The Stone that the Builder Refused

by Madison Smartt Bell

  “It is nothing,” Isabelle said finally. “A salute, a signal shot . . . but I must go—I don’t like to be so long away from Robert and Héloïse, until it has all passed over.”

  “Of course it will pass over,” Elise said. They kissed at the parlor door, then Elise drew it open, starting to see Zabeth at her sewing on the landing.

  “How long have you been here?” she said, more sharply than she’d meant, and then, “Have you brought Doctor Hébert?”

  Zabeth stood up, the baby dress trailing from one hand by its halffinished hem. “Oui, madanm,” she said. “But General Christophe took him into his carriage. Just there—” She pointed, through the house walls, in the direction of the Rue Royale.

  “Took him where?”

  Letting the dress fall in the basket, Zabeth turned up her empty palms. “Pa konnen, madanm. I don’t know. They were going toward the harbor.”

  Isabelle and Elise exchanged a glance. “He will have all the news, Antoine, when you have found him,” Isabelle said. “You must send a note—or come to us this evening.”

  “Yes, of course,” Elise said. Isabelle blew her a final kiss and turned to descend the stairs. Elise kept looking at Zabeth as if she might say something more, but instead she withdrew, closing the parlor door behind her, taking care that it shut completely.

  Zabeth sat down and resumed her sewing. The image of Madame Isabelle’s trim straight back receding into the stairwell persisted in her head. She had learned little from overhearing their conversation she had not already known. Bouquart had brought to her the rumor of what had passed between Captain Flaville and the white lady, and the result of it. That was before Bouquart had to go beneath the waters because he’d rebelled against Papa Toussaint. Afterward other voices had brought Zabeth the story of how Madame Isabelle had fainted dead away, here in the Place d’Armes of Le Cap, when she saw Flaville shot to death by cannonloads of grapeshot, for the same crime.

  From the direction of the Place d’Armes, Christophe’s carriage crossed the Rue Neuve and passed along the outer wall of the waterfront casernes. Another turn brought them again in view of the port. To the right, the wall of the artillery emplacement which covered the harbor curved toward them. The air of urgency among the cannoneers manning the post made the doctor’s stomach tumble for a moment. The carriage turned northward, onto the Quai d’Argout.

  “What do you suppose to be the meaning of this expedition?” Christophe said.

  “Pardon?” said Doctor Hébert. “The expedition?”

  “The forces of the French army—if that indeed is what they are— contained in the fleet which has just appeared in the harbor’s mouth,” Christophe said. “That expedition.”

  “Eh . . . ,” the doctor breathed. “Possibly it is meant for a reinforcement of the corps of Governor-General Toussaint?” He looked out the window to avoid Christophe’s gaze. The harbor was calm and quiet and more vacant than usual, except, he now noticed, for a number of canoes that were taking up the buoys which marked the channels where a deep-draught ship might enter.

  Christophe exhaled with a flutter of his lips. “Or perhaps they have come to reduce us to submission, Doctor?”

  “I . . . they have not offered any hostilities, I suppose?”

  “Why, Doctor.” Christophe smiled with his lips. “That is just what we are now on our way to discover.”

  The doctor made himself meet Christophe’s eyes. The black general was an imposing figure, his strong chest swelling his uniform coat, the large head carried proudly above the stiff collar. On an ordinary day, the doctor would have felt as easy in his company as with any of Toussaint’s senior officers, and more so than with most of them. Since 1791 he’d risen rapidly in the black officer cadre, and generally appeared to be a model of military orthodoxy. Christophe was a person of high intelligence and some sophistication. He had been to sea as a cabin boy on an English vessel, and he spoke English as well as French, and some Spanish too. While still a boy he had gone with the soldiers of the Comte d’Estaing to assist the North American revolutionaries in the siege of Savannah; it was rumored that this action had won him his freedom. In the years that followed he’d emerged as manager of the Hôtel de la Couronne here at Le Cap, a position which put him in touch with all the international news and gossip. Undoubtedly he’d known how to make use of what he heard. Christophe was not such a one as Toussaint, who could ferret out one’s secret thought almost without one’s knowing it, and yet the doctor knew that Christophe meant to sound him for the feeling of the white community here.

  What did he really know on that subject, and how much would he be willing to say? Before he had formulated any response, Christophe broke their gaze himself and fell to looking out the opposite window.

  Soon enough the pavement ended, and the coach jounced onto a trail running up and down the hills of the shoreline. At last it descended onto a small pebbled beach, enclosed by cliffs on every side. From this point forward, the way to Fort Picolet was a footpath. A number of wagons had already reached the beach and a file of porters carried loads around the point: sacks of coal and grilles of iron which would be used, the doctor realized with another tremor, in the preparation of red-hot shot to fire upon the ships.

  From the battlements of Fort Picolet the view of the sea was much broader, and indeed there were a great many ships standing off the coast—the doctor could make out at least twenty. Immediately below the walls of the fort, a small cutter was just mooring, and the doctor recognized the port captain, Sangros, as he disembarked in the company of a French naval officer. The silence was perfect as these two men climbed toward where he and General Christophe stood, except for the rush of water and the rising wind and the clatter of metal as the men set up braziers for heating boulets rouges.

  If the naval officer was impressed by this preparation, he did not show it. His manner was haughty, though his voice was high and a little shrill. He presented himself as one Ensign Lebrun, aide-de-camp of the Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse.

  “How is it, General,” he said to Christophe, “that you refuse to admit French ships to the port?”

  Christophe extended a hand toward Sangros, who passed him a brass spyglass. Christophe did not bring it to his eye, but simply held it across his breast as he spoke. “I see twenty-three warships there, and some of them show foreign colors. On what authority do they come? I have no order from the Governor of this colony to admit them.”

  “Sir, the Governor of Saint Domingue is there,” said Lebrun, turning to point toward the harbor mouth. “He is the Captain-General Leclerc, and his are the orders you are charged to obey.”

  “General Toussaint Louverture is Governor of the colony,” Christophe returned. “I admit no warship to the harbor without his order.”

  “Well, and where is he to be found?” Lebrun sniffed. “Your General Toussaint Louverture.”

  Christophe said nothing. The wind was rising; the doctor anchored his hat with one hand. After a moment, Lebrun extracted an elaborately sealed letter from a large stack of documents he held under his elbow. Christophe returned the spyglass to Sangros before accepting it. He broke the seal with his thumb and, upon a first glance at the contents, gestured at the men to be quiet. The iron clatter stopped, and Christophe read in a voice loud enough to be heard by all present.

  I learn with indignation, Citizen General, that you refuse to receive the fleet and the French army which I command, on the pretext that you have no order from General Toussaint. France has made peace with England, and the government now sends forces to Saint Domingue which are capable to subdue rebels, if one must still find them in Saint Domingue. As for yourself, Citizen General, I admit that it would cost me a great deal to count you among the rebels. I warn you that if today you have not turned over to me Forts Picolet and Belair and all the other batteries of the coast, tomorrow, at daybreak, fifteen thousand men will be landed. Four thousand are landing this moment at Fort Liberté; eight thousand at Port-au-Prince; you will find a
ttached my proclamation; it expresses the intentions of the French government, but recall that whatever personal esteem which your conduct in the colony has inspired in me, I hold you responsible for whatever may occur.

  General in chief of the Army of Saint Domingue, and Captain-Generalof the Colony.

  Signed: LECLERC

  Christophe refolded the letter. “Well,” he said. “It is all very complimentary. Let me see this proclamation of which the letter speaks.”

  “I am instructed to give it to none but the General Toussaint Louverture,” Lebrun said, with a certain smugness in the rejoinder.

  “As you prefer,” Christophe said. Seeming not to know what to do with the letter addressed to himself, he turned it this way and that, then handed it back to Lebrun, who took it with an air of puzzlement.

  “Come with me,” Christophe said shortly, and beckoned Lebrun through the portal onto the steps which ran down to the narrow beach. The wind came up in a sudden tugging spiral, loosening the doctor’s hat, which he’d left off holding in place. He caught it just as it lifted off, and held it crushed against his hip. A great dark cloud was gathering over Morne du Cap, beyond the town.

  “Those ships will have to stand further off the coast,” Sangros muttered in his ear, “if they do not come into the harbor immediately.”

  The doctor felt unreasonably relieved by this prediction. Before he could answer, Christophe’s voice came booming from outside the gate.

  “Vini moi, m’sieu l’docteu!—come with me!”

  The carriage had vanished from the beach, but three saddle horses waited in its place. Christophe mounted without a backward glance. Lebrun followed suit and the doctor brought up the rear. Unfamiliar to him, his horse was more skittish than he liked, tended to shy at every fragment of windblown debris that the wind carried past, and even at the whitecaps foaming on the sea below the narrow trail. The wind was beating in their faces, and sometimes came the odd raindrop, almost with the velocity of a bullet. As they rode into the edge of town, papers began to pull free from the packet Lebrun carried, whipped away by the wind. The doctor did not know if he ought to say anything about it. When one of the sheets plastered itself across his chest, he stuffed it into his shirt without looking at it.

  Great trees of the lightning writhed in the cloud above the mountain by the time they reached the Place d’Armes, but the wide square was still fairly busy, with marchandes packing up their stalls, their customers just beginning to scurry for shelter. As the three horsemen crossed, a great chunk of the papers detached itself from Lebrun’s bundle and scattered away over the steps of the church. Lebrun seemed to smirk when the doctor’s eye caught his, and this time Christophe had noticed too—his face contracted to a fist, but he said nothing.

  Within the courtyard of the Government House the raindrops were beginning to slap down with greater frequency, raising puffs of dust. Quickly they handed off their horses to a groom who waited under the tall palms, and climbed the steps at as fast a gait as might preserve their dignity. When they had passed under the doorsill, Lebrun turned back to look at the rain, which just that suddenly had begun pouring down in sheets.

  “Comme c’est impressionnante!” he said, his face shining with humidity and the exertion of their dash up the stairs. How impressive it is!

  The doctor merely nodded; the roar of the rain was quite deafening. Christophe looked at Lebrun impassively, then led their way along the corridor. As they passed, the doctor thought he saw Pascal, slipping discreetly into a side door.

  Christophe brought them to the anteroom where Toussaint was accustomed to receive his petits cercles during Government House balls. No further, though there were only the three of them, and the door of the inner cabinet stood ajar.

  “Do sit down,” Christophe told them. As the doctor and Lebrun obeyed him, Pascal put his head in the door to ask if they would take coffee, and then went out again.

  “Well then,” Christophe said to Lebrun. “You may now give to me the papers addressed to Toussaint Louverture.”

  Lebrun cupped an ear and returned an inquiring look. Christophe went to close the casements to mute the roaring of the rain. Beyond the glass, everything had turned a greenish black. Christophe repeated the statement as he resumed his seat. The doctor, feeling the corners of the paper prick the skin beneath his shirt, wondered if the documents Christophe was requesting had been scattered during their ride.

  “By my orders they must be confided to no one but himself,” Lebrun said. “And the issue is not the documents, sir, but the prompt admission of the fleet into the harbor.” He hesitated, looked at the doctor, and went on. “You must know that the Captain-General Leclerc intends to show you every favor, if only you cooperate with him.”

  “For the moment, it is impossible for the ships to enter,” Christophe said, “owing to the violence of the wind, and the unquiet sea. You must accept our hospitality until tomorrow. In the meantime—”

  A woman came in with a tray of coffee, Pascal following. There was a brief bustle of pouring, stirring in of sugar. The woman went out, leaving the tray; Pascal remained. The rattle of the rain on the window grew and subsided with the shifting wind.

  “The coffee is excellent,” Lebrun said stiffly.

  “You are kind to say so,” Christophe told him. “If you do not give me those papers directed to the Governor-General, it will be impossible for me to hear you any further.”

  Lebrun glanced at the doctor, then at Pascal, but found no help in either of their faces.

  “Very well,” he said, half rising to offer the documents. “As you are so extremely insistent . . .”

  “Thank you,” Christophe said as he accepted the papers.

  He went into the adjacent cabinet and shut the door. At this, Lebrun raised his eyebrows, but both the doctor and Pascal avoided his glance; the former looking out the window into the pounding rain, while the latter gazed up into a high corner of the ceiling. After a few awkward minutes, Pascal tried a couple of conversational sallies—the weather during Lebrun’s crossing, the state of the theater in France—but none of these tendrils took any root, and soon the silence resumed. Minutes crawled by with a terrible lethargy, approaching the sum of an hour. The rain abated, and the last glimmer of daylight shone beyond the windows when Christophe emerged from the cabinet. This time he left the door half open, though at such an angle that the interior was completely obscured from view.

  “The Governor is on the Spanish side of the island,” he announced. “Without his order, I cannot permit myself to receive the fleet or the troops it carries.” When he began, his voice seemed loud enough to be heard in the street outside, and he raised it still higher as he went on. “The proclamations which you bring exhale despotism and tyranny—I will have my soldiers swear the oath to uphold liberty, be it at the cost of their lives.”

  Christophe slammed his hands down on the table. An orderly appeared at the outer door, as if it were a signal.

  “As the fleet has raised anchor and is no longer in sight,” Christophe said, lowering his voice just slightly from before, “you will remain with us tonight and rejoin your countrymen tomorrow. Your meal has been ordered, you may go with this man.”

  Christophe nodded in the direction of the orderly. Lebrun opened his mouth, then closed it again. With a slight inclination of his head, he stood and followed the orderly out of the room.

  “And you, Doctor Hébert,” Christophe said. “Thank you for your presence here today.”

  “It is nothing,” said the doctor, feeling that in truth he had not done anything at all.

  But Christophe had already turned to Pascal. “Stay a moment, will . . .”

  Understanding himself to be dismissed, the doctor bowed out and walked down the corridor. A fragrance of highly seasoned goat stew caused him to glance into the formal dining room as he passed its open door. Ensign Lebrun sat at the head of an otherwise empty table, a service of gold plate laid out before him. A servant stood behind his
chair, and half a dozen others manned the sideboard, each assigned to a covered dish or carafe of wine. The candles were lit from one end of the long table to the other. Unnerved by this spectacle of solitary splendor (as Lebrun’s expression showed him to be also), the doctor hurried past.

  People were coming out onto the rain-washed streets again, voices ringing through the damp air as they called to one another. Someone hailed the doctor from behind, but he only returned the greeting over his shoulder, without slackening his pace as he went toward his sister’s house.

  “A glass of rum,” he said to Zabeth in the foyer. “A large one, if you please.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” she told him. “With lime? or water?”

  “Just bring the bottle,” the doctor said.

  Elise was already calling him from the upper story, an impatient edge in her voice, and the doctor could tell from other sounds that there must be some company there. Nonetheless he waited—it seemed to take Zabeth a very long time to arrange a bottle and glass on a tray. When at last she returned, he poured two fingers of rum and drank it off, then climbed the stairs with the glass in one hand and the bottle in the other.

  “Where have you been all the day?” Elise said, and then, when she saw what he was carrying, “As bad as that?”

  “I don’t know how bad it is,” said the doctor. He refilled his glass and set the bottle on a small mahogany table. “What news do our friends bring?” He saw Michel Arnaud at the rear of the room. Isabelle, somewhat uncharacteristically, was in the company of her husband, Bertrand Cigny.

  “French ships were sighted outside the Baie d’Acul,” Arnaud said. “Such is the rumor—I did not see them. There is no news of a landing. But there is some tale of trouble at Sainte Suzanne.”

  “I heard the same, Monsieur,” Cigny added. “A man passed me on the road, coming down from Haut Limbé. From the height, he told me, one can see smoke over Grande Rivière.”

  “But you must know much more than we,” Isabelle said. “If you have been with General Christophe until now.”