Creole Hearts

by Toombs, Jane

  Everything and everyone was against her here. The cold damp ground hurt her feet, the chill night breeze froze her—and they'd taken her son. Wings brushed her face and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. A bat? An owl? Senalda hurried on.

  She reached the river road along the levee. She knew the way, she'd follow the road into town. When she'd walked for some time, she heard horses' hooves and the rattle of wheels. She shrank into the roadside shadows. A loaded dray passed her. Fortune smiled. The driver hadn't seen her. She clutched the shawl closer and went on.

  Senalda slipped through the streets of New Orleans uncertainly, keeping away from the light, avoiding everyone. She had only a vague idea of where the rue des Ramparts was, although she knew from the name that the street must be near the fortifications at the edge of the city.

  When she finally came onto the rue des Ramparts, Senalda walked along the row of white cottages.

  "It be the last," the slave had told her, standing in the stubble of cut cane. His eyes had showed white all around the brown, like the eyes of a frightened horse.

  He hadn't wanted to tell her, but he was afraid. Of her, maybe, and not the whipping she'd threatened, for when she'd seen herself in the mirror it was like looking at a stranger. How had she grown so thin and starey eyed?

  The last cottage. What would she say to Aimee when she found her? Senalda's steps lagged. Could Aimee help her? Would she? No one talked of Aimee at La Belle, no one said who she was. Except Tanguy. He'd mentioned her name. If only her memory was better. What was it he’d said. Had he told her Aimee would help her find Denis? Yes, that must be it. Aimee would know where Denis was. Hadn't Tanguy said so?

  Senalda's bare feet made no noise on the wooden porch. Her hand went to the door. Locked. She tapped at it, waited, knocked again, louder.

  "Who is it?" a voice asked through the wood.

  "I come from Tanguy," Senalda said, smiling at her cleverness, for Aimee might not know her name. "Let me in."

  The locked clicked, the door opened. Senalda stared at the pretty woman in the doorway holding a lamp. Pretty, but faded.

  "Aimee?" she said.

  "Yes. Who are you? What does Guy want?"

  Senalda started forward and Aimee fell back to let her come in. Senalda closed the door. "Where is Denis?" she asked.

  "He's sleeping, of course." Aimee's glance took in Senalda's bare, bleeding feet, the shawl covering a night dress. "What do you want?" she asked, a twinge of alarm in her voice.

  Senalda looked hard at her. A quadroon? Was Aimee Denis' nursemaid? But why did she keep him here in New Orleans, so far from La Belle, so far from his mother?

  "I've come to take Denis home," she said.

  "What? What are you talking about?"

  "If Tanguy hadn't gone away, this wouldn't have happened," Senalda said. "What right do you have to hide my son from me?"

  Aimee edged away, her yellow eyes wide. "I don't have any child of yours," she said. "Denis is my own son."

  "You lie! Denis is mine and you've stolen him. Give him back to me immediately!"

  "You're mad," Aimee gasped. "I know who you are now, they told me your mind was gone and they were right." She backed farther away. "Get out, get out of my house."

  Senalda ran at her and Aimee ducked to the side, clutching at the lamp to keep it from overturning. Senalda hurried past her and into the tiny hallway. She peered into the gloom of a bedroom, heard a child cry out.

  "Maman, maman!"

  Senalda plunged into the room toward the sound of the child's voice. She stumbled against a cot, bent and felt warm flesh under her hands.

  "Denis," she cried, "oh, thank God I've found you."

  She snatched him up and turned to see Aimee in the doorway, still holding the light.

  "Put him down," Aimee shouted.

  Senalda looked quickly about, seized a poker from beside the tiny fireplace. "Let me by," she said.

  The child in her arms began to struggle and cry.

  "Give me my boy," Aimee sobbed, slamming the lamp onto a table and lunging at Senalda.

  "Give him to me!"

  Senalda slashed with the poker but Aimee's rush knocked her over backwards and the three of them crashed to the floor in a tangle. Senalda lost her grip on the boy.

  "Maman!" Denis screamed. Aimee reached for him.

  Senalda felt the poker still in her hand. She lifted it and swung at Aimee's head, once, twice. Aimee fell back and Senalda raised the poker and hit her again and again until her arm grew tired and the poker fell from her grasp.

  She looked down at Aimee's bloody head. "It was your own fault," she said. "You shouldn't have taken my son." She turned to Denis who was shaking with convulsive sobs, kneeled down and picked him up.

  "Come, darling, maman will take you home," she crooned.

  Chapter 9

  Major Tomlinson and his men disembarked in New Orleans in a driving rain. Guy, though eager to get home to La Belle, accepted Rafe Devol’s invitation to stop in a coffee house, not wanting to refuse Rafe's peace offering, but when they stepped inside Turpin's, he looked around and regretted his decision. Nicolas sat at a front table with his younger brother and Marc de la Harpe. Guy would have to pass their table to sit down.

  Nicolas raised his eyebrows at the sight of Rafe and Guy in their bedraggled clothes. He leaned over and said something that caused Marc to laugh and Philippe to scowl.

  Guy gritted his teeth and went past to another table. No use to borrow trouble. Since he hadn't heard what Nicolas said, it was folly to decide the words were about him, mocking him in some way.

  Mon Dieu, it was good to be back in the city, to return to civilization. The Americans could have the wilderness for all he cared. They and the Indians. He glanced about at the other patrons, hoping to spot Gabriel, and noticed to his surprise that everyone was watching him with eyes that slid away when his gaze met theirs. The place seemed unusually quiet.

  He leaned to Rafe. "Do you imagine they think us heroes? Or possibly fools?" He gestured with his head toward the watchers.

  Rafe looked about, frowned. "I think it's you they're interested in."

  Guy shrugged. Perhaps word was already out about the aborted duel at the camp. He'd ignore them, have his coffee and go home. He was wet and tired and regretted his impulsive decision to volunteer for the Burr expedition. It had accomplished nothing. Worse, now he was mistrusted by Creoles who once liked him.

  As he and Rafe left the coffee house, Guy heard a buzz of conversation begin before the door closed behind them. He caught a word of two.

  ". . . mad . . ."

  ". . . blood all over. . ."

  "Do you suppose we've missed a noteworthy duel?" he asked Rafe.

  "Who knows?" Rafe's voice was cool and Guy cursed himself for reminding Rafe of what had happened.

  "I'm off for La Belle," he said, clapping Rafe on the shoulder. "Give my regards to your parents."

  "And mine to your lovely wife," Rafe said as they parted in the rain.

  Old Louis, who'd been his grandfather's body servant and was now Guy's butler, opened the front door of the manor house as Guy climbed the steps onto the porch in the gathering dusk.

  "We be happy to see you, Monsieur Guy. Most happy." But old Louis wasn't smiling.

  Guy shed his wet hat and coat. "I'm just as happy to be back. "I'll want a bath and--” He broke off as Madelaine came running into the foyer, calling his name.

  "Guy, oh Guy, I'm so glad you're here. It's been terrible." She flung herself at him, heedless of his damp clothes, and began to sob against his chest. An ominous chill went through him. Madelaine had never missed him this much before. He grasped her shoulders and held her at arm’s length from him.

  "What's wrong?" he demanded. Where's Senalda? Is she all right?"

  Tears streamed down Madelaine's face. "No," she sobbed, "oh no."

  He shook her a little. Nom de Dieu, tell me!"

  "Senalda—she—I had to—oh, Guy, I had to
lock her in the storeroom."

  "You what?" He stared at his sister, thunderstruck. "You did what?"

  Madelaine pulled away from him and wiped at her eyes with a handkerchief. "Senalda's gone mad, Guy. It wasn't safe to—to--”

  "How dare you do such a thing to my wife?" he demanded. "Take me to her immediately."

  She bit her lip, new tears welling. "There's worse to tell .. ." she began but he grabbed her shoulders again.

  "Take me to Senalda, I said!"

  From upstairs he heard a child begin to cry and he stared in the direction of the sound, then back at his sister.

  She sighed, saying only, "Come with me."

  Madelaine hurried toward the back of the house with Guy following close behind. As they passed the house slaves he noticed with a fragment of his mind that not one wore a welcoming smile, but scuttled out of the way, avoiding his eyes.

  On a nail beside a room he remembered as small and windowless, hung a key. Madelaine lifted it down and inserted the key into the lock, turned it, and hesitantly pushed open the door. She stood back to let him enter.

  A ceiling lamp turned low cast a dim light. Empty wooden shelves told of the room's former use. A bed and commode took up most of the floor space. Atop the covers, her gown rucked up to expose her nakedness, lay—Mon Dieu! This emaciated stick of a woman couldn't be his beautiful Senalda! Madeline eased past him to pull down the gown and put the bedclothes in order.

  "I tried to tell you," she said in a low tone as he walked to the bedside.

  The gaunt woman on the bed opened her eyes and they were the same blue he remembered. This was his wife. He sent Madelaine an anguished look. "Why did you put her here? How could you?"

  "You don't understand--"

  "I understand you've locked a very sick woman in a windowless cell. How could you be so cruel?"

  "She—she escapes, Guy. She climbs out windows and she--" Madelaine broke off, started again. "She bites and scratches the servants, too. They won't take care of her, they're too frightened. I—she doesn't hurt me. But I can't watch her all the time. This is the only way I can—protect her."

  "I want her taken upstairs to her own bedroom immediately. The servants bedamned—I'm master here, they'll do as I say."

  He looked down at Senalda and tears blurred his vision. He dropped to his knees beside the bed and gently took one of her hands. "Cherie," he whispered.

  Senalda looked into his face with no sign of recognition. "Denis," she said in a thin, sad voice. "I hear him crying. Bring him to me, bring me my son."

  Hair rose on Guy's neck. He dropped her hand and rose, turned to face Madelaine. She spread her hands.

  "I keep trying to tell you," she said. "While you were gone--"

  A dull thud came from the front of the house. The front door slamming. Guy stepped into the corridor.

  He heard Louis' voice raised in protest. Someone, a black woman from the sound, demanding, her voice drowning out Louis'.

  "The monsieur is home, you don't lie to me, old man, lest you wish to suffer."

  Guy strode toward the foyer, stopped short when he saw Louis cringing away from a tall mulatto woman. She wore all white, even her tignon was white, and he was reminded of someone—of Aimee's sister, Estelle. This woman was older, but she looked like Estelle.

  "What do you want?" he asked her. "What are you doing in my house?’

  "You know who I am," she said, crossing her arms and looking directly at him. "You know."

  She had to be Vedette Rusert, Aimee and Estelle's mother. The voodoo queen. No wonder old Louis was frightened.

  "I know who you are. Why are you here?" he demanded.

  "I came for my grandson. He don't belong in this house."

  Guy blinked, a terrible conviction forming. The child he'd heard crying, Senalda asking for Denis . . . But how was such a thing possible?

  He took a step toward Vedette. "Where's Aimee?" he asked. "Is she all right?"

  Her eyes blazed. "Aimee lies in stone, if you call that 'all right.' You give me back Denis, she brought him here, where he don't belong."

  "Aimee brought him here? I don't understand."

  Vedette raised her arms straight up, flinging back her head. "He don't know, the man don't know," she said, eyes fixed on the foyer ceiling. ''Bon Dieu, he don't know."

  Vedette brought her gaze down to fix Guy's once more. She glided toward him until she was inches away. "That woman you marry brought Denis here. She killed my Aimee and took my grandson. He is mine. I want him. Where is he?"

  Upstairs the child cried out as though in answer and Vedette whirled and dashed up the stairs, reappearing moments later with Denis in her arms. The boy stared wide eyed at Guy who, stunned, hadn't moved.

  From the direction of the storeroom a wild cry rose. "Denis, Denis!"

  Vedette, on her way to the front door, paused, her dark gaze sliding toward the sound of Senalda's voice. She shifted the child to one arm, reached into a pocket of her gown and, before Guy realized what she meant to do, she hurried past him toward the storeroom.

  He ran after her. Madelaine stood in the corridor, key in her hand. The storeroom door was closed. Vedette fumbled with the knob a moment, turned away and slipped down the hall toward the rear door.

  "Wait," Guy called, but she paid him no mind and when he followed her outside, she and the child she carried had disappeared in the misty drizzle of the night.

  He walked slowly back along the corridor. Louis stood beside Madelaine in front of the storeroom, staring in horror at the door.

  "Gris gris," Louis muttered.

  Guy saw that a bundle of black fur and white feathers hung from the doorknob. He snatched it off and thrust it at Louis.

  "Burn this abomination," he ordered.

  The old man backed away, his eyes white ringed with terror. "Don't be making me touch no voodoo gris gris," he pleaded.

  Guy, about to shout at Louis, clenched his fists. Voodoo. No use to blame Louis, the slaves believed in voodoo. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "I'll take care of it," he managed to say.

  Louis bobbed his head in thankfulness and backed away, then turned and fled down the corridor.

  Madelaine clenched the key in a whitened fist. "What—what is that thing?" she asked.

  "Some kind of voodoo charm, it's meaningless." He spoke firmly to reassure his sister, although he'd been shaken to his soul by Vedette. The gris gris in his hand seemed inexplicably foul to him and he strode to the back door and flung it into the night.

  When he came back to the storeroom door, Madelaine handed him the key. He looked at her.

  ”Is it true what she said?" he asked, knowing the question was useless, for Vedette hadn't lied.

  Madelaine nodded, her face pinched and white.

  He said nothing for a moment, then unlocked the storeroom door. "We must bring Senalda upstairs," he said. "I'll watch over her."

  Senalda was so light in his arms he felt as if it was a child he carried. He bore her into the bedroom they'd once shared and laid her gently on the bed.

  "I'll take care of you, cherie.” he murmured.

  She didn't open her eyes or answer.

  Guy stayed with Senalda constantly for the next two weeks, watching her fade each day. She wouldn't eat, took almost no water, and seemed to be in a trance. He couldn't bring himself to lie next to her, so he slept in a chair drawn up beside the big bed.

  At night he left a candle burning and one morning, early, before dawn, when the night's candle had almost guttered out, he woke suddenly, believing he'd heard his name. He leaned over to look at Senalda.

  Her eyes were open, staring at him, and he thought she knew who he was for the first time since he'd come home from upriver. He touched her cheek very gently and her lips quivered as though she was trying to smile. Her eyelids fluttered closed and she stopped breathing.

  When he went to rouse Madelaine, he found Louis at the top of the staircase by the grandfather clock. Incredulous, he
watched as Louis stopped the pendulum so the clock no longer ticked. Louis looked up the stairs, saw him and nodded solemnly.

  "I be knowing," he said. "I always knows when somebody in the family die."

  By dawn, all the clocks in the house had been stopped. Black crepe hung on the outside of the front door.

  In a daze of grief, Guy had the coffin made and ordered the black hearse with its matched pairs of black horses. He sat through the service at St. Louis Cathedral, hearing not a word, and watched silently as the lavender coffin was carried into the cold stone of the La Branche vault.

  When Madelaine touched his arm, to have him come away with her, he shook his head. She persisted and he looked into her eyes, red rimmed from crying and patted her shoulder.

  "I'm all right. I want to be alone for a time."

  Reluctantly, she left him, everyone left, and he was alone by the vault.

  He saw Senalda before him, smiling and haughty in her blonde beauty as she'd been when she descended from her uncle's carriage the first time he'd set eyes on her. That was his Senalda, not the pitiful remains in the lavender coffin.

  But where had his Senalda gone? How had she become someone else? He realized he'd never really understood her and now it was too late, forever too late.

  He bowed his head and prayed for the Virgin Mary to intercede for her soul. Sometime later he looked around, saw that the sun's rays slanted, the day waned. Guy left the cemetery and made his way toward the river, to another, smaller graveyard.

  Once there, he opened the gate and went inside. Two mulatto women glanced at him as they moved away, leaving. No one else was in sight.

  He walked between the vaults, searching, and came to one that the setting sun touched to rose red. LaMotte. Aimee LaMotte. Her name was carved below an angel holding a wreath.

  Now, at last, tears came to Guy's eyes. “Forgive me,” he murmured brokenly. "Forgive me, Aimee, for you weren't to blame for what lay between my wife and me. May you find your place in heaven."

  He dropped to his knees, covered his face with his hands and wept for both his loves.