Casimir bowed.
“Yes, Madame.”
“Has the Baron de Ginestas arrived yet?”
“No, Madame.”
“When he does, I want a few moments with him alone in my study. Make sure you are watching at your usual place of concealment, in case he should become troublesome. I have some rather delicate matters I wish to discuss with him.”
“Of course, Madame.”
“And also make sure Monsieur Petitfleur has nothing more fortified than wine. No strong spirits at all for him, do you understand? I’ll not have him repeat here, the scene he made at Madame Valadoir’s. What’s more, he is to be kept well away from my person and my maids.”
“As you wish, Madame.”
“How do I look?”
She gave him that look which said she wanted the truth. Casimir knew all the comtesse’s looks, the ones that were genuine and the ones that were just pretend. He even knew the one she made when making love, because he had been in her service since she had purchased him as a young boy, and like any servant worth his salt he knew how to put his eye or his ear to a keyhole when necessary. But he didn’t spy on her. Nor she on him. She trusted him implicitly and he had always reciprocated that trust by the faithfulness and the quality of his service. Casimir liked the comtesse and he did his best for her. Always. She was a good person, had never treated him ill, whipped, abused, or beaten him. Because she had earned his affection as well as his respect, the lash of her disappointment was always punishment enough when he needed correction. They both understood this. If only she would set him free. Then he might even revere her.
“Radiant but tired, Madame, and a bit irritated, if I may say so. If you would but smile more and also heed my advice and sleep in the north bedroom where the air is more favorable…”
“Enough of your scolding, dear Casimir. You know I prefer my rooms to the south because the sunlight always delights me in the morning. Now go and see to your duties,” she commanded.
Casimir bowed as he left her. The comtesse relaxed the muscles of her face and manufactured a smile worthy of Venus as she returned to the company of her guests. Everyone who mattered in the society of the Cap was present at her salon, with the notable exception of the Baron and Baronne de Salvagnac. It was the sole blemish among the day’s carefully orchestrated arrangements, and one she marked with interest. The baronne was her closest friend, but recently they had become somewhat estranged. She wondered if the snub was intentional, or if there was another reason which might have prevented the Salvagnacs from attending.
There had been rumors as of late—interesting rumors. Some said the Salvagnacs were about to conclude a very favorable alliance for their eldest daughter Julienne, but the comtesse didn’t put much stock in such talk. Despite their current difficulties, the comtesse found it hard to believe that Agnès would not have informed her first of something important, given the special nature of their friendship. Perhaps Agnès is still angry with me, though she assures me all between us is well. The comtesse was still preoccupied with thoughts of the baronne and her lovely balcony, even as she began mingling in earnest among her guests.
And why had they quarreled? At the root of it was the baronne’s ambition which had come up against the comtesse’s inability to suffer fools. Intentionally or not, her dear friend Agnès had become a lightning rod among elite French society. The baronne’s salon had developed into a formidable bastion of the most conservative voices in the Colonies, those who were fervent supporters of the restrictions on blacks delineated in the Code Noir. They called themselves the Chapeaux Blancs, the White Hats, and among the many issues which concerned them, the rise of a large, free and prosperous class of mixed-race descent, gave them the most alarm. As restrictive as the Code Noir was, the White Hats felt it didn’t go far enough. As a class, they were largely landed gentry, and depended upon slavery and its abuses to provide the vast, cheap labor required to work their plantations.
The White Hats argued in private and lobbied in public for more restrictions against blacks, both free an enslaved, and additional limits to the wealth, property and rights the sizeable mixed-race population was currently allowed under the Code. Not all of their concerns were purely racist in nature, though racism was the greater part of their arguments. Many of the mixed-raced population were planters as well. They were competition. If they couldn’t be bested in the market, it was far easier to beat them in the halls of politics, where those of color had no voice or representation whatsoever. There were also serious issues of marriage, inheritance and property which had to be dealt with. Issues the Code sometimes ignored or muddied.
Of course, it had been easier to discern the boundaries of the color line when whites had first landed on the islands and begun importing vast quantities of African slaves. Then, there was only White, Black and Indian, the latter designation covering the indigenous people and anything else. Over time, as white and black were stirred together, sometimes willingly, more often by the forcible rape of African women, the edges of the color line had become very difficult to divine. There were many shades of pigment now between the poles of black and white, and difficult questions to answer—social questions and legal ones.
Human blood was universally red, but skin pigmentation varied, so where did white or black end or begin, from both a legal and a cultural point of view? Who was allowed to marry whom, to inherit, to pass on property, to have the full protection of the law? The White Hats had an answer to these questions, conceived in the surety of their prejudice, supported by pseudo-science and even great thinkers like Voltaire.
The reactionaries knew that one drop of African blood was enough to corrupt an entire body, and they sought to define “black” in the most advantageous terms for themselves. The baronne supported this clique, partly out of self-interest, as the Salvagnacs owned a sizeable plantation near the Cap, and partly out of snobbery, because it is a shared human trait to desire to pull up the ladder of advancement as soon as one’s own perch on the higher rungs is secure.
The Comtesse de Talonge had supported the baronne’s opinions, even though she found them unfounded, and at times contrary to common sense. The Venus of the Indies, as the comtesse was known to her many admirers, had several friends of mixed race descent and even a few acquaintances among free blacks. She had no qualms about being in the society of either, and found through long association, that there was very little to distinguish the wealthy Mulâtre families from upper class white society.
She also found blacks much more capable and intelligent than they were generally given credit for. Her own servant Casimir was a perfect example. She had purchased him as a boy and had been told he was exceedingly dimwitted, even for a black. She had gotten him for a bargain price, in lieu of him being put to death, which would have been his fate, because it was cheaper for the slavers to kill him than to pay for his upkeep if he couldn’t be sold.
Casimir, as she had named him, had begun with her as a blank slate, but he had proven to be clever and resourceful and had even taught himself letters and how to read. What more could he have done with a real education, or a childhood absent the trauma of being captured, transported across an ocean and enslaved?
The comtesse believed the thing the extremists were most afraid of was the revelation of what Casimir and so many others like him represented. The real truth that skin color, class, and the host of other artificial distinctions man constructed to excuse his lust for power and dominion over his fellows, were all artificial constraints.
Success had less to do with a predisposition to greatness, than the opportunity one was given to achieve it. Of course to say this openly was a revolutionary thing, and not just in the minds of the White Hats. And so the Comtesse de Talonge kept these extraordinary thoughts to herself, retained Casimir as a slave, because she could not bear the thought that he might leave her service if granted freedom, and socialized with whomever she pleased.
Though the comtesse and the baronne might disa
gree on fundamental principles, the matter of race was not the matter which most divided them at the moment. Marriage was the issue which set them apart—more specifically, the baronne’s many and hitherto unsuccessful attempts to form advantageous alliances for her daughters, with families very much above them on the ladder of rank and esteem. Such fervent social grasping had made the Salvagnacs a source of impassioned discussion and dispute in the island’s elite circles. Though bartering daughters with large dowries for title and position was a longstanding feudal practice, there were many who felt the baronne’s ambitions were as excessive and unseemly as her husband’s vast fortune. Others simply enjoyed the spectacles of the baronne’s past failures and hoped for more such amusements.
Whatever the varying viewpoints, on St. Domingue there was no summons more coveted than one received from the Comtesse de Talonge. The Salvagnacs had not come, despite having accepted. This meant that the breach with the baronne had either become wider than the comtesse had anticipated, or something else had occurred to put her guests off—something which the comtesse had not as yet received word of. Both outcomes were reasons for concern, but the latter vexed the comtesse most greatly.
Madame de Talonge’s currency was information, both the collection and the dissemination of it. She prided herself on being in the know. News, gossip, innuendo, these were the sweets and morsel she hungered after, feasted on, savored—often going to great lengths and sometimes greater expense to acquire them. Like any good spinner of webs, she could feel when something escaped her netting, and she sensed it now.
The comtesse passed by the sitting portrait of her husband which was mounted to the right of the hearth in the main salon. It was a very good likeness of the Comte de Talonge in oil, and was the only view she’d had of the old man since she had stood by his side at the altar more than fifteen years ago. They had both married for convenience. He, because he wished to silence the rumors concerning his sexual preferences; she, because she wished to have the freedom of the marriage bed without ever having to submit to it. It had worked out well for both of them.
The comte remained in France, with his male lovers and his pigeons, whom he cared for and coddled as substitutes for the children the comtesse had never consented to bear him. For Charlotte, her husband’s absence made him the ideal partner. The only thing he lacked was a fortune large enough to support her voracious spending habits, which had grown in step with her maturation into real society.
What wealth the Comte de Talonge did have, which included the comtesse’s allowance, he kept with the bank founded by the Baron de Salvagnac. At times the comtesse paid a visit in person to the baron’s estate when she required an advance on her allowance, or a particularly large withdrawal. That is how Madame de Talonge and Madame de Salvagnac had come to know each other.
Though he doted on his wife, the baron much neglected her physical needs in pursuance of his mercantile and financial endeavors. This neglect, rare in the early years of marriage, then sporadic after the birth of Julienne, had become regular following a series of miscarriages, and once Éléonore was born, it had become habitual. Two daughters born twelve years apart, were thus, the sole fortunate fruit of the rare carnal visitations the baron had paid his wife over the long span of their marriage.
Once Éléonore was born, the baronne had begun sleeping apart from her husband. She had not intended the separation to last, but from a temporary convenience it soon became the normal routine. There were many excuses why this was so. Éléonore was sickly and often ill, and Agnès preferred to keep her close till her daughter was well into the toddling years. The baron kept late hours and was frequently away on matters of business. Yet they remained faithful to each other in word and deed. Neither took a lover, which would have been the routine thing to do. Instead they drifted further apart as lovers, but closer together as partners in marriage.
Still, the baronne and the comtesse would never have met were it not for a squabble about a family fortune, or more precisely, about the rumor of one. The crux of the matter was this. Agnès de Saint-Giresse had been raised on the fringes of neglect by her father’s spendthrift ways. But her mother was said to have had a very large and independent fortune of her own, which she was rumored to have successfully held apart from the debacle of her husband’s profligacy. She died soon after her husband and left her fortune in its entirety to her son, Agnès’ brother Jerome, who had become Vicomte de La Bouhaire upon his father’s death. Two years later, Jerome and his wife both died of smallpox not long after the birth of their first and only child, leaving the single baby girl as sole issue and heir to the entire La Bouhaire legacy.
Though rumors of the great size of the La Bouhaire inheritance abounded, more than fifteen years had passed since the birth of the little girl and nothing of the purported fortune had ever been made manifest. The young heiress and niece to the baron had come to live with the Salvagnacs after the death of her parents, confirming for most, the prevailing view that only the gossip of her grandmother’s fortune had been real. The steepest portion of the baron’s spectacular rise to prominence as a financier had occurred just after his niece’s entry into the Salvagnac household, which was enough to sustain speculation on the matter, but whether the baron’s meteoric rise was just coincidence or perhaps something more, was in the end, entirely a matter of conjecture for those outside the family, and a well-kept secret within it.
As the size of her husband’s fortune grew, Madame de Salvagnac developed tastes and lavish spending habits commensurate with her family’s ever-increasing prosperity and ambition. Madame de Talonge had been asked to investigate the rumors swirling around the baron as a discreet favor to a friend at court who was searching for an heiress of suitable pedigree for his second son. The comtesse’s inquiries had led to an introduction to the baronne. They discovered much in common between them and moved quickly from acquaintances to friends. The more the comtesse uncovered and learned of Madame de Salvagnac, the more the baronne intrigued her.
In a moment of unguarded reflection, the baronne had revealed to the comtesse that she and her husband rarely exchanged intimacies of the flesh. But Agnès professed that this did not disturb her as much as the loss of her husband’s special friendship. Yes, making love was fine, but what she really liked was the before and after, when he made her feel special and wanted, before the act itself. Charlotte had been intrigued by this revelation, and by the steadfastness of Agnès character. She revealed to Agnès a secret that she had never told anyone, that part of the reason for her many splendid soirees and parties, was that with an ancient husband and no particular favorite of her own, she often felt lonely and miserable. Agnès thought it absurd that someone as beautiful as the comtesse should lack for attention, and told her so. A treasured and sincere bond of attachment blossomed between them. In the fullness of time, it flowered naturally into something more.
“There you are, Madame de Talonge. We’ve been admiring the splendid décor of your sitting room while we waited to greet you. May I have the honor of presenting to you my eldest daughter, Virginie?”
The comtesse smiled tightly, hiding her distaste behind a mask of tranquil contentment. She had been brought to a halt on her rounds by Madame Dupluie, one of the few hardy weeds whose errant pod had strayed into her exclusive social garden where it had grown and flourished like parasitic ivy, despite all attempts to uproot it.
Madame Dupluie had a tongue as sharp as a lash and an aptitude for spreading scandal. As a consequence, she had become a fixture in the salons of the well-to-do who feared to offend her and be tarred by her brackish bile. She was trimmed back on occasion but considered too troublesome to wholly remove. And because she was dreadfully poor, the party circuit was a way to avoid spending on meals of her own. She therefore plagued the gatherings of both high and low. The only means of getting rid of her, was to talk up another’s salon and the great feast being served, and hope she was hungry and opted to venture there instead.
Madame Du
pluie trafficked in information, which is why the comtesse abided her. She brought news, often accurate and useful in nature, and in exchange, the comtesse allowed her to be a part of her gatherings, despite her very many shortcomings. She wore a large white sun hat, dreadfully out of fashion, but the comtesse supposed, a message to those in the know, that she was a part of the Chapeaux Blancs. Madame Dupluie was dressed in the one gown she owned which was suitable for the gatherings of the island’s elite, a dark colored robe à la polonaise with very garish floral embroidery whose shades had begun to fade from overuse. The comtesse thought the gown and the hat fitting for the personality and circumstances of its square-faced and too proud owner.
“How do you do, my dear?” Madame de Talonge said with sweetness, caressing the cheek of the plump but kindly young girl, whose face was pockmarked with so many pimples, even the copious amounts of white powder and rouge layered atop her skin like paint, began to peel and flake over so uneven a texture.
It was plain to Madame de Talonge, the dress Virginie wore, a red robe à la française, had been acquired second hand, as the fit was not quite right and there were blemishes upon the embroidered fabric where attempts had been made to patch it. But to her credit, Virginie wore it without shame. Madame de Talonge admired her forthright and honest spirit, which shone in vivid contrast to her mother’s.
“Very well, thank you, Madame,” Virginie replied with an awkward curtsey.
Madame Dupluie moved closer to her hostess, lowering her voice in confidence.
“Have you heard the latest rumors concerning Madame de Salvagnac? I understand the fortunes of that lady’s family have improved a great deal of late, through the most unexpected, and dare I say shocking, of alliances.”
“Oh?” Madame de Talonge said, as she turned to acknowledge the greeting of the Vicomte de Tollaincourt, a wealthy plantation owner, noted raconteur, and ardent admirer of hers of long standing.
Amour: Historical Romance (Passion and Glory Book 1) Page 7