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Read by Angelica Robotti

SAMPLE THE STORY BY READING CHAPTER ONE

The cry of the gull rang out across the lush cotton fields that sprawled north and east of the great house known as Magnolian. Silvery moonlight spread a pale tinsel over the white cotton balls and touched the edges of the tobacco plants. Inside the house, a girl peered from the curtained window of her room at the curving driveway down which a man on a bay horse was cantering. 

Denise de Valery drew back as the horseman turned in the saddle to study the vast bulk of the many-columned house. Did her father suspect? Had his attitude earlier, at the dinner table, indicated that he knew of her madcap plan? 

She touched the curtain, drawing it before her, but she still peered downward, seeing the rider touch spurs to his mount and canter away. Denise sighed, and a tiny smile played across the edges of her ripe red mouth. 

Swiftly she turned and ran toward the closet, the door of which she had closed carefully to prevent any errant eyes from discovering her secret. Her hand touched the knob, drew the door open. Her eyes dropped to the rags that were hidden by the folds of her many gowns. If cher Papa had seen those rags! Ma foi! How angry he would have been. 

Giggling, she drew out those rags and held them up. She made a face, wrinkling her pretty nose, drawing down the corners of her lips. In those things, she would indeed look the ragamuffin girl she wanted to appear. 

Gaily she tossed the rags onto the bedspread and put hands to the hooks of her chemise frock. She wriggled it down past her shoulders, frowning slightly as it caught on her breasts. 

Denise thought her breasts were much too large for good taste. Angrily she pulled and tugged, moving the material past her hips, stepping out of the dress. She wished she had tiny bosoms, such as Claire Marigny possessed, or Fleurette Couperin. 

And yet it was her breasts that caught the eyes of the young men she knew, when she danced with them at the balls that her papa held from time to time at Magnolian House. She could read those stares, those greedy, hungry looks. 

She tossed her head, making her carefully coiffed black hair dance, its ringlets leaping. Her dance card was always filled. It was she whom the young men she knew wanted to walk with, out along the neat brick pathways where the magnolias grew. Not Claire, not Fleurette. 

A tiny smile hovered at the edges of her mouth as she turned to glance at herself in the mirror. She saw a slim figure, nicely rounded, a pert face with somewhat over large lips, with a dimpled chin and skin that rivaled the petals of the magnolia in its smoothness. Coquettishly, she tossed a shoulder. 

No wonder the young men of Natchez found her irresistible. She was a well-brought-up young lady. Someday she would inherit Magnolian House and its cotton and tobacco fields. Her papa was one of the richest men in Natchez, if not in all Mississippi. There were times when she wondered if Magnolian House, with all its fields, were not more attractive in their eyes than her person. 

She slid from the shift and stood naked in stockings and her narrow, heelless slippers. It was warm on this late spring evening. She felt quite comfortable as she bent and reached for her ragamuffin garments. 

For a moment she paused, her eyes caught and held by her mirrored image. Denise was proud of her body. It was curved in the correct places, and she felt that her legs were very shapely, slim at the ankles and fuller in the thighs. It would be a lucky man who would marry her and take her to bed! 

She slid into the ragged garments which she had been at such pains to acquire. The dark kerseymere, a kind of woolen cloth, clung to her hips and breasts rather too intimately, she felt, as she drew the garment downward. It hung to her knees, and was somewhat low, for the inner slopes of her creamy breasts were daringly revealed. 

Denise shrugged, watching the effect that shrug had on her unbound breasts. She put both hands to her mouth as she burst into giggles. What cher papa would say if he could see her now! How distrait Petty, who was her personal maid, would be if she should catch a glimpse of her! 

No matter! She was playing the part of a loose lady this night, so she must dress the part. And act it, too. 

Her hands went to her hair, disarranged it. Pins went flying, her curls came undone as her palms and fingers ran through that thick, ebon hair. She spent some time at this, and was not satisfied until that hair was an untidy mop. 

Her fingers dipped into a pot, she put smudges of coal dust here and there, and then daringly lined her eyelids with a bluish powder. 

Denise de Valery stared at herself, rather shocked. 

She looked like a trull, one of those females who sold their bodies in that section of town known to one and all as Natchez Under The Bluff, where the keel-boat men came to discharge their cargoes, to drink and gamble and make love to women who sold their favors for a few coins. 

Reaching downward, she stripped off her shoes and stockings. She had found a pair of old leather pumps, cracked and worn, and these she had appropriated for herself. Her legs would go bare, but it was warm. She had no worry on that score. 

Blowing out the candles, she tiptoed from her room, down the big stairway, and ran for the front door. None of the slaves must see her. They would report her doings to her father. And father must never know what she was going to do tonight! 

She fled across the graveled driveway and toward some trees. In those shadows— 

“You came," a voice laughed. 

“I said I would," she caroled to the tall young man who stepped from beneath the branches of an oak to smile down at her. Denise decided that Henri Desrouches looked just as disreputable as she, in those patched trousers and loose shirt. 

He was a handsome man, with dark hair that would never quite abandon its tendency to curl. Black eyes that snapped with anger or softened with laughter looked down at her in the moonlight. Denise knew he wanted to take her in his arms and cover her mouth with kisses. 

She knew, too, that he did not quite dare. 

Her father was very rich. His plantation was the largest in this corner of Mississippi. He had more than five hundred slaves, he had fields of cotton that stretched for miles, and almost as many fields of tobacco. Sometimes Denise wondered if she—or Magnolian—was the spark that lit the fires in the eyes of such young men as Henri Desrouches 

He caught her hand and drew her with him along the walk until they came to a high hedge. Here a farm wagon waited, with Claire Marigny on the high seat along with Pierre Broussac, and Fleurette Coupin and Lucien Pascaud giggling together amid the hay on the floorboards. 

Fleurette reached out a hand as Henry caught Denise about the waist and swung her upward. Denise nestled beside the girl as her companion swung himself up lightly. 

Bodies pressed against bodies as the wagon began to move. Denise felt Henri crowding closer. He must feel that she had absolutely nothing on under the kerseymere She wriggled to avoid him, but he only slid closer. 

"Your father did not see?” Fleurette whispered. 

"He went off to gamble at the Mansion House, as he's done so often lately. Poor Papa! He plays cards so often, that poque which the Americans name poker, that I do not see him much after dinner.” 

"Leaving you lonely and unattended," whispered Henri, leaning so closely he must feel the heat of her body. 

Denise shrugged a shoulder. “I do not mind. If he stayed at home, I should not be here now." 

"And I should be desolate," Henri whispered. 

The wagon trundled on, past cotton fields, past vast stretches of tobacco. In the distance, they could see the candle flames in mansions, in houses, in a few stores in the trade section. From time to time they caught snatches of spirituals the slaves were singing in their cabins. 

The road they traveled was empty of all life except for themselves. They had little to fear, Denise assured herself, unless a friend of her father's should come cantering along. If she were discovered, her father would be furious. She would be denied the pleasure of her friends' company for at least a whole month. And if that happened, she would positively die. 

At a turn in the road, Pierre Broussac reined in. He turned and whispered down at the others. "Time we left the wagon and went on foot." 

They clambered out, and now, for the first time, Denise began to wonder at the wisdom of this escapade. For now they could hear the shouts and curses, the high screams and laughter, from the cribs and gambling houses below them. Natchez Under The Hill was no place for a refined girl to be. She had listened as Pierre and Henri had whispered of their plans to go sightseeing along Silver Street. She had heard of the women who sold their bodies for francs or shillings, of the dances performed nude by some of these harlots for the entertainment of the keel-boat men, and any others who might pay good silver to watch. 

Woman—like, she had wanted to see for herself just how bad Silver Street might be. She knew well enough that girls of good families did not interest themselves in such things. If her father knew where she was going, he would have a positive fit! Yet there was a streak of wildness in her that forced her to agree to what Pierre and Henri had proposed. 

She fought down her rising panic, glancing sideways at Fleurette, noting how tightly she was clinging to Lucien's arm. Nor was Claire much better. She was positively draping herself all over Pierre. 

For herself, she walked beside Henri, as boldly, perhaps—she thought guiltily—as might a streetwalker accompanying him to her bed. But she would not cling to him. She was too independent for that. 

They came by the lower walkway to the edge of Silver Street, and now they could hear the noise, the turmoil, the curses and the shouts. They could smell the river now, see the keel-boats anchored there, almost as far as the eye could see. Her father had told Denise that upwards of two thousand keel-boats might be at the docks at some time or another during the year. 

“Stay together," Henri whispered, and put his arm about her, drawing her in against him. 

Denise did not push him away. It was vaguely comforting to feel that arm around her middle, even if it did bring her in very close to him. Indeed, she fancied that he might even feel the swell of her breast against his chest. 

With the others following, they walked a few yards when the door of a building swung open and a screeching girl was seen in the hands of two grinning men. 

“Let me go, let me go,” she kept yelling. 

“Not until we find my purse," one of the men chuckled. 

Henri paused, staring. The others bumped into them, stood close to them. Denise could hear Fleurette's hurried breathing, and she was positive that Claire was whispering prayers under her breath. 

One of those men put a big hand on the bodice of the cheap dress the girl was wearing. A downward tug tore the material and the girl's bare breasts seemed to jump out and hang there, big and white. 

Denise swallowed. Her mouth was dry, she felt feverish. Her eyes were enormous, she felt, as she saw those breasts. A part of her wanted to protest, to exclaim indignantly at what she was seeing, but she could only lean closer to Henri Desrouches and whimper. 

One of the men said, "She's got it on her somewhere." Hands caught that torn dress and yanked it downward. 

The girl was naked to her loins, Denise saw with horror. She was fighting, trying to reach the men with her long nails, but they were too big, too strong. She screamed and sobbed, but nobody paid her any attention, though other men and women were gathering on the street to watch. 

"Let's go away," Fleurette whispered. But they were hem med in and could not move. 

The dress was pulled sideways by each of the men and fell away from the girl. She was revealed naked, in shoes and long black cotton stockings. Around one of her stockinged legs was a twist of cording, and tied to that cording was a purse. 

“There it is,” one of the men yelled triumphantly, and reached for it. 

To do so, he had to let go of the arm he held. The girl flung herself on him, clawing for his face. His companion reached for her, grabbing her about her waist and swinging her off her feet. 

Her legs parted. The girl had shaved her groin, there was no hair there, and as those legs parted, she could see …

Denise closed her eyes. Tightly. A flush surged into her cheeks, her throat. 

The man whom the girl had scratched swore savagely. He rose up, purse in hand, and reached for the girl. “I'll teach you what it means to rob a keel-boat man," he growled. 

As the crowd watched, he sat on an overturned barrel and brought the girl across his knees. His big hand came down, smacking on the bare round cheeks of her buttocks. The girl screamed. 

"Stop him," Denise whispered. 

“Are you mad, cherie? Those men are Americans, big tough keel-boat men. They wouldn't spank us, they would run cold steel into us. And,” he added slyly, “if they killed us men, what might they do with you girls, hein?” 

Denise shivered all the more. She could not take her eyes away from that big American, though, huge and stained and sweaty in homespun clothes, with a dirty shirt and a lopsided grin on his face. 

The buttocks of the screaming girl were red, and to Denise, they seemed swollen. The girl had long since ceased to fight. She lay across the big man's knees and absorbed the pounding of his hand until his muscles grew tired. 

He pushed the girl from him. She fell and lay in the dirt. The two Americans looked down at her, shrugged, then went back into the tavern out of which they had dragged the girl. 

Denise stared down at the girl. “What of her?" she whispered. 

“She is a fille de joie,” said Henri complacently. “She robbed the keel-boatman, and she probably deserves all she got. 

“But she's a girl, a woman. I don't think she's any older than I am.” 

Denise was seventeen. In Mississippi, a girl of seventeen from a good family—or even from one of the poorer families—was deemed to be of a marriageable age. On her next birthday, Papa would have a big party, at which he would formally introduce her to the other families of Natchez, the good families who knew the de Valerys and associated with them. 

She tugged at Henri Desrouches' arm. It worried her to be seen standing here, visible to all eyes that cared to look. Not that she expected to be recognized in the tatters she was wearing. Still, acquaintances of her father who knew her might be down in Natchez Under The Hole, just as she was, to see and savor the excitement of its life. 

If such a one should see her and report back to Papa! Denise moaned. She did not want to think of that, and so she shrank closer to Henri Desrouches and did not mind when he put an arm about her and let his palm rest on her swaying hip. 

The crowd that had gathered to watch the punishment of the girl thief broke up, and Denise found herself walking with the others of her party along Silver Street, past houses which were quite obviously houses of prostitution, for she saw women leaning from upstairs windows, opening their wrappers to display their breasts and beckoning to one man or another of the keel-boaters who crowded the street. 

“We'll walk down Silver Street to the end and come back," announced Henri to the others. "I think by that time we shall have seen enough." 

Denise nodded and heard the other girls whisper their agreement. She knew that Fleurette and Claire were as nervous as she was herself. They were not used to these huge keel-boaters and their crude ways. Even as she thought this, she heard a man snarl and curse in anger, and next moment two of the keel-boat men were circling one another, long knives glittering in their hands. 

Her eyes were very wide. She had never seen men in their fits of rage. Oh, Papa became angry at her from time to time, but his face was always cold and disapproving at such moments, with none of the raw hatred in it that these men displayed. 

Papa was always a gentleman, even when he was most furious with her. He never raised a hand to her. He would always just order her off to bed—sometimes without her supper, which annoyed Denise most of all, for she was a healthy girl—and he might not speak to her all the next day. 

One of the men darted forward, swinging his arm with the vicious knife. The other man blocked that blow, struck in turn, and Denise saw in utter horror that long length of cold steel slide deep into the second man's side. 

The wounded man dropped. The other man stood over him, sneering. “Ought rightly to finish you off, Joe. But you've always been a hot-headed lout. Now, get up on your feet, and let's go get somebody to stitch you up." 

To her amazement, the wounded man grinned and nodded. “Always were better'n me with steel, Josie. Here, let me hang on to you." 

They stumbled off, and Henri Desrouches said, “Tonneres de Dieu! These Americans are like children. They fight for the sheer love of it, and afterward, they practically kiss and make up." 

His arm tugged Denise forward and they moved on. 

Everywhere she looked, she saw those big keel-boat men, clad in their homespuns or buckskins, some carrying pistols thrust into belts, all of them with those long knives that seemed so deadly. Denise used her eyes. She told her self that since she was here, she might as well learn all that she could about Natchez Under The Hill. 

Not that she would ever put such knowledge to use, except possibly to gossip about it in hushed whispers with Claire and Fleurette when they were alone together. She would never want to come here again, that was quite certain. She was seeing enough, and what she was seeing would last her for the rest of her life. 

She did not notice, as they walked on, that Claire and Pierre, Fleurette and Lucien were no longer with them. Not until they reached the end of the street and started back did she glance around her and note their absence. 

“Henri, they're gone,” she whispered. 

“Eh? Who? Oh, the others. Well, they may have lost courage, you know. I suppose one of the girls decided she had seen enough." 

"I know I have. I'll be happy to get back in my bed and pull the covers up over my head." 

He smiled, hugging her tightly. "Nothing to fear. I'm with you." 

The crowd seemed to grow larger suddenly. Men and some women pressed in against them, shoving them together. Denise felt a hand sliding down her hip, and she knew it was not Henri's hand. She turned to remonstrate, and saw a big keel-boatman grinning down at her. “You're a pretty one,” the man chuckled. 

His eyes went over her slowly, and Denise could read the admiration and lust that flamed inside them. She shrank back against Henri Desrouches, felt his arm tighten about her middle. 

“Let's get out of here, Denise,” he muttered. 

He began to draw her away with him, but the big man put out a hand and caught her wrist. “Not so fast, my pretty. I haven't seen a bird like you in I don't know how long. How about having a drink with me? I can give you more than that ninny-hammer you're with.” 

Henri Desrouches growled, “Be off with you, fellow. We're no concern of yours.” 

“Is that so, now? Well, I'm making her my concern." 

His huge right hand shot out, caught Denise and jerked her, stumbling and almost falling, away from Henri. In almost the same movement, his other hand, knotted into a huge fist, shot forward. 

That fist caught Henri on the side of his jaw, drove him reeling backward to fall into a pool of slops on the cobbled walk. The man threw back his head, opened his mouth to disclose yellowing teeth, and roared out his merriment. 

He paused to look down at the shrinking Denise, to leer and wink at her. “That was no man, pretty. I'm a man who can pleasure you. You come along with me." 

"No," she panted, fighting him. 

"Aha! A pert one, filled with spunk. That's the kind I like to tame." 

He bent so swiftly that Denise did not suspect what he intended, then she was caught and swept upward, to land with a thump across his shoulder where she lay for a moment half dazed, head downward, with her feet dangling in front of him. 

Like a sack of potatoes, he carried her through the crowd while Denise wailed and hammered at whatever part of his body she could reach. Her attempts to break free seemed to amuse him, for he chuckled and tightened the grip of his arm about her middle until it seemed to her she could scarcely breathe. 

Suddenly the realization of what was going to happen to her struck her numbed mind. This man would rape her, he would take her naked body—probably in front of a number of his friends—and when he was done with her, he would turn her over to his cronies. 

She had heard of such things happening. Once, when her father had not known she was within earshot, he had told Louis Dufee of an instance where a girl of good family had been raped by others such as this big-boned keel-boat man. She sobbed and tore at his homespun jacket, wailing out her misery. 

She was going to be shamed. She would never be able to show her face again in society circles in Natchez. Her father would disown her. 

Where was Henri? Where were Pierre and Lucien? Surely they would not abandon her to her fate? She screamed and called, the tears running down her cheeks, but no friendly voice answered. 

All she could hear were the ribald comments of the crowd. 

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