your nightdress. I’ll come up later to read to you.”

He was so grave that Carley took Libby’s hand and left the dining room without protest. Charles went down the hallway to the family sitting room, a less formal, and more comfortable room than the parlor, and they all followed him. Though the night was warm and the windows were opened, Caesar had laid a small fire in the fireplace. Charles took his place standing in front of it, his hands behind his back. The others seated themselves on the plump sofa and rather worn armchairs.

Timidly Roseann said, “Are you sure you want to do this tonight, dear? You look as if you aren’t feeling well.”

“I’m all right, dear. No, I’m afraid this can’t wait any longer.” Absently he massaged his left hand with his right. “I wish I had been a better husband, Roseann, and a better father to you, my children.”

“Don’t be foolish, Charles,” Roseann said worriedly. “You are a wonderful husband and father.”

“I love you all very much,” he said quietly. “But that’s just not enough. I haven’t been the head of my household, I haven’t led you in the right ways, I haven’t protected you, and I’m so very sorry.”

“This is about money, isn’t it,” Julienne stated. “You’re really worried about money.”

Darcy looked stubborn. “Father, why can’t you explain, really, what’s going on? I mean, we all know you’ve been talking about our lack of money, but I for one don’t understand what the problem is.”

“I’m the problem,” Charles said regretfully. “For at least three years now, we have been living beyond our means. I thought I was managing our affairs, I kept thinking that I would really force you all to stop spending so much money. But I didn’t. I just let things go, I was just too weak to face the problem and make the sacrifices required to fix it. Sometimes in my mind I blamed all of you for being too extravagant, but that’s wrong. This is all my fault. I should have taught you all better, and I should have made a way for us to have a good life without spending so much money.”

Julienne looked very unhappy and said in a low voice, “You did try to tell us, Papa. We just didn’t listen. But you sound so very somber. How bad is it?”

“It’s bad,” he said bluntly. “I had to mortgage the plantation, and in fact the bank made me a very good deal. But those storms the first of March . . .” His voice trailed off, and he grimaced with pain. Again he grabbed his left hand with his right, then rubbed his left arm.

Leah said, “This is ridiculous, Charles, sit down. You’re clearly ill. We can deal with this problem, but we don’t have to put you through this right now, tonight.”

He shook his head stubbornly. “No, Leah. I’ve been making excuses to myself for years now. I’m not excusing myself any more.” Setting his jaw, he continued, “The storms in early March, they flooded four hundred acres of the lower fields. For days we thought that the Mississippi had carved a new course, and that the acreage would be permanently underwater. But just this week the waters receded and went back to the regular course before those spring floods.”

Frowning, Darcy said, “So? What’s the problem?”

Charles answered sardonically, “Aside from the fact that I had to mortgage land owned free and clear by the Ashbys for almost a hundred years? Anyway, the problem is that those fields had been underwater too long, the soil is soured. They’re going to have to lay fallow this season.” Looking around the room, he could see that his family, except for his sister Leah, looked bewildered. It only reinforced his guilt, that he had allowed them to be so ignorant of how to manage a home and finances in an appropriate manner.

The pain in his arm increased, and he was short of breath. But Charles was so focused on trying to manage this crisis that he ignored these dire warnings. With difficulty he went on, “That means that we can’t plant four hundred acres, so we won’t have the profits on those acres, and the plantation is going to make much less money this year. When the bank realized this, they changed the terms of the mortgage. The monthly draw I’m going to be able to make against the plantation has been drastically reduced. And that means that we’ll have much, much less money every month. All of us are going to have to—”

It was a spasm of pain so severe it drew his left arm up into a painful cramp, and then his chest felt as if he had been struck by an iron weight, crushing all the breath out of him. He gasped, then crumpled to the floor.

Roseann, Darcy, and Julienne were all frozen, their eyes wide with shock. Leah jumped up, knelt beside him, then looked up and said in a sharp voice, “Julienne! Tell Caesar to go get the doctor! Right now!”

Julienne jerked upright as if she had been shocked, then, her face white with fear, she turned and ran out of the room.

DR. JEROME RANKIN HAD been the Ashby family doctor ever since Julienne could remember. He was a balding, short, stout man with a kind manner. When he arrived, Julienne felt completely reassured, because she believed that Dr. Rankin could do anything.

But her heart sank when he returned to the sitting room from her father’s bedroom. His face was grim, and he shook his head. “I’m so sorry, but I have to be honest with you. Charles is dying.”

He waited for it to sink in. Roseann’s face drained of all color, and she dropped her head and burst into tears. Darcy looked as if he were in shock. Leah took a sharp indrawn breath, then went to kneel beside Roseann and put her arms around her.

Julienne felt stunned, as if she had received a sharp blow to the head. Swallowing hard, she said faintly, “But . . . surely there is something you can do?”