She pushed the door open without knocking. She saw at once that it was the only room that hadn’t been changed, but neither had it been cleaned. She stood in the doorway for several minutes while her eyes adjusted to the dimness.
“I must have died and gone to heaven,” came a low, slurred voice from a corner. “My beautiful Janie wearing men’s pants. Do you think you’ll set a fashion?”
Janie went to the desk and lit a lamp, then turned it up brightly. She gasped when she saw Clay. His eyes were red, his beard dirty and scraggly. She doubted if he’d washed in weeks.
“Janie, girl, would you hand me that jug from the desk? I’ve been meaning to get it myself, but I don’t seem to have the energy.”
Janie stared at him for a moment. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”
“Eaten? There is no food. Didn’t you know that my darling wife eats all the food?” He tried to sit up, but it was an effort for him.
Janie went to help him. “You stink!”
“Thank you, my dear, that’s the kindest thing anyone’s said to me in a long time.”
She helped him stand up. He was very unsteady on his feet. “I want you to come with me.”
“Of course. I will follow you wherever you wish.”
“We’re going out into the rain first. Maybe it’ll help sober you, or at least wash you. Then we’re going to the kitchen.”
“Oh, yes,” Clay said. “The kitchen. My wife’s favorite room. Poor Maggie works harder now than when she cooked for the whole plantation. Did you know they’re all gone now?”
Janie supported Clay as they went to the side door. “I know I never saw a worse case of feeling sorry for yourself than yours.”
The cold rain hit both of them with a driving, slashing force. Janie ducked her head to keep from being pounded, but Clay didn’t seem to notice as it cut at him.
Inside the kitchen, Janie stirred the coals and stoked the fire. She quickly set a pot of coffee on the grate. The room was a shambles, so unlike the sparkling clean place it once was. It had the look of a place that was uncared for, unwanted.
Janie helped Clay to sit down, then went back into the rain to get Maggie. She knew she’d need help sobering Clay.
An hour later, Maggie and Janie had forced an extraordinary amount of black coffee into him, as well as half a dozen scrambled eggs. All the while, Maggie talked.
“It’s not a happy place anymore,” Maggie said. “That woman pokes her nose into everything. She wants us all to bow down and kiss her fat feet. We all laughed at her before Clay married her.” She paused and gave Clay a harsh look. “But after that, there was no pleasin’ her. Everybody who could leave did. After she started cutting food rations, even some of the slaves ran away. I think they knew Clay wouldn’t go after them. And they were right.”
Clay was beginning to sober up. “Janie doesn’t want to hear about our problems. People in heaven don’t want to know about hell.”
“You chose hell!” Maggie started what was obviously a much practiced speech.
Janie put her hand on Maggie’s arm to stop her. “Clay,” she said quietly, “are you sober enough to listen to me?”
He looked up from the plate of eggs. His brown eyes were sunk deep into his skull. His mouth was a straight line, the corners deeply etched. He looked older than Janie remembered. “What is it you have to say?” he asked flatly.
“Are you aware of what the rain’s doing to your crops?”
He frowned, then pushed his plate away. Janie pushed it back toward him. He obeyed her and began to eat again. “I may be drunk, but I’m afraid I haven’t been able to block out everything that’s happened to me. Maybe I should say, everything that I’ve caused. I’m well aware of what the rain’s doing. Don’t you think it’s a fitting end? After all my wife,” he snarled the word, “has done to get this plantation, it looks like we’re both going to lose it.”
“And you’re willing to allow that?” Janie demanded. “The Clay I’ve always known would fight for what he wanted. I remember you and James fighting a fire for three days.”
“Oh yes, James,” Clay said quietly. “I cared then.”
“You may not care about yourself,” Janie said fiercely, “but other people do. Right now, Wesley and Nicole are out in the rain trying to slice off a few acres of Nicole’s land to save yours. And all you do is sit here and wallow in your own selfish pride.”
“Pride? I haven’t had any pride since…since one morning in a cave.”
“Stop it!” Janie shouted. “Stop thinking of yourself and listen to me. Didn’t you hear a word I said? Wes told Nicole that your land would probably be flooded, and she figured out a way to save your crops.”
“Save them?” Clay’s head came up. “The only way is if the rain stopped, or maybe a dam could be built upriver.”
“Or, if the river had someplace else to go besides your land—”
“What are you talking about?”
Maggie sat down beside Clay. “You said Nicole is going to save Clay’s crops. How?”
Janie looked from one interested pair of eyes to the next. “You know the sharp bend in the river just below the mill?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Nicole figured out that if she dug a trench through there, the river just might take that course instead of flooding your bottomland where your tobacco is.”
Clay leaned back in his chair and stared. He knew exactly what Janie meant. The excess river water needed an outlet, and one place was as good as another. It was a while before he spoke. “She’d lose several acres of her land if the river did take that course,” he said at last.
“That’s what Wes said.” Janie poured all three of them more coffee. “He tried to talk her out of it, but she said—” She paused and looked at Clay. “She said you needed someone to believe in you, that you need to feel someone cares about you.”
Clay stood up abruptly and walked to the kitchen window. It was raining so hard that he had only an impression of the outside beyond the window. Nicole, he thought. He’d been drunk for nearly a year just so he couldn’t think or feel, yet it hadn’t come close to working. There wasn’t a minute, drunk or sober, when he hadn’t thought of her, what could have been, what would have been if only he’d…The more he thought, the more he drank.
Janie was right, he did feel sorry for himself. All his life, he’d felt he was in control, but then his parents had been taken, then Beth and James. He thought he wanted Bianca, but Nicole had confused him. When he realized how much he loved her, it was too late. By then, he’d already hurt her so much that she’d never trust him again.
The rain whipped against the glass. Somewhere, out in that cold deluge, she worked for him. She sacrificed her land, her crops, the security of all the people who depended on her, for him. What had Janie said? To show him that someone cares.
He turned to Janie. “I have about six men left on the plantation. I’ll get them and some shovels.” He started toward the door. “They’re going to need food. Empty the larders.”
“Yes, sir!” Maggie grinned.
The two women stared at the door after Clay shut it behind him.
“That sweet little lady still loves him, doesn’t she?” Maggie asked.
“She’s never stopped for a minute, although I’ve sure tried to get her to stop. In my opinion, no man’s good enough for her.”
“What about that Frenchman who lives with her?” Maggie said hostilely.
“Maggie, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I got a few hours to listen,” she said, and began to throw food into burlap bags. They’d return to the mill to cook. It was better to get the raw food wet than to try to transport it when it was hot.
Janie smiled. “Let’s get busy. I have a year’s worth of gossip to tell you.”
The rain was coming down so hard, Clay could hardly see to get his men across the river. The water lapped over the edges of the shallow rowboats and threatened to swallow the men along with
the land. Already the river had risen enough that it had eaten several rows of Clay’s tobacco.
Once ashore, the men put their shovels over their shoulders and trudged up the hill, their heads down, letting the brims of their hats protect them somewhat from the rain. Once they arrived at the site where the others were digging, they lost no time in going to work. The Clayton who’d come to give them their orders was not a man they wanted to disobey.
Clay sank the shovel into the soggy earth. Now was not the time to let himself think he was helping Nicole in her sacrifice. Suddenly, it seemed important to him to save his crops. He wanted to harvest that tobacco as much as he’d ever wanted anything in his life.
He dug with more energy than he’d ever experienced before. He acted like a demon possessed. He concentrated so hard on moving shovelfuls of earth that he didn’t at first feel the hand on his arm. When he came back to the present, he turned to look into Nicole’s eyes.
It was a jolt seeing her again. In spite of the hard, driving rain, they might have been alone. They both wore broad-brimmed hats, the water running down across their faces.
“Here!” she yelled over the fury of the rain. “Coffee.” She held up a mug, her hand covering the open top.
He took it and drained it without a word.
She took the empty mug and walked away from him.
He stood quietly for a moment and watched her trying to walk in the sucking mud. She seemed especially small in the man’s clothing, the big boots. All around him, trampled in the mud, were stalks of nearly ripe wheat—her wheat.
He looked around him for the first time. There were fifteen men digging at the trench. He recognized Isaac and Wes at one end. To his left lay the land they were trying to cut away. The wheat bent under the pelting rain, but the hill’s slope assured good drainage. Not far away was a low stone wall. Clay had watched Isaac and Nicole build those walls. Every time she’d lifted a stone, he’d drunk a little bit more. Now, all that labor was being pushed into the river, discarded as if it meant nothing. And all for him.
He stabbed the shovel into the earth again and began to dig harder.
What little light there was began to fade a few hours later. Nicole came to him once again and pantomimed that he was to stop and eat. Clay shook his head and kept digging.
Night came, and the men still dug. There was no way to have lanterns, so they dug half by instinct and half by their increased night vision. Wesley tried to keep the diggers inside the lines he’d set.
Toward morning, Wes came to Clay and motioned for him to follow. The diggers were very tired, their bodies cold and aching. The shoveling was bad enough, but combined with the viciousness of the rain, it pushed them past exhaustion.
Clay followed Wes to the end point where the trench was being cut. They were very close to being through. In another hour or so, they’d know if their labor had accomplished anything. It flashed through Clay’s mind that the river did not have to take Nicole’s sacrifice. It could stay where it was and ignore the canal.
Wes looked in question to Clay, asking his opinion on the formation of the mouth of the trench. The rain was too loud and hard for them to speak over it. Clay pointed at a cutaway in the bend of the river, and the two friends began to dig there, together.
The sky began to lighten with the dawn. The men could see what they had done and where they must go. Only six feet were needed to complete the deep ditch.
Wes and Clay exchanged looks over Nicole’s head. She dug beside the men, never looking up. The men had the same thought. In minutes, they’d know if they would succeed or not.
Suddenly, the river answered their question. It was too greedy to wait for the removal of the six feet. The water rushed into the trench from both sides at once. The wet, soft ground fell away as if it were made of pastry dough. The diggers barely had time to jump back before they were swept away. Clay grabbed Nicole about the waist and swung her to the safe, higher ground.
All the diggers stood back and watched the river consume the wheat-planted earth. The land fell in thick, dark, rich sheets, falling into the water, then disappearing forever. The turbulent water rushed across the land like volcanic lava.
“Look!” Wes yelled above the noise.
Everyone looked across the river to where he pointed. They’d been so fascinated by the sight of the earth falling that they hadn’t noticed Clay’s fields. As the river moved to fill the gap left by Nicole’s land, which it now carried downstream, the level lowered considerably. The last rows of tobacco that had once been buried now were seen again, flattened and ruined, but the rows above them were safe.
“Hooray!” Nicole shouted, the first to do so.
Suddenly, the tiredness left everyone. They’d worked all night to accomplish one thing and they’d done it. Jubilation replaced their weariness. They began waving their shovels about in the air. Isaac grabbed Luke’s hand and they did a little impromptu jig in the mud.
“We did it!” Wes shouted over the steady rain. He grabbed Nicole and tossed her in the air. Then, he turned her and threw her to Clay as if she were a sack of grain.
Clay was grinning broadly. “You did it,” he laughed as he caught Nicole in his arms. “You did it! My beautiful, brilliant wife!” He crushed her to him and kissed her, a deep, hungry kiss.
For a moment, Nicole forgot the time, the place, all that had happened. She kissed Clay with all the passion she felt. She felt like a starving woman, and he was the only food for her.
“Time enough for that later,” Wes said as he slapped Clay on the shoulder. His eyes carried a warning. The men watched them in curiosity.
Nicole stared up at Clay, and she knew that tears mingled with the rain on her face.
Reluctantly, he set her down. He moved away from her quickly, as if she were fire and he would be burned, but his eyes held hers in fascination and question.
“Let’s eat,” Wes shouted. “I hope the women made enough food, because I could eat at least a wagon-load.”
Nicole turned away from Clay. Her body felt more alive than it had in months. “Maggie’s here, so you know there’s bound to be more than enough.”
Wes grinned, then put his arm around her shoulders, and they started toward the mill.
There was a table set up on sawhorses, and there was enough food for a hundred hungry people. There was bread, fresh from the oven, still hot and fragrant. Crocks of cool butter awaited them. There was terrapin ragout, poached sturgeon, oysters, crab, ham, turkey, beef, and duck. There were eight kinds of pie, twelve vegetables, four cakes, three wines, three kinds of beer, as well as milk and tea.
Nicole stayed away from Clay. She took her heaping plate and sat by herself in a shadow of the grinding stones. He’d called her his wife, and for a moment she felt as if she was. It seemed so long ago that she’d been his wife, yet for some reason she knew she never was his wife, really. Only those brief days at the Backes’s house had she felt she belonged.
“Tired?”
She looked up at Clay. He’d removed his wet shirt, and a towel was hanging around his neck. He looked vulnerable and lonely. Nicole ached to take him in her arms, to soothe him.
“Do you mind if I sit with you?”
She shook her head silently. They were partially hidden from the others, private.
“You aren’t eating much,” he said quietly, nodding toward her full plate. “Maybe you need some exercise to work up an appetite.” His eyes twinkled.
She tried to smile, but his nearness made her nervous.
He took a piece of ham from her plate and ate it. “Maggie and Janie outdid themselves.”
“They had your food to work with. It was kind of you to be so generous.”
His eyes darkened as he stared at her. “Are we really such strangers that we can’t talk? I don’t deserve what you’ve done for me today. No!” he said when she started to interrupt. “Let me finish. Janie said I’ve been wallowing in self-pity. I guess I have been. I think I’ve been feeling that I
didn’t deserve what had happened to me. Tonight, I’ve had a lot of time to think. I believe I’ve come to realize that life is what you make it. You said once that I couldn’t make up my mind. You were right. I wanted everything and thought it would be given to me if I asked for it. I think I was too weak to take any kind of hardship.”
She put her hand on his arm. “You aren’t a weak man.”
“I don’t think you know me, any more than I know myself. I’ve done some terrible things to you, yet this—” He couldn’t finish. His voice was weak. “You’ve given me back hope, something I haven’t seen for a long time.”
He put his hand over hers. “I promise I’m not going to let you down again. I don’t just mean the tobacco, but in my life, too.”
He looked down at her hand, caressed her fingers with his. “I didn’t think it was possible, but I love you more than I ever did.”
There was a lump in her throat, and she couldn’t speak.
He looked into her eyes. “There are no words to say what I feel for you or to thank you enough for what you’ve done.” He stopped abruptly, as if he were choking. “Goodbye,” he whispered.
He was gone before she could speak.
Clay walked quickly out of the mill, leaving his shirt behind, ignoring the people who called out to him. Once outside, he was hardly aware that the rain had slowed to a drizzle. In the early morning light, he could see how the land had changed. Where once Nicole’s fields had sloped away to the river, they now fell down drastically. The river itself was calmer, like a great animal that had fed well and was now digesting its feast.
The wharf was intact, and Clay rowed himself across the much wider river to his own wharf. He walked slowly to the house. It was as if he were awakening after a year’s sleep. He felt James beside him, appalled at what Clay’d done to the lovely, productive plantation.
He also saw the neglect of his house. He stepped across the puddle in the hardwood floor.
Bianca stood at the foot of the stairs. She wore a voluminous, high-waisted wrapper of pale blue silk. Under it was a pink satin gown. The collar, cuffs, and down the front and hem of the wrapper were covered with a very wide border of spiky, multicolored feathers.