Morven, glancing at the grim cast of Ryan’s features, began to make his excuses. When he saw no one was attending to them beyond Ryan’s brief thanks for his services, he bowed and strolled nonchalantly away.
Elene was watching Durant, seeing plainly for the first time the petty malice and jealous possessiveness in his face. He had been so diminished since the days on the island that an odd compassion for him moved inside her. Her father had chosen this man for her, her dead father, and perhaps he had a right to a certain consideration. Even Ryan had given him that.
Her gaze clear on Durant’s face, she said, “Tell me the truth. Do you love me?”
Beside her, Ryan took her arm. “Don’t do this,” he said, his voice rough, “not here, not now.”
Her gray eyes were fathomless, unfaltering on his as she turned to him. “There will never be a better time or place than now. Because of it, I ask you, too. Do you love me?”
Durant, scenting a possible advantage, a possible change in his fortunes to be had by a swift answer, edged forward. The words taut, he said, “Yes, Elene, I do love you.”
Ryan held her gaze, his own seething, darkly blue. “I have loved you since I first saw you standing gilded by moonlight in a dark wood, since I held you in my arms through three days of living entombment. The smell and taste and feel of you enchants my heart and is engraved on my bones, and will follow me into the purgatory I will surely find because I put you above all else. But if this is no more than a trick to wring a like admission from Durant, I swear I will—”
“If I asked you to let me go to him, would you?”
The garden was quiet, the sun brightly shining, drying the dew on the grass. Ryan stared at her with his blood congealing, gathering in cold and gelid weight in the hollow of his chest. The seeping pain gathered there also, spreading outward until it inhabited every mangled fiber of his being. He held his breath against it, but then closed his eyes as he let it have its way. Raising his eyelids with determined effort, he said, “If you could swear to me that you loved him and only him, and could love none other your whole life long, then, I would.”
She shifted her stance toward Durant. “And you, would you let me go to Ryan if I required it?”
“God, no!” he answered in scorn. “If you were mine, I would never let you go, not for any man!”
A wry smile flickered across her mouth, and then was gone. “Then perhaps it is as well that I am not yours.” To Ryan she turned a countenance naked of pretense, openly vulnerable. “Please,” she said, “take me home?”
Devota and Benedict were horrified that Elene had gone to watch the duel. They scolded and insisted that she sit down on the gallery to rest while they arranged a special breakfast to celebrate the wonderful outcome of the dawn meeting. Devota refused to be diverted by compliments for her part in the event, or to attend to Ryan’s demands to know why she had interfered. She was not concerned for him, she said, only for Elene should anything happen to him.
When Devota, with Benedict in tow, had bustled away to the kitchen, Ryan moved to stand against the railing in front of Elene’s chair. He crossed his arms over his chest with deliberation, though his voice was light as he spoke. “It seems to me that everyone is solicitous of your health to the point of foolishness, even Benedict. I know you were nearly poisoned, but so was I, and they aren’t hovering over me. Can it be there is something I should know?”
She lifted her gaze from her contemplation of the water sparkling in the courtyard fountain. She thought of falling in with his bantering manner, of making a jest of the matter, but her growing attachment to the life within her would not permit it. Quietly she said, “I’m going to have a baby, our baby.”
“Ours,” he said as if testing the word. “You thought it necessary to let me know it’s mine?”
“I didn’t want you to have to ask.”
He leaned over her, bracing his arms on the back of her chair. “Dear God, Elene, I have told you I love you. Don’t you think I know this child is mine without having to be informed of it?”
“After the way I wrung an admission of love from you—”
“Which you wouldn’t have got if I hadn’t meant every word! Let me tell you, I knew you were carrying my child the minute I took you in my arms in the square. How could I not, when every inch of you is as well known to me as my own hand? I will grant that there hasn’t been much time for you to tell me I’m going to be a father, but I didn’t expect to have to force the news from you, or to have it treated like a death sentence.”
“A death sentence?” she echoed.
He knelt at her feet, taking her hand. “I know a child is brought into the world in pain and indignity for the mother, and I’m more sorry than I can say for it, but isn’t there any joy in you for the prospect of holding it? Have you no love for it, even if you have none for me?”
“Or course I love it,” she said in amazement. “But what makes you think—”
He would not let her finish. “Then why won’t you marry me? If you will take my love, why not my name for the child’s sake? How many times do I have to ask before you will say yes?”
She opened her mouth to explain, but the words wouldn’t come. She had refused him before because she had thought she wanted to control her own life. She had discovered, however, that life, like death, defied control. What she did with her hours, where she went and when, had nothing to do with being in control, but simply with being true to herself and her goals. She could do that now, married or unmarried. In any case, she understood now that it was never control itself which was important, but the need to conquer the fear of loss, of being left alone. What she had need of, then, was the security of loving and being loved, and that she had, would always have in her heart, even if death should end it.
She moistened her lips, finally finding an answer for him. “Twice. You will have to ask me twice.”
“Before and—”
“And now. Or if it will make it easier, I will take what you just said as a proposal.”
He unfolded his arms and stepped to take her wrists, drawing her up to face him. His voice implacable in his determination to have a full answer, he said, “Why now?”
“What?” She stared at him, at a loss, while inside her there emerged a slow and spreading throb of desire to be held close inside his arms, pressed against him from breasts to ankles until they merged beyond separation.
“You would not marry me before, I think, for lack of love. Why now?”
She swallowed hard on the press of tears. “There was never any lack of love.”
“From me, you mean.”
“No,” she said with a quick shake of her head, “from me. I love you, Ryan.”
“You mean, all this time—?”
“All this time.” The tears brimmed in her eyes, overflowing. “But I was afraid.”
“There is nothing to fear. I will always be with you. Always.”
A watery smile curved her lips. “Then there was the perfume. I would not have you only because of it.”
He caught her to his chest, clasping her gently yet with the firm hands of one who keeps what he holds. “It was never the perfume, I swear it! I enjoyed it, yes, but I was more enthralled by you, by what you are, what you can be.”
“I know that, now.” Pushing her arms around his waist, she smoothed them up the ridged muscles of his back, pressing close and closer still.
He smoothed her hair with unsteady fingers, and bent his head to taste her mouth. Silence descended broken only by the tinkling of the fountain and the rattle of crockery from the kitchen below the gallery. At last Ryan raised his head. The words rich and warm with promise, he said, “On the other hand, if you were to wear your perfume tonight, I might be a willing slave.”
“There’s none left,” Elene murmured.
He sighed. “Too bad.”
“But I have the scents here for it, and it’s a long time until dark.”
“Too long,” Ryan said, and turned wi
th her into the house.
IT WAS TWENTY DAYS LATER, on a balmy morning with the feel of spring though it was in December, that Ryan and Elene stood in the Place d’Armes once more. In a ceremony very nearly identical to that which had taken place the month before, Colonial Prefect Pierre Clement de Laussat appeared on the balcony of the cabildo following the transfer of Louisiana from France to the United States. This time, however, the commissioners at his side were Americans, a fairly young and distinguished-looking gentleman named William C. C. Claiborne, who would be the new governor though he knew no French, and General James Wilkinson, who was portly and abrasive and spoke the language of the new territory execrably.
On the flagpole in the center of the square, the tricolor of France slowly descended while the red and white bars and circle of stars on a blue ground of the United States was raised. As the flags met at the halfway point, there was a small pause while the flag men jerked at the ropes, almost as if the banner of France were reluctant to give up its sway. The minor halt was highlighted with drama a moment later as salvos of cannon sounded from the forts and batteries of the city walls and from the ships in the harbor to salute the country giving way and also that gaining ascendancy.
Then the American standard surged upward, catching the breeze at the top of the staff so that its circle of stars and its stripes shone in the sun. There arose a ragged cheer. For the most part it came from the Americans, some in the toggery of gentlemen, some in the rough leather clothes and coonskin caps of the “Kaintucks” from the backwoods, or else it was raised by small boys. The French stood silent, somber at the loss of civilized rule, certain that they were being given over to barbarians.
Elene had few such reservations. She had come to see that Ryan was right. Let the Americans come with their energy and lust for commerce and their money. The wives of these men would need perfume as much as the French.
She was anxious to get back to her workroom where she had begun a new scent that she meant to call Louisiana Garden. And she must get Devota to help her make up a new mix of the Paradise perfume as she had sold the last of the most recent bottling, her own personal store, just before she set out for the square. She did not want to be without; the perfume was still Ryan’s favorite, and tonight there would be a grand ball given by the Laussats to celebrate the events of the day and the prefect’s new posting to Martinique. There would be many lovely ladies present, no few of them Americans. A woman who was growing more obviously enceinte every day needed all the help she could get to compete. Besides, perfumes were always more noticeable in the heat of dancing. It would be a good time to discreetly display her scent.
Behind Elene stood Devota, holding Benedict’s arm. The mulatto woman watched the couple before her with indulgent eyes. The scent of perfume wafted on a breath of wind and she breathed deeply, a smile hovering about her mouth.
Elene turned in time to catch the soft, almost secretive expression in her maid’s brown eyes and the quiet pleasure on her face. Her own lips curved in return. “What is it? Did I miss something?”
“No, no, chère. I only caught a breath of our perfume, and was thinking how perfect it is.”
“Perfect?”
“The name, Paradise.”
A shadow of suspicion flitted over Elene. She raised her hand to clasp her mother’s cameo at her throat, one of Ryan’s many groom’s gifts to her before their wedding, as if clutching a talisman. That Devota might have lied to her about the perfume and its effects for her own good was perfectly possible. Hadn’t she done it once before? Or had she?
Elene didn’t want to know. The perfume was special, that much she understood. There were many who had quickly grown to love it and depend on it. If there was harm in it, it was not apparent. No, she didn’t want to know.
“Yes, quite perfect,” she said, and turned back to the spectacle before her.
Devota smiled again, then schooled her features to blandness as Benedict tilted his head to stare down at her. But he only said to her in soft tones, “Perfect for you.”
Laussat had come down into the square to address the French militia. Now he and the American commissioners were reviewing the troops of the United States drawn up in impressive formation. In a moment the transfer of Louisiana to the United States would be done and they could all go home. Already, men and women were milling and shifting, making their way back toward the streets and the cafés and drinking establishments where they would discuss this momentous occasion and toast the past.
Ryan breathed deeply of Elene’s scent, and his lips twitched in wry acknowledgment of the desire it always kindled inside him. He pressed her arm against his side. “Ready to go, chérie?”
“Always, with you,” she answered, and smiled into his eyes with her own shining silver gray in the winter sunlight.
Author’s Note
THE RAISING OF THE AMERICAN FLAG at the Place d’Armes in New Orleans on December 20, 1803 was the culmination of the most fabulous real estate deal in history. For approximately four cents per acre, the Unites States received nearly a million square miles of territory containing the largest and most valuable river system in the world, an area bounded on the west by the Continental Divide of the Rocky Mountains, on the north by the head of the Mississippi in Minnesota, and on the south by the Red River and the Gulf of Mexico. The purchase more than doubled the size of the young United States, giving it the base upon which to build a strong and enduring nation.
One of the most amazing things about the transfer of this immense domain is that it was accomplished without wars, without treaties, without compromises or strife of any kind. It was the result of quiet and diligent diplomatic effort — and a great deal of luck. The desire of the United States for unimpeded access to the gulf coincided nicely with Napoleon’s distraction over European affairs and his urgent need of funds. The American emissaries were close at hand when the decision was made to exchange land for money, and the deed was done. It was, perhaps, one of Napoleon’s most inglorious mistakes. The question will always remain of just what he had in mind originally when he wrested Louisiana from Spain in the Treaty of San Ildefonso, and what would have occurred, what Louisiana would be today, if he had directed his ambition toward the New World instead of Europe.
The Louisiana Purchase and the inauguration of American government in New (Means, then, were not dramatic events filled with fury and bloodshed and the sound of cannons. They were, in fact, as tedious and time consuming as indicated in Perfume of Paradise. The summer and fall leading up to the transfer occurred as given, including the forty days of rain, the yellow fever epidemic which very nearly claimed the life of Colonial Prefect Laussat, the pregnancy of his wife which complicated his plans for departure, and the inexplicable and embarrassing delay of the confirmation of the cession by Napoleon. This, too, is the way history marches, slowly and surely.
The events in Saint-Domingue also followed the pattern shown. General Jean Baptiste Rochambeau, who had taken command after the death of Leclerc, surrendered to the British in November of 1803. On January 1, 1804, the black general, Dessalines, declared the independence of Saint-Domingue under the name of Haiti. Most of the whites left on the island at that time were massacred. The property of the former French landowners was forfeited to the new government without compensation.
The young black republic founded with so much bloodshed has since had a shaky history, including a long period of dictatorship in modern times under the Duvalier family. It is currently far from stable, but valiantly struggling to retain its autonomy as a black nation.
Publications consulted for research material were many, but none was so helpful as Memoirs of My Life, by Pierre Clement de Laussat, translated by Agnes-Josephine Pastwa, O.S.F. I am indebted to the long line of people who aided in the rescue of the moldering manuscript of these memoirs from the tower of a French chateau at Bernadets and saw to its publication. I am also grateful to the staff of the Louisiana Collection, Louisiana State University Library for thei
r cooperation; to Lawrence Lynch, archivist of the Louisiana Archives, for his time and trouble; and to the staff of the Jackson Parish Library, Jonesboro, for their unstinting effort.
The people mentioned in the book who actually lived and played their parts are many. On Saint-Domingue there was the black governor-general, Toussaint, and his successor, Dessalines, also Napoleon’s brother-in-law, General Leclerc, and his successor, Rochambeau. In Louisiana, there was Colonial Prefect Laussat with his wife and their three daughters; the Spanish Governor Salcedo, Intendant Morales, and Commissioner the Marquis de Casa Calvo. Etienne de Bore made a fortune in sugar and became the first major of New Orleans. Bernard Marigny, later in life, established a faubourg, or suburb, in New Orleans with streets named Desire, Bon Chance, and Good Children. William C. C. Claiborne was an able governor who married a Louisiana Creole lady and collaborated with Jean Lafitte and Andrew Jackson during the Battle of New Orleans. General Wilkinson gained honor in serving the United States in the territory, but died amid whispers of treason over the Aaron Burr affair. All other characters are purely fictional.
And so, regrettably, is the perfume called Paradise.
Jennifer Blake
Sweet Brier
Quitman, Louisiana
1
IT WAS A GLITTERING AND fantastic spectacle. The St. Charles Theater blazed with gaslight from the great Gothic chandeliers of wrought iron with their milk-glass globes. The wooden floor that had been laid over the parquet area had been waxed to a high gloss that reflected not only the warm pools of light, but also the white plastered pillars with their gilded decorations of acanthus leaves, the crimson velvet of the stage curtain, the urn-shaped balustrades of the boxes, and the lyre designs in the domed ceiling. Silken streamers of red and green and gold had been looped from the dome down to the upper tier of boxes. They swayed gently in the rising heat given off by the burning gaslights, as if moving in time to the measured lilt of the waltz being played by the orchestra.
Louisiana History Collection - Part 2 Page 75