by Shirl Henke
Rafael could hear the grim tightness in his father's voice as he answered her. “I'm afraid there is nothing we can do, my dear. As our son wrote us, they were wed in the church and I am quite certain my son lost no time consummating the marriage.”
Celine let out another wail and fled after her distraught daughter.
Quite a homecoming, Rafael thought angrily. As if I won't have a difficult enough time easing Deborah into my parents’ good graces, my silly sister has to go and get herself involved with that Yankee upstart and balk at her sensibly arranged marriage.
“I applaud your common sense, Papa. Deborah is indeed my wife, and nothing will change that,” he said as he stepped into the room.
The older man turned angrily. “So, you've overheard how things go. Good. This is the reward we get from our offspring. Both of you infatuated with foreigners! Your mother was heartsick when she read your letter.”
Rafael sighed. “Look, Papa, I am sorry for the shock. We didn't plan to fall in love.” He poured himself a glass of cool wine. “In fact, it's a long and complicated story. Simply put, from the moment I saw her, I was lost. Her father is a wealthy banker from a distinguished Boston family. When we decided to wed, we knew it must be done there in his presence. He consented to have a priest perform the ceremony.”
“I take it they are not of our faith?” Claude asked.
“Deborah will become Catholic, Papa. She'll attend mass with Mama and Lenore. There's no problem with her. It's you who may make things difficult or pleasant. She will be a good wife.”
“A proper Creole wife, your Boston Yankee?” Claude's left brow arched in a sardonic gesture of doubt. “She looks as cold as an Atlantic storm.”
Rafael's face split in a youthful grin. “There you couldn't be more wrong. I wager you we'll fill this house with babies within the decade.”
The old man poured himself some claret and held his glass up with a cynical toast. “To all my grandsons!”
Chapter Seven
Deborah awoke from her exhausted slumber and sat up in the middle of the big bed, slowly orienting herself to the large room. Idly, she ran one hand across the silk sheets and imagined how it would feel to be naked on them with Rafael. Her heated thoughts were interrupted by a gentle tapping and a melodic feminine voice. “Hello. Deborah?”
Jumping out of bed, Deborah spied the sheer silk robe to her wedding peignoir. Slipping it on, she walked to the parlor where a small, slim young woman with dark gold hair stood, hesitantly calling her name.
“You must be Lenore,” she said, pushing a heavy mass of hair back over her shoulder as she welcomed her new sister-in-law and was rewarded with the first genuine smile she had received from any of her in-laws.
“I know you are Deborah. I've never seen hair so pale and shiny before, or violet eyes. No wonder my heartbreaking brother couldn't leave you behind. I'm so glad to meet you.” Lenore was open and friendly, the opposite of her mother.
Impulsively, Deborah reached out and hugged her new sister-in-law. “I can tell already we're going to be friends.” She could see the quiet beauty of this girl with large china blue eyes—eyes that showed evidence of tears. Hoping she and Rafael were not the cause, Deborah asked, “Have you seen your brother?”
“No, I arrived home when you and Rafael were settling in here. Then, I'm afraid, I had a disagreement with our parents. By the time I recovered myself, he had gone out; but he'll be back for dinner. That's why I came to see if you were dressing yet. I've been dying to meet the woman who won my brother's heart.”
They chatted like old friends as Deborah selected the coolest dress she owned. While she had been sleeping, the maid had unpacked her clothes and pressed several dresses. Now they all hung neatly in a mirrored armoire in the dressing room. Lenore helped fasten her gown and was amazed when Deborah brushed her own hair and quickly fashioned it into a smooth fat chignon at the nape of her neck.
“I could never do my hair without Tonette, but she can do for you, too, until we find you a maid.”
Deborah smiled. “I've always done my own hair. In fact, except for occasional help with fastenings and pressing, of course, I never really asked our maid to assist me at all.”
“But every woman of quality must have her own personal maid!”
Deborah chuckled as she replied, “Well, maybe in New Orleans, but I grew up in pragmatic old Boston. I've never been comfortable with too many servants underfoot. We only had four.”
“But Rafael said your father was a leading banker and you lived in a great, beautiful house—oh, I didn't mean to offend you, Deborah.” Lenore's face was scarlet.
Deborah laughed. “No offense taken, Lenore. We did have a large house, but my father and I preferred to live simply. When we entertained, I hired staff temporarily. Free men and women,” she added softly.
“Are you trying to make an abolitionist out of my sister, too, beloved?”
At the sound of Rafael's voice, Lenore whirled and catapulted herself at him with a squeal of girlish delight, barraging him with questions. How was he? How was married life agreeing with him? What had Boston been like? Did he know how fortunate he was to have found Deborah?
Rafael laughingly replied, “I'll tell you all about how we met. Only wait for dinner when Mama and Papa are present.” Lenore's face suddenly became shuttered and her eyes lost their sparkle.
Rafael questioned gently, “Were you quarreling with Mama and Papa when I came downstairs earlier, little one? Perhaps after dinner you and I can talk alone?”
Lenore brightened immediately, then hesitated. “I would love that, only...”
“Only...” he prodded patiently.
“I'm afraid you won't approve. You've always favored Georges.” She stopped short and looked over at Deborah, a silent onlooker at the reunion. “But now that you've broken Creole tradition and chosen such a wonderful American wife, perhaps you'll look at Caleb differently than you would have before!”
With that burst of youthful enthusiasm, she gave Deborah a quick peck on the cheek, hugged her brother again, and raced downstairs.
With a look of exaggerated aggravation, he turned to his wife. “She's such a child. Hard to believe she's eighteen, of marriageable age and then some.”
“I think she's delightful, only not quite as conventional as a ‘proper Creole lady’ is supposed to be. What's this about someone named Caleb? Is he American?”
Now Rafael really scowled. “Yes, he's American.” He said the word as if it were a malediction, taking her quite aback. “He's also a land speculator. Completely unsuitable for my sister. Georges is our kind. He'll make her a good husband.”
Deborah felt oddly hurt by what he said and even more hurt by the logical extension of what he implied. “I, too, am American, Rafael. So are you and all Creoles now. Is this Caleb some kind of fortune hunter?” She was acutely sensitive about that sort of situation.
He shrugged. “He scarcely needs her dowry, if that's what you mean. He's a self-made millionaire, typical of the crassly ambitious Yankees who are strangling our civilization.”
“If he doesn't need her money, then perhaps he really loves her,” she said gently.
Rafael's face became shuttered, much as his sister's had earlier. “Lenore has nothing to say about it. She will marry one of her own kind, a man of breeding, a gentleman, not someone who works in his shirtsleeves and drinks whiskey,” he said disdainfully.
Remembering the times she had come late to her father's study to find the Boston banker with sleeves rolled up, intent on his ledgers while sipping a tot of rum, Deborah was suddenly very angry. Willing herself to calm down, she took a deep breath and said levelly, “I was under the naive assumption that love had a great deal to do with marriages. Perhaps, this American isn't the right man for Lenore; but if she is dead set against your cousin Georges, he is scarcely the right man for her simply because he happens to be a Creole. Oliver Haversham was from a fine old Boston family and you were an outsider. Should I
have married him instead of you?” She held her breath, suddenly afraid of his reply.
Rafael was in a foul humor, pressed on all sides by his parents, his sister, and now his wife, but he could sense the fear and insecurity in her query. Wanting to reassure her, perhaps to reassure himself, he reached out and drew her into his arms. “You must understand the difference it makes when a son marries as opposed to when a daughter marries. A man can take a wife from outside his culture and bring her into it. She can become a part of it because she bears his name and raises his children. When a woman leaves her own people and marries an outsider, she is lost to her family. If Lenore marries Caleb Armstrong, she'll be ostracized from all proper Creole circles here in New Orleans. She's too young and impetuous to see the consequences of the infatuation. She is Creole and she belongs here.”
I am not Creole and I will never belong here. Deborah took small comfort from his unconsciously patronizing assurances, but squeezed back a sudden rush of tears. She had never had patience with vaporing women. She would simply have to try and help his sister in a less direct way.
* * * *
Deborah was determined to fit into her new life, but the adjustments were not easy. Early the next morning, she arose, eager to begin her household duties only to find she had none. Wilma the cook and Antoine the butler ran the city house like a piece of well-oiled machinery. Even Celine did little more than make up the menus. Everything was left in capable black hands.
Assuming that Creole wives did some useful work outside the home such as charity or educational endeavors, Deborah found that such a thought scandalized her mother-in-law. No proper lady of the upper class would ever dream of doing anything so degrading as tend the sick or teach the poor. Such matters were completely in the hands of the Church. The good sisters were admired for their efforts, but no lady, except in rare instances when one took the veil, ever thought of such a thing!
Even Lenore, an open and generous young woman, was aghast when Deborah explained that society ladies in northern cities volunteered in hospitals, opened schools for the underprivileged, and raised money for all sorts of charities. When she told her sister-in-law about the women's suffrage movement in England and France, which so many of her Boston and New York counterparts were embracing, Lenore paled, fascinated in spite of herself.
“You mean, you actually expect to vote?” she fairly croaked as they sat in the parlor one afternoon.
“A woman has a mind capable of thought. If she's responsible for bringing new life into the world, why shouldn't she be guaranteed some say about her children's lives?”
Lenore considered this for a moment, then said hesitantly, “Do you think a man like Caleb might agree with such a radical Yankee idea? Georges certainly wouldn't. Neither would Papa or Rafael,” she added sadly.
Deborah responded honestly. “I've never met Mr. Armstrong, so I don't know. Just because he's an American doesn't mean he espouses women's rights. I know Rafael wasn't very supportive the other night when you discussed Mr. Armstrong, but perhaps he'll soften in time.”
Lenore sighed and nodded. “I hope so, but I have to do what he and Papa say even if they insist I marry Georges.”
Recalling her own near miss with Oliver Haversham, Deborah said forcefully, “No one can make you marry against your will. You must face up to them if you find your cousin so unpleasant.”
It was like talking into the fog, however. Lenore had been so sheltered, cosseted, and molded into her role that she could not imagine openly defying the men of her family.
If she despaired about Lenore, Deborah found her own situation little better. She hated the boring social whirl of dances, masquerades, horse races, and operas, the trips to the modesties and shoemakers, the endless tittering gossip of the young matrons in tea shops and cafes. Boston was a town with the motto: Business occasionally stops for pleasure. New Orleans seemed to have that concept completely reversed: Pleasure occasionally stops for business.
Most frustrating of all for Deborah was Celine's hostility. First on the agenda had been a trip to the dressmaker. Deborah's clothes were too heavy for the steamy tropical heat, and she did love the gauzy sheer muslins, silks, and organzas the southern women wore. However, when it came to style, she and Celine were doomed to clash. Like most Creole women, the Flamencos were petite. Delicate, frilly clothes with ruffles and bows in frothy, elaborate styles looked attractive on them. Not so their Yankee in-law. Deborah was tall and slim; ruffles and bows made her look gawky.
Madame Manlon, the modiste, was sympathetic to Deborah's tastes but knew where the power lay. Madame Flamenco had been her valued customer for years. She quickly bowed out of what became the ribbon riot of Dumaine Street.
Holding a pale aqua watered-silk dress up with a disdainful sniff Celine said, “We must at least put some color in this gown. I know! Some of that cunning grosgrain.” She snatched at the spool of ribbon on the counter. It was a bright rose pink color, heavy and shiny. “Yes, along the shoulders and caught at the hem. Of course, the shoes should have buckles made of it, too.” She babbled on, completely ignoring Deborah's blazing violet eyes.
“Mama, perhaps the dress would be more dramatic if it were plainer,” Lenore ventured but was quickly waved aside.
After a full morning of arguments over colors and styles, enduring all sorts of sweetly delivered slurs about her taste in clothing, Deborah had had enough.
“Mother Celine”—she hated the title but suspected not half as much as her mother-in-law did—“I will not wear that or any other dress with gewgaws on it. They do not flatter me.” Her voice had an edge of steel to it that even Celine could not ignore.
The dressmaker quickly excused herself and fled the crowded fitting room. Lenore was trapped haplessly but backed off into a corner, instinctively reacting like a rabbit in the presence of two Airedales.
Celine's eyes snapped. “You know nothing about fashion. Northern women may be plain as posts, but this is New Orleans and women dress as ladies here.”
Deborah's expression was surprisingly cool now, although she was seething inside. She stared down her mother-in-law's spiteful glare. “I dress to please my husband, not the Creole ladies of New Orleans.”
Celine stamped her foot, shoving the dress at her daughter-in-law and throwing the heavy spool of ribbon on the floor, where it unwound in a splashy pile of rose glitter. “I shall have a talk with my son about your manners.” With that she whirled to leave, chin held imperiously high, only to fall face-forward through the door. She had stepped into the entrapping pile of ribbons, which wound around her ankles, tripping her in a tangled web. As she grabbed for the doorframe, she heard the rip of her skirts, which had caught on a protruding bolt. Unable to free her bound feet or her crinolines, she crumpled in a sobbing, ignominious heap on the floor just outside the dressing room.
Hearing the commotion, Madam Manlon came flying down the hall and knelt to assist her customer. The pink ribbon had entangled Madame Flamenco's stiff red taffeta dress like a fisherman's net. Celine rather closely resembled a pink and red blowfish freshly netted from the Gulf. As her plump body thrashed amid her billowing crinolines, she appeared even more rotund. The thick mass of her glossy chestnut hair had come unceremoniously down and was tangled around her shoulders. Her face was as red as her dress by the time the modiste, Lenore, and Deborah had extricated her.
Biting back her laughter, Deborah nonetheless refused the huffy harridan an apology, merely calling after Celine that she would complete her order and have a hired carriage take her home. She and Madame Manlon finished the day peaceably in complete agreement about pale, cool colors and straight, clean lines.
* * * *
“I tell you, Claude, you have to do something! She will disgrace us. She talks about nothing but books and philosophy and politics, for heaven's sake! And her clothes. Oh! I can never show my face at Madam Manlon's again.” Celine cried and twisted her kerchief in her fingers, daubing delicately at her eyelids as she watched he
r husband sigh in exasperation.
Just then, Rafael sauntered into the parlor in time to see his agitated parents replaying a scene he had often witnessed—his mother tearful and hysterical, his father stern yet placating.
Seeing him, Celine launched into a new fit of weeping, recounting her debacle at the dressmaker's through hiccups of rage and embarrassment. “She is so openly contemptuous of our ways, Rafael. And those horrid washed-out clothes fit only for a governess—it's humiliating.”
Used to her tears and pleading, he sighed in resignation, much like his father. “Mama, you have to give Deborah time to adjust. I will speak with her.”
As he headed for his quarters, their quarters now, he braced himself for another tantrum. What he found instead was a nervous but dry-eyed Deborah, sitting in their parlor, reading. When he entered, she put her book aside and stood up. “I assume your mother told you I tried to strangle her with grosgrain ribbon this morning?”
He smiled thinly. “Something to that general effect. Why can't you let her guide you just a bit, Deborah? She only wants to help you fit in. You really do owe her an apology for your behavior today.”
Deborah's temper was coming to a slow boil. Then, an idea flashed in her mind. Smiling sweetly, she said, “You're right, my love. I'll go speak with her immediately.”
Rafael should have been suspicious of her easy capitulation.
Deborah made a handsome apology to Celine and asked for her help in selecting a gown for the Gautiers' ball. Celine was pleased that her son had at least controlled the hateful chit and vowed to outdo herself selecting style, fabric, and trim. They departed for the modiste once more the next morning. The following week passed with superficial harmony between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Father and son were relieved.
When Rafael entered their bedroom on the night of the ball, Deborah was still wearing a silk wrapper. Flushed from a scented bath, she looked delectably ready to be swept off to bed, not to a gala! “Why aren't you dressed, Moon Flower? It's almost time to be fashionably late, as Mama prefers.”