April’s Child

"Annie, you take them children up third floor. They like to wear Miz. Irene out on the trip. And you, Toby, stop moonin' over Annie and get the ice chest goods into the house and in the ice box. You got ice in the ice box didn't you?"

"Yes ma'am," Toby answered as he trotted out the kitchen door and down to the Buick car in the drive below.

"And you, Miz. Irene. You go take a rest now." Sissy shook her head as her mistress climbed the stairs to the second floor.

Irene stopped half way up the stairs. "My, Sissy, did you see the Tiffany window Jonathan had put in the landing? Isn't it lovely?"

"Ain't got no time now to look at the fixins in the new house, Missy. I got lots to do to get us settled in first. I'll be lookin' the house over later. But, yes, this is some summer house. Better than most folks' winter houses, I reckon."

Sissy shook her head as she watched her young misses pull herself up the banister to the next floor. She didn't know how Irene survived the man. Three babies within three years and Irene barely twenty-two. She didn't know how the old man could have such taking seed in him. 'Course he was always after Sissy's baby, she mused. Said he wanted a baseball teams' worth. He was going to wear that woman out before he was under the ground, even with a thirty-years age difference.

People should have known Irene before that man had gotten to her, Sissy thought. The prettiest little thing in Craven County—or any county around it for that matter. Lively and bright eyed. She had young men swarming around her, any of whom would have loved to have her, most of whom tried to win her. But her doctor daddy, no doubt looking for her comfortable future but also looking after himself in the world of influence in the South, had given her to Jonathan Wilton, a member of his club. He was an up and coming businessman in New Bern to boot, albeit he was up and coming a bit late in life. Irene's life had imploded from the moment she learned who she would be married off to. She didn't fight it, though. Or even pout about it. It was the way of the South in 1912.

Sissy, the Wilton's black housekeeper didn't know how Irene could have stood another month of the man's trying to put a fourth baby up in his young wife if Sissy herself hadn't managed to get him to thinking that he didn't want to wait until summer to check out the almost-completed summer house in Oriental, on North Carolina's Neuse River almost where it opened into the Pamlico Sound. Even better than what Sissy had been hoping for, Jonathan had to stay behind for this late March trip in New Bern for a week to tend to his burgeoning wood milling and nailery businesses. Construction was booming in New Bern in 1912, and Jonathan's businesses were thriving. That was why he'd been able to build this summer home in Oriental.

Sissy was doing everything she could to slow the man down on wearing Irene out. Sissy had come with Irene from her family in New Bern, Irene's father being a prominent doctor there, who had worked hard to arrange a marriage of his daughter to a rich business man, no matter the age difference. Sissy had been Irene's nanny, and she still thought of Irene as her baby girl. When she'd come to the Wiltons, she'd brought along her son, Toby, now nineteen, whose father had come and gone in one April afternoon. Annie, the young Negress nanny who'd come along to the new summer house to herd the three babies, John Junior, two and a half; Andrew, four months shy of two; and Mark, five months old, had been hired by Jonathan at Sissy's hectoring insistence right after Andrew had been born.

Annie was not particularly bright, but she was a buxom and malleable twenty, and it was all Sissy could do to keep the hands of the neighborhood lads off her. The few times she hadn't, Annie had willingly laid down for a man. Sissy suspected that Annie laid down for Jonathan a time or two also, but it was nothing Sissy had caught them at—yet. It was just a miracle that the girl apparently didn't conceive easily.

What was most certain was that Sissy kept a tight rein on her son, Toby, in this regard. He was a handsome, well-muscled, barely chocolate lad. And of course, at nineteen, he was randy. His father had been white, the result of Sissy having foolishly walked a country lane one day at the beginning of the month of April when the spring sap was rising in more than just the trees. She had lain willingly with the handsome young man coming alongside her in his wagon and smiling down on her, so she bore up under the single parenting as something she had brought on herself—and, as Toby grew, as a blessing.

But ever after she'd referred to April as the month for fools—and didn't except herself from that judgment.

The first two days at the summer house went well, with Irene spending time playing with her sons until they tired her and then having the nanny to turn them over to. Then, when Sissy could be tempted away from the cooking and cleaning and watching both Toby and Annie like a hawk, the two of them explored the new, cavernous house to note work still needing done and changes to request. As Jonathan was acting as builder for the house, they had to couch each of the changes they thought needed to make the house more livable in terms of ideas he came up with himself.

Keeping Toby close wasn't all that difficult for Sissy, He was eager to help and was handy at whatever needed to be done. On the second day in the new house, as Irene was inspecting the little riverside hamlet of Oriental and Toby was shopping in the general store for Sissy, Toby brushed against Irene as he was leaving the store and she was entering, almost knocking her over. He reached out and supported her with his arms and for the briefest moment a look of such longing went between them that they both turned away in embarrassment.

But neither of them forgot that moment.

As fate would have it, though, as soon as Toby got back to the house, Sissy told him that Mr. Wilton had telephoned. He was able to get a few days away and Toby was summoned to drive back to New Bern to fetch him.

Irene came in later, after Toby had left, all rosy cheeked and in better spirits and appearing to be stronger than she had been when they had arrived at the house. Sissy's spirits rose too. She had been right to scheme to get Irene to the riverside and away from her husband for a few days. If Irene was deflated in any way by the news that Jonathan was paying a visit or that Toby had gone to fetch him, she hid it well. She spent the rest of the day humming and planting flowers in the beds at the base of the house while the boys romped around her—showing every sign of making the most of the last few hours of freedom before Jonathan arrived.

When he did arrive, stomping into the kitchen and slapping the dust off his driving jacket, he gruffly spoke to Sissy, "Where is the mistress of the house then?"

"She be upstairs taking a nap," Sissy answered. "She wore herself out planting flowers and tending the boys this afternoon. I think it best not—"

But Jonathan was already striding up the stairs and stripping off his riding jacket. He entered the master bedroom, finding that, indeed, Irene was asleep on her back on the bed. She had on the long cotton frock buttoning down the front that she had been wearing in the yard.

She woke with the buttons of her bodice undone and Jonathan squeezing her breasts and sucking at her nipples. She was full of breast milk as she was still suckling the baby, who was about due a feeding. Instead, the father was getting the milk. As he roughly suckled, he pulled up her dress from the hem, pulled her undergarment down to her knees, and roughly assaulted her maidenhead with thick, calloused fingers. It wasn't her mother's milk he was after.

She was writhing and gasping and groaning when he had become hard; moved on top of her with his hands grasping her wrists, pinning her arms over her head and forcing her flat on the bed under him; crushed her small body with his large frame; thrust inside her; pushed deep again and again, putting all of the power of his strong body behind the thrusts; and loosed his seed. He had done nothing to pleasure her; he had withdrawn just as she was building to her own pleasure. But, of course, the coupling was about procreation, not her pleasure.

Irene could not come down to dinner, saying she was too weary. Jonathan ate alone, in the dining room. The children had been served earlier in the kitchen, and then the nanny took them to bed in their dormitory on the third, attic floor of the house. Annie's room was next to the nursery dormitory.

Jonathan retired early for him, as well, fucking Irene again roughly, seeding her once more, anxious to fill out his baseball team and cognizant that, in 1912, part of the wealth of a prominent citizen was counted in the number of sons he had—with the regard by his peers being enhanced by how fast he had them. Jonathan was getting a late start in life on that; he didn't want talk going around that he was past his prime.

Later in the night, with Sissy and her son safely snoring away in the bedrooms opening off the kitchen on the first floor, Jonathan quietly left his bed, where Irene was moaning softly in her exhausted sleep, stole to the third floor, and gave his seed as well to the willing nanny, Annie. As he entered the room, she smiled up at him, naked, her legs already spread, knees bent, hand between her thighs, working her clit. She had known he would visit her; he'd been doing so for months. He was upon her immediately, sliding inside her, plowing her, as she laughed, arched her back, and grabbed for the rungs of the brass headboard overhead.

Even in 1912, a white businessman in the south having a black by-blow or two didn't win demerits.

Sissy, exploring the house at night to assure herself that all was as it should be, was on the landing up to the third floor when she had to admit that all was not as it should be. She heard the thumping of the headboard of Annie's bed against her bedroom wall and Annie's muffled wailing. He must have his hand smothering her face for a sound like that to be produced, Sissy thought. She almost went up there, but she held back. He was the master, the provider and controller of all. And Annie was a foolish young woman. Sissy had ample proof that Annie was never taken against her will. Withdrawing, Sissy softly opened the door into the master bedroom, momentarily worried that she didn't remember to check on Toby's room before coming up, but, sure enough, Irene was restfully sleeping in the bed alone.

In the morning, Jonathan was gone, but Irene didn't appear downstairs until after noon, looking wan and lethargic.

Sissy's thoughts were that she would have to start bringing her mistress' spirits up all over again. Thank God the monster of a husband she had wouldn't be back until next week, the day after the First of April.

April Fool's day, Sissy thought. That made her think that their world was full of fools. Irene's father for forcing Irene on the monster. Jonathan for being a foolish old man with a dream and ambitions that would put his young wife in the grave. And, as she looked at Annie with the children in the yard and thinking of the disturbing looks she'd seen go between the foolish young woman who couldn't keep her legs together and her son, Toby, foolish because all young men of nineteen were randy and foolish, she called herself a fool as well for having brought Toby to Oriental. She refused to think of her young mistress as a fool—more as a victim of the plight society assigned to young women.

* * * *

Irene's spirits did lift. She showed increasing interest in furnishing the house and planting the gardens. Jonathan gave her carte blanche to do so, not that he had any interest in it. What interested him was seeing a strong structure built, using his materials, being recognized and greeted in public—and building a baseball team.

She worked hard in the garden, always wanting to have the children around when she did so, using Toby's help in doing the serious digging and tree planting whenever she could enlist him. The Buick required almost constant attention, so Toby was often in the drive while Irene was in the garden. When he worked on the car, he stripped down to his cotton trousers so that he wouldn't get grease on his shirt. This elicited guarded gazes from both Annie and Irene that put a scowl on Sissy's face and forced her to do some orchestration on who was where when.

At the first opportunity, she thought, she'd find some excuse why Toby had to go somewhere else. She worked on this scheme in her mind—she was a good schemer, she knew, even if she had to say it herself, because she was so good few suspected it. But for the life of her she couldn't come up with the scenario she needed. Toby was the family chauffer. He was needed to shuttle Jonathan and the family back and forth between the New Bern house and the Oriental cottage—or so the family called the mammoth structure on the Neuse River.

Perhaps she could make Jonathan decide he wanted an autocar for himself, she thought. He certainly could afford it considering how fast his businesses were growing—and taxing him. He probably could be convinced he needed one of his own for his business trips around New Bern. That would save wear and tear on him. He was still taking a horse and buggy for that, but it was the twentieth century, and he liked to keep ahead of others. He would see the advantage in being the first one in New Bern to own not one, but two, autocars. Yes, that would work, she thought.

But she didn't have the time or opportunity to put her plan into play.

Jonathan had been gone for five days, when Irene saw them. The older boys were in the kitchen, where Sissy was showing them what went into the making of the chocolate chip cookies that they then would eat, sitting around the kitchen table, while drinking milk. The baby was down for a nap. Irene had decided she wanted ferns to grow on the shady side of the house and went down to the riverside where she knew there was a thick bed of them that wouldn't miss some roots and fronds.

Toby, naked, was lying on his back in the ferns on the riverbank. Straddling him was Annie, also naked. She was rocking back and forth on his shaft. Both of them were in obvious ecstasy. As Annie rocked on his manhood, Toby reached up and squeezed Annie's pendulous breasts. Annie moaned deeply for him, and he raised his torso up, taking each breast in his mouth, in turn, and suckling them. Annie moaned even more deeply and moved her pelvis in more insistent action on his buried staff. Although Irene was out of sight to them, the couple weren't out of sight to her. She was rooted to the spot. She had no idea that coupling could be this sensual. Her own breasts ached at the vision of Toby suckling Annie's nipples, and she cupped and squeezed her own breasts, emitting her own deep moan and feeling the wetness not only of her seeping mother's milk creeping into her bodice, but also the wetness of her want into her loins. A hand dropped down to her lower belly, clutching at the muslin of her dress.

As she watched, Toby reclined back on the ferns; grabbed Annie's waist between his hands; raised his buttocks and thighs, leveraging off his feet; and, beginning with long slides and became faster and faster, thrust his shaft up between the wings of Annie's folds until he gave a little cry and jerked. Annie cried out and spasmed as well, arched her back, and collapsed forward on his chest. The pleasure of orgasm was obvious on both their faces. And instead of just rolling her off him and leaving, as Jonathan always did with Irene after he had ejaculated, Toby kept himself inside Annie. He raised their torsos again, his lips going to her nipples, which he played with his tongue and teeth. Annie was moaning deeply. They began to rock, and it was evident and Toby was on the rise again and that they were going to copulate once more.

Frustrated, embarrassed, and aroused, Irene pulled back. The ferns would have to be left for another day. She moved quickly back to the house. She passed through the kitchen, barely pausing to greet the boys to whisper something—she knew not what—about the need to go to her bedroom.

Sissy watched her go with more knowing than wanting to know in her heart.

In her bedroom, Irene lay back on the bed, only in her undergarments, slathered her fingers with cold cream, slid a hand between her thighs, and pleasure herself to an orgasm—thinking as she did so, not of sour, demanding old man Jonathan but of Toby. Fantasizing of Toby's lean, muscular, light-chocolate body coupling with her as she'd seen him doing with Annie. Not just taking pleasure, but giving pleasure as well.

She dreamed of what could not be . . . could it?

* * * *

"I think that not wise, Miz. Irene," Sissy said as she handed over the picnic basket in the kitchen of the Oriental cottage. She castigated herself for not asking what Irene had in mind before preparing the food. "Have you looked at the sky outside. I don'a like the looks of that at all. I don'a know what it looks like is about to happen, but I don'a like the looks of that sky at all."

"We'll be fine, Sissy. They told me at the general store of the blackberry patch just on the other side and inland a bit that is open for picking. I haven't been out on the river at all yet. And wouldn't it be such a treat for Mr. Wilton to have a delicious blackberry pie waiting for him when he comes tomorrow?"

"Across the river? You said down to the river. Surely you're not—"

"Toby will take me. He's already waiting down by the gate for me. He'll row me across and help me pick the berries. We'll be back before you even notice we are gone."

Sissy pursed her lips and crossed her arms tightly under her ample bosoms. This would not do, not at all. If only she'd known of the plan. "It's not wise at all, Miz. Irene. You just go out there and look at the sky. You don'a want to be caught on the river with a sky like that."

"Here, let me look," Irene said, as she swept up the picnic basket and glided out of the kitchen door.

It took Sissy a couple of moments too long to realize that Irene didn't just look at the sky, she skipped down the back porch steps and trotted off toward the gate and the river road she'd have to cross to get to the town pier where the Wilton's new rowboat waited. Annie had come into the kitchen with a crying baby, and before Sissy could shoo her out again and go to the back porch, Irene had already reached Toby, who had taken the picnic basket from her, and the two had turned to cross the road.

Sissy was mortified, tossing off a few choice words she'd heard white men use before but never had said aloud herself and immersed herself in work in the house, hoping and praying for the best, but expecting the worst.

Toby rowed the boat, while Irene sat back in the bow and watched for the signs that would tell her where the berry patch was. A grassy area rising to the base of a small bluff. There was a small hut at the base of the bluff and a hillside, covered with the blackberry bushes, and a path to the top of the bluff, where there was a lean-to shed.

As Toby rowed, putting all of his muscle into pulling the oars, Irene lay back and looked on admiringly, running her hands through the water they were gliding through and humming happily to herself. Every few pulls, Toby looked up at her with admiration of his own in his face and gave her a smile. Irene smiled back.

They found the blackberry patch easy enough, but as they grounded the boat, Toby looked up in the sky and said, "It don't look good up there, Miz. Irene. Maybe we best go right back downriver to Oriental. I think there's a storm a comin'."

"If so, it's well off, and now that we're here, there's no reason not to pick the berries. We'll do that first. We'll leave the basket here in the boat. If a storm is coming in, we can always take the picnic basket back to the house with us and seat it in the gazebo in the garden."