“It was a difficult labor. In the last stages, the midwife gave her laudanum for the pain. She made the mistake of leaving the bottle sitting beside the accouchement bed. My mother took an overdose. There was no way to tell whether it was deliberate or accidental. Either was feasible. But people placed the blame on my father’s shoulders and he accepted it.”
What could she say? The man she had married would scorn a facile sympathy. How bitter his father must have been — and how easy it was to blame him for the whole. There was much left untold still, the scars that marked Rafael, and his father’s murder.
Rafael pushed away from the frame of the door, moving to the copper bath and dropping to one knee beside it. “Don’t look so distressed, chérie. It took place eighteen years ago, not yesterday. A dusty tragedy now, curling at the edges like parchment.” He smiled. “Of course, if you wished to comfort me I would not refuse.”
“You’ll get — wet,” she said with a catch in her voice as he plunged his hand into the water.
“Not,” he answered gently, “if I take off my clothes. I can’t remember why I bothered to dress in the first place.”
“You were tired of lying in bed, and you were cool without clothing,” she reminded him quickly, catching his hand as it moved downward over the flat, smooth skin of her abdomen.
He looked up, trapping her amber gaze with his bright black eyes. His lips curved in a slow smile. “You know, I find I am no longer tired — and not at all cool.”
“Aren’t you?” she whispered.
A soft laugh was his only reply as he let his gaze travel over her to the hair coiled on top of her head. With his left hand, he began to probe the soft roll, plucking out the pins so that its heavy weight loosened and slid down her back, falling nearly to the floor outside the tub.
Her attention caught momentarily by the gold glitter of the pins he had dropped one by one to the floor, Catherine said, “I never thanked you for your gift, did I?”
“These?” He weighed one in his hand with a judicious expression. “No, I don’t believe you did. Would you like to?”
Her lips quivered as she tried not to laugh, but it was no use. “Oh, Rafael,” she said. “Does everything lead to this?”
“This?” he asked, and lifted her wet and dripping from the water to lie in his arms.
She nodded, unable to speak for his lips against hers.
“Everything of importance,” he answered as he carried her to bed.
The Angelus bell two days later marked the end of their confinement. They would emerge to have dinner with her mother that evening. While they were downstairs Dédé would pack what was left of their belongings, and with the dawn they would start the trip to Alhambra.
Why it should be so Catherine could not imagine, but the cathedral bell seemed to have a doleful ring.
The sky outside darkened with relentless swiftness as she stood watching the gray pigeons wheeling against the sky, preparing to roost.
Surely she was not sorry that their five days were over? She was heartily sick of the lack of exercise, of eating from a tray or makeshift table, of the surveillance and having to keep a constant guard on her tongue. Yet in that time there had been no outside problems, no decisions to make. For all her fears and reservations beforehand, these days had been a time of fragile peace between Rafael and herself.
In the room behind her Rafael was struggling into his coat. From his muttered curses, Catherine thought he was missing the services of his valet. Knowing that it often took a valet and two footmen to insert some gentlemen into their perfectly tailored coats, she had offered her help but it had been declined in definite terms. Was it a surfeit of her company that made him short with her, or was he also affected by the problems which faced them? Either way, she felt that he had set her at a distance. The difficulty which she represented had been conquered, his revenge against Marcus was complete, and already he was turning his attention to other obstacles.
You are being ridiculous, she scolded herself; fretting needlessly, all because Rafael had discarded his loverlike attitude to return to conventional behavior. It was not all imagination, however, for when she walked to the dressing table and took up the brush to bring some kind of order to her hair, he watched for a long, unmoving moment, then stepped to the head of the bed to ring for Dédé. When she came, he let the nurse in and quietly left the room.
9
The wide curve of the river had an opalescent sheen in the pre-dawn light. Swollen with the spring run-off from the vast reaches of the Louisiana Territory, the Mississippi rode high up on its levee. To Catherine, standing on the earthen embankment among her boxes and bundles, it seemed there were boats as far as she could see, the floodwater raising them well above the ground level of the city behind her. Directly before her was tied one of the aristocrats of the river, a huge keelboat; the boat that would carry them on the thirty-five-mile journey upriver. Further upstream were stretches of flatboats, known to rivermen as “arks.” A half-dozen sailing ships of as many different nationalities were anchored out in the deeper channel. Smaller crafts swung from their mooring lines or were pulled up on the bank, among them birch-bark canoes, pirogues made of hollowed tree trunks, and skiffs known as “mackinaws.” There was a ferry, and a boat with oars in its locks and a small, furled sail, looking suspiciously like a New England dinghy. There was even a scow with a center treadmill to which an ox could be harnessed to provide the power.
Shivering a little, Catherine drew her cloak close about her as protection from the cool wind blowing off the water. Behind her the city lay wrapped in darkness except for the flicker of a street lamp here and there which had not yet burned out. Nothing stirred at this hour. It was unnaturally quiet. Even the voices of the men loading the big keelboat were subdued. It would be some time before the sun would rise to warm the air and dispel the mist that hung like a gauze veil in the tops of the trees across the river. Perhaps it would serve also to dispel this apathy that gripped her.
“Catherine! Why are you standing there? Come aboard. My maid will soon have coffee ready.”
Fanny Barton stepped from the cargo box of the boat, a welcoming smile on her wide mouth. Attracted by his sister’s call, Giles appeared around the side of the box in time to steady the gangplank and give Catherine his hand as she jumped down to the deck.
“I don’t know what Rafe was thinking of, leaving you standing about,” he said with a grin. “He would have felt foolish if we had left you behind. I believe he is seeing to Solange and Madame Thibeaut, making sure the new finery doesn’t get watermarked.”
Fanny supported him. “Yes, I heard the commotion,” she said. There was such an odd tone in her voice that Catherine suspected the other girl had deliberately come to rescue her. A moment later she dismissed the idea as unlikely. No doubt the gesture stemmed only from a natural hospitality and innate good manners.
“These are your boxes?” Giles indicated the things left on the levee. At her nod, he dispatched a pair of menservants to bring them onboard. Catherine pointed out the bandbox she wanted with her in the cabin, then watched, bemused, as the blond giant who was to be her neighbor casually directed that the rest be taken to her husband to be stowed away.
“Thank you,” she said, turning to face the pair with a resolute dignity. “You are very kind.”
Giles smiled down at her. “I would like to take the credit,” he said frankly. “But I was joking about leaving you behind. Actually, Rafe asked me to look after you. His sister kept him longer than he expected. Solange has never liked traveling by boat. It makes her fretful — and a bit—”
“The word you are looking for, brother dear, is irritating,” Fanny said. “Forgive me if that sounds uncharitable, it happens to be the truth. Solange is demanding, quarrelsome; and before we are a boatlength away from the levee, she will be complaining of seasickness and making certain we all share her discomfort.”
“You may have guessed,” Giles said, a gleam in his clear blue e
yes that belied his grave tone, “that Fanny and Solange do not get along.”
“Because I am not affected by the airs she assumes to create interest, and because I have the temerity to feel sorry for her for the loneliness that makes such affectation necessary?” Fanny demanded.
“Your outspoken habit has nothing to do with it,” Giles murmured.
“Hardly anything,” his sister temporized with a wry smile. “But enough. When I talked to your mother earlier in the week, Catherine, I understood that your maid would travel with you to Alhambra. Has she been delayed?”
“No,” Catherine answered, her smile fading. “She isn’t coming.”
When her mother had suggested that Dédé go with her in the capacity of a personal maid, Catherine had not been enthusiastic. It was only after Rafael had flatly refused to allow the woman to come that she began to realize how alone she would be in her new husband’s house. She had tried to make him understand her feelings. He had remained adamant. If she had to have the services of a maid, he would choose one for her when they reached the plantation, but he would not have that sullen sorceress in his house.
“Never mind,” Fanny said. “She would have been company for my woman, but it will mean more room in the cabin for the rest of the ladies.”
“You said you spoke to my mother earlier?” Catherine questioned the other girl with apparent carelessness.
“The day after the wedding, I think it was. I needed some idea of how much prepared food to lay in for the journey.”
So as early as that Rafael had intended to leave for the plantation. His pretense of consulting her had been no more than that, a pretense. How agreeable for him to find her so accommodating. If she had not been, he might have had another opportunity of exerting his new authority. If she had rebelled he might even have had to resort to force, kidnapping, as he had jested. Nothing was beyond him.
His gaze resting with concern on her pale face, Giles said, “Perhaps you would like to lie down in the cabin. I’m sorry to drag you from your bed before dawn, but we needed to make an early start. I don’t like to be on the river after dark.”
“No indeed,” Fanny agreed with a realistic shudder. “Not if it can be helped. Just be glad you didn’t have to sleep on the boat last night, as I did. Even with twenty men and Giles around me, I did not feel safe. Some of the gangs of river pirates, you know, number thirty or forty of the most vicious, bloodthirsty men imaginable, animals who thrive on mangling, mutilating, and gouging out each other’s eyes for the sheer pleasure of the fight. You can imagine what they do to their victims.”
“You haven’t given her a chance to answer me,” Giles reminded his sister pointedly.
Fanny glanced at Catherine. “Don’t let me frighten you. I’m sure we shall be quite safe. Are you tired?”
From the cabin came the sound of a feminine voice raised in petulant anger. There seemed little chance of rest in that vicinity. Catherine hastily disclaimed all intention of trying to recapture sleep.
“Good,” Fanny exclaimed. “Then you can stay and keep me company. We can sit here upon the cargo roof and get acquainted while we drink our coffee. I think I see it coming now.”
The keelboat was some fourteen feet wide and fifty long with a shallow draft of less than five feet. The cargo box, one end of which had been cleared as a cabin for the women, took up the center with a narrow boardwalk on either side of it, and a small expanse of cleared deck fore and aft. The walkways were cluttered with poles half as long as the boat, ten on each side. Crowding the aft deck was the crew, Negroes in rough osnaburg, who squatted, their backs to the gunwale, nursing cups of hot coffee laced with rum. On the forward deck was a windlass arrangement which, Fanny explained, was used to steady the boat through rapids and swift water and pull it off of sandbars.
As they watched, Rafael left the cargo box and joined Giles at the windlass. They pored over an unrolled chart spread out over its base, the dark head contrasting sharply with the blond.
Catherine looked away, clasping her hands tightly about her coffee cup, absorbing the grateful warmth. To express her indifference, she asked the first thing which came into her mind.
“What time shall we make landfall at Alhambra?”
“Giles hopes to be home by dark. Rafe, when he came to fetch us nearly a month ago, made the trip in just under fifteen hours. My brother, in the friendliest spirit possible, naturally, is determined to better his record. Rafe had his own boat and an experienced crew. Giles does not. Those men back there are new hands he bought recently to replace those we have lost; we had a bad winter this year with a lot of pneumonia and ague, and then we have had a rash of runaways. But men are men and, to Giles, using the slaves will make winning more satisfactory.”
“This boat is your brother’s then?”
“Yes. He bought it from a merchant who brought it, loaded with goods, down from Louisville. I would like for him to keep it. I could fit it out with curtains, cushions, paint and gilt trim, so that our trips to New Orleans could be made in comfort. Giles says it sounds like Cleopatra’s barge to him. He intends to break it up for the lumber. I expect he will turn it into a blacksmith’s shop, or some such thing.”
There was a shouted order. One of the men jumped to the levee, threw the gangplank to a waiting deckhand, loosened the mooring rope, and scrambled back onboard.
“I expect we had better move,” Fanny said, jumping down from the box as the men began to clatter the poles at their feet and take their places at the sides. They made their way to the bow. Standing out of the way, they watched the operation as the boat began to move.
Twenty men, ten per side, thrust their poles into the water until they reached bottom, placed their shoulders in the crotch at the top of the poles, and, straining against them, walked toward the stem. As the men at the end of each row reached the limit of the walkway, they turned smartly and ran back over the top of the cargo box to the bow, to begin again, in this manner, walking the boat upstream.
Slowly the dark skyline of New Orleans, the sloping slate roofs, the flat balustered top of the Cabildo, and the rounded twin towers of the cathedral, slid away behind them. With her gloved hand resting lightly on the gunwale and her face immobile, Catherine watched until it was out of sight.
By sunrise most signs of civilization were behind them. Hours passed between the sightings of cleared lands or smoking chimneys pointing upward among the trees dripping with gray Spanish moss. Seagulls followed them a long distance up the river. In the quiet water of small tributaries they saw wood ducks and mallards paddling near the banks. Blue cranes and brown pelicans passed often overhead. In the swampy areas the trees were white with nesting egrets. Their plaintive screeching had an unearthly ring over the silent forest that bounded the river on each side. Turtles slid quietly into the water at they approach, and now and again a majestic white crane would rise on heavy, sun-silvered wings to flap away over the tops of the trees.
Due to the high water they were able to “bushwhack” the boat at times, pulling it along close to the bank by grasping the bushes and small trees at the edge of the water. In the middle of the morning a cold repast of ham or chicken between biscuits and rolls, washed down with quantities of hot coffee made over the brazier in the ladies’ cabin, was eaten. As the sun climbed high overhead, sweat began to pour from the men from their exertions. They discarded their shirts. Those who had shoes had removed them long before, and the men poled with a will in breeches and bare feet, sometimes breaking into a low and melodious working chanty which helped them to pull in unison.
There was an older man among the slaves. Catherine, noticing the fine weave of his linen, thought he had been a house-servant, and as such, unused to such strenuous labor. She was watching when he began to falter. When he fell to his knees she started forward in concern, but Rafael was before her. Catching the man’s pole before it could be lost in the sucking current, he supported him with an arm about his shoulders. In a moment order had been restored. T
he man was laid on the deck at the rear with a canvas awning for shade and Fanny’s maid to cosset him.
Tossing a careless challenge to Giles over his shoulder, Rafael took up the extra pole. Giles, after an instant’s hesitation, sent a man on the opposite side to rest in the shade while he took up pole and challenge with a grin. Both men exhorted their crews to greater efforts in an attempt to make the other man’s side of the boat yaw toward the shore. They were soon stripped to the waist, straining, laughing, and calling insults in their high-spirited rivalry.
Fanny flicked Catherine a look of almost maternal amusement. Catherine barely smiled in return. Watching the play of supple muscles beneath the scourged skin of Rafael’s back gave her a peculiar feeling near the heart. The sight of the thin red line, all that remained of the sword cut she had closed for him with her best embroidery stitches, evoked memories she would as soon forget.
“It’s getting rather warm — don’t you think?” she said, stripping off her gloves and fanning herself with them.
“I do indeed,” Fanny said, her tone brisk after a swift glance at Catherine. “You are getting pink across your cheeks and the top of your nose. I’m so freckled already it doesn’t matter, but it would be a shame to burn such lovely skin. Solange should be over the worst of her sickness by now, if you would like to go inside.”
“Yes, I would like that,” she agreed, and swung away without glancing again in Rafael’s direction.
The dimness of the cabin, with its one small window, was a relief after the glare of the water outside. It was overheated from the sun and the brazier in one corner, and somewhat stuffy, but that could be endured. In the tiny enclosed space there was little headroom. Bunks had been arranged one above the other on each wall, with a pallet of piled quilts in the corner for the maid. Testing the thinness of the rustling cornshuck mattress that covered the ropes of the bunk, Catherine thought she would gladly exchange places with the servant
Love and Adventure Collection - Part 1 (Love and Adventure Boxed Sets) Page 59