Iron Lace

by Lorena Dureau

  Monique gave an exasperated shrug of her shoulders. “You’re just too young to understand such things, Celeste. New Orleans is French, and the Spaniards have no right to be here in the first place. Now that Spain and France are at war, that even makes us enemies! Didn’t you see those leaflets Maurice gave me, the ones calling on the citizens of Louisiana to overthrow the Spanish government? You should read them.”

  “Oh, Monique, it’s all to complicated for me!” exclaimed Celeste, shaking her dark blond head wearily. “Only the good Lord knows how it will all end! But meanwhile, Cousin Miguel is here, and I think we should try to remember he’s Aunt Isabelle’s stepson and treat him as part of the family, which I’m sure is the way she would have wished us to receive him.”

  “I remember only too well how Mama always lamented Aunt Isabelle’s poor taste in not only choosing a Spaniard for a husband, but one who was a widower with a child, as well!” Monique replied. “Papa wasn’t too pleased, either, about his only sister having married a Spaniard and gone off to live in Madrid like that.”

  “Oh, well, all of that happened before we were even born,” observed Celeste. “Neither of us really knew Aunt Isabelle or Uncle Roberto, anyway.”

  “Exactly, so why should we be so quick to receive their son with open arms? After all, what do we really know about him?”

  Celeste sighed again. At least what she did know, she liked, but she knew better than to argue with her sister.

  They must have been sitting there talking for over an hour before a knock sounded on the door and one of the housemaids announced that she had been sent to call the girls back down to the parlor.

  “And your grandma says not to dally,” the pert young Negress cautioned them. “She’s waiting there to see you with that elegant Spanish gent who came in with you.”

  The girls rose nervously and, hastily smoothing their multiple skirts over their little bustle pads, descended the polished oak staircase with mounting apprehension, fearful that a second, more severe scolding still awaited them for their recent mischief.

  As they entered the parlor, they found their grandmother seated in her favorite upholstered chair finishing a cup of hot chocolate, while Miguel Vidal sat on one of the red velvet couches sipping a glass of claret and instructing the houseboy to go to the docks with a note for the captain of the newly arrived Maria de la Concepción.

  “You are to show the men how to get here with my luggage,” Vidal was saying as he handed a sealed envelope to the little black boy.

  On seeing his young cousins entering, Vidal quickly gave his messenger a few final words and rose to greet them.

  “Ah, my charming little cousins,” he saluted them pleasantly but said nothing more.

  Aimee Chausson, in black silk frosted with snowy linen, lifted her white-capped head and motioned to the girls to draw nearer.

  “My dears, I’ll come directly to the point,” she said with an obviously contented smile on her broad, benign countenance. “I sent for your cousin Miguel to come to New Orleans because I want him to take over the management of our affairs from now on, or at least until you become of age or marry and are able to look out for yourselves.”

  For a moment there was silence in the sun-speckled parlor, while the still-bright light of the lengthening spring day filtered in cheerfully through the open shutters and the two young girls stood there staring bewilderedly at their grandmother and their newly discovered cousin.

  Finally Monique found her voice. “But, Grandmother, we’ve been managing well enough without any help until now, haven’t we? Why have you suddenly asked someone who is really a stranger to us to come here and handle our affairs?” She turned quickly to Miguel, flushing a little as she realized he might take offense at her words. “Please, I mean no discredit to you,” she assured him. “It’s only that, despite the fact that we’re cousins, we’re really not blood relatives. Why, we’d never even met until today!”

  A faint smile flickered across Vidal’s face as he nodded in agreement. “What you say is quite true. That same fact has also occurred to me, I assure you.”

  “Be that as it may,” continued Aimee Chausson, waving aside their verbal exchange, “after weighing the circumstances very carefully and consulting with your late father’s attorney, I have appointed your cousin to be your curator—that is, for all practical purposes, your guardian. You and Celeste may not know Miguel, but I have heard much of him over the years from your Aunt Isabelle’s letters, and, of course, the lawyers who handled your father’s will made investigations as well, so I can assure you that your cousin is a fine, upright gentleman of impeccable reputation whom I trust completely. If it were otherwise, I would have never turned your guardianship over to him.”

  Monique was more confused than ever. “But, Grandmother, you… you are our guardian. Don’t you want to take care of Celeste and me anymore?”

  “Of course, my dear, I’ll still be here—at least for as long as the good Lord permits me to linger,” the elderly woman assured her with a tender smile. “But I need… we need the help of a man…”

  Vidal continued to stand beside the wing-back chair, prudently silent as he fixed his dark eyes deliberately on the rim of his wineglass. He had anticipated this moment might be difficult, and for a moment he regretted having let himself be wheedled into such an awkward position.

  “But why… why?” Monique persisted, still vigorously rejecting the idea. “If we have you to care for us, Grandmother, why should we need anyone else? If it’s because you’re vexed with me, I promise I’ll be good. But please, don’t turn us over to someone else. We love you, Grandmother, truly we do!”

  Suddenly a sob escaped Celeste’s lips as a horrible thought occurred to her. “Merciful heavens! Are you ill? Are you going to… to…?” Panic filled the young girl’s hazel eyes, and she didn’t dare put her fears into words.

  Grandmother Chausson began to laugh, but tears were also glistening in her pale blue eyes. “Ah, my dear sweet girls!” she exclaimed. “Bless you for caring! But don’t worry, little ones, I’m not expecting to leave you for quite a while. To the contrary, with the peace of mind that Miguel’s presence will give me, I hope to live on to a ripe old age. Now, now, my dears, stop crying. Come here and let me give you each a hug and a kiss. There, my little ones, everything is all right. Don’t fret.”

  With a rustling flutter of colorful skirts, the girls ran over to their grandmother and sank down beside her in a sea of billowing muslin and taffeta while the elderly woman affectionately patted their pretty young faces.

  Vidal shifted uneasily behind the chair and turned aside to drain the last drops of wine from his glass.

  “Now listen to me carefully, you silly geese,” Aimee Chausson continued. “As your guardian, I have a right to delegate my responsibilities to someone who I feel might do a better job than I can of looking after you and your inheritance. The task is simply too much for a poor inexperienced old woman like me. This household needs the firm hand of a man at its helm, and I thank God we’re fortunate enough to have someone like Miguel in the family to help see us through this difficult period.”

  But Monique was still having trouble digesting the news. This stranger—and a Spaniard, besides!— was to be Celeste’s and her guardian! Curator ad bona… tutor… judges… lawyers… yearly accountings… Aimee Chausson was explaining some of the official details, but Monique was too angry to hear, much less understand, all her grandmother was saying. She was still trying to absorb just one bare fact: Miguel Vidal was going to be controlling her life from there on out, and she didn’t like the prospect at all!

  Chapter Four

  “Believe me, my dears, I thought all this over very carefully before I contacted your cousin,” Aimee Chausson went on. “After all, this is a big step for Miguel to take, too—to leave his life of ease and plenty in Madrid to come here to what must seem like a very primitive land to him and take on the burden of a failing plantation and two mischievous young girls.
I’m sure he hesitated considerably , before deciding to accept my pleas to come to New Orleans.”

  From where she still knelt beside her grandmother, Monique cast a quizzical look up at the tall, silent figure standing beside the large upholstered chair, and Vidal couldn’t help but catch the martial look in her eyes.

  “I confess I’ve accepted this chore that Dona Aimee has thrust on me with some reservations,” he admitted, deciding to speak at last. “Frankly, the idea doesn’t appeal to me any more than it does to you and your sister. But, in all conscience, I could hardly refuse, once I knew the predicament you were in, knowing that I was the only person in the family to whom your grandmother—our grandmother—could turn to in her hour of need.”

  He came forward as he spoke and, setting his empty glass down on the serving table, sat on the couch once more, while he continued in a well-modulated voice, his perfect French only tinged with the dulcet tones of his native Castilian. “I think you should know that I really feel much more a part of your family than you might imagine under the circumstances,” he explained, his eyes softening as he looked down at his distraught cousins, who seemed so small and unhappy at their grandmother’s knee. “You see, my mother died giving me birth, so your Aunt Isabella really filled a very important niche in my life. When my father remarried, I was only seven or eight years old, and until that time my mother’s family, the de la Fuentes of Cadiz, had been rather inadequately trying to care for me. I’ll never forget that first day I arrived at my father’s villa… how my stepmother took me in her arms and welcomed me ‘home’… that was the way she put it, and that was the way she made me feel it was from that moment on. I soon came to look on her as my real mother, for we couldn’t have been closer had she given me birth from her own womb. So you see, although we may not be blood cousins, I assure you I feel a true bond with my stepmother and her family and will try to fulfill my obligations to you to the best of my ability, as I know she would have wanted me to do, and as I myself would like to do in memory of the woman who did so much for me.”

  For a moment the ring of sincerity in his voice disarmed Monique, and some of the hostility in her eyes melted.

  “But… but Le Rêve has been getting along well enough all this time with the overseer who has been running it since before Father died,” she ventured, a little more defensively now than belligerently. “He should know what to do, shouldn’t he?”

  Vidal smiled patiently from the sofa. “My dear child, no matter how good an overseer your man might be, he is still only hired help and needs someone to make the important decisions for him,” he reminded her. “From what I understand, your plantation, which is called Le Rêve—The Dream, is that right?—is really more of a nightmare for you these days, now that the place has lost its indigo crops for two years running and is in danger of losing another one this year.”

  “But what experience have you had in such matters?” asked Monique challengingly. “I didn’t know they had plantations like ours in Madrid.”

  “Don’t be impertinent!” scolded her grandmother, nudging the softly rounded little arm resting on her knee.

  “No, senora,” interrupted Vidal. “Don’t be annoyed with her. The girl is intelligent and does well to ask questions. After all, I have been appointed to look after her affairs. She has a right to know the facts.”

  He turned again to Monique. “I confess I know very little about plantations, little cousin, especially the sort they have in these parts,” he continued. “But after a few weeks of intense investigation and consultation with those who do know, I hope I’ll be able to make some reasonable decisions about what ought to be done to try to save your property.”

  Celeste smiled approvingly at her new guardian. “I trust you, Cousin Miguel,” she said shyly. Then she looked at her sister across their grandmother’s knees. “I think we should give him our support, Monique. He has a difficult job ahead of him and will need all the help we can give him.”

  “Well said, little one,” declared Aimee Chausson with an approving pat on her granddaughter’s honey-colored curls. “You girls should be grateful to Miguel for taking on so thankless a task. Most of the planters here have been having a run of bad luck lately with their crops. We’re not the only ones in difficulties these days.”

  “I suppose we do need a man to help us out with the plantation,” conceded Monique at last, rising agilely from the midst of her frothy pink and white skirts and leaning lightly against the arm of her grandmother’s chair. “And you can count on our cooperation… and gratitude, as well… if you’re successful in taking that burden off grandmother’s shoulders, at least until my sister and I become of age and are in a better position to take such matters in hand ourselves.”

  “I’m happy to hear you are agreeable to my being your curator,” Vidal said with a smile. “I hope I can expect the same cooperation from you and your sister concerning my authority over your personal welfare as well.”

  Monique was taken aback. “What… what do you mean? Is there more?” She looked down questioningly at her grandmother sitting beside her.

  “Yes, my dear,” the latter replied quickly. “I thought you understood what I was explaining to you. Your cousin Miguel is your legal guardian now. You and Celeste should accept his authority in all things. I’m still in the picture, of course, and I’m sure he will always take my wishes into consideration, but I have asked him to be your guardian in the full sense of the word, for not only are you both sorely in need of discipline, but you also should have more protection than I, as a poor aging matron, can possibly give you.”

  Vidal had listened attentively. “Frankly, when you wrote and explained your situation to me, Dona Aimee, I didn’t realize the two orphaned grandchildren you were talking about were quite as grown up as they are. I pictured younger girls—not young ladies old enough to be courted. Be that as it may, if I’m to be responsible for them, I’ll have to insist that they obey me in what I say. I’ll try not to make my guardianship weigh too heavily, but I must lay down certain rules. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Rules?” interrupted Monique, a martial look creeping into her eyes.

  He turned sternly to her. “Yes, little cousin, rules. To begin with, there will be no more leaving this house without either your grandmother’s or my permission. Under no circumstances will I ever consent to your running around the streets without a chaperon—a chaperon of my approval, I might add.”

  “Mon Dieu! We may as well go to a convent!” Monique exclaimed, while Celeste stood by in tragic silence.

  “I’d hardly go so far as to say that,” Vidal hastily assured them. “You can count on a reasonable amount of diversion. Since you seem to like puppet shows so much, perhaps you would enjoy an evening at a real theater. When I asked the governor what there was to do for entertainment here in New Orleans, he told me there was a new theater in the city, still in its formative stages but featuring a few actors from the Cap-Français. Give me a week or two to get settled, and I’ll take you and your sister—and your grandmother, too, of course—to one of their performances.”

  He turned quickly to Madame Chausson. “That is, if it meets with your approval, Dona Aimee,” he added politely.

  The elderly woman nodded her white-capped head approvingly but held up a detaining hand before he could continue. “I’ll be glad to see the girls going out so well protected,” she replied, “and perhaps if they have more social life they’ll be less restless, but please don’t include me in such plans. It’s too much trouble to climb into my stays and bustle and get all dressed up and coiffured just for a few hours of distraction. Young girls love taking all day to ready themselves for such outings, but I’m beyond that point, thank you.”

  Vidal smiled understandingly and turned back to his two wards. “Then I hope I’ll at least have the pleasure of your company, little ladies?” he said in his most gallant manner.

  “Oh, yes!” exclaimed Celeste quickly, her hazel eyes already aglow at the p
rospect.

  Monique, however, was a little less enthusiastic. “I suppose anything would be better than staying home,” she acquiesced begrudgingly.

  Celeste shook her head disapprovingly in one of those rare moments of annoyance with her older sister.

  “Now, Monique, don’t be a bore,” she chided. “You know very well how you were wishing only the other day that we could find some way to go to the new theater.”

  Monique flushed crimson. “Hush Celeste!” she scolded crossly. “You know it’s unmaidenly to accept a gentleman’s invitation too eagerly.”

  Vidal’s eyes remained impassive, but the corners of his mouth were tugging despite his efforts to control them. “I’m happy to see you are making some attempt to behave like a well-bred young lady, my little cousin,” he said smoothly. “For a moment I almost mistook your ladylike acceptance of my invitation as a refusal.”

  Monique shifted uneasily beneath those dark, enigmatic eyes. Although he seemed as unperturbed as ever, she had the disagreeable feeling that he was secretly laughing at her.

  “My granddaughters sorely need a governess,” sighed Madame Chausson, “but since Mlle. Fortier left us, I haven’t been able to find a suitable replacement. I do the best I can with them, but I confess they are getting to be too much for me. They need a younger, more energetic woman to keep up with them and teach them the niceties of social behavior. The poor dears have been without a mother these past six years, and their gardienne—old Zizi, who had been their nanny since they were born—died about a year or so ago.”

  “Don’t fret yourself, senora,” Vidal consoled her. “The first thing tomorrow morning I’ll begin looking for some suitable woman to hire as governess for the girls.”

  Monique’s indignation finally exploded. “Really, Grandmother, I hardly need a governess anymore!” she protested. “I could already add and subtract twice as fast as Mlle. Fortier could by the time she left us, and, as you know, I can read and write fluently in both French and Latin.”