by Lara Parker
She had to admit he demonstrated a steadfast and determined attitude toward Josette, far more serious than he had displayed with her. Oh, how she regretted going to his room the night she wore the dress of gold satin. If only she had left things as they were, she might have won him back after he and Josette were married. But with no claim on him at all, she had given him everything.
She was not like Josette. She did not have the luxury of strolling through gardens, laughing with young gentlemen, confident that she was exquisitely gowned and coifed, knowing all who set eyes on her found her fair. Gifts came to Josette like rain from the sky.
Josette had no worries, nothing to fear. But all that was about to change. “I will make a life for her,” she said to the empty room, “a life she will loathe so much there will be only one thing left for her to do. That is my bequest. That is my gift. And that is also…” she said with a melancholy realization, “my only choice.”
* * *
After Ben came with the ring and the lock of Jeremiah’s hair, Angelique had everything she needed for the spell. She arranged Josette’s handkerchief around the doll and drew the strand of dark hair through the ring to distribute and blend the oils. It was the simplest of sorceries, and yet as she began to chant the old words, words from time’s beginning, she suddenly grew faint. A shadow fell across her mind, and she seemed to be spinning in a whirlpool.
She gripped the edge of the desk to steady herself, and when her thoughts cleared she began again. When she spoke, the fire behind her flared up as though an answering echo. She felt the familiar pulse flutter in her shoulders and throat, and the words began to swim with the throbbing in her brain, as she smelled the acrid odor she remembered from long ago.
“The oil from Jeremiah’s ring will bind the hair into a belt for the cobweb of love.”
She drew the delicate spiderweb over the doll’s head, and the threads ripped and stuck to the clay. “The cobweb of love will trap Josette, and the strands of the web will be like iron.” She closed her eyes and whispered, “Josette loves Jeremiah. Josette loves Jeremiah. Josette loves Jeremiah.”
As the power pulsed, her body grew taut, and spasms of pleasure throbbed in her core. Then she was overcome by dizziness and fell into a faint. She lay by the fire for a quarter of an hour before she regained consciousness and remembered what she had done.
* * *
Chings began slowly, but Angelique could not help being fascinated with the spell’s progression. Josette chose a candy-striped dress that morning, one that was far too coquettish for her, but it fit her petite figure like enamel on a china doll. She then whimsically insisted on a bow for her masses of chestnut hair, which she left loose, falling about her shoulders.
Angelique smiled to herself when she overheard Josette begin a childish argument with Barnabas over whether she would allow him to kiss her. She was certain the effects of the magic were beginning, and she had only to be patient and wait. Josette was already making a fool of herself.
Angelique was intrigued when Barnabas asked her to meet him in the drawing room. Perhaps he was already tiring of his frivolous fiancée. But the moment she saw his face, her body stiffened. He was more angry than she had ever seen him.
“What do you know about this?” he asked her curtly, handing her a large square box.
“Nothing,” she said simply.
“I think you do.”
“Why? What is it?” she asked, more curious than cowed.
“A wedding present,” he said with withering sarcasm. “See for yourself.”
Angelique hesitated a moment, then, setting the box on the table, lifted the lid. What she saw made her blood run cold. Inside the box, staring up at her, was a skull, a white gaping skull, wearing a thick wig of dull chestnut hair! She stepped away in disgust.
“Is it from you?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
“Obviously it was sent by someone who does not approve of our marriage.”
“But how could I … I haven’t been off the grounds since the day I arrived.”
“Then what am I to think?” His gaze was so cold and contemptuous that tears sprang to her eyes.
“You act as if you don’t even know me, as though you know nothing about me,” she said, “when you know me so well.” She felt a wave of desperation. “You know I would never do anything to make you hate me!” She fled the room.
Once back in her own chamber, Angelique went to the window and stared blankly out, struggling to compose herself. There was only one being she could think of who possessed such a vile sense of the macabre.
Had he always been there, hovering near, waiting for her to weaken? Her long years of abstinence and self-restraint meant nothing; they had disappeared like an interminable drought that is dissolved by one rainstorm. He had returned, and he would come for her, even though these were merely silly spells, what the Bokor had called “playing with toys.” Yet they were enough. She turned and looked helplessly around her small room.
“Are you here? Are you with me now?” she whispered. She waited—not summoning, not quickening to the force—and listened. There was no sound, no disturbance in the air, nothing at all, only the silence that quivered with the beating of her heart. Was it worth it, risking his return? She had been a child when he first came to her. She had been too young to challenge him, and she had not known how to protect herself. Somewhere, deep within her core, lay the power to fight him, and she must reach for it. But first she must quit these foolish sorceries, which were not worthy of her talents and only disturbed the long truce that had guarded her soul. She promised herself she would not perform another spell.
* * *
However, her resolutions were futile. Much to her dismay, that night Josette passed down the hall on the way to Jeremiah’s room. She wore a sheer lavender gown that was shamelessly revealing, and she was flushed. She walked as though she were in a trance. She was so intent on what she was doing that she never saw Angelique who had come to prepare her for bed.
Josette knocked on Jeremiah’s door, and when he answered, spoke to him in a voice that was low and sultry. Angelique had no way of knowing what transpired, but Josette came back to her own room deeply upset and ashamed. She threw herself upon her bed and refused to be comforted.
The spell had begun, thought Angelique, and there was nothing she could do to stop it now, even if she had wanted to do so.
The next morning Angelique saw Jeremiah in the drawing room. He was troubled and introspective, but he took advantage of the maid’s presence to question her about Josette’s mood.
“How was your mistress when you left her?”
“Oh, very well, sir.”
“Is she happy here?”
“Why yes, of course she is, very happy.”
“You don’t think she is in any way … disturbed?”
“Not at all. She is … exactly as she was at home.”
She saw the insinuation hit the mark. Jeremiah’s jaw set, and he shook his head in resignation. He was having difficulty believing what Josette had done. And truthfully, how could anyone seek depravity in such an unblemished character? Josette’s unsullied virtue was as obvious as the dawn.
Angelique felt a wave of pity for her, pity which she buried away. Why should Josette escape the whimsy of fate? She knew Jeremiah was intending to tell Barnabas that his fiancée could not be trusted. Barnabas’s pride would be wounded and his arrogance deflated, but he would never accept Josette if he discovered she was inconstant.
* * *
The conversation actually occurred that very afternoon. Josette, still humiliated by her actions, remained in her room and sent Angelique to say that she was not well. After delivering her message and enduring Barnabas’s disappointed countenance, Angelique remained in the hallway, eavesdropping as he spoke with Jeremiah.
“Isn’t Josette lovely?” Barnabas said. “Have you noticed how she listens, and how she moves? The only thing I don’t understand is why she chose me. I don’t deserve
her.”
Jeremiah murmured a few words, searching for some way to approach the difficult subject in the face of such adoration. “Perhaps you don’t know Josette as well as you think you do.”
“My God, Jeremiah, what makes you say such a thing?”
“You’ve always told me I had accurate perceptions of a person’s character.”
“And you sense something is wrong? Don’t you like her?”
“Yes, of course I like her,” he said with hesitation, adding, in spite of himself, “very much.”
“She likes you, if that’s what was worrying you. In fact, I think she is jealous of you, of our friendship. She deeply hopes that you will approve of her.”
“And how do you think she will seek my approval?”
“Why, Jeremiah, how serious you are! She has no need to seek it! I think perhaps you are the one who is jealous. Am I right? Don’t you think I am an exceedingly lucky man?”
Jeremiah hesitated, then appeared to forfeit his enterprise. “You are fortunate to be able to love so fully,” he said finally, “and to trust so completely.”
Jealousy flared again in Angelique’s heart, and anger that her conjurations had not culminated in a revelation of Josette’s improprieties. Frustration quickened her determination, and she decided to forgo her plan of having Josette endure the pain of unrequited love. It was time for Jeremiah to respond to, in fact desire, Josette’s advances.
But this time she was hampered by an inner trepidation, an uneasiness that made the creation of the potion difficult. She found the herb she needed in the woods, and the catalyst was stored in her bag. Ben would take Jeremiah his evening toddy and, by her bidding, drop the potion in his drink. The plan was certain, but the execution frustratingly static. She found it difficult to concentrate; she knew she was using only superficial tricks, but she was afraid to dig deeper.
As she was working, the words of the Bokor flashed in her mind. “Can you make someone love you?” she had asked him, and he had answered, “You pays your money and you takes the consequence.”
A love spell was tricky and disturbed the hand of fate. She would never use such a spell on Barnabas. He must come to her as he had in Martinique, because he wanted her, because he was devoted to her. She knew he loved her, and she had only to remove the impediments to that love. She had only to eliminate Josette as quickly and as painlessly as possible.
Bitterness, however, muddied the clarity of her thoughts, and a swimming miasma stirred in her brain, making her body weak. Her longing for Barnabas interfered with her capacity to make the choices that would bring about her aims. She was certain that casting this spell was the right decision, but she seemed to be losing her ability to focus. She knew only that she was determined to stop the marriage. Josette must run away with Jeremiah. Then Barnabas would realize how wrong he had been and how much she, Angelique, loved him. She clung to that belief with all her strength.
* * *
That same night, the two lovers met in the moonlight at the marble fountain of Diana, inexplicably drawn to one another. However, to Angelique’s extreme vexation, the Countess du Prés surreptitiously followed Josette when she left the house. Worse, she witnessed, in the garden, beneath the statue of the Huntress, Josette and Jeremiah pledge their love in a stilted exchange and a hesitant kiss. The artificiality of their meeting convinced the countess, a vain but not a stupid woman, that Josette was acting against her heart’s true desires.
As a result, Angelique began to encounter some difficulty from the countess, who had a natural resonance with the supernatural and prided herself on silly tricks such as the reading of tarot cards. These talismans of prophecy kept revealing, according to her, “an evil force” somewhere in the house. The countess could sense that Josette was so unlike her true self, except in the strength of her resilience.
Josette’s character was of such faultless integrity that she was able to fight the spell unconsciously with every fiber of her being. The magic caught her and forced her into unprincipled behavior, but later she was disconsolate, plagued with guilt. She became moody and secretive, and the countess, in turn, became suspicious.
In spite of the countess’s vigilance, Angelique was convinced that the spell would achieve her ends. She tried to control her anxiety, constantly picturing in her mind Barnabas’s face when he realized that his Josette had betrayed him. She ignored his negligent treatment of her, clinging to the belief that he was repressing his true feelings. But the Dark One made another insidious appearance, almost as though he were taunting Angelique. The mark of the Devil’s pitchfork appeared mysteriously on Josette’s hand.
Josette was deeply alarmed as she stared at the evil symbol, rubbing it as though dirt had soiled her hand, but she did not feel more dread than Angelique, who instantly comprehended the origin of the mark.
“What could it be?” asked Josette in dismay. “It won’t come off.”
“I have no idea, my lady.”
“Perhaps it is a bruise.”
The mark was absurd and crudely drawn, as though the Devil were making some clumsy effort to aid Angelique in her endeavors. She found some pretense to look at it closely, and it was so ridiculous she almost laughed. Pressed to find some means to console her mistress, she said, “I had a mark like that when I was a child.” How ironic it was that, in offering commiseration, she had spoken the truth in the midst of a lie. “I was able to remove it with rosewater,” she added.
Giving herself over to her servant’s ministrations. Josette allowed Angelique to rub the mark with rosewater. The cologne was from Josette’s toilette, rosewater Angelique had secretly laced with the elixir of love. The tangled web of lies was gathering them all into its net.
The mark washed away, but the next day, to Josette’s bewilderment, and Angelique’s vexation, it reappeared, as dark as before, and it appeared on Jeremiah’s hand as well. Angelique knew the two perplexed lovers would attempt to erase the pitchforks themselves, alone in Josette’s room, and their furious scrubbing with the rosewater would come to naught, only unavoidable caresses and, finally, an inevitable embrace.
It was as though the Devil were assisting her now, working at her side, creating spells as foolish as hers to taunt her and harass her. He had made no appearance nor did he speak to her, but he was in the shadows, waiting.
Twenty-Eight
At last, André du Prés arrived from New York to celebrate his daughter’s wedding. Angelique was curiously glad to see him, and he greeted her with civility, relieved to see a familiar face, although he was snappish and officious as usual, feeling ignored and put out when there was no one from the Collins family to greet him.
“Angelique, my dear,” he said, giving her a cursory nod, “where the devil is everyone?” She smiled when she saw that for his visit André had purchased a handsome suit of dove-colored wool, which nicely disguised his round girth, and that he sported a matching top hat of magnificent proportions.
“I’ll tell Josette you are here,” she said, feeling for the first time a stab of guilt that this well-meaning man would be distressed by his daughter’s behavior. When Joshua Collins came in from his study, André was awkward, intimidated by Joshua’s impeccable manners. So sad, she thought, when he, André, has far more money and property.
But André was “rich as a Creole,” and money made in cane was not considered “old” money the way shipping money was. According to Joshua, Caribbean planters were riffraff from Europe who had escaped their lowly origins. Still, Angelique thought bitterly to herself, Joshua was certainly not above the union that would bring untold riches to the Collins family, if not the requisite prestige.
André noticed immediately that his daughter was out of sorts. He could not have been more understanding and solicitous, and once again Angelique envied Josette her doting father, his sweet and undiminished affection.
That evening, over a fine bottle of French wine, the countess visited with her brother and told him everything that had occurred
since her arrival in Collinsport, including Josette’s untoward behavior. They were easy together, congenial, glad to be confidants once more, and Angelique was sent to request still another bottle from Joshua’s cellar. Smiling to herself over what the patriarch’s reaction would be when he discovered the loss, she stirred the fire and added a log or two, giving herself the excuse of lingering a few moments in the parlor.
“I’ll be damned if she’ll marry a man she doesn’t love!” André blurted. “Which one of these chaps does she really want?”
“André, listen to me. I have come to believe, as ridiculous as it sounds, that Josette is under some kind of spell, that … there is a witch in this house, or some cruel demon, forcing Josette into the arms of Jeremiah. They don’t love one another, I’m sure of it. She acts as though she were in a trance.”
“Hogwash! You know, Natalie, your imagination has been overstimulated by your time in the islands. Josette’s always been a capricious girl, never known her own mind. I’ve adored her, and spoiled her, and, you know as well as I do, although many island dandies have courted her, she’s never been in the company of real gentlemen. Barnabas is the first, and this Jeremiah is an obvious rival.”
“He is Barnabas’s uncle, and they have been the best of friends since Barnabas was a child. Whether you believe in sorcery or not, I think the marriage is in danger.”
“Then call the damn thing off! Let’s all sail back to Martinique, and the devil take the lot of them!”
“No, I think Josette and Barnabas should marry at once. The sooner the better!”
Angelique, holding the poker in the flame for too long a time, suddenly realized that it had become burning hot in her hand. She dropped it into the fireplace and stood staring at it, not knowing how to retrieve it. The countess turned to her.
“That will be all, Angelique. You may go.”
She did not go farther than the hallway. She felt that her legs would not carry her as far as her room, and she leaned against the banister, her head swimming. The wedding was planned for weeks away, and she had thought there would be ample time to perfect her manipulations. The romance between Josette and Jeremiah was at a standstill. They fought it so desperately, and their sense of propriety was so entrenched.