“Well!” said the man beside me. “This is an interesting turn of events. You have a duenna of some note, it seems.”
I saw then that Delphine was paying no further attention to me, the real culprit. Her eyes, as close to black as any eyes can be, were fixed coldly upon my escort, whom she had undoubtedly recognized.
“As I live and breathe it’s Delphine!” he said as we reached her. “I don’t suppose you’ll remember me, since I must have been about ten years old the last time you saw me. But I’ve not forgotten you—and I’d say you’re not a day older.”
She looked at him stonily. “Nineteen years have passed, m’sieu, but I do not forget your face. Come, Mam’zelle Skye, your aunt concerns herself with your absence. Good day, m’sieu.”
He fell back then, beaten at last, and I could hardly resist the impulse to turn my head and look back at him. Only Delphine’s presence saved me from so weak a gesture. As I walked back to the market with the tall, silent colored woman following me, I felt as cowed as a guilty child.
She did not speak until we were across the busy street that ran beside the market. Then she murmured, as if to herself, “It is a black wind that blows that one back to town.”
“Is that Justin Law?” I asked. “He spoke as if he had lived in New Orleans, but he certainly hasn’t the appearance of a Creole.”
She seemed lost in her own thoughts, so she did not hear me. Which was not, of course, so discourteous as deliberately not answering.
Aunt Natalie stood at the curb with her basket at her feet, watching our approach anxiously.
“My dear child!” she cried as we reached her. “But how disarrayed you are! And where is your hat? What can have happened?”
I explained quickly that a drunken sailor had snatched my hat from my head and I’d had difficulty escaping him. I said nothing about my rescuer, waiting to see what Delphine might offer. But Delphine had picked up the basket again, now overflowing with foodstuffs. As we turned toward Chartres Street she followed us in regal silence. As I realized later it was not to Aunt Natalie that she felt it her duty to report my conduct and my encounter with that vigorous, golden-haired giant of a fellow.
My aunt chattered despairingly as we walked. “My child, never must you wander off like that again. I thought you safely in the market. Gallatin Street is a place of great wickedness. Men have been murdered there. And of course no woman is safe amid such evil, even in the daytime.”
I had no desire to visit Gallatin Street again, but I found myself wondering what he had been doing there—lounging in that archway with a devil of amusement in his eyes. Already I was beginning to think of the answers I might have given him, of how I might have put him in his place. It was regrettable that the right words all suggested themselves too late.
When we reached home I went to my room to restore both my appearance and my equanimity. The dust of the town could be washed from my face and I could comb my hair back smoothly. But somehow I could not brush away the feeling of strong hands lifting me from my knees, could not escape my remembrance of how brightly blue his eyes had been. How brightly mocking! I was angry again at the mockery, so that my cheeks flushed and my breath came quickly.
I wished I might go to my father’s room and tell him about the encounter. But Papa and I were no longer close, as once we had been. He might be disturbed by what had happened and he was no longer the one to whom I could turn when my thoughts churned with confusion.
Could I talk to Uncle Robert? I wondered. I did not know him well, it was true, but he had been kindly and sympathetic on the occasions when we had spoken together. At that moment I had a longing and need for fatherly council.
However, at the noon meal that day Uncle Robert was preoccupied with his business affairs and the burden of conversation was carried lightly by Aunt Natalie, who talked to us about Tina, the baby, and by my mother, who had at last roused herself enough to come to the table. Immediately after the meal my uncle went off to court and there was no opportunity to talk to him.
In the afternoon I took some sewing into Papa’s room and sat beside his bed. Mama sat reading aloud to him, but I think he did not listen, sunk in apathy too deep for interest in what went on about him. At length he seemed to fall asleep and Mama looked at me sadly as she closed her book. I was weary of mending and I took my work back to my own room. It was there that Delphine found me.
She held a milliner’s box in her hands and once more the look of disapproval was in her eyes.
“Mam’zelle has had the opportunity to order a new hat?” she inquired.
I shook my head, puzzled. “Why, no, Delphine. Of course not. I haven’t been out of the house.”
She thrust the small round box toward me. “Nevertheless, this has been delivered in your name, mam’zelle. There is, perhaps, some mistake?”
“There must be,” I said. I took the box and carried it to the bed, not knowing what to make of it. As Delphine said, it was a mistake. But how odd that a milliner should send a hat mistakenly in my name—a name that was scarcely known in New Orleans. Perhaps there would be something inside that would solve the mystery.
I untied the ribbon that held the lid in place, while Delphine watched me, making no move to leave. When the cardboard lid was off I turned back the tissue paper to reveal the most beautiful little hat I had ever seen. It was small in circumference and rather shallow in the crown, and it was made of a pale fern-green material. There were soft ruchings about the crown and graceful little fronds, almost fernlike in their pattern, circling the brim. Plainly it was a hat that would go well with red hair and I recognized the fact at once.
I set it on the bed, a little excited now, and searched through the tissue for a card, a note—anything which would reveal the identity of the sender.
“You must return it at once, mam’zelle,” said Delphine from the doorway. “It is not proper to receive such a gift.”
“Return it to whom?” I asked, dumping out tissue upon my bed. “There’s nothing here to tell me who has sent it.”
But I knew, of course. In my heart I knew, just as Delphine knew. Who in all New Orleans was aware of the fact that this morning I had lost my hat through a rude encounter on Gallatin Street? Who else but the man I was sure was Justin Law. It had been enough for him that he had seen me with Delphine. He must have made inquiries, found out my name and then gone to a milliner’s for a hat that would suit my shade of hair. It was hard to keep from showing my delight, and of course I must not smile in the face of Delphine’s disapproval.
“Only a barbarian would send such a gift to a lady, mam’zelle,” Delphine said sternly.
I did not want to listen to her. Suddenly I wanted to keep this little hat more than I’d ever wanted any piece of clothing in my life. Even though I never wore it, I wanted its possession, and I suspected that everyone in this house, once the details were known, would be in league to take it away from me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, and carried the hat over to my dressing table. There I sat upon the stool and looked at myself in the mirror. The little hat was so beautiful that I was almost afraid to set it upon my head. What if it looked wrong on me? What if I spoiled its perfection? I closed my eyes and set the hat upon my head, trying to feel the rightness of its position with my fingers.
When I opened my eyes and looked again in the mirror, I saw that Delphine had come to stand behind me. I could see her face past me in the glass and I had to move to block her out so that I could judge whether or not the hat suited me.
It did not. The color was right, it was true. But the hat was feminine and fascinating—and I was not. It sat upon my drawn-back hair incongruously and it was not the hat that failed, but I.
“There are many milliners to be found in the Vieux Carré,” Delphine said coaxingly. “Madame Natalie will have one make you a hat that will be just for you. But first one must change the wearing of the hair. A softer line, perhaps—”
I snatched the
hat from my head. This was the sort of thing I heard constantly from my mother and I was weary of it. Always she was bent on turning me into an imitation of herself. And I knew that would only emphasize the contrast between us. Somehow I’d had the fleeting notion that the fern-green hat might transform me, make me attractive in a way that was not my mother’s. It had not done so and I could have wept foolishly in my disillusionment.
Delphine took the hat from me and carried it to the bed. There she returned the tissue paper to the box and made a little nest of it to receive the hat.
“I will send Jasper back to the milliner with this, mam’zelle. There is no need to trouble oneself. The matter will be cared for properly.”
But before she could return the bit of ferny stuff to the box, I sprang up and snatched it from her. I hung it upon a lower knob of my four-poster bed and stood back to admire it.
“Return the box, if you like!” I cried. “But I keep the hat. If I can’t wear it, I can at least look at it. That bedpost looks well in it. Better than I.”
Delphine shrugged eloquently, as though I had taken leave of my senses. She picked up the box, replacing its lid.
“M’sieu Robert will decide, mam’zelle,” she told me coldly and went out of the room.
When she’d gone I shut the door after her and curtsied to the bedpost, so gaily dressed and fashionable. “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll keep it between us—you and I!”
I flung myself on the bed and gave up the afternoon to wasteful dreaming. He had held me in his arms and looked into my eyes and I could not forget him. He had laughed at me and almost scolded me—but he had seen me as a woman. Not in Courtney’s practiced way which was probably something to be turned upon every woman, but because in that moment I had been an individual to Justin Law. He had seen a girl who had lost her hat, and he had gone out of his way to do this lovely, surprising thing.
I was no meek little Creole girl to be pushed around by Delphine or anyone else. My Scottish dander was up and I meant to keep that hat whether it became me or not.
SEVEN
Uncle Robert turned no questioning look upon me at supper that night, so I could only suppose that Delphine had not as yet disclosed my adventures of the day. I planned to get to him first, if possible, and tell my own story, but when the meal was over he left the table and went at once to his study, closing the door. My chance was gone, but now there seemed no urgency.
For the moment all was serene. Mama, as yet, knew nothing about the hat, and she went again to Papa’s room, seeming a little restless. Caro played with her dolls on the courtyard gallery outside the parlor. I sat at a small desk, writing a letter to an old friend at home, listening with one ear to Caro’s imaginative chatter a few feet away from me. She was playing an elaborate game of Carnival and her favorite doll was to be a Queen of Comus.
Amused, I put down my pen to listen. How many times I had heard my mother tell wonderful Carnival stories. She always spoke with hushed respect, as of a royal court, rather than one that was make-believe. The traditions of Carnival and of Mardi Gras, its final day of climax, were something New Orleans women grew up with from childhood. I had heard my mother date the happenings in her life by certain years of Carnival. She always said she would have been a queen the very next year, if she had not married Papa and gone to live in the North. And I was inclined to believe her.
Now here it was again—the Carnival play, with a little girl and her dolls. So entertained was I by listening to Caro that I did not hear Delphine’s step until she stood beside me.
“Mam’zelle Skye,” she said, “M’sieu Robert wishes to see you. In his study, if you please.”
I sensed a faint satisfaction in her tone. She had been quicker than I in gaining my uncle’s ear. I could not hold it against her. Loyalty to Uncle Robert in all his affairs undoubtedly came first in her eyes. I must seem to her a child to be chastised until I could fit decorously into Creole ways.
“Thank you,” I said, folding my notepaper and wiping my pen in an unhurried manner. “I will go to him presently.” That at least gave me an air of dismissing the summons as unimportant.
Delphine went silently away and Caro, who had paused in her playing to listen, came in from the gallery to stand beside me in obvious sympathy.
“A little while ago I peeked in at Papa through the curtains in the dining room,” she whispered. “He was studying his chess set, Cousin Skye. That means it is very serious. Have you done something naughty, cousin?”
I gave her a quick hug in thanks for her sympathy. “Only a little naughty,” I said, and rose from my chair. This, after all, was the opportunity I had wanted. Now I could make a request for freedom of movement. After all, I had not been raised in so protected a manner and it wasn’t in the least necessary in my case. In fact, I could explain everything—except the hat.
It seemed a long way down the hall to the door of my uncle’s study. The little hat still hung upon my bedpost and I loved its every frill. But I did not know what to say about it to Uncle Robert.
When I tapped, he called to me to enter and I stepped again into that sumptuous room that was his study. My uncle rose at once and drew a chair close to his desk for me. Again I was aware of the silky Aubusson beneath my feet.
“Please sit down, my dear,” he said and waited for me to take the chair before he returned to one at his desk.
Remembering Caro’s words, I looked about for the game of chess, but saw no chessboard in evidence. Again that small table of the rosewood they called palisander stood near his desk, the large silver warming cover concealing its top. Probably Uncle Robert was given to working late at night, and this was here for the purpose of protecting evening suppers.
Uncle Robert regarded me thoughtfully. “Delphine has told me of the unfortunate incident this morning when you wandered away from the market.”
“I’m sorry she has,” I said, “because I had wanted to tell you about it myself.”
His nod was kindly. “I’m glad you feel that way. And I would still like to hear your account, my dear.”
I told him briefly that I had not realized the reputation of the street and had regarded myself as being so close to the market that I was perfectly safe. But the drunken seaman had taken me by surprise and I would have been in a difficult position if it had not been for the man who had rescued me.
I did not mention Justin Law by name. For some reason I wanted to hold back my suspicion of his identity.
Uncle Robert listened gravely, his manner attentive and sympathetic. When I had finished my story, he nodded again.
“Yes, that is as Delphine reported it. But you must remember, Skye, that a young lady of good family does not wander into scandalous adventures. In the future I hope you will be circumspect enough never to be caught in so unfortunate a position.”
“I hope so too,” I said. And then added boldly, “But I am not always a circumspect person. I’m not even sure that I always want to be. Does that shock you very much, Uncle Robert?”
He smoothed his small dark beard in amusement. “It does not shock me, but I must confess that it worries me a little. For instance, this man who rescued you—”
“He was very kind,” I said quickly. “I don’t know what I would have done without him. And he went out of his way to see me back to the market and safely into Delphine’s hands.”
“That was most generous of him, I’m sure,” said Uncle Robert, but now all trace of amusement was gone from his voice. “Perhaps I had better tell you about this man, my dear. Since I am not at all certain why he is here in New Orleans, or what trouble he means to make, it is better that you be forewarned. Delphine, of course, knew his identity. The man is Courtney’s brother, Justin Law.”
There was no point in dissembling now. And I was curious to learn everything I could about this man. “Yes,” I admitted, “I thought as much. I had heard him described.”
“You must realize,” Uncle Robert went on quickly, “that Courtney and he ha
ve nothing in common. They have not seen each other since they were children. This man has grown up away from civilizing influences and is rough and crude in his ways. According to Courtney, poor Madame Law is ill over what has happened. She no longer considers him her son.”
It seemed to me that everyone was being rather hard on the older brother. As a child he had shown courage enough to follow his father—who had probably not wanted to leave wife and home. He had grown up under circumstances he could not help and if he lacked the Creole polish, he was not altogether to blame. It was my father’s belief that the customs of other places and other people should be treated with tolerance and some effort at understanding, even when they differed from ours.
“Why are you so hard on Mr. Law when you don’t really know him?” I asked.
Uncle Robert reached long aristocratic fingers toward a cinnabar box on his desk and toyed with the cover idly. For a long moment he seemed lost in his own thoughts, as if he were deciding how much to tell me. As he played with the red box, his fingers sprang the catch on the lid and it flew open, revealing handsome ivory and ebony chess pieces within. He picked up a black pawn and tossed it absently in his palm, and I recalled Caro’s reference to chess.
“Which are you, Uncle Robert?” I asked on sudden impulse. “The white or the black?”
He gave me a quick amused look and then reached out to lift the silver cover from the palisander table. Beneath it a chessboard had been set, with a game in progress. Having expected to see wine and biscuits, I regarded it in surprise. I had often played chess with my father and I saw that this game had been arranged according to no rules I knew. The black king was in a strongly protected position and his men were moving in to trap the white queen. But there was one factor which made the entire game nonsense, as far as I could see.
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