Back to Wando Passo, David Payne [little red riding hood ebook .TXT] 📗

in the dark. Not until the day after our wedding, ten days to the day before my departure for Fort Moultrie, did Father see fit to enlighten me. His position—wholly preposterous—was that it had never occurred to him I might object.”

“But you do?”

“Do I? Madam, believe you me, I do! I object most strenuously and told him so in no uncertain terms. If he persists in this folly, I mean to contest the will, and let them see how a South Carolina court views the rights of one spoiled, selfish nigger slave against those of a plantation owner and first lieutenant in the Twenty-first!”

“My dear!” she says. “What happened?”

“What happened? What happened?” Harlan fulminates. “Madam, had there been pistols in the room, I could not have confidently ruled out the possibility of bloodshed. They all took his side, of course—of course!”

“And Clarisse?” says Addie. “Is she to be freed as well?”

“Clarisse? Clarisse is free, Addie. Long since free. Have I not acquainted you with her situation?”

“I don’t believe you have.”

Harlan’s features concentrate. He smokes and stares into the distance. “Clarisse is not my father’s child,” he says after a beat. “She is Wenceslao Villa-Urrutia’s by Paloma.”

Addie blinks. “Wenceslao…”

“Villa-Urrutia. You have no idea who he is….”

She shakes her head. “I don’t.”

“Of course you don’t. How could you. How to put this…” He begins to pace again. “Briefly, Addie, Father, in his youth, displayed a mechanical ingenuity—one would almost have to say a genius—that led him, after some professional misadventures, into relations with a man named Charles Derosne. Together, they developed what subsequently became known as the Derosne mill. Father was instrumental in the design of the vacuum pan. That’s what first took him to Cuba, where he made his fortune. I feel certain I’ve mentioned this to you before.”

“It has to do with sugar?” “Exactly. The mill produced a new and iridescent form of it, of a quality no one had dreamed possible before. It long ago transformed the refining process—in Cuba and elsewhere—but its early history was checkered. The machinery was complex, temperamental, and fabulously expensive. The prototype cost over sixty thousand dollars and was wholly unproved. In an effort to win acceptance, he and Charles traveled to Matanzas and personally installed the first one at La Mella, which was Wenceslao’s hereditary estate.”

“Villa—”

“Villa-Urrutia. Yes, correct. Count Wenceslao Villa-Urrutia. Father served as chief machinist in La Mella’s caldron and purga, the boiler house and refinery. That’s where he met Paloma. She was a housemaid at the hacienda, Villa-Urrutia’s mistress. Father was smitten and tried to buy her. Prime wenches went—in Cuba, in those days—for twenty onzas or a little more, around four hundred dollars. Father offered six, then eight, but the Conde, like many Cubans of his class, was an inveterate gambler and proposed a more sporting proposition. He offered to put Paloma against Father’s stake in the mill. We’re talking two and a half years of work.”

“He took the bet?”

“He took the bet.”

“She must have been something,” Addie says, with a slight smile.

“She still is. Mucha mujer. Of course, she’s old now, but you’ll see. They made the wager in the purging house, over cigars, using the bocoyes of coarse sugar for a table. A single hand of faro, and Father won. When she came to him, Paloma was pregnant.”

“With Jarry?”

Harlan wags a finger.

“Clarisse!” she says. “Clarisse?”

He smiles. “Correct. She is Wenceslao’s child. She was born in Cuba and raised in the Count’s household, educated like his other daughters.”

“And she came here?”

Harlan nods. “When I went down for my apprenticeship, I brought her back to help her mother with the house. Villa-Urrutia, you see, left her little but her wardrobe and expensive tastes. It was essentially an act of charity, Addie, something Father undertook for Paloma’s sake. Clarisse, you see, is not related to this family. She is Villa-Urrutia’s upon Paloma.”

“So you said.”

“Did I? Forgive me, I’ve lost my train of thought.” He turns away from her and stares into the shadows, as though what he’s misplaced might be lurking among the soft goods and comestibles in the dark, far corner of the room. “You were telling me about your father’s promise to Jarry.”

“Yes, thank you. He did this for Paloma, Addie. From our vantage here in proper South Carolina, it may be hard for you to understand, but Father’s racial views were formed when he was young.”

“In Cuba…”

“In Cuba. Yes. Things are different there.” Taking out his handkerchief, he dabs his brow and walks away from her. “The races mix more freely. One meets people of mixed blood in society all the time, even in the highest circles, and it is expected, Addie, it is socially de rigueur, for one to treat these people—for a young man, let us say, to treat these women, these well-connected mulatas—one calls them morenas there, ‘brunettes’—as one would treat women of good family here. In effect, as I treat you.”

“I see.”

“And perhaps you can also see how easy it might be for a young man to fall under the spell of Spanish decadence and so forget himself….”

“As your father did.”

“As my father did.” He stops and faces her. His expression turns forlorn. “I myself, in my time there…I was not perfect, Addie.”

“I appreciate your forthrightness, Harlan,” she replies, after a moment, when it appears an answer is required. “But if you think to shock me, you must take a different tack. I’m not a child.”

He smiles. “You are good. The more I come to know you, the more convinced I am you will be good for me.” Absolved, he starts to pace again, smoking with complacent energy.

Addie is thoughtful over his revelation and a bit put off by the self-centeredness of his response—only a bit, though. She’s also half amused by it and curious to watch as he comes out. She hasn’t seen him in this light.

“Fortunately, I woke up from the spell in time,” he goes on. “Father, in all these years, never has. This, in a word, is why Wando Passo