Read Online Of Love and Dust by Ernest J. Gaines - Free Book Online

wasn’t in love with Bonbon. If he had walked out on her anytime, she would have gone with somebody else who would have been very glad to have her. Not because she had once belonged to this white man, but because she was still as decent as any other black woman on the place could be around him. But he didn’t walk out on her, he came to her more regularly now. He didn’t pick up the twins and bounce them on his knees like he would do his little girl later, but he did bring them food and clothes. He gave them toys at Christmas and he gave them pennies on Saturday to put in Sunday School. No, he didn’t give the money to the children, he gave it to Pauline to give to them. Because he and the twins could never have any close-ness at all. They could never call him papa no matter how many times they heard him in the bed with mama. They couldn’t even carry his name. They were called Guerin like their mother. Billy and Willy Guerin—and they were probably the worst two Billy and Willy the Good Lord had suffered for.
    Bonbon was in love with Pauline when he brought her to the big house, but it took years for Pauline to fall in love with Bonbon. She didn’t want to fall in love with this white man because she knew nothing good could come of it. She knew she would have to be his woman long as she lived on the plantation and long as he wanted her, but she didn’t want to hold any feeling for him at all. She wanted it to be“come and go” and nothing else. She figured that after a while it would come to an end, anyhow.
    But it didn’t come to an end. Aunt Ca’line said Bonbon didn’t miss coming there a week after he started. He came summer and winter. When the weather was good he usually came in the truck. When it had rained he would come on the horse because the truck would get stalled in the mud. Many times he got wet coming down the quarter and he would have to change his clothes at the fireplace and wrap a blanket round him while Pauline dried the clothes on the back of a chair.
    After so many years, Pauline did fall in love with Bonbon. She couldn’t help but fall in love with him. She knew he loved her more than he did his wife up the quarter or his people who lived on the river.
    So now the shuck mattress was quiet. There wasn’t any need for all the noise, because now Bonbon and Pauline’s love was much softer—more tender. Aunt Ca’line and Pa Bully could hardly hear the mattress at all from their room. The twins sleeping on their bed in the kitchen probably couldn’t hear the mattress either.
    But this was not the only place where Pauline and Bonbon went together. Sometimes it happened at the big house while they made Bishop, Marshall Hebert’s butler, look out for Marshall. Bishop hated what he had to do—but what else could he do? If he had mentioned to Marshall that Bonbon had gone farther than that kitchen, Bonbon, or Marshall himself, probably would have killed him. So he kept his mouth shut. He went out on the front gallery and looked out for Marshall like Bonbon told him to do. Since he wasn’t supposed to be out there unless he was cleaning up or serving someone, Bishop had to keep himself hid. There was a palm tree on the left side of the gallery and he stood behindthe tree all the time he was out there. Sometimes he had to stay there an hour. If Bonbon went to sleep he would have to stay even longer.
    Marshall never did catch Pauline and Bonbon, but even if he had he probably wouldn’t have done anything about it. Bonbon already had something on Marshall, and long as he held this proof Marshall couldn’t do a thing but go along with him no matter what he did. This went for stealing, too. Marshall knew Bonbon was stealing from him. He had seen a lantern in the crib at night; he had heard the children laughing in there while they shelled corn that Bonbon was going to sell in Bayonne the next day. Marshall had missed hogs, he had missed cows—he had even missed bales of cotton from the barn. But