Low Country by Anne Rivers Siddons Page A

orderly
    sleep.
    “You’re welcome,” I said under my breath to her
    back, and only then wondered if there was a Mr.
    Bridges, and if so, where he might be.
    There probably never was one, I thought nastily.
    He’s probably a test tube somewhere in a fertility lab.
    I can’t imagine any living man getting close to her long
    enough to accomplish conception.
    I picked up my keys and started out of the kitchen,
    then stopped as I heard her voice behind me. I looked
    back. She stood in the door, poised like a royal cours-
    ing hound, perhaps a saluki.
    “Your housekeeper…is she African American?” she
    said.
    “Why…yes. She is,” I said in surprise.
    “Then I’m sorry, but I think I’ll stay here with Mark
    this evening. He’s never had a woman of color for a
    baby-sitter. I don’t want him to get the idea that Afri-
    can-American women are subservient or take servants’
    roles. He’s never seen that. I realize that may be a little
    problem down here, but Mr. How-
    land…Hayes…thought we could get around it. I’m
    going to want white sitters for Mark.”

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    I drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.
    Then want shall be your master, I thought, but aloud
    I said only, “Well, it could be a problem. So many of
    the black women on the island, or within commuting
    distance over on Edisto or St. Helena’s aren’t trained
    for much else, and the baby-sitting and housekeeping
    jobs they have are very important to them. They do
    them wonderfully well, and they know how much we
    appreciate and depend on them. We’ll see what we
    can do, of course, but African-American women in
    white homes is simply a fact of Lowcountry life. I think
    your son is going to see a lot of it no matter who sits
    for him. Maybe when you see the reality of it you’ll
    feel differently. These are warm, wonderful, skilled
    women; they are more partners than servants.…”
    “I have made my own reality for Mark,” she said
    without smiling. “It has cost me a great deal to keep it
    intact. Thank you, though. I’m sure the company’s
    human resources people will get to work on it for me.”
    And she turned and went back down the hall with
    the stride of a big cat. All she lacked, I thought, was a
    great, switching tail. Obviously Ol’ Massa’s wife wasn’t
    required to deal out her largesse here. Ol’ Missus slunk
    back to her car and jerked it into gear and screeched
    back off across the island.
    When Hayes Howland and I had decanted

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    our two passengers and gone back outside to wait for
    Clay, he said, “I presume you’ve met Mrs. Bridges and
    the crown prince?”
    “I have indeed,” I said. “They’ve gone into voluntary
    exile until a pale enough courtier for the prince can be
    found.”
    “Uh-oh,” Hayes said, grinning his gaptoothed grin.
    “I’m afraid I dropped the ball, too. I could only think
    of that Filipino waiter at the Island Club, and that
    didn’t suit, either. Maybe an American Indian? I hear
    the new teller at Palmetto State is half-Seminole. Maybe
    she’s got a sister.”
    I have never really managed to like Hayes as much
    as I thought I would when I first met him, or as much
    as Clay wishes I did, but he can be bitingly funny.
    Tonight we burst into laughter, and could only stop
    when Clay pulled up in the Jaguar with the second of
    the two new couples in tow and raised his eyebrows
    at us and said, “Want to share the joke? We could use
    a laugh; the drawbridge was up for twenty-five minutes
    and I never could see why.”
    “Nothing worth repeating,” I said, and took his arm,
    and we went inside, the seven of us, to begin the inter-
    minable business of assimilating four disparate
    strangers into the Plantation family.
    We had stopped first for drinks at the town house
    Clay keeps in Charleston. Hayes had had

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    his family’s cook go over and open and air it, and set
    out the cocktail and appetizer things. Mattie