Black Ajax. George Fraser MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ Yes, suh, he was one big likely nigger buck, an’ ripe as a stud bull! Oh, my, I trust you will pardon the ’spression. Recollectin’, I fall back into the common way o’ speech. But that is what he was.

      ’Twas natural the gals all set their caps at him, an’ he was fool enough to pay ’em heed, an’ had his way with all o’ them, but it was me he cared for always. “You my own true love, li’l Mollybird,” he used to say. “True love!”, I declare! Where he learned such words, I cannot ’magine. But he meant it, so far’s he had sense to mean anythin’, an’ I b’lieved him.

      One reason why he admired me to worship was I looked so different from the other wenches. They were common nigras, but I was what they called high yaller – yellow, you know, on ’ccount o’ my white blood, an’ fine-boned an’ dainty. Ah, I was the sweetest, neatest little gold fairy you ever did see – well, I am not ’zackly plain in my prime, would you say, so you can imagine. The master’s daddy, old Molineaux, used to call me Princess, never Mollybird, which is a real low plantation-wench name, if you like. Not my style at all, which is why I am Marguerite Rossignol, in case you wonderin’. Molly Nightingale, in French – Molly Bird.

      So the older an’ prettier I grew, the more Tom mooned after me, an’ I dare say I used him somethin’ shameful, as gals will. He was so in awe of me, an’ the white people made me such a pet, he never dreamed to treat me like the nigra wenches. Once, when I’s ’bout twelve, an’ he was maybe sixteen, I teased him on to kiss me, an’ like the born fool he was, he bragged ’bout it, and when old Molineaux heard, he was in such a takin’ he had Tom triced up an’ lashed ’til he couldn’t walk. They told me I was never to even talk to him after, an’ kept me in the big house in a chamber of my own, with a bed an’ coverlet. Oh, I thought ’twas heaven! That was how precious I was.

      Can you ’magine, it devoted Tom to me more than ever? An’ I cannot think why, now, but I do believe it was bein’ kept away f’m him that caused me to fall in love with him. I would see him starin’ at my window nights, an’ lookin’ so melancholy, an’ ev’yone knew he hadn’t made so much as a whimper when they whipped him. I yearned for him then, as only a young girl can, ugly as sin tho’ he was. Well, the other bucks were no better, or near so strong an’ fine-bodied as Tom, an’ what other men had I seen? It seems foolish now, but for three years I was in love with Tom Molineaux.

      You think that hard to b’lieve? You see me here, the elegant lady of colour in her stylish salon, with her Paris gown an’ fine complexion an’ delicate airs, an’ conversin’ in that husky way the gennlemen so adore, ole-plantation-an’-la-m’dear – you s’pose I was this smart an’ wo’ldly when I was fifteen? Pouf! I had no mo’ sense’n a chicken. I was a simple little wench, an’ Tom Molineaux was big an’ strong an’ kin’ly and gentle to me as if I was a ewe lamb. An’ I loved him, strange an’ all as it seems now. I have had some ’sperience o’ the world since, and of men, an’ I am no longer simple, but I am here to tell you that when a strong, brave man is fit to be tied for love of you, he is powerful hard to resist … when you are fifteen.

      Would you be so kind as to make a long arm for that brandy on the cellarette? I have a fancy to somethin’ mo’ strengthenin’ than sherry … deeply ’bliged.

      Where was I? Ah, yes, it was when old Molineaux died that Master Richard made Tom a “fightin’ nigra” an’ began to match him ’gainst the bucks f’m other estates. I know nothin’ of such things, but all the talk was that Tom was the meanest fellow with his fists in the whole Dominion, an’ I was mighty proud of him, tho’ I never saw him fight until … that night in Awlins. I didn’t know what nigger-fightin’ was, hardly, but I was glad for Tom, an’ Master Richard makin’ much of him, pettin’ him an’ givin’ him fancy clothes an’ sayin’ he would be the mos’ famous slave in the Southland.

      Mos’ nigras would ha’ put on airs ’bove theirselves to be so tret by their masters, but not Tom. Truth to tell, he didn’t have the gumption to get above hisself; he was jus’ quiet, dull Tom as ever, an’ I was the only thing could bring a light to his eye an’ a smile to that big, ugly nigra face. Young Master Richard saw how ’twas with us, and gave Tom the freedom o’ my company – an’ only my company. “You want to pleasure yo’self, they’s wenches a-plenty in the cabins,” says Master Richard. “Mollybird she pure, an’ stay that way. Maybe one o’ these days, I let you have her, when yo’ champeen nigra fighter of America. How you like that, Mollybird? You like this big go-alonger for yo’ man?”

      He would laugh as he said it, and cuff Tom’s woolly head, and Tom would grin an’ shuffle an’ look on me like I was the Queen o’ Sheba. I was grown enough to toss my head and look sidelong an’ say nothin’, like the white misses on their verandas, tho’ I hardly knew what Master Richard meant ’bout Tom havin’ me, or bein’ my man. Oh, I knew what he an’ the other bucks did with the wenches in the cabins, but I was the li’l Princess an’ far above the doin’s of the common slaves. My love fo’ Tom was different; I yearned to have him with me, ’cos he was big an’ brave an’ would never let harm come to me, and if you’d asked me what I meant by lovin’ him, I couldn’t ha’ said more’n that. I was innocent an’ foolish an’ fifteen, an’ thought in fairytales. Nowadays I lay no claim to innocence or gi’lish folly, am three times as old, an’ the only fairytales I read come in yellow covers … but I still can explain no better what I felt for Tom, then. Maybe it was true love, like he said.

      Heigh-ho … yes, I think jus’ a wee touch more brandy would be acceptable, when I come to think back on that night in Awlins. Master Richard had brought this little sailor-man to Amplefo’th, to brisk Tom up for ’nother fight, ’gainst a nigra called the Black Ghost. Ev’yone allowed it would be Tom’s sternest trial yet, an’ the sailor-man goaded him on to run an’ leap over rails an’ split kindlin’, with Master Richard fussin’ an’ runnin’ after them, an’ the sailor-man cryin’: “It’s his legs, guv’nor! Got to make them legs like mainmasts!” I remember he said that, over an’ over, in that cracky English voice. I didn’t know what a mainmast was, or what jumpin’ an’ splittin’ wood had to do with prize-fightin’. I jus’ found it all mighty amusin’, but Tom didn’t care for it. The sailor-man made him a big sack o’ corn-husks an’ bark, an’ Tom had to whale at it with his fists, an’ he liked that well. Master Richard had me down to the yard to watch him beat the sack, an’ when Tom flagged, Master would point to me an’ whisper in his ear, an’ Tom would lay into the sack till it bu’st wide open. Lord, what a lovin’ fool he was! An’ I would clap an’ cheer him on, an’ feel the butterflies inside me as I looked on those splendid limbs a-gleam in the sunlight.

      Yes, suh, indeed. You are f’miliar, I don’ doubt, with those Greek an’ Roman statues which are thought to show the ab-solute p’fection of the male form? I have viewed them, too, as well as – you may set this down – a great many livin’ examples also, an’ I am here to tell you that Tom Molineaux’s was the most beautiful human body I have ever seen. M’m-h’m! Oh, his features were homely, like I said – fact, I can’t recall many uglier – but that frame o’ his was fit to melt a gal’s legs f’m under. Talk ’bout heroic! Bein’ young an’ simple at the time, I did not rec’nise the feelin’ I was feelin’ then, tho’ I can put a name to it now … but I shan’t. Jus’ say that if I’d been Queen Cle-o-patra an’ seen him up fo’ auction, the other bidders would ha’ gone home dis’pointed.

      It was that time Master Richard hinted ’bout Tom an’ me bein’ wed. Maybe he meant it, I can’t tell. Mos’ folks would say the reason he an’ old Molineaux had been at such pains to keep a beautiful high-yaller gal virgin, was so they could get a real fancy price fo’ her when she bloomed, ’round sixteen – seventeen, but I don’ know ’bout that. They looked down their V’ginia noses at nigra-traders, so I can’t be sure what they intended by me. All I know is what Master СКАЧАТЬ