“Madame Thibeaut, is this true?” Solange asked, her eyes wide.
“Of course not. The merest drivel, dragged out to persecute me.”
And yet, in New Orleans the companion had not been anxious to mingle with her fellow refugees.
“I think this has gone far enough then,” Solange said, drawing herself up. “It is only this person’s word against that of Madame Ti.”
“That, unfortunately, is true,” Catherine was forced to agree.
“It is,” Madame Thibeaut said, a cruel smile thinning her mouth, “and it comes well from the lips of the daughter of an insurrectionist and a killer, does it not?”
“My father killed no one!” India cried.
“No, and he did not partake in the rebellion in Santo Domingo either, I suppose? Indeed he did, which is why he was sold into Louisiana with his family when he and his followers were captured in the hills. And he helped murder Monsieur Rafael’s father — that is why Monsieur Rafael killed him!”
There was a stunned silence. Then India made an abrupt movement forward.
“My father killed no one!” she hissed. “He ran away, yes, when he could stand the treatment he received no longer. But he would never have killed a man in cold blood. He was himself murdered — by your Monsieur Rafe — for the crime of being in company with the killers!”
“Oh, come—” Madame Thibeaut began, but Catherine made an abrupt gesture.
“That will do,” she said.
There was a peculiar element of trust in the gaze India turned to her. “You will not let this evil woman get away with her deeds?”
“I must think what is to be done.”
“Think? What is to be thought of? She should be placed in the jail and kept there until she can be taken away to New Orleans.”
“It isn’t that easy. There must be proof.”
“What you mean is, you will do nothing.” India said, her voice bitter. “It is always this way. Something always makes it impossible for justice to be done for us. No matter the cruelty, no matter the crimes committed against us, it is we who suffer in the end.”
“That isn’t true,” Catherine said, moving toward the girl. India backed away, the smile on her lips chilling in its hate.
“Isn’t it?” she asked. “How little you know. I thought, Madame, that you were different. I find instead that you are only — stupid.”
Whirling, the Indian woman ran out the door, knocking against the frame in her clumsy haste.
“Well!” Solange said.
“May I commend you, Madame Navarro, on your self-control?” Madame Thibeaut said, her voice laced with irony. “Come, Solange.”
Catherine made no move to stop the pair. Mechanically, she took the pins from her hair and brushed it into a smooth knot. Perhaps Fanny’s maid would be able to dress it more festively for her. She must go on with the party, naturally. She would need at least that much time to decide what must be done.
Her first inclination was to inform Rafael and leave it in his hands. Where would that leave India? He might believe her, enough to make the investigations that would turn up proof to be used against Madame Thibeaut, but her parentage could hardly be kept out of it. Rafael could not be expected to tolerate her near him when he knew.
Was there any way she could institute inquiries? Marcus had little liking for Solange’s companion. She would see him that evening. Might he not be persuaded to look into the affair for her?
It was an uncomfortable ride to Cypress Bend. The cumbersome old carriage lurched from side to side down the rutted lane which passed for a road. Grass, weeds, and small saplings growing between the ruts brushed the bottom of the coach. Tree limbs scratched along its sides. Swarms of gnats invaded the interior, making it necessary to tie the leather curtains down securely, while this, in turn, increased the stuffiness and the heated smell of musty, mildewing cushions. Before they were a mile from the house, Solange became ill and had to be let out to run into the woods a short distance. They carried on with the smell of her vinaigrette sharp in their nostrils and her lamentations ringing in their ears. Catherine could only be glad Rafael had elected to ride alongside and delegated Ali to the place beside the coachman to keep guard with a fowling piece upon his knees. They were at least not overcrowded.
They arrived later than first planned, but in good time for Catherine to drink a cup of tea with Fanny and exchange the news before they began to dress for dinner.
Giles was pouring a sherry for Rafael as they entered the salon. “Ah, the ladies — at last,” he said, handing the glass to his friend.
“Nonsense,” Fanny scoffed. “We aren’t late. You are early.”
“That’s as may be. Our guests will find us still at table if we don’t go in quickly.”
“You worry far too much,” she told him.
“And you not enough.”
A shadow passed over Fanny’s face. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“No, maybe not. I will make you a handsome apology by telling you how well you look.” Taking his sister’s hand he made her a courtly bow. “That gray-green color becomes you, my dear, and the silver lace with your ribbon headdress is just the right touch.”
“Quickly, Catherine,” Fanny said, turning to give her hand to Rafael, “Giles seems to be in need of distraction.”
“You need not instruct her,” Giles replied, lifting Catherine’s fingers to his lips. “She could drive any man to distraction.”
Mere banter, of course, but Catherine glanced from the sudden grave look in Giles’s blue eyes to meet the sardonic gaze of Rafael.
“Including her husband,” he said to his friend. “You have my permission to escort her in to dinner, however.”
At the table, Fanny directed the conversation to safely dull channels, principally politics, with a comment on the census being taken in the territory. The proposed convention to frame a constitution for use the moment statehood was achieved came under fire next, dissolving naturally into the subject of admittance of the territory into the union.
“I had a letter from Claiborne the other day,” Giles said.
“Ah yes, your friend,” Rafael mocked him gently.
“And yours, if you but knew it. At any rate, the governor is of the opinion that statehood for the lower portion of the purchase is only a formality. There can be no question of a scarcity of people.”
Catherine let her mind wander. Cypress Bend, as Fanny had said, was much like Alhambra in construction. There were the same wide galleries, the same whitewashed bousillage outside. There were no wings however. The main rooms were lined across the front with the bedchambers strung in a row directly behind them. Interest was added by the small twin buildings on each side, on the left a garçonnière for the overnight accommodation of young male guests, on the right a pigeonnier to provide a supply of tender squab for the table — and the neighbors.
Inside, there was a subtle difference in the decor. Less ornamentation was in evidence than in a Creole home, less bric-a-brac and gold leaf, fewer patterns in rugs and drapes. The furniture had simpler lines, the colors were more subdued. The grand salon and petit salons had been thrown together to form a ballroom. Rugs and matting had been removed and the gray cypress boards of the floor colored with a decoction of red oak bark, then rubbed with beeswax. When polished it took on a high gloss, reflecting the chairs set at intervals along the walls and the massed flowers; roses, larkspur, and wild gardenia, which formed alcoves around the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The flowers were a hobby of Fanny’s, grown in an English style garden at the rear of the house. Thinking of it, Catherine made a mental note to ask her for the names of her roses, especially the dusky pink with the mossy looking bud. She had still not gotten around to refurbishing the courtyard at Alhambra. How foolish she had been that morning when she had stood looking over that unkempt area. She had expected no problems in her life greater than taking a neglected household in hand and making something of beauty out of ugliness.
>
“Don’t you think so, Catherine?”
“What?” she asked with a guilty start. “I’m afraid I wasn’t attending.”
“I asked if you didn’t admire Fanny’s necklace,” Rafael said with thinly disguised impatience. “Oriental jade, I think.”
Catherine glanced at the pendant on a fine gold chain. A small carved elephant was not her idea of beauty, but she had to agree it was unusual.
“It was a gift from my father on my sixteenth birthday, a long time ago,” Fanny said. “He was a sea captain, you know. He picked this up in the Spice Islands on the last trip before his death. He claimed it was a good luck piece, a Far Eastern superstition, because the elephant has his trunk turned down.”
“Show them your bracelet,” Giles said lazily from where he leaned back in his chair at the head of the table, playing with a cluster of watch fobs hanging from his waistcoat pocket.
“Oh yes,” Fanny said, obediently presenting her wrist. “It is a mate to my elephant, fastened to a band of jade and gold. I found it in Natchez, of all places. There is a man there, a Mr. Martin. He is a planter in a small way, I believe, but he makes a hobby of collecting and selling unusual things of this sort.”
“I seem to remember a girl I knew at convent school, Helene Dubois, marrying a Martin at Natchez,” Catherine said.
“Quite probably,” Rafael commented, “since every girl in the territory with any pretension to education has gone to the convent.”
That was so true Catherine had to smile. “Yes, but Helene was a good friend — until she went to visit relatives in Natchez nearly three years ago and never came back.”
“The way you say that, you would think Natchez was at the edge of the world,” Fanny teased.
“No, no,” Catherine said with a smile and a shake of her head, “that is at New England.”
They were not caught at the table by the guests, but it was a close thing. When the first carriage was heard upon the drive they were just entering the ballroom and had to arrange themselves hurriedly to receive.
Solange had declined to be present at the dinner table, preferring a tray for Madame Thibeaut and herself in the room assigned to them for their dressing. The pair was seated on a camel-backed settee, talking, quietly at ease when Catherine noticed them. She stared in a mingled indignation and pity, but had no time to do more before the first guest was announced. She was aware, however, of Rafael’s stiffening beside her and the thinly veiled suspicion in the penetrating glance he sent her.
“What have you done to her?” he grated under his breath. “She looks like a fille de joie.”
There was no time to answer. It was, in any case, all too true — and it was possible she was to blame. Rouged cheeks, red mouth, face dead white with powder, hair frizzed into a tortured arrangement by a too hot curling iron, the girl looked like a painted doll — or a “soiled dove” from one of the bagnios on Tchoupitoulas Street in New Orleans. The dress she wore, of pink silk trimmed about the appallingly décolleté neckline with a wide band of diamante, had never been approved by Madame Mayfield on their shopping trips together. Catherine could not imagine where the girl had found it. Topping off this toilette, like a badge of approval, was Catherine’s cashmere shawl, the shawl Rafael had given her in her marriage basket.
Who was responsible for this travesty? Solange? Or was it Madame Thibeaut? There seemed only two possible explanations for it. Ignorance was one. The other, sheer malice, the kind of ugly malice that would expose a young girl to ridicule for the sake of scoring a point over someone else. For it was Catherine who had encouraged Solange to use paint — and Madame Thibeaut knew it.
The girl could not be allowed to disgrace herself. After greeting the new arrivals Rafael left them talking to Fanny and Catherine and went to order Solange to her room. The argument was quiet, but no less fierce or bitter for that, from what Catherine could judge. Still, at last Solange obeyed her brother.
A little thought convinced Catherine that her husband’s sister could have nothing else suitable to wear. She had brought only the one gown with her. Something must be contrived. As soon as she could do so without attracting undue attention, she followed Solange.
Fanny’s clothes were hopelessly large, being both too wide across the shoulders and too long. She did have a lace bertha which her maid found to contribute to the cause. The removal of the diamante made a vast improvement. With the lace across her bosom, most of the paint removed, and the application of a bit of pomade to her hair, Solange began to be presentable. Still, when the time came to reenter the ballroom, the girl balked. In a fit of temper she ordered everyone out of her bedchamber. Privately, Catherine was of the opinion it would be a good thing for her to be alone for a while. She was not so certain when Solange drew her to one side and asked her to send Marcus to her the moment he arrived.
Catherine could not do so, of course. All the rules of common sense and propriety strictly forbade a meeting in a bedchamber. In the state Solange was in, it would have been most unwise. What Rafael would say if he discovered such a ruse was best left to the imagination. There must be an alternative.
Frowning, Catherine made her way back to the ballroom. She danced a quadrille with Giles. It was a fast set which they frolicked through with much laughter. One or two other gentlemen begged dances and she obliged, though she was careful to sit out several also in order to safeguard against being called a fast young matron, and to find time to speak to several of the older women ranged around the walls.
The Trepagniers were late in putting in an appearance. According to Monsieur Trepagnier, a haughty looking man with a permanent stain under his nose from taking snuff, it was due to a slight contretemps over their new carriage. A piece of the silver molding had been missing, and he had refused to leave the house until the culprit who took it was found and soundly whipped. It was discovered to have been a gardener’s child who took it because it was shiny.
Marcus was resplendent in a coat of dark blue superfine, whisper gray pantaloons, and a waistcoat woven of gray and gold striped silk. An added touch was a gold tassel hanging from the hilt of the inevitable dress sword. Catherine watched with approval from across the room as, with consummate tact, he led his hostess out onto the floor. Still, she was not surprised when he sought her out during the first interval.
It was warm for exertion, and she sat trying to cool herself with a fan of painted chicken skin in one of the flower-decked window alcoves. The scent of the roses and gardenias was overpowering and she leaned back, breathing the freshness of the outside air with gratitude.
“I lost you once in a window like this.”
She turned her head to smile at Marcus. “Through sheer neglect on your part,” she answered, refusing to fall in with his nostalgic tone. “Tell me, did you ever collect your wager?”
“You must know there was none,” he said, his voice blunt.
“No, I only suspected.” His face was drawn. Dark circles of tiredness shadowed his eyes. When he made no answer, she continued, “Solange wants to see you.”
“Does she?”
“Don’t be like that!” Catherine’s voice was sharp. “She has looked forward to this now for weeks. The least you can do is ask her to stand up with you.”
The thought crossed my mind, but I don’t see her on the floor — or along the wall, for that matter.”
“No. I expect she will leave her seclusion for you, however. There is a sitting room across the entrance hall. If you will wait there, I will send her to you.”
“And her crone of a companion too, I make no doubt,” he said with a grimace. “Very well.” As Catherine made a move to go, he touched her arm. “First there is something I must tell you.”
“Yes?”
“I will be leaving the day after tomorrow.”
“Returning to the city?”
He nodded assent. “There is a limit to the hospitality of the fondest relative, and a limit to my funds.”
“You have given u
p the idea of marrying Solange?”
“Bravado, chérie, nothing more. You know as well as I our Rafe would rather see me dead first. Besides, she hasn’t a picayune.”
“A disqualification of the first magnitude,” she said gravely.
“It counts,” he agreed, “when you can’t have what you really want.”
Catherine was silenced. “Well, I will send Solange to you.”
“Do that,” he said, flashing a brief smile, “but I will leave it to you to tell her I am leaving.”
“You are too kind,” she mocked, and made her escape.
Hardly had she returned when Rafael claimed her for a new dance imported from Austria via France, the waltz. It was thought to be rather vulgar, not the thing for young girls, but acceptable for husbands and wives. Catherine had practiced it at home but this was her first opportunity to execute it in public. It was a novel sensation being so close in a man’s arms in full view of everyone. She and her husband did not speak. Attending to her steps, and the strength of the guiding arm about her waist Catherine had little time for coherent thought. It was only as the music ended that she realized she had forgotten to ask Marcus to check into Madame Thibeaut’s clandestine activities. She was given no opportunity to remedy the oversight, however. Her husband did not leave her side for the rest of the evening.
15
Rafael rode close to the door of the carriage, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, on the return trip home. There was no need for them to make the night journey through the swamp. Fanny had asked them to stay on, and Catherine would have preferred it, but Rafael had insisted.
Love and Adventure Collection - Part 1 (Love and Adventure Boxed Sets) Page 69