Cold Bayou

by Barbara Hambly

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ January asked, when the Irishman only stood there in the doorway, studying the room and especially the sling that hung from the ceiling-hook above the bed.

  Mick Trask removed the cigar from his mouth and blew a line of smoke. ‘Just lookin’ to see how you’re situated, Ben. St-Ives tells me you’re sharin’ the room with your sister an’ her brat.’

  ‘It was true last night,’ returned January politely, biting back the inappropriate urge to ask this man where St-Ives had disappeared to last night. ‘What arrangements they’ll make tonight, I have as yet no clue.’

  ‘She’s in the next room,’ said the Black Duke, shifting his massive shoulders against the door frame. ‘Shall I bring her in? Make sure she don’t run for it? The mother, too …?’

  ‘With a brat she’ll not run. Paddy, Harry – get yourselves down to the wharf an’ make sure if that goddam steamboat ever does show itself, nobody goes sneakin’ onto it. Syksey, you keep an eye on the old wench. Now …’ He held up his hand, as January drew breath to speak. ‘You may think I’m bein’ a bit previous, an’ maybe I am. But I have to watch out for my niece’s interests here, ’specially as there’s plenty of folks in that stuck-up family who’ll treat her like the goose-girl in some fairytale, an’ not give her her due. It would purely make your heart glow,’ he added, ‘to see the kind of respect even havin’ five thousand dollars of your own will bring you.’

  January took a deep breath, and reminded himself that in all probability Hannibal was back in New Orleans checking on the truth of Ellie Trask’s case. ‘I take it there’s been no sign of the boat yet, sir?’ he asked, as mildly as he could.

  ‘Not the hair on its arsehole.’ Uncle Mick shook his head. ‘When it does show, the Duke and I’ll head back to town to look up the legal papers. What year was you born in, Ben? An’ your sisters?’

  ‘1795.’ Better, he supposed, than this would-be master coming over to determine his age by taking a look at his teeth. Better for everyone, since he feared the outcome of the attempt wouldn’t be good for anyone concerned, broken ankle or no broken ankle. At least, he reflected, the question seemed to indicate that St-Ives hadn’t been sent to town last night to look up the papers himself.

  Covert study of the man’s face still didn’t tell him what else he might have instructed his valet to do, if anything. In addition to being five times smarter than any of Uncle Mick’s tame head-breakers (the same could have been said of Thisbe), St-Ives had the advantage (for Uncle Mick) of being unable to testify against a white man in court.

  He went on, ‘Dominique was born in 1811. My wife, in any case,’ he added, ‘was born a free woman—’

  ‘They all sez that,’ remarked a bulldog-faced ‘boy’ whose curled soap-locks, like those of his boss, had been dyed a startlingly youthful black.

  ‘Shut up, Rags,’ returned Trask easily. ‘No sense actin’ like a goddam Englishman about this. An’ you’re a sawbones, then?’

  ‘Surgeon,’ replied January. ‘I trained at the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris.’

  ‘Should be good for a couple thousand at least,’ put in another of the thugs, a heavy-built man with the scarred ears and cheekbones of a boxer. ‘Do they train niggers to be doctors, then?’

  ‘I thought niggers couldn’t read,’ added Rags.

  ‘You might think different if you could read yourself,’ retorted Trask, and turned back to January. ‘I understand you own a house on Esplanade Street … and your mother has not only a house but a good deal of property. That true?’

  ‘If in fact the woman Livia was a slave at the time the real estate was presented to her,’ advised Loudermilk, ‘the deed would not be legal …’

  ‘It is, sir.’ In France, even if he’d had a broken ankle, he’d at least have been free to speak his mind, if not break Mick Trask’s face in and throw him off the gallery. In America, January reminded himself, it was quite simply unthinkable. Even if he was legally free here, he had understood from his childhood that in many ways, he was the slave of any white person he met.

  He fixed his eyes on the upper-right corner of the French door.

  ‘Who would they belong to, then?’ asked Trask. ‘The go-between that bought them? Or would they revert to Fourchet, in which case—’

  ‘Here!’ Henri Viellard’s voice sounded from the gallery, and past Trask’s shoulder January got a fragmentary glimpse of the stout young planter trying to shove his way past the boys. They shoved back in no uncertain terms, but Henri, though a gentle-hearted mama’s boy who collected butterflies and seashells, was still slightly over six feet tall and weighed three hundred pounds. He shoved again, with such force as to make the boys stagger back, and Trask stepped aside from the doorway with a look of amused surprise on his face.

  ‘Mr Viellard, I was just coming to see you.’

  ‘I’m pleased to have saved you the trouble, sir,’ returned Henri, plump cheeks pink with anger. ‘And to have spared you a walk which would only have concluded with my servants putting you out of the house.’

  ‘Not a very hospitable attitude to take towards your uncle’s in-laws.’ The Irishman looked grieved. ‘And it’ll make for difficulties if in fact you want to purchase Madamoiselle Janvier and her daughter …’

  ‘You lay one hand on Madamoiselle Janvier – you speak one word to her …’

  Trask held up his hands, a smile tweaking his narrow lips. ‘Not a finger,’ he promised. ‘Not a whisper. Martin’s going to be doing that for me.’ He gestured towards Loudermilk with his cigar. ‘And Sheriff Baltard of the parish – who should be on his way even as we’re talking. So I hope for everybody’s sake, he’ll find my property here when he arrives so he won’t have to go looking.’

  Turning, he strolled from the room, his boys – and the lawyer – following him down the gallery steps.

  Henri made to exit also – January guessed he was headed to the next room to speak to Minou – and January said, ‘M’sieu, if you please …’

  The fat man turned. His face was still flushed with anger, but the thick forenoon light showed the tears of terror and dread.

  ‘He may be lying, sir,’ said January quietly. ‘Bluffing you, to get you to pay him now. I sent Hannibal into town yesterday afternoon to look up the Cabildo records for evidence of the debt.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Henri, in startled enlightenment – he’d clearly not thought of checking on the truth or the legality of the claim. ‘Oh, that’s very sensible! Of course it would be recorded.’

  ‘Simon Fourchet sold my mother to St-Denis Janvier in 1803. If he borrowed money from Fergus Trask after that date, none of this affects any of us, in any way.’

  ‘But he still may be able to take her away,’ said the young man quietly. ‘Her, and Charmian. His word to that imbecile Baltard would be enough, and there are plenty of venal judges in Louisiana. If it comes to a lawsuit, Mother would never put out money to … to save them. Particularly now with the family properties in a state of flux.’

  ‘She may if she needs your vote – and Chloë’s – in the family business to counteract that of Madamoiselle Trask,’ January pointed out. ‘And the sheriff of the parish may put more store by a planter who owns two prime sugar plantations along the river, than he would in a richer man who’s going to go back to town and never vote – or tell others to vote.’

  Henri drew a deep breath, and his heavy shoulders relaxed as this information sank in. ‘Yes,’ he stammered. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘A lawsuit will be as expensive for Trask as it will be for you,’ January went on. ‘Let’s wait until we know what we’re talking about, before we start making threats or opening negotiations or trying to get away from Cold Bayou with a storm coming on. Which brings up the subject,’ he went on, ‘of how deeply is your sister in love with Jules Mabillet?’

  ‘My sister?’ Henri’s brow furrowed – the body of the almost-golden-haired maidservant clearly in his mind. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Would she for ins
tance try to pay some of the hands to harness up a wagon and try to get him back to town,’ asked January, with what he hoped was convincing concern in his voice. ‘If she got it into her head that he wasn’t getting the care he needed here, for instance. Forgive me for asking.’ He could see the younger man, startled at not being asked about Charlotte’s part, if any, in murder, visibly lower his guard. ‘And please understand that I mean no disrespect. But two hours ago I found Madamoiselle Charlotte trying to dose Michie Jules with a voodoo remedy that I suspect would have done him far more harm than good.’

  ‘Ah!’

  Clearly, reflected January, watching the young planter’s expression relax, it did not cross his mind that Charlotte might attempt to hire – or persuade – someone larger and stronger than herself to do the deed.

  Someone – perhaps – like Godfrey St-Ives.

  Would St-Ives – a stranger to the district – know about the dead-huts?

  Or had he stolen the riding-mule in the expectation of having to flee, only to return it – and himself – when it became clear that he hadn’t, in fact, murdered his boss’s niece?

  With a stately deliberateness, Henri brought up the room’s one willow chair (which creaked protestingly under his weight) to the side of the bed. January knew Viellard well enough to know that though the younger man had been well educated and was a formidable autodidact in his chosen field – which had nothing to do with the running of his six plantations – he was in fact not very subtle. His mind relieved of all thought that January might suspect his sister of procuring a murder, he was perfectly happy to give him any information on her motives that he wanted.

  ‘You see,’ explained Henri, ‘Jules actually offered for Sophie, back before all this hullabaloo about poor Uncle Veryl arose. He’s handsome, of course, and extremely charming, I suppose, and Charlotte fell passionately in love with him. Then when it first became clear that Uncle’s intentions towards Madamoiselle Trask were honorable – that he intended to marry her – his mother withdrew him from the marriage negotiations.’

  He removed his thick, rectangular-lensed spectacles and polished them carefully on his handkerchief. Without them his large brown eyes had a defenseless look, rather like a good-hearted cow.

  ‘Madame Mabillet and Maman were at school in Paris together,’ he continued. ‘They’ve been friends all their lives. Nevertheless they had a fearful quarrel about it, because Maman had already spent five hundred dollars on Sophie’s trousseau. Sophie – who has Maman’s temper – wrote Jules an extremely cutting letter, which his maman read. That didn’t help matters.’

  January bit back his first question – how the hell old is Mabillet, that his Maman still reads his letters? – and only nodded as if this were the most common thing in the world. He recalled the days, before Henri’s marriage to Chloë St-Chinian at the age of thirty-five, when Minou had practiced every sort of subterfuge to communicate with her protector since Madame Aurelié read his letters.

  French Creole families …

  Of course, his own mother would have read his letters, during the three years after his return from France when she’d rented his old bedroom back to him at five dollars a month.

  He wouldn’t have put it past Madame Sidonie Janvier, either, now that he came to think of it.

  ‘I gather—’ Henri concentrated profoundly on removing the last specks of imaginary dust from his glasses – ‘that at that point Charlotte … ah … wrote several love letters to Jules, swearing undying adoration. Ophèlie told me this only yesterday, after Jules came riding up like something out of a Scott novel. He’s always been such a spoilt care-for-nobody that his appearance here rather surprised me, you know. I had no idea Charlotte’s – er – passion was reciprocated, for they really have nothing in common … except of course their intense mutual admiration of Jules Mabillet.’

  And he smiled, his shy quick smile.

  ‘But Ophèlie and Sophie were aware that he’d written her back – they all steal and read each other’s mail, you know, even the letters Gayla sneaks in to them, and they’re forever fighting about it. And of course Charlotte’s ecstatic over having scored over her sisters. Girls …’ He shook his head, distressed at this illogic.

  ‘And where does Evard Aubin fit into all this?’ asked January, in a voice of idle curiosity. ‘He didn’t come riding up like Lancelot, but he did accept Michie Jules’s challenge …’

  ‘Evard accepts anybody’s challenge. He genuinely enjoys duelling and I gather he’s very good at it.’

  January remembered the young man’s supple eagerness, as he’d practiced passes on the levee. Was that only this morning? It felt like years ago.

  ‘And his Uncle Gustave is some sort of official in Louis-Philippe’s government, so he takes criticism of the House of Orleans very ill. But he simply enjoys getting into quarrels and duels. He’s kept his distance from Charlotte – I think on the advice of his father. I gather he’s been courting Marie-Felice Picard, who Chloë says is a tremendous heiress. But I’ve noticed here that he’s also been keeping poor Charlotte on a string. In case the Picard match doesn’t work out, I suppose.’

  With finicking care he replaced the spectacles on his nose, and frowned again in thought. ‘So yes, I would say Charlotte does love Jules Mabillet. But as for hiring some of the field hands to smuggle him back to New Orleans, I doubt she’d know how to go about it. Euphémie would.’ His brow puckered deeper at the thought of his eldest sister. ‘It was Euphémie, you know, who paid Gayla to put all those hexes on Madamoiselle Trask’s wedding-clothes. At least that’s what Charlotte tells me. I gather Euphémie’s husband has been giving her no peace since the wedding was announced and has been talking about suing the Viellard family for false representation, though they’ve been married now for nearly twelve years. Charlotte is a little afraid of the field hands, you know, and very much afraid of getting caught.’

  He gazed for a time through the glass of the French door, out toward the heavy gray clouds above the river, a lumbering, overdressed dandy who would have been profoundly happy to have been left alone to collect butterflies and marry the beautiful quadroon girl who was the mother of his only child.

  A little sadly, he added, ‘Sometimes I think Maman likes Chloë as well as she does, because Chloë will stand up to her. None of the rest of us will. It’s a damnable thing.’ He shook his head. ‘I am truly glad to see Uncle Veryl so happy, but …’

  He broke off, and January finished gently, ‘One doesn’t like to say it. Because your uncle has done the honorable thing. Or what would clearly be the honorable thing, had Madamoiselle Trask been other than what she is.’

  Henri turned his moist brown gaze upon him, and January could read in his nearsighted eyes the other thing that nobody – not even Henri – would or could say: that what he felt to be the right and honorable thing with regard to Dominique was even more unthinkable, because Minou was what she was.

  Black.

  ‘I’ll do everything I can for you.’ Henri rose, with a slight puff to his breath. ‘In spite of Maman. I promise. And Chloë likes you. Oh, damn it,’ he added, as he reached the door. ‘He’s got one of those filthy Irishmen posted at the bottom of the gallery steps! Of all the—’

  ‘Do you see anyone else nearby, sir? Anyone who can take a message for me?’

  ‘I can take one.’ He turned back from the door. ‘To whom do you need to speak?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said January, genuinely touched. There were few enough white men (and even fewer planters) who would even have considered going on an errand for a man who should, in the opinion of many, have been cutting some white man’s cane.

  But he doubted that Henri even knew Luc by sight. Luc was a field hand and had probably been sent back to the cane-patch by Molina. So he said, ‘If Uncle Bichet – the old musician with the country-marks on his face – is somewhere in the building, I’d like very much to speak with him. If you can’t find him, might you send someone to fetch either James or Arc
hie, if they can be spared?’

  Neither Uncle Veryl nor Selwyn Singletary, he calculated, as Henri’s lumbering tread retreated along the gallery, would require much assistance in the way of packing. Even with his new-found importance in the family, Veryl was a man of extremely simple tastes, and Singletary still wore the clothes he’d bought (or more probably that his now-long-deceased mother had bought for him) when he’d gone to whatever dissenting academy it was that had fostered his bizarre mathematical genius. January would have trusted any of his fellow musicians – fat Cochon Gardinier, handsome and hapless Philippe duCoudreau, genial Jacques Bichet – with his life or the lives of his family, but of them, only Uncle Bichet, in January’s experience, could be trusted to keep his mouth shut.

  Whether the old man could undertake the task – and find the information – that young Luc could have done so easily, January wasn’t certain. But it was a long distance to the laundry, and he cringed from the thought of hobbling all that way, even if he could have come up with some reasonable excuse to give the laundress for asking if any of the men had deposited a shirt.

  And it was interesting, he thought, lying back and shutting his eyes, that Evard Aubin would have put himself in the danger of a duel – whether he enjoyed the sport or not – for the sake of a match which offered so little return. Or so little return, as matters stood at present.

  In the next room the voices of Solange Aubin and Isabelle Valverde rose shrilly, debating the relative imbecelities and offensive personal habits of each others’ offspring, by the sound of it. Out on the gallery, rain splattered, then slacked. The air felt hotter in its wake, like wet towels. His ankle, elevated in its sling, still throbbed and he felt nearly sick with exhaustion, and somewhere in the building he could hear Jacques Bichet playing the flute.