by Frank Yerby
Gently he eased his arm out from under her head. Odalie came awake at once, and sat up beside him. Stephen waited for her to draw the coverlet up over her body, but she sat there as shameless and as graceful as a woods nymph.
“Good morning, Stephen,” she said clearly.
“Good morning, my dear,” he said with grave mockery. “Ye slept well, I trust?”
She looked up at him, her black eyes searching his. Then she saw what she sought, the little laughing light dancing far back in his eyes. She bent forward to be kissed, but he stopped his face inches from hers. Then, as if by a signal, they both exploded into laughter.
Afterwards, life was very good at Harrow. Stephen’s face lost its perpetual frown; in its place was a look of profound peace. He went no more to the little house by the Ramparts, but spent his days and nights at Harrow. He commissioned Monsieur Pouilly, much to that gentleman’s astonishment, to build two magnificent houses: a town house for Odalie in New Orleans, and a cottage on Lake Pontchartrain where they might escape the heat of summer.
And Odalie, although in her middle thirties, grew hourly more beautiful. There was about her a look of completion, of fulfillment. It was during this period that the portrait of her that hangs in the great hall at Harrow was painted. To the day of his death, Paul Dumaine, père, spoke of it as his finest work.
“Madame called forth my best,” he was fond of saying. “ ‘Tis not often that one is granted the opportunity to paint such loveliness—and such joy.”
Stephen stood watching the artist at work, marveling at his skill, and marveling still more at the sweet, secret glow that transfixed his wife’s face.
“Enough,” the artist declared. “There is nothing more that I can do to it—’tis finished—”
“Thank ye, monsieur,” Stephen said. “Ye’ve done well. I trust ye will find your commission as satisfactory as I have found your work.”
The artist smiled. “That doesn’t trouble me,” he said. “Painting one so beautiful is reward enough. Adieu!” He bowed grandly and took his leave.
Stephen walked over to the raised platform upon which Odalie sat and took her hand. She stepped down, smiling up at him.
“Still I don’t understand it,” he said, “this change in ye. After all these years ye became what I dreamed ye were. Why, Odalie, why?”
“I don’t know, Stephen,” she said. “Truly I don’t. I think that when I saw I was losing you, I became a woman. It wasn’t a conscious thing. So much I’ve lost—so many precious years.”
“We’ll make them up, never ye fear.”
“We seem to be trying,” she laughed softly. “I fear that sometimes I tire you with my ardor!”
“ ‘Tis a fatigue I like,” he said. “Holy angels, but ye’re beautiful!”
She made him a mocking little courtesy and the two of them went out into the great hall.
“Stephen. . . .”
“I love ye,” he said. “ ‘Tis this I saw in the Place D’Armes the day that Lafayette came. I’d wondered where it went, what had become of it—that look: the way your eyes are now—like— like . . .”
“Stephen . . .”
“What is it, my dear?”
“How would you like another son? Or a daughter perhaps?”
Stephen frowned.
“That—no. Doctor Terrebonne said ‘twould be extremely dangerous . . .”
Odalie smiled up at him, a slow, misty smile. “The—the chance must be taken, my husband,” she said softly. Stephen’s fair brows flew together, and his pale eyes were fierce suddenly.
“No,” he said, half to himself. “Ye must be mistaken. It cannot be!”
“The first time, there is doubt. After that—a woman knows.”
“Holy Mother of God!”
“Are you sorry, Stephen?”
“No—not sorry, frightened. If Doctor Terrebonne were only alive. I don’t trust this Lefevre. He’s too young, and too advanced—still we have Caleen. One thing is certain, my dearest, off ye go to bed and stay there till it is time. The last time ye overtaxed yourself in many ways.”
“I—I’ve been a bad wife, Stephen . . .”
“Nonsense. ‘Tis only that I lacked patience and understanding. But all that is gone now—’tis over and done with. And what I have now is granted to only one man among millions.”
He took her hands and looked down into her face a long, long time before he kissed her.
There in the doorway Aurore saw the look, but when Stephen bent forward towards her sister, she turned away her face. Then, without a word, she turned and went back down the great stairs to her horse and rode away through the sunlight, the tears bright and heavy in her lashes.
But as she turned away from Harrow, into the Bayou Road, Aurore was conscious of another horse, standing quietly in the cypress shade. She reined in, looking curiously at the rider who sat half hidden among the trees. It was a girl—a very young girl—Aurore recognized at once; but one who bore herself on horseback as though she had spent half her lifetime there. She was dressed in a rich green riding habit, but she was hatless, and her hair escaped uncurled down over her shoulders in a tawny mane.
Mon Dieu! but she’s lovely, Aurore thought. I wonder who on earth— But something in the girl’s coloring struck her. Even those who foolishly slept overlong on the sands at Lake Pontchartrain had not that pure transparent golden tone. She rode in closer.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “What are you doing here?”
The girl turned slowly. Her eyes, beneath her amazingly dark lashes were a cool green. When she smiled, little flakes of gold swam in their depths.
“That shouldn’t interest such a great lady as Mademoiselle,” she said evenly.
“You’re insolent!” Aurore said, certainty crowding hard upon suspicion. “Let me see your hands!”
Calmly the girl stretched them out.
“That is great foolishness,” she said, “that business about a bluish tinge at the base of the nails. See, I have none. But for Mademoiselle’s information: yes, I am a woman of color—a free quadroon, if you will. And my errand is perhaps the same as Mademoiselle’s own—to see that which I cannot have.”
“I—I’ll have you whipped!”
The girl shrugged.
“So? What will that prove? Only that Mademoiselle is white and rich and powerful—and that the world already knows. I think Mademoiselle could afford to be more gracious.”
“You—you were Stephen’s mistress!” Aurore said.
The girl laughed, a dark, rich sound—like the echoes of a soft, golden gong.
“Yes,” she said. “And Mademoiselle?”
“Oh,” Aurore cried, completely beside herself, “you—you baggage!” Then she brought the crop down across her horse’s flank and thundered off, down the road.
The girl sat very quietly upon her horse looking after her. Then again she turned her face toward Harrow. It would be a long wait, she knew. Sighing, she shifted her position a little, and half closed her eyes. Then at last she saw the big palomino trotting away from Harrow, angling out toward the fields.
Instantly she started toward him, tapping the big, rawboned stallion with her crop. The horse rolled his bulging, bloodshot eyes and snorted. He had a nervous gait without constant pace or smoothness.
Stephen rode on, his head lifted to the morning sun, whistling a gay tune. But suddenly Prince Michael stopped short in his tracks and whinnied. Stephen half rose in the stirrups, turning as he did so. Almost at once he saw the roan stallion coming toward him at a loping canter; and instantly he recognized the rider.
“Desiree!” he said aloud. “Oh, my God!”
Then she was reining in, turning the big horse so that he presented his flank to Stephen’s mount. Stephen’s brows were twin white-gold thunder clouds, and his mouth a thin line. Desiree saw the look.
“Forgive me,” she said. “But I had to come.”
“Why? Ye know well that it will only cause trouble. To ride all the way to Harrow i
n daylight, pass a dozen plantations of my friends is, to say the least, an indiscretion—it may even be an impertinence!”
Desiree’s hands jerked on the reins so that the roan stallion danced.
“I had to come,” she whispered. “You would ask me to live all alone in that little house where everything reminds me of you? This morning I pushed aside the curtains to see if there were sunlight, and in them was the scent of your pipe smoke. Last night I sat down to supper, and there was your chair, empty, across from me. No one but you has ever sat in it, monsieur. I walk and walk and walk—back and forth, back and forth. And all the time it seems to me that if I were to whirl suddenly, you’d be there, mocking me, teasing me the way you love to do.”
Stephen was silent, but his frown deepened.
“I talk to you just as if you were really there. Sometimes it seems that you are there; my mind is not very clear at times. It’s being consumed by this awful hunger for you—the sight of you, the sound of your voice. . . .”
Her eyes were searching his face as she talked, moving very rapidly, her gaze caressing him.
“What is it that ye want?” he said harshly.
“You. I want you to come back to me and set everything straight so that I’ll know that I’m alive.”
“Do ye not know it now?”
“No. I’m numb. There is no feeling at all except this horrible emptiness. I don’t know whether I’ve eaten or not. I don’t know what time of day it is—or what day—or even if it is day. I’m not sure of anything except that I want you and want you and want you until soon I shall die of it.”
“Ye’re a child,” Stephen said evenly. “Ye don’t know what ye want even though ye do talk like a woman grown.”
“I was never a child. My mother discussed love with me when I was eight years old. I was never allowed dolls or play or even the foolish prattle of children. From infancy I was reared to be only one thing: a perfect mistress for such a man as you.”
“My God!”
“I was brought up more strictly than your convent-trained maidens. Of course I was taught to dance and to sing; but I was never allowed to look at a boy. Monsieur knows I was untouched when I came to him?”
“Yes,” Stephen said, “I know.”
“You would end my life then before it is begun? That is what you’re doing.”
“There’s no help for it, little Desiree,” Stephen said gently. “There are others with a better claim on me. I’m afraid ‘tis quite impossible.”
Desiree’s hand tightened upon the reins and the thin nag shied.
“Careful of that horse,” Stephen said. “He seems of unsteady disposition.”
The girl sat there looking at him, the deep green eyes widening endlessly. Then deliberately she tossed her reins away from her high upon the roan stallion’s neck and raised her crop above her head.
“Desiree!” Stephen cried.
But she brought the crop down in a vicious semicircle. The sound of it striking the stallion was very clear. The animal screamed—a high, thin sound—and lunged forward across the fields. Stephen bent low over Prince Michael’s neck and urged him forward; but the big palomino was now well along in years and no match for the pain-maddened roan. Desiree lashed the thin stallion without ceasing, driving him onward at ever increasing speed, the reins flapping loosely about his neck.
Before her now was the cane brake, behind which, Stephen knew, was the mill stream, dropping away a full fifteen feet below. Unless that horse was a jumper . . . Stephen brought his own crop down savagely across Prince Michael’s broad flanks.
Then the roan was soaring up and out over the brake, as effortlessly as a great bird. Stephen pulled Prince Mike up; never could that great heavy horse make such a jump. But even as the palomino reared, Stephen saw the stallion’s forelegs striking the opposite bank. For a brief second they held, then they doubled under him, and he rolled over and over, throwing Desiree clear. The stallion threshed about and screamed like a woman in agony; but the crumpled little figure in the green riding habit was quite still.
Stephen jumped to the ground and slid down into the water. It came up to his thighs. He strode across to where the horse was, the little derringer, which he carried with him always since Tom Warren’s attempt upon his life, ready in his hand. Scarcely seeming to take aim, he fired just once, and the threshing and the screaming stopped. Then he knelt down beside the girl, pillowing her head in his arms.
She smiled up at him, a thin trickle of scarlet escaping the corner of her mouth.
“For me,” she whispered. “You saved one for me? It has two barrels, hasn’t it?”
“Holy Mother of God!”
“Please, monsieur. Inside I’m—all broken. It hurts terribly. Am I not more to you than a horse?”
Stephen slipped his arms under the slight form of the girl; then he straightened, lifted her and started back toward Harrow. Desiree nestled her head up against his chest, and bit her lip to keep back the moans from every jolting step.
Then at last he was going up the great stairs into Harrow. The girl had long since lapsed into merciful unconsciousness. But Odalie had come out upon the gallery and Caleen stood behind her, the two of them watching him coming up the stairs like figures of stone.
When Stephen reached the top stair, Odalie was bending curiously over the still form in his arms.
“Who is she?” she demanded. “What ails her?”
Stephen did not answer. He walked very quietly past his wife, his face set and grim.
“Stephen! I asked you a question! Who is this girl?”
Stephen entered the great hall. Odalie keeping pace behind him. Suddenly she leaned close; then she straightened up.
“Stephen,” she whispered. “This is—this is—by the good God! You’d do a thing like this! You’d bring your quadroon wench here—into my house! Sacred Mother of God!”
“Hush,” Stephen said. “She’s dying.”
He laid her in a small chamber in the South Wing and summoned Caleen, who was attending her mistress’s hysterics, to do what she could. Caleen examined the girl briefly, with all the native hatred the pure black has for the mixed breed glaring from her eyes.
“She no die, her,” the old woman grunted. “Only got t’ree ribs busted, more’s the pity!”
“Then do something for her,” Stephen commanded.
Caleen looked at her master.
“I no touch her, me,” she declared flatly. “Maître have me whipped, all right; but I no touch that little yaller whore!”
Stephen measured her with his glance. Then abruptly he turned away.
“Get Suzette,” he said shortly. “Tell her to see that she wants for nothing.”
For three weeks Desiree lay upon the little bed, her body swathed in bandages. And in all that time, not one word passed between Stephen and Odalie. The young mistress of Harrow locked herself in her room, and refused to listen to any sort of explanation.
Even Etienne and Little Inch were caught in the upheaval. Everywhere they went they were greeted with tears, or brusque gruff-voiced dismissals, until at last they started at the sound of a step.
When Desiree was well enough to be moved, a small wagon, well oiled and loaded down with bedding, carried her away from Harrow. At the last Odalie came out of her rooms to watch the departure.
“My dear,” Stephen began . . .”
“No, no!” Odalie cried. “There is nothing to be said! Go to your Negress and leave me alone!”
Stephen’s brows flew together over his nose, and his eyes spoke icy fire.
“Thank ye,” he said evenly. “Perhaps I will—at that.”
XIX
DURING all the months of Odalie’s second pregnancy, scarcely a word passed between her and Stephen. She rarely slept and only a few crusts of bread and countless cups of café noir passed between her lips. This, of course, was no diet to be recommended for an expectant mother; and Stephen knew it. On several occasions he swallowed his pride and went t
o her with explanations and apologies upon the tip of his tongue, only to be rebuffed before he could utter them.
Finally he gave it up. Stephen was a proud man, perhaps even an arrogant one; and to make such gestures cost him dearly. So in pique and in confusion and trouble of mind, he turned once more to Desiree. Early in the summer, while she lay abed with her injuries, he visited her almost nightly, and attended to her wants with an almost womanly tenderness. But after she was again upon her feet, pale and weak but still full of her spritely fire, his visits lessened. And when he did come, he talked to her gravely, and kissed her with calm, paternal affection.
To Desiree, this was maddening.
“Am I a child,” she stormed. “Have I grown ugly? Why is it, monsieur? Why do you no longer love me?”
Stephen smiled slowly.
“I’ve grown old, Desiree,” he said. “And there is enough and too much of trouble already. They say in the bayou country that I am lucky: that whatever I touch flowers. Aye, so it is; but with what a poisonous blossom! I have a house—the greatest in the state—in which I am hated. I have a son, but he is strange and wild towards me. I have much wealth—but no happiness . . .”
“Monsieur also has one thing more.”
“And what is that?”
“Monsieur has me.”
“And ye have broken your lovely body because of me, and brought down my life around my ears!”
Desiree came around from behind the great chair and knelt like a child at his feet. The tears stood and sparkled upon the long curving lashes.
“Better that I should have died than to have hurt you,” she whispered. “You should have had me whipped—like a slave.”
Stephen laughed.
“Enough of this foolishness,” he declared. “Ye have all your life before ye still. Sing for me. I will not be saddened longer.”
Desiree scampered away and was back almost at once with the mandolin. Then striking the chords boldly, she began to sing the saucy crayfish song, in which an American Negro pokes fun at the Creole Negroes’ fondness for les cribresses.
Stephen leaned back in the great chair smiling at the tricky cadences of the gumbo French. Desiree’s fine hands flew over the chords.