no daughters to give away in magnificent weddings. The ballroom downstairs - when he brought Dolores into the fine new house he had built for her, he had said, "Our daughters will meet their beaus in this ballroom, and first touch their hands, the way our hands first touched in your father's house." Now Dolores never saw the ballroom. She came downstairs only on Sundays, to go to church and on thow rare days when new slaves were purchased, so she could see to their baptism.
Everyone saw her on such occasions, and admired them both for their courage and faith in adversity. But the admiration of his neighbors was scant comfort when Cavil surveyed the ruins of his dreams. All that he prayed for - it's as if the Lord wrote down the list and then in the margin noted "no, no, no" on every fine.
The disappointments might have embittered a man of weaker faith. But Cavil Planter was a godly, upright man, and whenever he bad the faintest thought that God might have treated him badly, he stopped whatever he was doing and pulled the small psaltery from his pocket and whispered aloud the words of the wise man. In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; Bow down thine ear to me; Be thou my strong rock.
He concentrated his mind firmly, and the doubts and resentments quickly fled. The Lord was with Cavil Planter, even in his tribulations.
Until the morning he was reading in Genesis and he came upon the first two verses of chapter 16.
Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid: it may be that I may obtain children by her.
At that moment the thought came into his mind, Abraham was a righteous man, and so am I. Abraham's wife bore him no children, and mine likewise has no hope. There was an African slavewoman in their household, as there are such women in mine. Why shouldn't I do as Abraham did, and father children by one of these?
The moment the thought came into his head, he shuddered in horror. He'd heard gossip of White Spaniards and French and Portuguese in the jungle islands to the south who lived openly with Black women - truly they were the lowest kind of creature, like men who do with beasts. Besides, how could a child of a Black woman ever be an heir to him? A mix-up boy could no more take possession of an Appalachee plantation than fly. Cavil just put the thought right out of his mind.
But as he sat at breakfast with his wife, the thought came back. He found himself watching the Black woman who fed his wife. Like Hagar, this woman is Egyptian, isn't she? He noticed how her body twisted lithely at the waist as she bore the spoon from tray to mouth. Noticed how as she leaned forward to hold the cup to the frail woman's lips, the servant's breasts swung down to press against her blouse. Noticed how her gentle fingers brushed crurnbs and drops from Dolores's lips. He thought of those fingers touching him, and trembled slightly. Yet it felt like an earthquake inside him.
He rushed from the room with hardly a word. Outside the house, he clutched his psaltery.
Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin. For I my transgressions: And my sin is ever before me.
Yet even as he whispered these words, he looked up and saw the field women washing themselves at the bough. There was the young girl he had bought only a few days before, six hundred dollars even though she was small, since she was probably breeding stock. So fresh from the boat she was that she hadn't learned a speck of Christian modesty. She stood there naked as a snake, leaning over the bough, pouring cups of water over her head and down her back.
Cavil stood transfixed, watching her. What had only been a brief thought of evil in his wife's bedroom now became a trance of lust. He had never seen anything so graceful as her blue-black thighs sliding against each other, so inviting as her shiver when the water ran down her body.
Was this the answer to his fervent psalm? Was the Lord telling him that it was indeed