Free 02 Morning at Jalna by Mazo de La Roche Page A

harshly, “don’t tempt me.”
    He went to the open door and looked out at the placid misty scene. He saw two men coming along the path from the road. They were tall, angular, purposeful men who asked abruptly, “Just where are we, mister? We’ve lost our way.”
    Wilmott directed them to the next village but they lingered, as though in curiosity.
    “More of your friends from the South,” Wilmott said to Adeline.
    “No friends of mine. They’re Yankees by their accent. They’re here to spy on us. I must warn Mr. Sinclair of this. I will interview them myself.” But when she went out they had disappeared. The wood, the lonely road had swallowed them. In spite of himself Wilmott felt perturbed. He accompanied Adeline a part of the way home. Nero, who had been occupied at the river’s edge, had taken no notice of the men.
    “A pretty watchdog you are!” Adeline said to him in scorn.

VIII
    VIII
    Up the River
    It was a flat-bottomed boat, old and inclined to leak, yet Annabelle, sitting in the stern, her coffee-coloured hand with its pink palm trailing in the water, found it a wonderful experience to be gliding gently up the river with Titus Sharrow at the oars. The rowlocks were rusty and made a rasping noise as the oars moved in them, which accentuated rather than broke the misty silence. To Annabelle, Tite was a mysterious, almost supernatural being. His Indian forebears, he had told her, were masters of this vast country till the French had come and conquered them. Still, he had the blood of the conquering race also. He was free as air, while she was a slave and all her people had been slaves, brought by force out of Africa.
    Never had she minded being a slave. She had been happy in her security. She had yearned towards the day when the Sinclairs would return to the South, and she and Cindy and Jerry with them. She pictured the plantation as it had been in the past, for she could not picture its devastation. She knew that Jerry wanted to return to the old life also, to marry her when that time came. But these placid imaginings of the future had been shattered by her growing love for Tite.
    Cindy had warned her, “You be careful of yo’self, Belle. Ah don’ trust dat Injun. He’s got a wicked look in his eye and a no-good look in his smile. His lips is too thin. It seems like he could bite better than he could kiss.”
    Cindy had never seen the sweet bend of his lips as he rested on the oars and gazed into Annabelle’s pretty face, noted the curves of her seductive body. But Belle’s mind was on things spiritual.
    “Does yo’ love de Lawd, Tite?” she asked.
    “I do indeed,” he said, “but not so well as I love you.”
    That was a shocking remark and she knew that she should be deeply shocked. Yet she was not shocked. On the contrary, a thrill of delight sent a tremor through her nerves. She could not keep back her happy laughter.
    “Yo’ surely is a wicked boy, Tite,” she said.
    “You must teach me to be good, Belle.”
    She had a vision of the two of them, as man and wife, in a cottage, perhaps on the bank of this same little river. She would teach him to be good and he would teach her to love, but never, never to forget her Lord.
    They came upon a little clearing where surely someone had intended to build a house. There were even cut logs lying there but they were half hidden by brambles. The pair in the boat were astonished to see two men seated on one of the logs studying what looked like a map, spread out on their knees.
    “I’ve seen those men before,” said Tite. “They were asking questions in the village.”
    “Where do dey want to go, Tite?”
    “I don’t know but I guess they’re friends of your Mister Sinclair.”
    “Dey certainly don’ look like Massa’s friends.”
    “You haven’t got no massa now, Belle. You’re a free woman.”
    “Not a nigger neither,” she amended.
    “You’re as white — or whiter — than me, Belle.” He drew in the oars, leant forward and