by Parry, Owen
“Mr. Barnaby … if you please … we must set this matter of the girl aside. Do not be alarmed. I mean only for a time. There is another business to attend to.” I walked over to the medicine pot, took out the message and handed it to my comrade. As for the jar itself, I kept it in hand as I sat back down, for my mouth wanted painting again, with the hurt resurgent.
“Can you understand the meaning of the scribble?” I asked, fingering up a generous dollop of salve. “Who is Queen Manweler, can you tell me?”
“Oh, that’s more odds than evens,” he said vaguely, studying the paper with a confounded look. Next, he examined me anew, as I rubbed my finger over the meat in my mouth. I was not certain what to make of his countenance.
His features shifted unexpectedly, like mercury at play. Twas clear he was thinking hard before returning to speech, but that may be a virtue as well as a vice. It was the complexity of his expressions, their contradiction from one moment to the next, that concerned me. Mr. Barnaby’s face had ever been a thing of India rubber, able to convey character or foolery. Now it told me less of him than at any time I recalled from our term of acquaintance. Instead of revealing the man himself, his face reflected the world beyond the window, all the secrets and loyalties of his city.
At last, he spoke. “White men doesn’t know a thing about ’er. Not even ’er name, which”—he dropped his voice to a hush—“is Queen Manuela. Lord bless us.” He crossed himself instantly, in the fashion of Rome, then scrutinized me with redoubled concern. “And you shouldn’t speak ’er name out so plain, sir, begging your pardon. You ain’t to know that such a body exists.”
“But you know! And you are as white as I am myself, man. It does not follow that she is so great a secret.”
He turned his head from side to side. Torpidly, as if degraded by opium. “You ’as to understand … that some things is always tucked away by the negroes, sir. And among them what’s lumped in with ’em. It’s ’ow they survives, ’ow they lives and gets on. There’s doings what’s only for show, and things what ain’t. With the voodoo now … there’s part of it what’s only meant to draw in money from foolish folk, black or white. Most of the shows are no more than street-corner prancing moved out to the bayous. The truth is, begging your pardon, sir, that the voodoo priestesses, the most of ’em, is just as greedy as your Christian parson, expecting to be paid for praising one god or another and for squeezing you into their prayers. Most of ’em just knows a pair of mumbles, if that. They deals in poisons and potions made up of roots, in charms and such like. It ain’t really supernatural at all.”
He paused and eyed me as closely as a tailor judging not only a man’s size, but the quality of fabric that must be offered. “But then there’s them what believes, sir. What really believes. As sure as the Oxford Martyrs. They goes about it more quiet like, that sort, and they doesn’t ever let a white man see.”
“Then how do you know all this? Good Lord, I might as well be back in India.”
“All’s one, sir, all’s one. My little Marie, now … you might say she was something of a chameleon, Major Jones. Whoever looked at ’er saw what color they expected to see. You, begging your pardon, would’ve judged ’er as white as Queen Victoria.”
“You imply that your—”
“I never asked, sir. Never a single time. When a fellow’s in love, ’e only makes a fool of ’imself and wounds them what ’e adores by asking questions. ‘Let the past be,’ that’s my motto. My grandfather what served with Pakenham passed down that advice. And my father took it to ’eart and left it to me.” He looked at me imploringly. “I know you doesn’t approve of things slipping out of their regular traces, sir. But ’appiness is a rare thing in this world. I’ve never thought there was any sense in questioning it too close when it come knocking. I didn’t care what my Marie was in ’er blood or in ’er background. It was enough and more that she made me ’appy.”
“But your children …”
“Oh, they was lovely, sir! Lovely as Devon in May. I mourns ’em daily.”
“Your wife … knew of these unholy rituals? Of this Queen Manuela?”
Mr. Barnaby looked about the room, as if their might be devils in the woodwork. “Don’t say ’er name, I begs you, sir. It ain’t to be said out loud. Nor even thought too plainly by the likes of us.” He watched my lips as if they might transgress again. “But my Marie, sir … Marie was a proper Christian. She spent more time on her knees in St. Louis’s than a maid spends polishing silver. It’s only that she didn’t see the point of betting all on a single number, sir. She always figured the odds, did my Marie. She wore ’er cross about ’er neck, but made time for Yermanja. Just in case us Christians ’ad it wrong. She didn’t stint on praying to one or the other, Major Jones, but made plenty of time for both, and none’s the worse for it.”
There was no use in arguing theology with the man. Such lessons could come later. At present, I needed information. May the Lord understand and forgive me.
“And who is Yermanja? Another African snake god?”
“Oh, no, sir! Nothing of the like! African, I supposes, since it was only slaves and free negroes what took ’er up. Yermanja’s sort of like the Virgin Mary, sir. She’s the powerful goddess of the seas, begging your pardon, and she don’t mind strolling ashore, when she takes an interest. She’s for the sorts what takes up Candomblé. My Marie, now … she wasn’t interested in casting spells on rivals and such business. She only prayed for ’appiness. And for me, sir. To keep me round and jolly.”
His expression, then his head, then his shoulders sank. “Terrible it was. Too terrible for words, sir. When the Yellow Jack took ’er and the little ones, neither Yermanja nor Jesus Christ was any ’elp at all. I suppose as Marie and the little ’uns wasn’t important enough to be saved, sir. But they meant all the world to me.” A tear blurred his eyes, but he met my gaze straight on. “I doesn’t care what a man or a woman believes, sir, only whether their ’earts is good or bad.”
“Do I understand you to mean that this Queen—this voodoo priestess of whom we have been speaking—worships a sea goddess?”
“That’s what they says, sir. That’s what they tells me. And not only ’er, but other spirits besides. But you’d ’ave to ask another to learn more, sir, for there’s a limit to what I knows and we’ve already passed it by. But the lady whose name we ain’t to speak … she’s said to be a force for good, and strict in ’er observances. Not like Marie Laveau or that Marie Venin, the one what tried to poison you. They’re more concerned with gold than with goodness of any sort. I won’t say they ’ave no real powers, but what powers they ’ave come from the gullible themselves, that’s what Barnaby B. Barnaby believes. From fear, sir. And from their knowledge of plants and such, and all the secrets they gather in from their followers. They’re only frightful ’cause we makes ’em so. But … the lady of which we ain’t to speak the name, sir … she’s said to be so mighty that the other voudouiennes steers clear of ’er and won’t say ’er name in a whisper.”
“Do you believe she might ‘know everything’ about the murder of Susan Peabody? Or the other killings?”
“I can’t say that, sir. Not one way or the other. For I doesn’t know, to be honest.”
“Where might I find Queen—I mean, this woman?”
“I couldn’t say that neither, sir. Nor whether she’s like to speak to you at all.”
I looked at him more closely. A tone had crept into his voice that carried less forthrightness than I liked.
“There must be some way … some manner in which I might contact her?” Then I added, a bit cruelly, “Just as you hope that I will find a way to free young Raines.”
Mr. Barnaby thought on that. And I let him think. For there are times when much is to be said for not saying much. Although it is a hard practice for a Welshman.
He pondered so long that the winter sunlight crept from one plank to another.
At last, he said, in a hushed voice, “Per’aps Madame
La Blanch can ’elp us. Per’aps you might go visit ’er, sir.”
“And who is Madame La Blanch?”
Mr. Barnaby chose his words with care. “She’s a clairvoyant, sir. One of them sorts. What does up medicines, as well. We can call and see if she’s in, for ’er rooms ain’t far away. Just along Bienville, between Bourbon and Dauphine.”
Now, I have little patience with clairvoyance, which I regard as no more than a parlor trick. I will admit to experiences of mine own which defy clear explanation, but on that count I agree with Mick Tyrone, who insists that the march of knowledge will soon conquer every aspect of our bewilderment. But New Orleans is hardly a place subject to science. The city celebrates each quirk and queerness, and you cannot move forward in the place if you demand to deal only with the rational inhabitants. They are a small minority, at best, like the Jains of India.
Anyway, I did not need Madame La Blanch to peer into my future, but only to help me locate Queen Manuela—who, for all her mystery, seemed a creature of flesh who lived among us.
“The address is in the Quarter, I believe?”
Mr. Barnaby nodded. “Everything what matters hides in the Vieux Carré.”
MADAME LA BLANCH looked up from her soiled cards.
“Forgive my deshabille, Major Jones,” she said. “I expected you this morning and had given you up entirely when you failed to appear with that promptitude for which you have become so famous among us. Indeed, sir, I had begun to fear the failing of my powers …”
“Afternoon, mum,” I said, near choking on the scent that clouded the room. I might have been in the den of a Hindoo fakir. The untidiness made me careful of where I dropped my hat.
I was not much surprised at her knowledge of my identity. Anyone who poses as a clairvoyant must have abundant sources of information. Likely, some darky from Mr. Champlain’s establishment had warned her that I might come searching for Queen Manuela.
“And Mr. Barnaby! Our Galahad!” She smiled gaily. “Or should I say, ’Our Gawain?’ How dreadfully long has it been, sir?”
“Pleasure to see you again, Madame La Blanch,” my companion told her. “You ain’t aged a day, I swears, and you looks as smacking ’andsome as you ever did.”
The woman, got up in fraying frills, returned her attention to me. “Mr. B. is ever the gentleman. I always say that there is no man from here to Natchez knows how to honor a woman the way an English gentleman does! But really, Mr. B., I see right here in the seven of hearts that you have a most pressing errand! Don’t you worry a bit, now. Your friend is in good hands.”
Saying that, she took my right hand in hers so deftly that my cane clattered off the table’s edge, coming to rest where the furniture met the wall. The woman drew me artfully into a seat cat-corner from hers.
“Lovely, lovely,” Mr. Barnaby added as he took himself back through the door and into the street.
Now, “lovely” seemed to me an exaggeration. The woman before me did not look unmarred by the years, nor born to provide a special delight to the eyes. Yet, there was something about her that pleased, I grant her. You could not have told her age exactly, but the odder thing by half was that she made me recall what Mr. Barnaby had said of his own wife, that those admiring her saw what they themselves expected to see.
Like her age, her race was indeterminate.
I thought her likely a white woman, tawnied by some Spanish blood or simply French-complected. But I remained uncertain. She might have been one of those quadroons of whom so much is rumored, or even a proper negress painted pale by the quirk of an ancestor’s affections. Her hair was black, but smooth in its plaits and cylinder curls, not made of negro felt. I thought her hair must be dyed to assert such an indigo, but could not judge with confidence. Her eyes were green, but edged with brown, and might have belonged to any race on earth.
Nor were her features written in clear ancestry. Rounded and turned up, her nose might have come of a negress dam, or from an Irish sire. Her forehead was nigh akin to Mr. Shakespeare’s in that old plate a fellow sees, and such brows are not African, I do not think. Yet, her lips were full to an excess. They might have belonged to a princess of the Niger, or to a Welsh lass from the streets of Brecon. She looked pleasant, but not guileless.
Some peculiar force in her femininity did not allow me to draw my hand from her grasp.
“Madam La Blanch, I—”
She raised a finger to her lips, then laid a second hand upon my one, turning it over to expose my palm.
Tracing the highways and lanes of flesh with a fingernail, she smiled, parting rich lips. “You will live a long and happy life, although you will not realize how happy you have been until it is too late. You find discontents where others discover joy. You wish to have faith, but your faith is weaker than you pretend. What you call love of God is fear of the devil. And your devil wears human flesh. Like your own. You were born to doubt, which fits you to your work. But your heart is true and good, better than your temper. With the years, all these things will become easier for you, the fears will soften. You will learn joy, despite yourself. But you have no gift for stillness. Peace will elude you each time you think you have gained it. Few women love you, but those love without stinting. They would die for you. One has.”
She looked at me. Smiling.
“She watches over you still,” the woman continued.
I stood up. Abruptly. Tearing my hand free.
“This is nonsense,” I said. A bit too loudly.
Her smile indulged me. “But of course it is! Mere webs of gossamer. You and I realize that, Major Jones. But I rely upon your honor as a gentleman not to give out my secret.”
“I—”
“Sit down, sir. Please. You need not grant me your hand again. I fear I was forward. We’re not so proper about such things as you Northern folk. Although we do love our social frills and fripperies. Our ceremonials, as they say. But you came to inquire about a certain person’s whereabouts, not to indulge my silliness.”
I sat down. Although my heartbeat had quickened to a throb and I wished to flee.
“What a strong man you are!” she said. “Every report I have had is true, sir! You must be an absolute pillar to your dear wife. And your son and daughter must positively adore you!” She read my face and asked, “But have I erred? You do have a little boy and an infant girl, do you not?”
The queer thing was that I could not say. My darling’s letters, so long underway, had contained news of the past. I could not speak for the present.
These people learn infernal tricks, see. Like gypsies. Or gamblers who make their living from cards and dice. They know a hundred ways to read a man, to cheat him and beguile him.
“But I must restrain myself,” the woman said. “I promised that we should play no more of my silly, little games. After all, Major Jones, you’re a gentleman of importance, with pressing business. Not some poor little merchant’s wife in search of titillation.”
“I’m given to understand that you might help me contact Queen Manuela,” I told her.
Her eyes scorched me. Fair flaming they were. But only for an instant.
“We do not speak that name,” she said, quietly but sternly.
“But—”
“You must not speak that name.”
She allowed our eyes to meet again. Or should I say that her eyes forced mine to show themselves? She had her proper tricks, did Madame La Blanch.
“I am only trying to help,” I said. My tone was almost child-like. “The murders …”
“Are you brave enough?” she asked. Her voice had dropped in pitch, as if her new and unexpected gravity had weighed it down.
Twas not a ladylike question to put to a man.
“Brave enough for what, mum?”
“To help.” There was no change in the light of the room, but her eyes gathered a shadow around themselves. All I could see were the burning spots in their centers. “To do what must be done. To fight the friend who is a foe and recognize
the foe who is a friend. To face the coming fire.”
That seemed a mumbo-jumbo. I told her, “It is my duty to do the things that need doing in these matters. As for bravery, mum, others must judge.”
“Are you brave enough to meet her? At the time when she calls you, at the place to which she beckons?”
“If you mean Queen—”
She slapped her hand over my lips with so much force it stung me. And my jaw was none too happy to begin with. The lingering ache reminded me of the swelling of my face, the tightened skin, the discoloration that had greeted me in the mirror.
“Never speak that name again. It’s very powerful. Too powerful for you. Even your best spirits could not protect you.”
Of a sudden, my patience quit me. I am a Christian man and had already had too much to do with deviltry and shenanigans. New Orleans was a city of the damned. Or at least of those who did not dread damnation.
“You will excuse me, mum,” I told her. “Excuse the interruption. I have been mistaken in calling.”
I rose, took up my cane and put on my hat. But as I laid my hand on the doorknob, the woman said, “You’ll let Magdalena die? You care nothing about the Fishers of Men? Or who killed your Miss Peabody? You’re as false as the other men who wear blue uniforms?”
“I COULD PLACE you under arrest,” I warned her. And I gave that action more than a passing thought.
Although I am a man of no great intelligence, I am not a fool on the order of Captain Bolt. I had seen with the suddenness of a shot how this woman had come to know so much about me. Doubtless, she had gained access to my letters before they reached my own hands. Those pages contained more than enough detail for her to spin a web of secret knowledge. I intended to give that hotel clerk a talking to.
“If you don’t tell me what you know,” I continued, “I can put you under lock and key. Until you think better of your behavior, mum.”