Windswept (36 page)

“Hmm?” She surfaced enough to focus on him. “Oh, I’ll be up in a minute. I just want to finish this section. You go ahead,” she answered vaguely and returned to the journal.

Davis looked down at her and couldn’t help smiling. When she was concentrating, he was lucky if she even heard him. “Don’t read too long.” He kissed the top of her head before he left the room.

Upstairs, he prepared for bed, propped up the pillows, and began a book Granddaddy had once given him about the Civil War. “It’s a good one, even if written by a Yankee,” the old man had said. Edgar had been correct; Davis was soon immersed.

Some time later, he woke up, at first disoriented. He looked at the clock: two in the morning. The light on the nightstand was still on, his book had fallen to his side, and Barrett was not in bed with him.

Muttering to himself about absent-minded professors who forgot to sleep, Davis put on his robe and went after her. She was still cocooned on the couch, but a giant box of tissues was on the table, and she was crying.

“Barrett! What is it? What’s wrong?” He sat down and pulled her, cocoon and all, into his arms.

“Oh, Davis,” she whispered. “Mary Maude killed him. She murdered Edgar!”

“What? Murder?” The word hit him like a sledgehammer blow, and he leaned back so he could see her face.

She reached for a tissue and blew her nose before answering. “She discovered Edgar had been visiting the slave quarters and had children by two of the women, Cleopatra and Salome.”

She sniffled again, and Davis handed her another tissue. “That must have been devastating,” he murmured while his thoughts came back to and swirled around the word murder. Mary Maude a killer? Barrett had to be mistaken.

Barrett nodded. “Mary Maude confronted Edgar, who first denied any infidelity, then claimed he had gone to the other women to spare her, his wife, from his ‘animal tendencies’ and to protect her health, since the doctors had warned her she might not live through another pregnancy. Edgar swore he’d never do it again. Then she overheard people at church talking about his infidelities and pitying her. Her situation worsened when it became clear that Edgar was not keeping his promises.”

“Go on,” Davis said while he tried to assimilate what she was telling him. He had never heard one intimation, not a rumor, not a whisper of Edgar’s death from anything except natural causes. Although the family knew the first Edgar had been no saint, they had always revered him as the honored patriarch of the family. And Mary Maude as his loving, devoted wife.

“Your great-great-great grandmother was a proud woman, Davis,” Barrett said after blowing her nose again. “She hated being an object of public ridicule, and she hated Edgar for betraying her, but she was faced with a fearful dilemma. She couldn’t leave him, she had no money of her own, even if divorce had been an option. She wouldn’t burden her parents or her sister by going to live with them. And she had the children to think about. At the time, children in a marriage were the property of the father, and she knew Edgar wouldn’t give up his children, not under any circumstances. All the laws and social customs of the time were against her.

“So, Mary Maude decided to teach him a lesson as a way of preserving her honor and her children. She made the decision when, after she moved into another bedroom, one of their daughters caught her father with one of the women, in the house, in the master bedroom.”

“She wrote all this in her journal?” Davis asked. “Why put such incriminating statements into writing?”

“Her journal was her outlet. You can see over the years how the journal goes from a record of plantation happenings to her diary of innermost thoughts. There were no other white women on the plantation, with the exception of the overseer’s wife, and they didn’t seem to be friendly--different classes and such. To whom would she confide such a plan? Certainly not a friend or her sister. She had to let her feelings out somehow, so she used the diary.

“You can tell how affected she was by his infidelities. Her handwriting even looks angry--her normal copperplate calligraphy spikes and jerks like it’s all she can do to keep the pen on the page to record the words. Also, nobody would dare to read them. Edgar seems to have discounted her ‘scribblings’ and ignored them. I doubt anyone else knew what the journal had become.”

“How did she kill him?” Part of him was denying his own ancestor could have done such a deed, but the other part was fascinated by Barrett’s story. Who would have thought it possible?

“Poison. She was a botanical expert by then, with all she’d learned from Heeba, her gardens, her library, and her correspondence over twenty-some years. Mary Maude poisoned Edgar slowly. She didn’t start out to kill or torture him, though. She records several confrontations about his continued trips to the quarters, and he promised each time to stop. But when he didn’t, she resumed the poisoning.

“She says she was trying to convince him his illness came from his unfaithfulness and drew his attention to the idea several times. Her plan didn’t work, however, as he refused to change his ways. When the second woman, Salome, became pregnant again during one of his ‘healthy’ periods, she came to the conclusion he would never change and she had to protect her children, so she gave him a fatal dose. I think she thoroughly loathed him by then. She wrote several times, ‘He is not the man I married.’”

“Didn’t anyone suspect anything?”

She shook her head. “Not that I can tell, not even Edgar. You’ve read his journal. He doesn’t even speculate in it about his illness. How could anyone else? The doctors prescribed ‘cures’ of questionable efficacy, and many people, both white and black, wholeheartedly endorsed Mary Maude’s potions. He had been ‘sick’ for so long--this illness-recuperation-illness went on for two years. Besides, people died back then from relatively simple causes, and frankly, nobody would suspect Mary Maude. She had a reputation as a healer, had been her husband’s faithful nurse, and seemed to be doing everything she could to help him.”

“Are you absolutely certain she murdered him? Could she have made a mistake with her potion recipe? Could you be misinterpreting something she wrote?” He felt like he was grasping at straws, but he couldn’t simply accept what she had told him.

“She closed this volume with these entries,” Barrett said as she flipped back a page and started to read.

October 19, 1854

Edgar is dead by my hand. He died this morning peacefully in his sleep after I gave him the fatal dose last night. I cannot mourn, I cannot grieve, I do not feel satisfaction, I do not feel freedom. I refuse to feel guilt. I move through the house with as much emotion as a machine. Indeed a cotton gin has more sensibility than I do.

October 21, 1854

I buried my husband today in the family plot of the St. Gregoryville Episcopal Church. On the gate to the plot, the willow tree wrought in iron wept more than I did at the ceremony. Several friends remarked how “brave” I was, how “well” I was holding up, how “awful” it must have been to nurse Edgar through his illness. Even how “relieved” I should be since Edgar is beyond pain now. And how “thankful” I should be that Edgar Jr. is of an age to take over the running of the plantation.

As for Salome, Cleopatra and their children, I do not want them here, reminding me every day of Edgar’s faithlessness, but selling them will only cause the gossip’s tongues to wag anew. I don’t care what the laws against manumission may be, I will have them all taken north and set free there with enough money to sustain themselves until they can find work--or more likely, other men to care for them.

None of this, after all, was the fault of these women or their children. How can I condemn them when it was all his doing? This horrible system we live under has punished both the Negro women and me for his lack of integrity. The innocent children are, after all, Edgar’s, and as such, linked by blood to my own dear ones. We are all slaves to this iniquitous system.

Edgar Jr. agrees with my plans and, mercifully, has not asked any questions. He has not spoken of his father’s indiscretions, and his silence leads me to think he knew of them, but when or what he learned, I do not know. It doesn’t matter.

No one has any inkling of my crime--except myself, and perhaps Heeba. She will, I know, be silent.

As for me . . . As I watched Edgar’s coffin lowered into the ground, I looked at the spot next to his and realized my penance for killing him will be to lie next to my “beloved” husband for eternity.

It is a fitting atonement.

Barrett closed the book and put it on the coffee table, but said nothing.

Davis wrapped his arms around her and held her close. She wasn’t wrong. He had to accept the truth: Mary Maude had committed murder.

He felt suddenly weary. Barrett’s discovery had to be the horrible scandal Lloyd was harping about, and they had to discuss the revelations and what they meant for the present-day Jamisons.

But not now.

He nudged her back so he could see her face. She looked exhausted. “It’s after two in the morning,” he said. “Let’s go to bed.”

She didn’t argue, only nodded, unwound her cocoon, and rose when he did. Hand in hand they shut off the lights and climbed the stairs.

He didn’t let her go to her own room to get ready for bed as she had done on past nights before joining him. He didn’t want her out of his sight, even to brush her teeth. It was more than not wanting her to wake up enough to start talking about Edgar and Mary Maude. He didn’t stop to analyze his reasons, but led her to his room, helped her take off her clothes, and tucked her into his bed. He joined her and on an elbow, leaned over her, gave her a soft kiss.

“We’ll discuss all the ramifications tomorrow. Okay?”

“Okay,” she answered. She looked for a moment as if she wanted to say something else, but she only gave him a kiss back and snuggled closer.

He turned out the light and settled her in his arms. She fell asleep immediately, but he lay awake for long minutes thinking about those “ramifications.”

She’d want to publish her findings, of course. The story of Mary Maude the murderer would make all the best-seller lists, he was positive, even if written in dry-as-dust historical language. Somehow he knew, by the time Barrett finished such a book, it wouldn’t be boring history, but a vital, engrossing tale. Hell, it would probably win a Pulitzer, to boot.

He could almost hear the radical feminists crowing over one of the slave-owning plantation masters receiving his comeuppance at the hands of his own wife. He could almost see the talk-show hosts and pop psychologists having a field day with his ancestors’ failings. The news would definitely make the papers and magazines, and God only knew what the tabloids would do with it. Probably something like: “You Men Who Play Around--What Are Your Wives Feeding You Tonight?”

Then there was his family.

He could definitely hear the screams of outrage from the Jamisons in Louisiana, particularly Lloyd and Aunt Cecilia.

What was he himself going to do?

Granddaddy had made him the protector of the family--bequeathed him the post, in fact. The old man had meant for him to protect its members as much from themselves as from outside forces. Probably more.

But he had a deal with Barrett to let her use the information in the papers as she chose. To go back on a deal, on his word, would diminish himself in his own eyes. God knew what reneging would do to him in Barrett’s.

What about Barrett? Such a book could make her career and get her tenure with no trouble. That’s what she wanted, wasn’t it? What she’d been driving for, day and night, working on the papers? He rarely saw such determination in anyone these days. Why was she so driven? It didn’t seem to be sheer ambition, the thirst for position he’d seen in so many men. Was it the security of a tenured post? Would her determination get in the way of their being together?

What about Mary Maude’s story? What if he asked Barrett to withhold the information about the murder? No, it wouldn’t work. She’d talked too much about the duty of historians to tell the truth about events, not shy away from uncomfortable realities. And there was no way he could see to downplay a murder. Unfortunately, also, no doubt existed that Mary Maude had poisoned Edgar. Her confession was there in her journal in her own handwriting.

No matter what he decided, could he trust Barrett to be sensitive to his family? Could he trust her with their history? Could he trust her, period?

Or would she be like Sandra, care about nothing, not his feelings, not their relationship, be ready to pack up and leave after using him and his family for her own purposes?

And to think just the other day he’d been contemplating something permanent with Barrett. Could he be with her at his family’s expense?

What was he going to do about her?

But what would he do without her? Without her infectious laughter, her genuine interest in him and his work, her generous help with his family, her sexy presence in his bed? The possibility of losing her opened a chasm in his chest into which his heart plummeted like a cannonball down a deep well.

The object of his thoughts turned over on her side with her back against his ribcage and her butt against his hips. Davis resolutely threw the questions out of his head and pulled her a little tighter against him. He wouldn’t try to make a decision now. Tomorrow would be soon enough for answers.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Davis was gone when Barrett woke up. She looked at the clock and groaned. Ten in the morning. She groggily struggled out of bed, slipped into Davis’s robe, grabbed her clothes, and staggered around to her own room. In the bathroom, she stared at herself in the mirror.

Damn. Swollen eyelids, bloodshot eyes, splotched skin, Medusa-like hair. She only hoped Davis had not taken too close a look at her before he left.

In the shower, she vaguely remembered him giving her a good-bye kiss and telling her he’d be home early. They certainly had important issues to discuss. The news about Mary Maude would hit his family like a bombshell. How could it not?