When the meal ended and Courtney went downstairs, Delphine returned to the dining room just as the rest of us were leaving. She spoke softly, urgently to Uncle Robert and I caught a phrase or two.
“It is true indeed that he is back, m’sieu … a great brute of a man … uncouth, rude, … the yellow hair of the barbarian.”
I was curious about all this, but I could not very well linger in order to listen. Once more I went to my room to consider my meager wardrobe. Never wanting to seem in competition with my mother, I had not troubled much about clothes in the past. My single white muslin might be suitable for the Sunday drive with Courtney, but it was old-fashioned in style, with no bustle and too much fullness in the hemline. But it would have to do, since it was at least better than the brown foulard.
While I was considering the possibility of a bit of ribbon to trim the frock’s plainness, Mama came tapping on my door and I invited her in. It was her first visit to my room, but she hardly looked about as she sat down in the little rocker.
“Robert’s doctor came to see Bruce this afternoon and Robert came with him.” She sighed and fell silent.
I tossed aside the bands of green ribbon I’d been toying with. “What did the doctor say?”
Mama shrugged. “Nothing. He shook his head like a black raven and looked lugubrious. I think his visit did your father little good. If anything, those two made him feel more helpless than before.”
“Perhaps one of us should be with him now—” I began.
“He wants no one,” Mama said. “He is sunk in apathy and wants only to be left alone. There seems no way to reach him.”
She gave me a quick, frightened look and I felt sorry for her. Always she had relied upon her husband for guidance, trusted his judgment. Even when she flouted it at times, she always ended by doing whatever Papa wished. Now her small bark was without a rudder.
“We mustn’t worry,” I told her gently. “We must give him time to recover from the trip, accustom himself to a new setting.”
My mother twisted her hands together. “But there is no time! Skye, what is to become of us?”
“It seems to me that we’re very lucky,” I pointed out. “Uncle Robert has made us welcome in his home and I’m sure he will do everything he can for Papa. There’s nothing to be concerned about.”
“You don’t know Robert! If the whim should move him he would turn us out with never a qualm. He has always disliked me. I have no reason to think he has changed now.”
I felt she was biased in her judgment and being exceedingly unfair. She was so quick to distrust anyone who did not spoil and flatter her that I could not credit her fears. Uncle Robert had shown that he was ready to like me, and that he would be content to have us here for as long as we chose to stay. But there was no use in arguing this with my mother.
“If only Bruce would write again!” Mama went on. “But he won’t even look at a book. Sometimes I think he has turned against me. Perhaps he blames me for his fall.”
“That would never be his way,” I told her quickly. “Perhaps you blame yourself.”
But she would not be cornered into such an admission. She roused herself and moved about the room, looking at its furnishings for the first time. My dressing table caught her attention and she went over to examine it more closely.
“Skye, this palisander dressing table is the very one I used in this house as a little girl! It was a gift from my father that I prized a great deal. He was a true connoisseur of the beautiful and many of the things he purchased are to be seen in this house. Natalie says that Robert continues the tradition. Though in a different way. As impoverished families move from the Quarter and are forced to sell their treasures, Robert buys them up.”
She made a little face at the thought and stroked her fingers gently over the cool marble, touched the carving of the rosewood frame that held the mirror. I could well imagine her as a girl sitting before this dressing table, studying her own reflected image as I had studied mine. Momentarily the years between us fell away and I touched her hand lightly.
“Let’s ask Delphine if it can be moved into your room,” I said. “If it will give you pleasure—”
She shook her head quickly. “No! I don’t want to remember.” Then she bent toward the glass and stared at her image, suddenly startled and disbelieving. “How dreadfully old I have become. Those puffs under my eyes—and there are a hundred new lines!”
“That’s nonsense,” I assured her. “You’ve only to get enough sleep and dress yourself and you’ll be as beautiful as ever. It’s not so easy for me. I haven’t your gifts to start with. I’m to go driving with Courtney Law Sunday afternoon, and this is all I have to wear.”
She turned in distaste from the telltale mirror. “That’s right. He’s to show you the Vieux Carré, is he not?” She picked up the plain muslin dress and looked at it with a practical eye. “It isn’t too bad. Not fashionable, perhaps, but the straight lines of the bodice suit you. No ribbon though. You are not the type for ribbon, as I am. If only you would do something more interesting with your hair.”
I didn’t want to change my hair. It was as I chose to wear it because severity at least minimized its dreadful color.
“Don’t worry about me. This drive is of no importance anyway,” I said, not wanting her to suspect that I’d begun to look forward to it a little. “After all, this young man is merely taking me for a drive because Uncle Robert wishes him to be courteous.”
She nodded thoughtfully, turning the dress about in her hands. “Yes, that is plain. In fact Robert dropped a word or two to me. This Courtney Law—he comes in part from a good family, in spite of the bad blood on the Law side. Aurore is a LeMaitre—an excellent Creole family. And Harry Law brought considerable wealth to the marriage.”
I stared at her. “What are you implying?”
“Of course!” she cried and dropped once more into the rocker. By this time something of her natural gaiety had returned and she clapped her hands like a delighted child. “Now I see what my brother intends! If you can find a husband of wealth, Skye, all our problems will be solved and we needn’t be dependent upon Robert. Leave it to him to think of that!”
How exasperating she could be! This notion, I knew, had come to her on the inspiration of the moment, yet she would now twist and turn and try to make me believe it was my uncle’s wish. Whatever happened, I did not mean to have her thrust me into a loveless marriage. Nor did I mean to let her blame Uncle Robert for the plans I knew were suddenly running through her clever little head. How I felt about Courtney I could not possibly know as yet, nor how he might come to feel about me. This was something which must be allowed its own course and not be bruised by hasty, clumsy hands.
But Mama had the bit between her teeth and she was running on, enchanted by her own notion.
“Listen to me, Skye! Harry Law built Aurore a home in the Garden District—very large and beautiful. I have danced at balls there as a girl. Harry was an American and he would have invested his money well.”
There was no stopping her, and I contained my irritation. “I understand that Harry abandoned his wife and never came back,” I pointed out. “Perhaps he took his money with him.”
“He went away only to save his life,” Mama said. “And obviously, since Aurore still keeps up the house in the Garden District, he left her well off. In any event, Courtney must have inherited part of his father’s wealth.”
I climbed up the little stepladder and plumped myself down in the middle of the bed. “You’re building castles of mist. When they blow away you’ll have nothing at all.”
“But I tell you,” Mama cried in true Creole excitement, “I remember them together—Harry and Aurore. I never understood what men could see in her, and of course she was older than I—but it was a case of true love. Harry would have cared for her well. After all, did he not take her away from my brother Robert?”
This caught my attention. “You mean Uncle Robert was interested in Courtney�
�s mother?”
“Interested? They were affianced! All the wedding plans were made. When the American took her right out from under Robert’s nose, it was the great scandale of the season.”
This was a new glimpse of my uncle and I winced at the thought of the pain he must have suffered. No wonder he had not married as a young man. It must have taken him a long while to recover from such a blow. Now I could admire him all the more for his forgiveness of Aurore and his kindness to the young man who was her son. I tried to put my thought into words.
“At least it’s to Uncle Robert’s credit that he has held no grudge, has even been generous enough to give Courtney a place in his office. A man must be big to forgive so magnanimously.”
“Robert never forgives anyone for anything,” Mama said and all her spite toward her brother seemed to ring in her words.
But I remembered the portrait of a lovely young girl which hung on the wall of my uncle’s office and knew that more sentiment could move him than my mother dreamed. Was that portrait the Aurore LeMaitre of long ago? Mama’s rancor against Uncle Robert colored all her thinking toward him. She would never see him in a favorable light. My sympathy lay with him—this man who had lost his love to another, and who was our friend. Our only friend.
“Anyway all this past history doesn’t matter now,” I said. “Courtney is a pleasant young man and I shall go driving with him well chaperoned. But he is not likely to be interested in me with so many Creole beauties around. Or I in him for that matter.” Which, I felt, should make my position clear and conceal any mild interest that might be stirring in me.
My mother left her chair and walked thoughtfully to the door. “Perhaps I should go with you, after all. Perhaps I can do more for you than you are willing to do for yourself.”
I held my breath and waited. If I opposed her, she would surely come, for she could never bear to have anyone tell her no. But as I watched her face, despair came into it again and I knew she was thinking of my father. Whether or not I found a wealthy husband would not help her if she could not rouse Papa again to some interest in life.
She shook her head sadly. “I don’t want to leave your father. Nor do I want to see the Vieux Carré until I feel stronger. There is too much to remember.”
So I was safe for the moment from her interference. When she left my room I began to plan for Sunday by myself, mightily relieved.
FIVE
When the day came it was bright and warm, a lovely afternoon for a drive. Mama took a special interest in my appearance and I knew she was still thinking in terms of a wealthy husband who was to save us all from want. I didn’t argue with her, but quietly went my own way. Courtney, if he were to like me, would have to like me as I was. This, at least, I had clarified to myself in the intervening hours.
Courtney’s arrival was prompt and Delphine came with us in the carriage, wearing one of those blue dresses, freshly laundered and starched, that seemed to be her uniform. Her tignon, bound neatly over its high, concealed comb, gave her the air of one wearing a crown.
Courtney handed me into the carriage and opened for me the little white parasol I’d borrowed from Mama. He looked quite the dandy this afternoon in his light gray trousers, gray vest and darker gray coat. His top hat was of fine Parisian felt and he doffed it gracefully.
“White becomes you, mam’zelle,” he said as he sat beside me in the carriage.
Delphine took the drop seat, and seemed to see and hear nothing. Courtney paid no attention to her after a first greeting and talked as though she were not there at all. I, however, could not forget her, sitting opposite us, straight and remote, her skin like pale gold in the sunlight. She was, I felt sure, missing nothing, for all that she looked past us and seemed not to attend what we were saying.
My mother’s words about marriage had taken a little of the edge off my pleasure in the day. I liked Courtney and could not help but respond to his attentive gallantry, as any woman would. But I wanted our friendship to grow naturally and my mother’s words had made me self-conscious. However, as the carriage rolled along the busy street, I began to have a sense of release, almost of escape. Even in these few days my bonds had begun to chafe and I found it pleasant, though a little unsettling, to be taking the air in the company of so personable a young man.
There is something naturally ardent about the eyes of the Creole. I had noted the same warmth of expression in portraits on the walls of my uncle’s house. One had the feeling that with these men love was the business of the day and that they enjoyed nothing more than playing a romantic role. Courtney was no exception.
He did not forget that he was taking me on a tour of the Vieux Carré, but he made it clear that even as he spoke of the scenes about us, he looked upon me as a man does upon an attractive woman. When I spoke, his eyes followed the movement of my lips and my hands with an air of being entranced. It was an air to which I was unaccustomed and I had none of my mother’s skill in fluttering withdrawal or provoking advance. He went too fast for me. Disconcerted, I fixed my attention upon the scene outside the carriage and tried not to meet Courtney’s interested gaze. I did not know him yet, and I meant to have no more of falling in love without some assurance first that the man was worth loving.
Fortunately for my equanimity, the passing scene was intensely interesting. The Vieux Carré, I found to my surprise, was open for business on Sunday. On every hand vendors paraded the walks, calling their wares in French, or in that strange mixed patois I did not understand. Their musical calls mingled with the sound of horses’ hooves, the jouncing of wheels over pavement, the shouts of teamsters.
As we drove past the tightly set little houses, with their square façades, I found more interest in them by day than in my previous glimpse at night. They were bright in the sunlight—pale pink and cream, light blue, sometimes gray or green, seldom white. Often the colors added up to a warm mixture that had no name, but which must result from the gentle weathering of the seasons. Except when a house was the French type of cottage, there were always balconies of green or black iron, and the delicate cast-iron lacework gave the flat little buildings an air of grace and distinction. Mama had told me that the handwrought iron of LaFitte’s day was growing rare. But to my eyes the cast iron seemed equally beautiful.
I tried to look up and forget the open gutters that ran beside every walk. They had been sluiced down this morning, and apparently sun and wind helped as scavengers, for the odors seemed less offensive.
Courtney set himself to interest and entertain me, but I soon became aware that in spite of his surface attention, something in him was withdrawn and there was a preoccupation behind his words. Realizing this I relaxed and paid heed to the scene about me.
The squares we traversed—for they were squares in New Orleans, not blocks—had, he explained, really been little islands in the early days, surrounded as often as not by water. Early settlers had called the paths along these ilets banquettes, and thus the sidewalks of New Orleans were still named. This end of Chartres Street was the more elegant, he assured me. Toward Canal it was like Royal Street, almost wholly a commercial thoroughfare.
“Your Tante Natalie would prefer a house on the more fashionable Esplanade, but M’sieu Robert’s home was built long ago by the Tourneaus and he would as soon think of cutting off a hand as of moving elsewhere. Your uncle, mam’zelle, has great pride of family.”
“You think a great deal of Uncle Robert, don’t you?” I asked.
He nodded gravely. “We owe him much, my mother and I. You have heard, perhaps, the story of my father?”
“A little of it,” I admitted.
His eyes darkened. “It is no secret, mam’zelle. Had it not been for M’sieu Robert we would have faced great disgrace. I don’t know what my mother would have done had her husband been shot as a spy.”
It occurred to me that this might have been rather hard on Harry Law too, but I did not say so.
“Like others,” Courtney continued, “we invested
in Confederate bonds during the war. Afterwards, when they became worthless, we had little left. Had it not been for your uncle, who felt the responsibility of the family tie, we might have fared badly.” He spoke rather stiffly now, like a man who wanted the facts to be made quite clear, yet endeavored to retain his personal pride in spite of the existing truth.
I nodded sympathetically, but could not help smiling to myself. What a blow this would be for Mama’s clever plans! To find that Courtney Law, after all, would not make me a wealthy husband. And how it showed up her pretense that this idea stemmed from my uncle, who of course knew that Courtney was no catch, financially speaking. Released from the possibility of being pushed into his arms, I could feel more comfortable, more natural with him. Courtney and I were both poverty-stricken. We could like each other for ourselves alone, and already I was liking him.
“Perhaps now that your brother has returned to New Orleans,” I said casually, “some of the burden will be eased for your mother.”
“We want nothing from that one!” Courtney said sharply. “The only time my mother wrote to ask for help after the war, we were refused on the pretense that my father had nothing. He even asked impertinent questions. When he died we learned about it only in a round-about way. Yet now Justin returns to town as the owner of a fabulous Leadville silver mine and has the effrontery to move into our house as though it were his own!”
“If your mother doesn’t want him in the house, can’t she ask him to leave?” I inquired.
“She did so at once. I, too, have requested him to leave the house. But in his uncouth way he has laughed at us and invited us to put him out if we wish him to go. He speaks much nonsense about finding his roots. As if such as he could ever have roots in our soil!”
Courtney looked at his hands—the long-fingered hands of a gentleman; uncalloused hands which might hold the reins of a horse, but would never be used for physical violence. I could hardly see Courtney putting his brother forcibly from the house.
Skye Cameron Page 5