O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [44]
“I go with my husband,” Laveda answered.
“In my condition?” Daisy asked.
Horace jumped in quickly. “Even though everyone will be freed, they will have their jobs here and their housing and a salary to boot. You all can come and go to Baltimore as you wish, carrying proper identification papers.”
“You said we would be free. Just how free is free?” Matthew asked.
“You and Laveda will be promoted to very good positions here.”
The Fancys still remained unmoved.
Horace understood that he was losing the day. Daisy’s face was bloodless. Something was happening here, now, that was going to change the way life was lived. Horace needed to be astute with his answers, perhaps even drop the slave-and-master banter.
“I would like to have a serious talk with Matthew. Would you mind, Daisy? Laveda?”
Matthew’s wife looked to her man for an answer. He wavered for a moment. “All right, Laveda,” Matthew said to his wife.
“See that Miss Daisy lies down and gets some rest,” Horace added.
They left haltingly.
“Let us talk, man-to-man,” Horace began.
“May I sit down?” Matthew asked.
Horace’s face reddened. Something was happening! He held his arm open to a chair never before sat in by a black person and he unpeeled a cigar.
“Cigar?”
“Thank you, no.”
“This is a damned good one.”
“I worked the tobacco fields for one of the Blantons in Virginia when I was a boy. Spending my whole life around tobacco seems to make it hard for me to breathe right.”
Horace lit up, alone. “Feel completely free to speak, even though I might not like it.”
No answer.
“Look, speak up. What you say will never leave this room.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I’m granting you freedom. What’s on your mind?”
Matthew spoke quite softly. “I tread now carefully, but I do not believe you can bring yourself to say ‘I need you’ to a black man and his wife.”
Horace gauged his adversary. He was one smart black. Of course the question of need had never occurred to Horace. All right, then, let’s play the game.
“Suppose I am willing to grant that we may need you. I need you to do a big favor. I need you to help me get rid of the Leamingtons.”
“I’m not starting out a new life by turning on a white majordomo,” Fancy answered.
“Listen up, Matthew. There are powerful people in Baltimore who are going to jump all over me for freeing my slaves. Believe me, it takes balls to do what I’m doing. The Leamingtons are masters of their game. They can spread rumors and see to it that we are smeared in the press. I need to pack them off to England, quick. Now, can you help me?”
No answer. Switch the appeal. “Mrs. Kerr is in a very delicate condition. A social scandal would damn near kill her. Do you realize how the Leamingtons could spread lies? I’ll back you up, on my honor.”
“Not to offend your honor, but I don’t see any black man testifying against any white man.”
“Testifying to what?” Horace pressed.
“Study your damned estate ledgers!” Matthew cried.
“What!”
“I’ll say no more.”
“How can you possibly know about such things, Matthew?”
“I knew I had to learn to count and add and subtract to get out of the fields. I learned a hundred words by sight so I was able to go work in the stables. Mr. Kerr, I know how to order a dozen bales of hay and I know when only eleven are delivered.”
“And how’d you learn to speak so well?”
“From a white man named Mr. Fancy, who ran the big Blanton horse farm in Virginia. He’d come from England, like the Leamingtons. Every day he’d paste up a new word for me to learn in the tack room.”
Horace had found the weak spot and slipped an ace up his sleeve to be played at the proper moment. The ash on his cigar grew longer and could have been knocked off with the blink of his eye, yet grew longer still.
Because of the extent of the building and inflated war prices, the Leamingtons had obviously found ways to pump up the estate budget. Horace cursed himself for not doing his homework. What else would he find? Double entries, inflated bids, kickbacks, short deliveries? Those sons of bitches.
“So they’ve been stealing my white ass