Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [167]
“I never cared for being a master,” Tocquet said. “Not of men, nor of women either. I have never forced a woman to do anything. If you had the good sense to come with me of your own accord, I would bring you gladly, even today. It would not take you long to make ready a few things for yourself and the children. There is money enough that we can supply most of our needs in Santo Domingo City.”
In the yard two of the geldings were pulling at their leads; one bit the other’s shoulder and the other maneuvered to kick. Bazau hitched the mules to the trunk of a tree and moved quickly to help Gros-Jean separate the saddle horses.
“Come, Madame,” said Tocquet. “What will you say?”
“If you would not abandon me, I would not—” Elise cut herself off and set her lips.
“What then?” Tocquet said softly. “What is that you would not do?” He moved to the balls of his feet, and paused. “What is that you would undo?”
Silence followed, decorated by cock crow up the slopes of coffee terraces, and the smaller birds beginning to chitter in the trees around the house. Elise sat rigid, her jaw set tight. At last Tocquet stood up and swung his saddlebags to his shoulder. She would not turn her head to follow him down the steps, though she was very much aware of the creak of leather as he mounted, the light ringing of harness when they all rode out of the yard.
Her stiffness declined into lethargy as light came more strongly through the trees. Even without moving a hair, she felt a little nauseated. She sat gazing at the snares Caco had set behind the pool. The ducks had not been tempted to them, though other yard fowl ate up the grain. Now the pool was empty, except for its floating flowers, while the snares remained there, useless.
She was remembering another time when Tocquet had left her in this house. Thibodet had just fallen ill of the fever. She had declined to go with Xavier when he asked her then, for motives that had nothing to do with her reasons today—and despite the fact that she knew very well that Sophie, then three months old, was Xavier’s child, and knew that Thibodet suspected it. Xavier had accepted her refusal, or seemed to, at that time. Yet twenty minutes later when she ran down the lane with nothing but the clothes she had on and the baby cradled against her shoulder, she’d found him waiting for her in the road behind the gate.
Would he wait now? She would not go. Could not. Fixed in her seat, she watched a stupid guinea fowl pick its way through the dusty grass at the pool’s edge toward the snare. There was not even any bait, and yet the bird still managed to run its head into the noose and spring it—the green stick snapped upright and the guinea jerked and flapped as it strangled. Two naked black children appeared and stood wide-eyed, watching the struggle. Elise came out of her torpor and dashed down the steps to catch up the guinea and break its neck with an awkward twist, thinking there was nothing else to do, and that she’d rather kill it cleanly than watch it yank itself to death before her eyes. A kick had clawed the inside of her forearm; she felt a little ill at the sight of the bright trail of blood. Here was another day to be got through, and here was the first item on the menu, by whatever chance. Elise let the warm body of the bird swing by her thigh, and walked around the house toward the kitchen, to get Pauline to pluck it.
18
Sergeant Aloyse had a face that reminded Guizot of an ax. His whole head seemed to drive to the edge of his heavy, hatchet-bladed nose. His face was weathered and deeply creased, with eyes recessed under bushy brows, and when Rochambeau’s columns were on the march, the lines set grimly around the mouth; but at ease, the eyes had sometimes a fond sparkle and the lines relaxed into an amiable expression. All in all it was a friendly ax. Sergeant Aloyse had a salt-and-pepper mustache, and gray streaks ran through the pigtail that hung rope-like down the center of his back. Some dozen years older than Guizot, he had many tales to tell of the two Italian campaigns of