A Masque of Chameleons

by Joan Van Every Frost

  “Perhaps I can clarify matters,” Hugh broke in suavely in French. “Madame DuPlessis was one of Daphne’s and my dearest friends. If you had ever attended her at the theater, monsieur, we should have met long since.”

  “She was never with your company,” Jean-Paul DuPlessis protested, the tic even more pronounced. Roberta couldn’t understand why he was so upset about her being with Hugh’s company. After all, he had abandoned her.

  “No, but not because I didn’t want her. She always said it would make too many difficulties for me to direct an old friend. We saw each other when we could, and she and Daphne carried on a lively correspondence. When she became so ill, she told Roberta to contact me.”

  “If you were such an old friend, why did she never tell me about you?” DuPlessis was on the edge of being downright offensive.

  Hugh drew himself up, a look of distaste on his face. “In the first place, monsieur, she may have loved you, God help her, but she was ashamed of you too. In the second place, she said that you were very jealous of her friends, and she preferred to avoid scenes such as this. There were many of her friends you never met.”

  “I don’t believe it!” His tone had turned ugly. “You were one of her lovers, weren’t you?”

  “Jean-Paul!” Jason’s voice whipped across the room. When the Frenchman swung around toward this new tormentor, Jason went on in a deceptively soft voice. “You are only proving his point, you know. I think it would be in order for you to apologize and thank the man for taking care of your daughter after you walked out on her.”

  “You!” Roberta rounded accusingly on Jason. “You must have known my father was here with Alarcón. Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me go on thinking I would never see him again? You knew I would run into him here.”

  Jason looked exasperated. “How was I to know he was your father? He came to us as an unofficial emissary from the United States Government, from President Tyler himself, to work out the terms of the annexation of California and New Mexico, as soon as the general came into power.”

  Roberta burst out then with a bitter, nervous laugh. “I don’t know if he gulled your general or gulled Tyler — he surely led either or both down the garden path.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Jason went on, sounding quite angry now and determined to answer her accusation, “you only said he was dashing, not that he was such a small man. I naturally visualized your father as being large, why wouldn’t I? Besides, as an emissary from the United States, he hardly fitted your description of a small-time confidence man and card sharp.”

  DuPlessis turned a reproachful look in Roberta’s direction. “I have come up in the world since you last saw me, Roberta,” he admonished her. “At last my real talent for diplomacy has been recognized and I am very much in the confidence of the general. Not only that, but far from walking out on you, I was so crazed with grief for your mother that I lost my memory temporarily. When I regained my senses, I tried to find you, but you had disappeared.” His voice grew more confident. “I raised heaven and earth to discover where you could have gone.”

  “Did you, Papa?” Roberta asked quietly. “That’s strange, because I told everyone in the company Mama was playing with where I was going, and all the neighbors besides. I am sure one of them would have told you. You didn’t find out because you didn’t want to find out, isn’t that right, Papa?”

  “All right, all right, so I didn’t look,” he admitted in exasperation, anger getting the better of him. “Why should I have? You aren’t my daughter nor ever were.”

  The entire group, who had been following the exchange with a kind of horrified fascination, gave an audible communal gasp. Roberta could only stand there staring at him.

  “As long as you’ve gone this far, you’d best elaborate,” Jason snapped. Alarcón, whose knowledge of English seemed to be surprisingly shaky, was looking bewildered.

  “She is the natural child of my half brother, Robert,” DuPlessis continued. “That is how she came by that ungainly name. Look at me, you don’t really think I’d ever have sired a great gawky creature like that, do you?”

  “Come to think of it,” Jason drawled, suddenly sounding very Texan, “I'd agree that a little pissant like you could never have fathered a handsome strapping girl like that.”

  “No need to be insulting,” DuPlessis snapped. “I didn't ask to raise my brother's woods colt, it was Eugenie who insisted on it. She even took in the little Mexican whore he got in trouble.”

  Jason drew a long breath. “You may as well start from the beginning and tell us the whole story.”

  “There isn't much to tell. My half brother, Robert, was large and red-haired, nearly as large as that one,” indicating Will. “You can see the girl got his size, and she got those cold eyes as well. The little Mexican girl was the daughter of some greaser general, begging your pardon, sir,” he said hastily to Alarcón, “some Mexican general who had been exiled to command of the army garrison in the Texas territory.”

  “What was your half brother doing in Texas?” Jason asked.

  “He wanted land, though God knows why. General Cdrdobes gave him a big slice of it. Mexico was anxious to have the territory settled in those days, and they didn’t care who did it. Robert always thought he’d make a fortune in cattle.”

  “And then?”

  “Well, he and the girl were living together on Robert's ranch when her father, the general, suddenly died of apoplexy. As if that wasn't enough, the Comanches came in and killed Robert, burned the buildings, and drove off the cattle. She was pregnant at the time, but Robert managed to hide her before the Indians caught him. She wrote us, saying that Robert had told her to and that she had no one else to turn to. She always claimed to have been married to him, but she couldn't ever show us any papers. She said they'd been burned in the house. A likely story.”

  “It could have been true, though, couldn't it?” Jason suggested, “Why was Roberta brought up as your daughter?”

  “Eugenie couldn’t have children, and she wanted a child. She told the Mexican girl that we would take care of her and bring up the child as our own, otherwise she could go back to Texas. I don’t think even Eugenie would have proposed it if she’d thought the child would be a girl. Eugenie was disappointed all right, but she kept her word, and Margarita was with us until she and Eugenie both died of the cholera. You’ve no idea what a nuisance a small child can be, the kind of life we lived.”

  “Oh, I can imagine all right,” Jason said. “I wonder you didn’t tell the child what you’ve just told us and send them packing long before.”

  “I would have.” DuPlessis was defiant. “Only Eugenie told me she’d leave me if I did.”

  “And from time to time you needed the money Eugenie earned, didn’t you?” Jason sounded almost amused.

  “You are passing the limits of decency, sir!” DuPlessis blustered.

  “Oh? Please accept my apologies then. In this conversation it has been rather difficult to know just what the limits of decency are.”

  “You don’t have to stand up for me anymore, Jason,” Roberta said. “Uncle Jean-Paul has given me the best news I’ve had in years. It must have taken a great deal of courage for my mother not to tell me whose child I really was. I’m only sorry I never knew my real father.”

  “Good girl,” Jason murmured approvingly, and smiled at her. At that moment it was as if there were only the two of them in the room.

  She knew then that she wouldn’t have to go looking for fathers anymore. Hers was dead, but he would have loved her had he lived, she was sure of it. For a woman with all of the warmth and moral stature of Margarita to have loved him, he must have been a good man. All at once she saw Jason in an entirely new light, one that made her feel as if she were burning and freezing at the same time, one that completely terrified her. He was no longer a father figure in masquerade, but finally, as in reality she had always seen him, a lover — her lover.

  Whatever happened, she mustn’t
ever let him know how she felt. She could see him lift one eyebrow in that supercilious way he had and laugh unbelievingly. Even if he didn’t, she must never become intimate enough with him to experience one of those humiliating, ugly sexual debacles that left the man flayed and herself shamed and sorry.

  In the end, she made herself smile back at him.

  Jason’s face closed, and he turned away to talk with Alarcón and Emil in a low voice. The others all milled about, studiously avoiding so much as a glance at DuPlessis, who quietly walked from the room. They might have continued in this awkward situation for quite some time, but Silvia suddenly gave a little cry, and though she did her best to hold him up, she couldn’t keep Gavin from measuring his length on the floor. Jason was there and kneeling beside him while the rest of them still stood openmouthed. He put his hand on the fallen man’s forehead and felt his pulse.

  “He’s burning up with fever,” Jason said.

  “Mother of God, he’s going to die!” Silvia cried, throwing herself prone beside the unconscious Gavin.

  “What does he have?” Hugh asked Jason.

  Jason shrugged. “Impossible to tell. There are fifty illnesses at least that begin with high fevers. He could have anything from pneumonia to one of the spotted fevers. Only time will tell, and perhaps not even that.”

  “Do you think I should send to Guadalajara for my physician?” Alarcón asked anxiously. “For that matter, we could take him to the hospital there.”

  “Depending on what he has, the trip could kill him. However, if you can get your doctor to come out here, I should be very grateful. He would know more about local fevers than I would.” He looked troubled. “The problem is that for any of them, there isn’t much one can do.”

  It was a sober group that gathered for supper that night, chastened not only by Gavin’s collapse but by the revelations concerning Roberta. There wasn’t one of them who didn’t sympathize and wonder how he or she would have reacted to find that a mother and father were in reality only distant relatives, and none too loving ones at that. Roberta came to the table, determined to show everyone that she was proud rather than ashamed of her new parentage.

  “Gavin will need constant nursing care,” Jason observed as he helped himself to chorizo and eggs. “Silvia is with him now, but she’ll have to be relieved. Who will volunteer?”

  “I will,” Roberta offered promptly. She didn’t even feel very virtuous since she knew that serving as nurse was a fortuitous way of expiating some of the guilt she had felt ever since the night in her room at Aguascalientes.

  “You should understand,” Jason told her, “that I have no idea what Gavin has. Whoever nurses him will be exposed to the illness. Unless it’s pneumonia, any nurse might very likely contact the disease.”

  “I’ll take that chance.”

  “I’ll volunteer too,” Daphne offered. She smiled wanly. “I’ve done enough nursing of sick actors that I doubt there’s anything I could catch anymore.”

  “That’s enough for now,” Jason told them. “When our host’s doctor arrives, we may change the nursing roster to include only those of you who are already immune to it. Immediately after supper I want Roberta and Daphne to come with me. We’ll set up a schedule and I’ll tell you what I want you to do.”

  Silvia looked up as they came in, her face ravaged. She was sitting on the bed wiping Gavin’s face with a damp cloth. He was conscious now, his eyes glittering and a high flush on his fair skin, which was drenched with sweat.

  Jason felt his forehead. “How do you feel, lad?”

  “I’m so thirsty I could drink that damned lake dry,” Gavin croaked. “And I’m hot, God but I’m hot.”

  “Give him as much water as he wants,” Jason directed Silvia. “Now listen to me carefully,” he went on as Silvia lifted Gavin’s head and gave him a cup of water. “First of all, at least once an hour for every hour you’re here I want you to strip him down and wipe him off all over with a cloth soaked in cold water.” He looked at Silvia. “Do you understand?” he asked in Spanish. She nodded.

  “You must be mad,” Daphne protested. “He’ll catch his death of cold if we do that.”

  Jason regarded her for several moments. “Daphne, if you’re willing to follow my instructions, fine. If not, I’ll find someone who will.”

  Daphne colored. “Yes, Jason,” she replied meekly.

  “Aren’t you going to bleed him?” Roberta asked.

  “No, I’m not going to bleed him and I’m not going to give him a purgative, either. I saw plenty of cases in the surgical ward of McCardle’s field hospital where patients were bled and purged for dysentery, and the only effect was to weaken the patient. I fail to see that the effect would be any different with a fever victim. I often think that physicians do these things when they don’t know what else to do.”

  The three women looked at him with something like awe. In one short speech he had toppled the two gods of medicine with which they had been raised. The first thing a doctor did was to prescribe a purgative, the harsher the better, and the second was to bleed the patient. Always.

  “Thank God for that,” Gavin grinned weakly. “I wasn’t looking forward to your tender ministrations.”

  “Since you seem to have your wits about you,” Jason replied, “I want to ask you some questions that will hopefully narrow the field as to what you might have come down with.”

  It turned out that Gavin had had mumps, two kinds of measles, and chicken pox, but never typhus, typhoid, cholera, or any of the other more serious fevers. Jason frowned. “That doesn't narrow it down much, does it, except that what you've got is one of the bad ones. Anything could have been floating around that Aguascalientes fair, where you probably picked it up. Silvia, you are to get something to eat. Robbie, you take the first shift.” He pulled out his gold pocket watch and peered in the dim light at its antique face. “It's a little after ten now. At six, Silvia, I want you to relieve Robbie, and at two in the afternoon, Daphne, I want you to relieve Silvia.”

  “Oh, I couldn't leave him!” Silvia exclaimed, horror-struck.

  “Yes you can, and you will. It won't help him for you to get so tired you can’t tend him. This could last for a week or two. Now then, before you all go about your business, I'm going to demonstrate exactly what I want you to do. First of all, here is how I want him bathed.”

  He stripped Gavin naked and turned him gently on his stomach, wet the cloth in the basin, and methodically washed him down from the back of his head to his heels. He turned him back over and did the same to his front, lifting his genitals and washing under and around them. Sick as he was, Gavin turned a bright red, but said nothing.

  “Do you think that you ladies can bring yourselves to do all that?” Jason asked, smiling grimly and looking pointedly at Roberta.

  They all nodded.

  “You'll also have to help him with his natural functions. Can you do that too?”

  They nodded again.

  “All right, now here is how to make up a clean bed.”

  He showed them how to roll the patient on his side with his knees up so that he couldn’t roll out of bed, make up half the bed with the bottom sheet, and repeat it for the other side.

  “You’re awfully good at that,” Daphne said in surprise.

  Jason grinned. “That, madame, represents months of practice in the ward of an army hospital. We were so delighted when we could set up quarters in a real house with actual sheets that this technique was a pleasure to learn. Happily San Xavier could house an army, and we’ll have plenty of sheets. Unless it’s wet or soiled, put the top sheet on the bottom and the clean sheet over him. Remember, call me if there is any change for better or worse. I’ll look in every hour or so.”

  Gavin and Roberta were left alone.

  Gavin smiled. “I couldn’t ask for a better nurse.”

  “Oh, Gavin, I’m so sorry about this, and about the other, too.”

  “This is no doubt an act of God for my sins. Bathe my
forehead, Robbie, it feels so good.”

  He closed his eyes and seemed to drift off to sleep. Sid had an extra watch that now dangled from the bedpost to remind them when to do the bathing. At twelve, however, Roberta had fallen asleep sitting bolt upright. She was awakened by Gavin’s groan, and saw that his teeth were chattering. Was it perhaps bad to have bathed him after all? She was just going to the door to call Jason when he looked in.

  “He’s got a terrible chill.”

  “Not unusual,” Jason replied, seemingly unperturbed. “Put those blankets over him and don’t bathe him again until he becomes hot again.” He indicated a pile of blankets in the corner. “I’ll see if I can get some bricks warmed for him. Be sure and tell me if he should come out in a rash.”

  A half hour later a sleepy velador staggered in with an armload of very warm bricks, crossed himself, and scurried out. Roberta grinned as she guessed at the language Jason had probably used to get the old man into the sickroom. There was no question that Gavin was worse. He was thirsty all the time, even with the chill, which lasted several hours, but complained as he drank that his throat was sore. Sometimes he didn’t seem to know who she was, and at others he thought that they were somewhere else. She finally called Jason again.

  “Oh hell,” Jason said finally. “It’s easier to stay in here.”

  He came in with one of the straw-filled pallets they had used on their tour and settled himself on the floor, where he promptly went to sleep. She stood looking at him for a long time. He lay on his back with his head turned slightly so that it was impossible to see his scar. In sleep the unmarked side of his face looked startlingly young, and she was reminded once again that he was only thirty-three.

  She started to daydream, but brought herself up with a jerk. One day she was going to have to begin living with reality, and it might as well be now. It had already surprised her that she felt nothing, not even revulsion, about bathing all of Gavin’s private parts. The male machinery that under other circumstances was capable of such aggression and — if Jason were to be believed — such joy, became after the third or fourth washing no different from his knees or his feet. Twice now she had held the chamber pot for him without thinking anything about it. When Jason slept past the hour and then past two hours, she did not disturb him. When the chill gave way to fever she began the bathing anew.