by Shirl Henke
Still, he and Deborah had only been married a little over a month. Time would solve the problem. Time and, in due course, motherhood.
Suddenly, his thoughts turned to Lily. Perhaps a visit to Rampart Street might be a good idea, too. When Deborah stirred and spoke, he was angry at his sudden rush of guilt. “What?” he queried more sharply than he intended.
Deborah's hand stilled on his chest and she repeated softly, “I only asked what you were thinking. You seemed a million miles away.”
He chuckled darkly. “All too close to home, Cherie” he said, switching to English, “all too close to you.”
* * * *
Saturday evening, Rafael announced at the dinner table that he was joining his father for a turn at the gaming tables. Deborah had already heard stories about the fabled twenty-four-hour, seven-day-a-week casinos so infamous in the Sin City of New Orleans. Every kind of card game was offered: ecarte, vingt-et-un, poker, faro, and roulette. Often, as much as twenty-five thousand dollars passed from one gentleman's hands to another's in a night. She had also heard about the other amusements offered above stairs in such establishments; but when her mother-in-law took the announcement with such disinterested calm, she could see no reason to protest. Surely if the men had planned anything more than playing cards, they would not be so casually open about going to “Toto” Davis's famous establishment.
When she asked Rafael what time he would be home, Claude gave her a disdainful look. Celine appeared in shock at her audacity. Her husband merely shrugged and told her not to expect the Flamenco men to accompany their women to mass the following morning. After they left, Deborah threw her napkin down on the table and rose to leave the room.
Celine's voice stopped her with its frosty venom. “Rafael will not long humor your incredible presumptuousness. You'd best learn to guard your tongue and not question when you should not like the answers.”
Glaring unrepentantly at Celine, Deborah let her seething anger burst forth. “All I did was make a reasonable inquiry. Rafael has gone out the past three evenings for gentlemen's amusements, leaving me alone. I'm used to a bit more consideration.”
“I've invited you to join me for dominoes at the du Mays' and to see the La Rues' newly redecorated home, but you have declined. You don't want to fit in. You certainly cannot expect your husband to dance attendance on you full time. We don't do things that way here.” Celine's voice was flat with contempt.
“You don't do most things here the way I'm accustomed to,” Deborah shot back.
“But you married into a Creole family; and it's a wife's duty to adapt, isn't it, my dear,” Celine said with oversweet reasonableness, now gloating over this first obvious rift between her son and his hateful wife.
“So it's been explained to me before,” Deborah said with a sigh, turning to leave the room.
* * * *
Rafael came home around four a.m. He smelled faintly of cigar smoke and Madeira but had not been drinking much.
It was a strict rule of Creole propriety never to be drunk in public. He had carefully undressed and then collapsed across the bed after cheerfully announcing that he had won twenty-two thousand dollars.
“But what if you had lost that much!” She was aghast at his profligacy.
“I frequently have,” he calmly announced. “We can easily afford it, Deborah. Now go to sleep. I’m exhausted.” He was asleep within seconds, leaving her fuming and wide awake.
When she arose the next morning she was angry at Rafael's refusal to accompany her to mass. He rolled over, urged her to join his mother and sister, then fell immediately back to sleep.
Deborah dressed and headed toward the family dining room. As she passed Celine's sitting room, she heard a sharp smack and a muffled sob. Tonette ran from the room with tears glistening in her big brown eyes. From what Deborah had overheard, it was apparent she had not pressed Celine's dress to her mistress's satisfaction.
“Creole Christian charity,” Deborah muttered to herself and went to comfort the girl who had fled to the kitchen. Although uneasy over the idea of commanding and owning slaves, Deborah had gradually formed a good relationship with most of the family's “people,” as they were called. Antoine the butler and Wilma the cook were warm and gracious, but it was the young girl Tonette, Lenore's companion and personal maid, to whom Deborah was closest.
Once Tonette had overcome her natural suspicion of the “Yankee foreigner,” the girl had become a source of gossip and information. On several occasions, Deborah had witnessed Celine's cruelty to the younger servants, although the clever woman never attempted to interfere with Antoine or Wilma. A seventeen-year-old girl, however, was a different matter.
Deborah sat at the kitchen table with Tonette, whose pale tan shoulders shook. She was so pretty, Deborah thought, with her light coffee-and-cream complexion, golden brown eyes, and tall, elegant figure.
“Don't cry, Tonette.” She patted the girl's back and looked helplessly over at Wilma, whose ample girth blocked out half the enormous fireplace where she was stirring a pot of gumbo.
Wilma was from Virginia, a skilled cook and housekeeper, purchased twenty years ago. “Doan nevah mind Miz Celine, chile. She fly off one minute, be givin' you sweet treats th' next. She be chang'ble as wind in a hurricane.”
The Frenchwoman was incredibly volatile. In Boston she'd never keep servants with her bizarre outbursts and effusive turnabouts. Of course, when someone owns you, you can't quit no matter how frightening or insufferable the mistress, Deborah thought bitterly.
Swallowing her outrage over Celine's behavior, Deborah accompanied her mother-in-law and Lenore to mass. She still felt like an intruder in the beautiful old St. Louis Cathedral. Rafael had attended church with her only once. When she asked Lenore why there were so few men at mass, her sister-in-law answered her whispered inquiry with puzzlement. Most men made their Easter duty and went on Christmas Eve, but otherwise, with the exception of special occasions such as marriages and christenings, they seldom set foot in church. Having grown up in staid, straight-laced Boston, where most folks were at least outwardly conformant, such cavalier religious sentiments shocked her. Adam Manchester was a stout Episcopalian who had attended church with his daughter every Sunday. Now, she needed the comfort of her husband's presence. Kneeling beside Celine Flamenco elicited distinctly unchristian feelings.
After mass, Celine went off to visit with some of her friends, leaving Lenore and Deborah alone in the sitting room. Attempting to ease her sister-in-law's despondency over Celine's behavior, Lenore said, “Tonette will soon forget Mama's anger. Don't worry, Deborah. This afternoon is free time, and the Congos will be dancing in the square.”
“Congos?” Deborah's face was puzzled.
Lenore laughed. “I keep forgetting you're a newcomer to New Orleans. ‘Congo’ just means African. Everyone calls the open field above Rampart Street Congo Square. Most Creoles give their slaves Sunday afternoon off to dance until sundown. It's the real Africans, those who remember the old tribal dances, who put on the best show.” She gave a delicate shudder and said quickly, “Or so I've heard.”
Deborah was intrigued. She had heard the soulful, poignant music of the “coloreds,” both the slaves and those existing in the twilight world of ‘Free People of Color.” There was such haunting beauty and primitive power in it that she had been fascinated. Her first week in New Orleans, she'd heard a black slave poling a ferry and singing a mournful dirge that had echoed in her dreams ever since:
De night is dark, de day is long
An’ we are far from home
Weep, my brodders, weep.
Lenore watched Deborah's reverie, once more puzzled. Like her brother, she had grown up surrounded by the black subculture and thought little about it, negatively or positively. It simply existed. “What are you thinking about now?” Lenore waited a beat, half-afraid of the answer.
“How would you like to take a little excursion this afternoon, Lenore?” Deborah could see a mixt
ure of incredulity, fear, and curiosity written on her sister-in-law's face.
* * * *
When the big, open park unfolded before Deborah and Lenore, they could see hundreds of people massed in groups of varying sizes, dancing beneath enormous spreading sycamore trees. The Congos, or pure Africans, were kinky haired with gleaming ebony skin. A liberal mixture of brown, tan, and golden complexions were visible as well, more of the latter among the spectators than the dancers, however. Also ringing the leaping, swaying, undulating men and women were numerous whites—Creoles and Americans, rich and poor. Some were fascinated, others repelled. The spectators were almost as numerous as the participants.
Deborah quickly alighted from the carriage under the impassive stare of their black driver, Guy. Lenore was a bit more reticent but doggedly followed Deborah as she wended her way through the crowd.
There was a great deal of variety in the dancing. Some groups moved slowly in highly stylized, repetitious steps. Others were wild and raucous, but all were graceful. The music was created by primitive instruments, drums of all sizes and shapes, reed pipes and flutes, and oddly shaped stringed instruments. The sounds were a bizarre blend of eerie loveliness and cacophonous racket.
Deborah's eye was caught by a man and woman off to one side who were engaged in a most sensual, erotic ballet that shockingly imitated the motions of lovemaking. She blushed furiously at the undulating gyrations, wondering if Lenore knew what they symbolized. Judging from her sister-in-law's flushed face and averted eyes, she did.
Deborah was standing entranced by the performance, when the noise of arguing voices brought her from her reverie. Lenore's hissed whisper was unintelligible, but the cold, clipped male voice that replied was distinct. “You are disgracing me and the whole family. You will come home this instant. I'll have that boy whipped for bringing you to this place.”
The speaker was a striking-looking man of medium height, fine-boned and dark. When he turned to Deborah, she was amazed by his resemblance to Rafael. The same haughty, classically perfect Latin features, but more delicately drawn, colder, almost effete. His beautiful face and elegant body seemed to her the end result of too much inbreeding. Observing his proprietary grip on Lenore's arm, she knew at once that he was Georges Beaurivage.
“Georges, please. I came with Deborah.” Lenore reached for her sister-in-law's hand, needing reassurance. She shook, whether from fear or from anger, Deborah could not tell.
The look Georges turned on her would have frozen wood alcohol. With a stiff bow his glacial black eyes raked over her insolently. “Ah yes, your brother's Northern wife,” he said in English. His inflection on the word “Northern” might well have equated it with “ax murderess,” if not merely streetwalker, Deborah decided grimly. If Lenore had ever needed an ally to oppose this marriage, she had one now.
“Good afternoon, Monsieur Beaurivage,” she said in English. “I have heard so much about you from the family.” She was rewarded for her deceit when he began to speak rapidly to Lenore in French.
“Aunt Celine has told me about this disastrous marriage. Poor Rafael must have been insane. Small wonder Uncle Claude is so upset. You are not to associate with this hoyden again and certainly never to be seen in such a place as this, ever!” Then, switching to heavily accented English, he reached for both women's arms, saying, “Ladies, allow me to escort you home.”
“I would be desolate to put you to so much trouble, cousin, especially considering how your reputation might suffer, being seen with such a hoyden.” Deborah's French was flawless and her smile withering. Georges Beaurìvage paled and dropped his hand from her elbow.
Deborah seized Lenore's arm and began to stalk off when another voice interrupted. “I didn't believe Wilma when she told me!” Rafael's face was as stormy as a hurricane. Looking from his wife to Lenore and her fiancé, he said incredulously, “Surely, you didn't suggest this charming excursion, Cousin Georges?”
At once the shorter man drew himself up to his full five feet nine inches. Indignantly, he replied, “Never think it! I was on my way to—to meet a friend, when I saw Guy and the Flamenco carriage over on Rampart. I stopped at once to question him. When I learned my fiancée was witnessing this disgustingly barbaric spectacle, I came to escort her safely home.”
“It was my idea to see the dancing, Rafael,” Deborah said with a steady, cutting glare in Georges' direction. “But I don't consider it disgusting or barbaric. Actually, it's quite fascinating. I want to learn all I can of New Orleans culture and—”
“This could hardly be called culture, dear cousin,” Georges interrupted with a patronizing air, now sure it was Deborah and not he who would bear the brunt of Rafael's famous temper.
Deborah opened her mouth to respond; but Rafael cut her short, holding her arm in a painful grip as he addressed Georges. “Please do me the great courtesy of seeing Lenore home, cousin. I have some matters to explain to my wife.”
With a martyred look, Lenore followed an overly solicitous Georges Beaurivage to where his carriage was waiting at the edge of the crowd.
Rafael felt Deborah trying to strain free of his painful grip and said softly, “If you make a scene in front of this riffraff, it won't be any more of a disgrace than you've already created for me to pick you up bodily and carry you away kicking and screaming.”
One look at his slitted eyes convinced her that he meant it. Unlike the effete, petty possessiveness of Georges, Rafael's manner was almost savage in intensity. She walked with him in silence to where he had the closed carriage waiting.
“I've tried to be patient, Deborah. I know this is a life different from yours in Boston, but you refuse to be guided by Mama or me or anyone else. Now, you've even involved Lenore in one of your escapades. She's an unmarried girl, for God's sake! An innocent. Her reputation would be ruined if any of Mama's friends saw her in such a place.”
“How could they see her unless they were here watching the dancing themselves?” she snapped with infuriating logic.
“Servants' gossip! The slaves' grapevine is almost supernatural in its effectiveness. Honestly, Deborah, there's so much you don't understand. A proper Creole wife would—”
She whirled on him in murderous fury. “If I hear that expression one more time I think I'll vomit! 'A proper Creole wife’ is a mindless, simpering ninny who never does anything without consulting her male relatives! You knew I wasn't like that before you married me and I'll never change.”
“As a man of honor, I had little enough choice in the matter of marrying you, madam,” he said coldly.
Her first impulse was to slap his face, that beautiful aristocratic face she loved so, but tears suddenly blurred her vision. She turned and stepped into the carriage before he could assist her.
Rafael saw her stiffen in pain at his cruel remark. Why did she always make him so blindly furious that he said things he did not mean? He climbed inside after her, expecting to be subjected to a sea of weeping. Once more he had underestimated her. Unlike his mother and sister, unlike most all “proper Creole women,” Deborah did not weep. She sat rigidly still, forcing back the tears and staring out the opposite window, chin held proudly high.
She was different and impossible, and he had never desired her as much as he did at that moment. However, he fought the surge of irrational emotion with pride and anger of his own. No woman would rule his life and humiliate him in front of his friends.
The short carriage ride to Royal Street seemed an eternity as the silence thickened.
Chapter Nine
Dinner Sunday evening was subdued. Lenore had been thoroughly chastised by her parents for accompanying Deborah that afternoon. Georges Beaurivage had made certain Claude and Celine heard about how he had snatched his fiancée from the jaws of social disgrace. As for Rafael and Deborah, their silence at the table told all wordlessly.
After dinner father and son shared cigars and Madeira in the study. Observing Rafael's bleak countenance, Claude took a long pull on his ciga
r and exhaled, then spoke in measured tones. “I think, my dear boy, the honeymoon is over. You've made a bad bargain; but, alas, one you must live with. If you get her breeding, she will at least have something to occupy herself with besides creating scandals.” He paused and looked levelly at his son.
“No, she's not pregnant,” Rafael replied with an aggravated sigh. “But I'm certain she soon will be.”
The older man gave a characteristically Gallic snort of derision. “So was I assured with your mother. A lot of good it did me. One miscarriage after the other. In thirty years of marriage, it's a miracle I have one son.”
Rafael ground out his cigar and replied angrily, “I realize that now it's up to me to carry on the Flamenco name, at least on this side of the color line.”
“Speaking of our other families, have you visited Lily since your return?” Claude interjected smoothly. “It might prove quite therapeutic for you to do so.”
Rafael's face did not lose its scowl, but he did shrug with ironic resignation. “No, I have been putting off that diversion in favor of doing my duty, Papa. I've slept with my wife every night.”
Once more, Claude barked a snort of derisive laughter, then fixed his son with keen black eyes. “I think if you stop trying so hard and ‘divert’ yourself instead, it might just mend the situation all the way around.”
“Perhaps you're right,” Rafael replied quietly, “perhaps you're right...”
* * * *
Deborah spent a miserable evening, waiting for Rafael to come to their quarters, wanting to mend the ugly rift between them. She had been grievously hurt when he had said he was forced into the marriage, but they were married and she loved him desperately. For the first time, she considered the possibility that he might not really love her at all, but it was simply too much for her to bear. Temper and Creole pride had led him to say those hurtful things to her this afternoon. He did not—could not have meant that he regretted their marriage.