Estelle

by Linda Stewart Henley

  Estelle

  Copyright © 2020 Linda Stewart Henley

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

  Published 2020

  Printed in the United States of America

  Print ISBN: 978-1-63152-791-3

  E-ISBN: 978-1-63152-792-0

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020905898

  For information, address:

  She Writes Press

  1569 Solano Ave #546

  Berkeley, CA 94707

  Interior design by Tabitha Lahr

  She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

  All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

  Cover: detail of a painting by Edgar Degas, Woman with a Vase of Flowers (Estelle De Gas née Musson), 1872-73. Oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

  For Vince

  Portrait of Mme René de Gas, née Estelle Musson

  1872-73

  Oil on canvas

  39 ⅜ x 54 inches

  New Orleans Museum of Art: Museum Purchase

  through Public Subscription

  “A man is an artist only at certain moments, by an effort of will.”

  —EDGAR DEGAS

  Chapter 1

  September 1970

  At ten o’clock on the first cool morning of late summer, Anne Gautier threw on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, laced her running shoes, and stepped into the street. She hummed as she jogged the few blocks along Esplanade Avenue under spreading oaks and magnolias until she arrived at the house with the rusting wrought iron gate. As she kicked empty beer cans from the pathway leading to the porch, she noticed that the front door stood ajar. A thread of anxiety twisted down her spine. Surely the contractors weren’t working on this day, a Saturday.

  The raspy voice of the neighbor next door startled her.

  “Mornin’, Miss Anne.” He smiled, showing his yellow teeth. “Makin’ progress in there, is they?”

  “Yes. They finished repairing the roof last week. Now they’re working on the inside. They’ll treat the termites first.”

  “Uh-huh. Nasty little critters. My place must be full of ’em. Them and the roaches make a nice pair.” He cackled with laughter.

  “You’re right there, Mr. Jackson,” she said, waving to him as she pushed her front door farther open. She didn’t want to engage him in conversation about insects—or anything else, for that matter. He was old, and strange.

  She stood for a few moments on the threshold and peered inside.

  “Hello. Anyone there?” she yelled.

  Only the rustle of palm fronds in the breeze responded. No need to panic, she scolded herself. The contractors just forgot to lock up. Treading with care, she crept in.

  The interior of the house looked worse than it had the first time she’d seen it. Paper hung in strips from walls still standing, and grimy windows obscured the view of trees in the garden. Dust covered every horizontal surface. It had once been an elegant house on one of the finest streets in New Orleans, and the high ceilings, moldings, and decorative woodwork served as reminders, but in its present state she could hardly imagine the place as an habitable dwelling. It was her dearest wish to bring it back to its former state of grace and beauty, shining with fresh paint and spotless windows. She noticed nothing unusual on the first floor.

  She mounted the stairs, taking care not to trip on any loose boards. When she reached the attic on the third floor, she turned her eyes to the ceiling. The roof appeared solid, and she could no longer see the sky. Progress at last. But dust motes dancing in the sunlight told her that months of work remained before she could entertain any sense of pride about the place or consider moving in. She caught an image of herself in a wall mirror. The reflection of her long brown hair, almost gray in the dull glass, relayed a ghostly impression of her pale face and dark eyes. She held her breath. This place feels creepy, sometimes.

  On her way down from the attic, she glanced into the bedrooms on the second floor. No work completed there yet. The bathroom door swung idly on the hinges, its toe dragging on the floor. Stepping back, Anne almost lost her balance as she surveyed the scene. Utter chaos lay before her. She pressed her hand to her chest to calm her galloping heartbeat. The clawfoot bathtub and pedestal sink she had admired and wanted to preserve sat in fragments on the floor. The toilet kneeled before her, ripped from its foothold like a fallen idol. They would have to replace the fixtures, smashed almost beyond recognition. Then she noticed a note taped to the remnants of the sink. She moved closer.

  The sign, scrawled in black letters said, Stop Fixing What Don’t Need Fixing. Remember Section C. Death to HANO.

  She slumped against the wall. Who did this? Who wrote this note? Not the workers. What does it mean, and who is Hano? She felt sick. Someone had come into the house, someone who didn’t like what she was doing. Heart still racing, she dashed downstairs and out the front door, slamming it behind her. She needed to do something. She would report the vandalism to the police at once. On her way back to the boarding house where she rented a room, she almost tripped over the cracks in the sidewalk. “Stay calm,” she said aloud as she retreated up the stairs to her room to make the call. She collapsed on her bed and called the police.

  The dispatcher took her statement. In a sleepy voice he said an officer would stop by to look at the damage within the next few hours. Anne groaned. That meant waiting until the police arrived. She wasn’t good at waiting. To pass the time, she’d talk to her friend Andrea, who rented room number six, next to hers. She knocked. Silence. Damn it all. Well, it would help to call Sam, her boyfriend. No answer. On weekends he’s often out and about, she remembered. More waiting—she’d have to wait until she saw him that evening. After pacing the room for several minutes her legs felt limp. She lay on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. She could use a drink but remembered she had finished the last of the wine. Her thoughts whirled as images of the shattered fixtures spun around, images now etched in her mind. Her enthusiasm for the renovation project at the house had taken a sinister turn for the worse. It was as she had feared all along: one long, hopeless hassle.

  At noon, the front doorbell rang. Anne roused herself and clattered down the stairs. A burly policeman stood outside.

  “Miss Gautier? Officer Hammond,” he said, showing his badge. “You reported a case of vandalism, right? What’s the location?”

  “On Esplanade, number 2310, down the street,” she said.

  “Okay. Get in the car and we’ll drive there.”

  “Place is in bad shape,” he said as they entered. “This your house, miss?”

  “Yes. I inherited it from my grandfather,” she said. “Work’s in progress,” she added.

  She stood aside to let him into the bathroom. He swept his eyes around and strode over to the note on the sink.

  “Have you talked to the construction guys to find out if they know anything about this?” he asked.

  “No, but they would have told me. They’re working on the walls and they’ve finished the roofing. Anyway, they wouldn’t have written the note.”

  “Any idea who did?” he asked. “Any people you know who aren’t friends, if you see what I mean?”

  “No one. Some of my friends say I’m crazy to renovate the house, but no one would have left a mess
age like this. I don’t know what section C is, or anyone called Hano.”

  “Don’t you read the papers?”

  She shook her head. “Afraid not,” she said.

  “They’re full of the story. Section C is an area in town that’s planned for redevelopment. It’s a slum, not just rundown like Esplanade Avenue. The houses there, more like shacks really, are in terrible condition. HANO stands for Housing Authority of New Orleans. It’s the government agency that has responsibility for providing housing for low-income residents. They plan to demolish the buildings. My guess is someone who knows about that is trying to send you a warning. Question is, is this personal, or is it just an attempt to make a point?”

  Anne blanched.

  “If it’s making a point, they’ve got my attention. If it’s personal, I guess I should worry about my safety,” she said, her voice rising.

  “I don’t want to scare you, but you might want to think about someone you know who bears a grudge. Could anyone have seen the perpetrator?”

  “The workers, but that’s unlikely. They finished work yesterday evening, so whoever did this must have come into the house between then and this morning, when I found this mess.”

  “How about neighbors?”

  “Hm. Well, there’s Homer Jackson, next door. The house on the other side is empty. I guess I could talk to Mr. Jackson, but he’s a bit funny in the head, I think.”

  “You do that. In the meantime, I want to find out how they got in. I take it you keep the house locked. Do the workers have a key?”

  “Yes, but only to the front door. The back stays locked. It’s off the kitchen. Someone left the front door open, though.”

  “So perhaps the vandals didn’t break in, then.”

  Downstairs in the kitchen, the breeze floated through a jagged hole in the windowpane.

  “Here’s how they got in,” he said. “They may have left the front door open when they left.”

  She took a step back to avoid the broken glass on the floor.

  “Damn. We’d better fix that,” she said. “What else should I do? Do you have any advice?”

  “I’d advise you to install a burglar alarm as soon as possible. This isn’t a good part of town. We’ll have a report on file, and if you find any further problems or clues concerning the culprit, give us a call. I’ll dust the doorknobs for fingerprints, and if we come up with any suspects I’ll be in touch. Here’s my contact information.”

  He handed her a card and finished his inspection. After he drove away, she stood for several minutes on the porch. The shock had left her weak-kneed, and she sat on the top step and tried to drive the ugly scene from her mind. She propped her elbows on her knees and rested her head on her hands to think. Better to talk to Homer now, while the incident is fresh, than wait until later. She held onto the railing and stumbled down the steps through the gate into Homer’s front garden.

  His house looked like hers, but in slightly better condition. Sitting in a rickety chair on the porch, he rubbed his stubby beard.

  “Someone dead in there?” he asked.

  “No. Why would you think so?” she replied, blinking.

  “Thought I heard gunshots. Middle o’ the night. Saw the police car.”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about. Did you see anyone at my house last night?”

  “Didn’t see no one. Didn’t wanna. There’s bad things goin’ on around here, you know. Drugs and stuff. It’s not good to have empty houses. Squatters come in, maybe ghosts.”

  “That’s probably true. Well, thank you anyway, Mr. Jackson. Oh, and do you think you could call the police next time you hear signs of intruders next door?”

  Homer nodded and gave her a yellow-toothed smile. He really is a batty old man, she mused, useless as a good neighbor. She sauntered back to the rooming house wondering about the wisdom of living in a crime-ridden neighborhood and restoring the old home. Her grandfather had expected it, and her father had argued that they needed an urban renewal program to improve the street rather than allow it to fall into further decline. Whoever had vandalized the bathroom didn’t agree with that concept. But who?

  It was only at that moment that she remembered Estelle: Stella, her half-sister.

  Chapter 2

  October 1872

  The Musson family stood on the platform waiting for the midday arrival of the steam train. Six children, all cousins, ranged in age from one-year-old Odile, wriggling in Estelle’s arms, to ten-year-old Josephine, called Jo. The smaller children ran around the benches, chasing each other, jumping up and down, and squealing. Patriarch Michel Musson, wearing a top hat and glasses, and his adult daughters, Matilde and Estelle, stood craning their necks, peering down the railroad tracks that disappeared into the horizon.

  “Here it comes, Maman, see the smoke!” two-year-old Pierre said to Estelle. “Is Papa on the train?”

  “Yes, and Oncle Edgar, too,” she said.

  Edgar Degas had arrived from France. Estelle looked forward with excitement to his first visit to New Orleans. The entire family turned up to greet him at the station, honoring him as a great celebrity, although in fact he was almost a stranger to them all.

  The train, enveloped in clouds of smoke and steam, puffed its way closer to the platform. Straining with the weight, the platform shook, and the locomotive arrived at the station hissing and screeching as the brakes caught. The monstrous black engine came to a stop. Whistles sounded, and a man in a blue uniform descended from a carriage waving a flag.

  “All of y’all for N’Orleans, step right down. This here’s the Pontchartrain Lake End station,” he said.

  Pierre coughed as the wet steam clouds descended on the platform, and Estelle bent to pat his back and wipe the smut off his small face. After the engine’s rustling ceased and the air cleared, the Musson family moved with the crowd along the platform toward the passenger coaches at the back of the train. Travelers descended, many holding trunks that they passed down to porters with waiting arms. Achille De Gas, dressed formally in a frock coat and cravat, identified his brothers Edgar and René as they disembarked and strode quickly to meet them. He shook hands with the younger one.

  “René, welcome home,” he said.

  He wrapped his arms around his older brother. “Edgar, bienvenue à la Nouvelle-Orléans. You’re here at last! Let the porter take your luggage and come meet the family.”

  René rushed over to his family and stooped to pick up Pierre. Estelle smiled as their son’s initial shyness vanished, and he put his arms around his father’s neck. It had been three months since René’s departure for France, and she saw that her husband looked well. He set Pierre on the ground, hugged Jo, and kissed baby Odile.

  “It’s good to be home,” he said, placing both hands on Estelle’s shoulders.

  “You’ve been away too long, dear, but I’m glad you brought Edgar back with you,” she said, smiling up at him.

  Estelle, though eager to hug Edgar, her brother-in-law and cousin, had stayed behind when the other family members surged forward to meet him. She wanted first to observe, to find evidence of change, for it had been almost ten years since she had last seen him in Paris, and she had been fond of him then. Now twenty-nine, a mother of three, and in her second marriage, she still appeared youthful, and her walnut-colored hair showed no sign of gray. She had gained some weight, however, and moved with trepidation, as though she might fall.

  Edgar Degas, at thirty-eight, was shorter than his younger siblings, and wore a long dark jacket, white shirt, black cravat, and a white peaked cap, which gave him a rakish appearance. He had a clipped, slightly graying beard, a mustache, and small brown eyes. He was slim, and if it were not for the cap, he would have had the air of a Parisian gentleman of refinement and taste. In fact, he was an artist, the only one in his family, but so far had achieved little recognition.

  His face broke into a smile as he took in the large gathering of family members, and he greeted them in broken English, “
I thank you. . . .” Then he continued in French, “. . . for coming. I’m thrilled to see you all . . . but I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting so many of you.” The adults stepped forward, and as he recognized each one, he shook hands or kissed them on both cheeks.

  “Bonjour, oncle Michel, ma chère Estelle! Always lovely to see you. It’s marvelous that the whole family is here to welcome me!” Edgar said, smiling.

  Michel grinned as he shook hands with his nephew. Estelle embraced Edgar warmly, with a rush of emotion. The children giggled and held their arms out, and Edgar bent and hugged each one. Then he recognized Jo.

  “But how you have grown! When I met you in Paris, you were no bigger than this little one,” he said, pointing to Odile.

  As he straightened and glanced around at the assembled family, a young woman, fashionably dressed in a purple silk dress with black trim around the waist and hem, rushed along the platform toward him.

  “Mon cher Edgar!” she cried, giving him a kiss on each cheek.

  “Désirée! Delighted to see you again!” he said, beaming.

  She was his cousin, four years younger than he. They had met when she, Estelle, their mother, and Jo had visited Paris ten years earlier. Désirée took his arm, and they strolled together to the horse-drawn carriages that waited outside the station.

  “I trust your journey was not too difficult,” she said.

  “Long, but not difficult. We set out from Paris and crossed the channel to England to catch the steamer. I disliked the ocean voyage from Liverpool to New York on an English boat. That took ten days. The train from New York took four, and I liked it, especially the sleeping car, very comfortable.”

  Estelle regarded the couple as they walked together, thinking they looked well matched. It would be delightful to see her older sister Désirée married at last. She had missed many opportunities, though not from a lack of attractiveness or attention from suitors, and Edgar had still not married.