"Master Peter, come back here!"

Peter did not turn around. He left Nero in front of the stables and kept walking toward the big house. His first reaction to the story had been anger, and that anger was mounting now.

The front veranda of the big house was empty as 176.

Peter strode quickly around the spreading clumps of azalea bushes and passed up the front steps with two neat leaps of his long legs. He stormed by the wooden porch swings, hanging motionless from their hemp ropes, and jerked open one of the double doors. He did not know exactly what he was going to say to Selby when he found him, but he knew that he had to find out about Dragonard and Ta-Ta and himseK.

Inside the house, the atmosphere was as calm and as cool as the veranda, a gentle breeze moving across the entry hall, a late-morning exchange of air between the parlors on either side.

At the foot of the winding staircase Peter spied a single liniment bottle filled with wild daisies sitting on the banister post. He knew that Posy was somewhere about the house. Then, listening, he heard a commotion upstairs. Straining his ears to hear more closely, Peter gradually became aware of Selby's voice talking over the distressed wailing of women.

Being of a single mind, Peter began to run up the winding staircase, his black boots taking three steps at a time now. He was going to confront Selby immediately.

A louder wave of moans hit him at the top of the stairs, and looking to where the noise was coming from -the open door to Rachel's bedroom-Peter suddenly stopped, listening to the disturbance in this otherwise calm house.

He began to hear the high-pitched voice of Posy insisting, "I didn't mean no harm, Master Selby, sir. I didn't mean no harm."

Selby's soothing voice consoled, "Nobody's saying you did, Posy. Nobody's saying you did."

But Posy's wavering voice continued. "T was just bringing little vases of white flowers to her room, Master Selby, sir. I was just bringing her little vases of sweet white flowers!"

As Peter now moved silently toward the open door of the bedroom, he saw Storky standing with her arm around Posy's shoulder. Peter saw that she was trying to comfort the distraught black boy, and next Peter saw that the maroon-colored carpet in this bedroom was strewn with daisies and the upset liniment bottles.

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What is this? Peter wondered. Did Posy drop his box of bottles on the carpet? Is that what this fracas is all about?

Moving cautiously toward the doorway, Peter then saw Selby standing near the large, carved walnut bed.

Standing with his back to Peter, Selby looked down over the stooped body of Melissa, who knelt on the floor in front of her mother's bed.

Peter was sober now. He knew that this was no everyday event. For one thing, he did not hear Rachel Selby's shrill voice screaming at these people for intruding into her room.

Posy's wailing continued to cut through the oppressive atmosphere of the bedroom. "1 didn't do nothing, Master Selby, sir. I just brings her some flowers! But she thinks I mean big trouble, and she grabs for that knife there and she starts screaming at me!" Throwing back his shaved head. Posy grabbed at his big ears and shrieked, "I wish it was me she stabbed. Why didn't she stab me? Why didn't Miss Rachel stab me?"

Standing helplessly in the doorway, Peter did not know what to do now. Suddenly his own problems seemed to be nothing. The occurrence here had been horrible. He could plainly see Rachel's body lying half on the floor, Melissa cradling her mother's head in her lap. Rachel's white nightgown was splattered and streaked with deep-red stains of blood. Near her limp body rested the horn-handled letter opener. It's silver blade was also stained with blood.

Posy continued to Jament, "Poor Miss Rachel! Why didn't Miss Rachel stab me? Stab me! Stab me!"

Storky finally saw Peter lingering in the doorway behind her, and she leaned toward Selby to whisper.

Turning from Melissa, Selby soberly asked Peter, "Sonny, could you ride for Doc Whithers? Rachel has had a bad accident."

Peter heard his voice say, "Accident?"

Selby nodded. "Yes, it was an accident. She thought Posy here had come in to rape her. It looks to us like poor Rachel . . . killed herself rather .than have such a thing ..." Selby's eyes were empty as he shook his head 178.

at the ridiculousness of the idea. Then he turned away from Peter, looking down to Melissa holding the slim body.

Peter solemnly walked from the bedroom and down the stairs, feeling as if Nero's story of Dragonard had been pushed from his mind.

Behind him Posy continued to scream, bemoaning the fact that he had been spared death.

To Peter it was as if he had not yet been meant to know the truth about himself and Dragonard. He felt that the Star was trying to keep him from asking questions, was still holding him back from prodding the beehive with a pole.

The Star had its own problems.

Rachel Selby was dead.

11.Farewell, Miss Rachel

No accusations were made against Posy. His story was accepted as truth: Rachel Selby had believed that he had burst into her bedroom with the intention of raping her, and rather than suffer such a degradation from a Negro, she had stabbed her breasts with the silver letter opener.

Selby knew how unrealistically his wife had been acting lately.

Melissa confessed in a sober tone that her mother had had a long and unnatural obsession with the subject of black men and their sexual interference with her.

But Storky's words on the subject closed the discussion of Posy's involvement in the matter. She said, "The poor boy thinks that yellow worm dangling between his legs is just there to pee with. I wouldn't doubt that's all it can do, too. And he probably has to squat on a log like a woman to do it, too. Rape?" Storky shook her head, saying, "No, you'd have to rape him."

Storky had also seen that it was unsafe to leave Posy alone. His mind was too unsettled now. And as Mama Gomorrah was too busy to comfort him in the Shed, Storky assigned Biddy to be a companion to Posy, to distract him from his grief with her unending supply of silly chatter.

Peter came back from Troy with Doc Whithers, but it was too late. Rachel was already covered with a black pall. Storky took Peter aside, though, and asked him in whispers if he could approach Nero about the matter of Posy sleeping in the stables for a few nights.

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Peter put his own problems at the back of Ms mind to honor Storky's well-intended wishes, to do his part for her and Posy and the Star.

Walking solemnly to the stables, Peter explained the situation to Nero.

Nero listened quietly and agreed to give Posy a place to sleep, not only for tonight and tomorrow night, but for as long as was necessary.

Then, as if the matter of Posy were settled, Nero asked Peter, "How you feeling yourself now, Master Peter? Can you tell me what I said wrong?"

Peter respected Nero's intelligence enough not to play dumb to the question. But rather than explain the reasons for his reaction to Nero's story this morning, Peter patted him on the shoulder, saying, "We're friends, Nero. But I can't talk ... I just can't talk yet."

As of now, Peter still had not approached Selby for some truths.

But such a confrontation was impossible at the moment. There was the problem of burying Rachel Selby.

The funeral took place two days later. The crowd of mourners stretched from the veranda of the big house, down the driveway, and out beyond the wooden star hanging from the front gates.

Rachel Selby represented the last of the direct line of Peregrine Rolands to live on this land, and all the aunts and uncles and cousins-as well as the second, third, and fourth cousins-came to the Star for her burial.

As the simple pine coffin slowly passed down the driveway, carried on the shoulders of six neighbor men (Rachel had long ago stipulated that she did not want "niggers" to carry her out of this world), the mourners stared at Albert Selby walking in the dust behind the coffin. He held his daughter's hand in the crook of his arm, keeping his eyes to the ground.

Slowly placing one foot in front of the other, Selby grasped his straw hat in his hand. A band of black crepe hung from the hat's wide brim.

Selby wanted to cry, but he could not. He felt pity for the waste of a life. He regretted that a human being 181.

could have lived on this beautiful, bountiful land and had not once seen its true value. Rachel Selby should have never lived in the South, Selby felt. She should have never led a plantation life. It had been both a waste of this land and a waste of her life. Selby wanted to cry for that.

Slowly he led his twenty-four-year-old daughter, Melissa.

Melissa was crying for the things that she and her mother had not done together, the silly but important pastimes that a girl loves to share with her mother, but which Rachel and Melissa had not done. Melissa cried for the other things that her mother had missed in life, too, such as love.

Dressed in a long black muslin dress, and wearing a black veil over her head, Melissa moved as reverently as her father.

The only adornment that decorated Melissa's mourning outfit was a golden band hanging from a black cord around her neck. It was her mother's wedding ring.

Albert Selby had taken the ring off Rachel's cold hand, and giving it to Melissa, he had explained that he felt that Rachel would probably be happier to enter heaven as a single woman. Selby had said to Melissa, "It's not that we're robbing or deserting your mama, Melly. I just don't think she'd want the angels to know she was ever a plain, ordinary woman."

Selby had seen no reason why the house servants should have to stand outside the gates with the field hands. He had given them permission to gather on the grass in front of the big house and follow the coffin down past the relatives and neighbors.

The only two members of the house staff who were missing today-apart from Ta-Ta, who never came out of the attic anymore-were Posy and Biddy. Storky had sent them to the meadow with a picnic hamper. Again, her Ashanti intuition had proved correct. Posy and Biddy were already becoming fast friends, bonded by their mutual childishness.

When the coffin reached the gates of the Star, the neighbors and relatives began to leave their positions inside the fence and follow the house servants. The 182.

white people dismissed this breach in protocol as the senile mistake of the widower, and they quietly walked behind the Negroes.

The field hands joined the procession at the public road, beginning to sing a dirge as they sweEed the ranks of mourners. Whites and blacks all moved slowly now across the public road, inching toward the family cemetery, which lay deep in the shady woods. The coffin bobbed above the people's heads, resting on the shoulders of the six pallbearers.

Inside the picket fence of the cemetery, Reverend Gabriel Stark from Troy stood holding his Bible. He waited for the people to file into rows around the outside of the low picket fence before he began his reading. Today was the last day for Reverend Stark in these parts. He was leaving. There would be no preacher here now. Rachel Selby had died just in time.

Albert Selby stood with Melissa inside the picket fence at the foot of the fresh grave. Their hands were clasped together. The singing had stopped, and the bustling of the women's skirts, the whispering, the fluttering of panama hats began to subside.

Selby suddenly broke the silence. He called in an uneven voice, "Reverend Stark?"

The hawk-nosed preacher looked up from his Bible. He was surprised at the intrusion.

Whispers rose among the mourners outside the picket fence.

Selby bravely continued, "Reverend Stark, you and everybody here knows that Mrs. Selby and I lost us a son way back. No use hiding that fact from the Lord ... or neighbors."

A ripple of nervous laughter spread outside the fence. The Roland cousins and aunts and uncles fidgeted.

Selby continued, "So, standing here now with just my daughter, Melly, makes me feel kind of lonely, and . . ."

Selby paused. He looked to the left side of the fence.

Chad and Claudia Tucker stood alongside Peter outside the fence, and as Selby looked in their direction, they began to stiffen, blushing as if at last they were going to be exposed publicly for selling slaves from the Star.

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Selby continued, "So I hope it don't offend anyone today if I call somebody to me and Melly now. Somebody who's been eating at our table and sleeping under our roof for a good many years."

He called to Peter, "Sonny? Will you come join Melly and me in here?"

Peter did not hesitate. He stretched one long leg over the low fence and soberly went to Selby's side.

Outside the fence, the faces of the white mourners were either a study of approval or a picture of hatred and envy. The neighbors warmed at Selby's thoughtful-ness. Many had not seen what a fine, handsome young man Peter had become. But the Roland relatives cringed at the possible threat of an outsider inheriting the Star.

Nero stood beyond the picket fence with the black people. And as his chest expanded with affection for Peter, he prayed for the first time since long ago at Dragonard. But now Nero prayed for Peter. And he hoped that what he had told Peter had not been too heavy to bear-whatever it meant to him.

But Nero was beginning to suspect what his story had revealed to Peter.

That night the Tuckers lorded their attendance at Rachel Selby's funeral over the farmer and his wife who had come to their cabin on business.

Chad and Claudia Tucker sat together on one side of the wooden table and faced Tommy Joe and Mary Crandall. The Tuckers were pretending that this visit was a social call.

Claudia appeared to be fully recovered from her illness. She even looked complacent in the candlelight, sitting with her plump hands folded in front of her on the table. Beneath her chair rested a squat cream churn. Inside was hidden the flour sack of slave money.

Chad Tucker was doing the talking to the Crandalls now. He said, " 'Course, you realize, Tommy Joe, only the biggest planters were invited to the burying today. And of course, Claudie here and myself. The rest was nothing but niggers."

Tommy Joe and Mary Crandall both sat rigidly in their chairs.

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Tucker proceeded to list the important people he had mixed with this afternoon at the funeral. He reeled off the names. "The Breslins, Bill Trankey. Elijah and Penelope Norton. The Pughs."

But Tommy Joe Crandall was not listening. He was wondering if he had done the right thing by bringing his wife here to the Tuckers' cabin tonight.

Mary Crandall was worried, too. The Crandalls were poor farmers, and Tucker had told Tommy Joe Crandall how to save money. Or was it how to protect Mary's future? She did not remember the details now. Her mind was in a muddle. She was very frightened.

But Chad Tucker had explained everything precisely beforehand to Crandall. He had repeated the story exactly as Claudia had explained it to him.

Crandall needed a Negro to help him on his farm, but he could not afford to buy one. Nor could he afford to hire a white man to work. Claudia's plan had been presented to Crandall as a consideration for both his and his wife's welfare.

Repeating Claudia's brainstorm, Tucker had told Crandall that he could rent a Negro for one night. Crandall could rent a Negro from Tucker to mate with this wife-they could birth their own slave.

The idea was repellent to Crandall. The thought of a black man lying with his wife was abhorrent.

But Tucker flooded Crandall with reasons to do it. He told Crandall how poor he was. He pointed out how expensive slaves had become now that they could no longer be brought into Louisiana. He reminded Crandall that he was sterile and had no hope of raising sons to work his farm when he got older. He asked Crandall what would happen to his wife if he died. Who would provide for her if she was left in the world by herself?

Crandall had told Tucker that he would have to talk it over with his wife.

Tonight the Crandalls had come to the Tuckers' cabin with the decision to proceed. Mary Crandall would lie with a black man. They also had brought their savings of seventeen dollars with them. They would pay the remaining three dollars to Tucker by the end of the year.

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Interrupting Tucker's candlelight chat now, Claudia reached across the table to pat Mary Crandall's quivering hand. She said, "I think you choosed a real smart thing to do Mrs, Crandall-mind if I call you Mary?"