No Good Deed 74

It was plain to see that luxuries were in short supply. I had never seen the like of what Mr Garroway wore on his feet. The upper was a complicated woven arrangement of leather, the sole appeared to be a dirtier version of the very same. No garment, of cotton, silk or wool, intermediated between the leather and his rather grimy feet. The plantation owner must have noted my interest in his footwear, for he said,

'They's war-atchees, suh. Ah seen them in Meh-i-co.'

I did not doubt it for a moment.

The little man seemed to remember his manners and offered a curt bow to Miss Pardoner and requested some proof of her bona fides. The woman turned to me and said,

'Now is the time to give it up, truly.'

With a sigh I reached into my pocket for the only connection I had with the Governor of the State of Louisiana. Miss Pardoner snatched the paper from me and flourished scarce an inch from Garroway's nose. He peered at the paper, blinking severally,

'Ain't got muh eye-glasses.'

Miss Pardoner pointed at the Governor's seal.

'Huh, guess that's jes' dandy.'

And, if these words meant that it was acceptable, it most assuredly was, since Miss Pardoner had, I believed, quite deliberately held the paper upside down.

Miss Pardoner and I followed our host through a door whose glaziery had long been replaced by a dirty material which might have been serge but I doubted it were so. If I had been told that the inside of this low dwelling had been used to house a herd of swine, I should have believed it without hesitation. Foodstuffs, paper and smashed crockery covered the splintered floorboards. There was no indication that this house had ever pretended to the status of hovel, much less the abode of a rich and influential family. Garroway siezed a tallow-fat candle from the ruin of some repast that had taken place yesterday or a year before. Its dull light scarcely improved the general gloom, by which I do not mean the simple darkness of night, although it was soon to fall, rather the building seemed full of miasmas and had an atmosphere tending to blur the edges of the sharpest outline. In short, it was as though we all three suffered the weakness of vision that Garroway had earlier claimed.

The fellow peered around the room - it might have been a dining room or a scullery – his pursed mouth moved several times before he spoke,

'Less go tuh the par-luh, y'all 'll fahnd it mo' comf'table.'

This proved an overestimation on his part, for the parlour contained no furniture whatever, only several packing crates and two enormous velvet cushions. I wondered at the mentality of a man who would burn fine furniture before wooden boxes.