Whether I cared or not, I had a new dress to wear for the occasion. Aunt Natalie said Robert had insisted upon that. She wanted to dress me in girlish white again and I would never have opposed her. But this time Delphine interfered. In her quiet way she could be a force when she chose and Aunt Natalie respected her opinion. So it was settled that for once I was to be dressed in rich dark colors that would complement my hair. The gown was of changeable golden-brown taffeta, shot with an orange flame. There was a diagonal trimming of dark green velvet. Folds of rich dark green showed in the bustle and I wore a green taffeta petticoat with a frilly hem.
Once more Delphine dressed my hair so that it fell over my shoulders, but all through her ministrations I was apathetic and did not care. If Justin was to be there, I did not want to be a wren. But how I dressed was only a shield I wore. I had begun to learn that, for a woman, to dress bravely is to meet life with greater courage.
Delphine tried to prod me into interest by assuring me of my good fortune in marrying Courtney. He was a Le-Maitre on his mother’s side—a fine Creole family. And a most excellent young man. Already he showed himself able to approach marriage soberly, and avoid foolish entanglement.
I looked at her sharply in the mirror and her gaze met mine without pretense.
“The nose of your maman,” she said quietly, “is, as the Americans say, out of joint.”
I was not going to discuss Mama with her and I told her rather curtly to pay attention to what she was doing.
My mother, at least, took an interest in her appearance that night, and I suspected that she meant to extract the last drop of suffering possible from Courtney by showing him how desirable she could be. Aunt Natalie’s seamstress had remade an old dress of white lace that had something of a Spanish look to it. In it my mother was breathlessly lovely—a sad, romantic lady who broke your heart a little because you were almost taken in by the illusion that her own was broken.
Under other circumstances I might have looked forward to dining at this restaurant whose history dated back before the war. It had been a favorite spot of Papa’s when he had first visited New Orleans in the days before he’d married my mother. He had told me something of the Alciatoire family, who had built a tradition for fine foods over these forty years. But as it was, I could only regard the evening as an ordeal and hope that it would be over quickly.
Tante Aurore, Courtney and Justin joined us first in Uncle Robert’s parlor, where we sat chatting for a little while before going to the restaurant. I could not keep my eyes from Justin’s face as he came into the room. He looked, I thought, rather like a man who was on guard among enemies. His manner was courteous, but not overly friendly, and I had no way of telling whether or not he knew why this dinner was being given. My uncle was completely in control of himself, and he allowed none of his antagonism toward Justin to reveal itself. Yet I sensed it there beneath the surface. In both men no more than a veneer concealed the hostility which so easily flared between them.
When we rose to go downstairs, Justin walked beside me for a moment, and spoke to me softly. “Tonight you do yourself justice,” he said and his smile was warm.
Such words came too late and led nowhere. I would have turned away from him without speaking, but he was close to me on the curving stairway.
“I’ve not seen you in Jackson Square lately,” he went on, “but I’ve seen Lanny again. The boy told me that you brought him home and there’d been a to-do at the house.”
I could only nod. The stairway was no place to tell him of what had happened.
“We had quite a talk before the Pollock woman came out to snatch him again as if I were the devil himself. I wonder what she has against me. I like the boy and I’ll not harm him.”
We had reached the passageway and now Courtney was at my side, drawing me away from his brother.
My wish for the evening to be over quickly was a futile one. At Antoine’s they did not rush so important a matter as eating. We went through the modest entrance on St. Louis Street and were led through a large, rather bare dining room. Hardly a table in the big room stood empty and one sensed that this room was given over nightly to laughter, gay conversation and the appreciation of good food.
Uncle Robert had taken a small private dining room and we were a family party. I was placed on my uncle’s right, with Courtney on the other side of me. Since my mother and Justin were across the table I was in a position to see Justin’s face clearly when Uncle Robert raised his wineglass and proposed a toast to the “young couple so recently affianced.” I could not look anywhere else—I had to look at him to see how he reacted. For once he did not manage a poker expression. He looked plainly astonished and he was the last to raise his glass to the toast. Over the rim, as he sipped, his eyes met mine, with the old, sardonic amusement in them.
Then the moment had passed and Uncle Robert was examining the vast expanse of the French menu and commenting expansively on the excellence of certain dishes.
Like the others, I ordered the huitres that were a specialty of the house, but when the oysters came I could hardly swallow them. Nor could I manage to join in the conversation that Uncle Robert set flowing around the table. It seemed that everyone was attempting to do justice to the occasion but me. Courtney, plainly, wanted to please Uncle Robert and if his glance strayed across the table toward my mother more often than was wise, I think only Mama and I were aware of it.
She had roused herself from her role of a lady of sorrow and was bending her efforts upon Justin, ignoring Courtney completely. Justin seemed to play her little game, but I think his thoughts were elsewhere.
When Uncle Robert asked him, somewhat too pointedly, I thought, about his life in Leadville, Justin took no offense. We ate our pompano en papillote and he told us of his life in the West—a subject I had never heard him mention before. I listened to all he said, storing away every crumb of information that might be added to my knowledge of Justin Law.
Justin’s father had bought for a paltry sum a mine which gold seekers had abandoned. He and a friend had believed there was silver in that shaft in the ground and had thrown themselves eagerly into developing it.
“My father and his partner held onto the mine, no matter how things went,” Justin said. “Father always thought he would make a fortune and someday return to New Orleans, But the fortune came too late. My father was dead.”
Uncle Robert’s deceptively melodious voice broke the moment of awkward silence that followed. “But what of your schooling in that wild place? Your education?”
“I was not sent abroad for a year or so like many a Creole boy in the old days, if that is what you mean,” Justin told him wryly. “Our shack had only a single room, but even one room can hold shelves for books. As you know, my father was a well-read man and he taught me himself.”
A challenge seemed to ring beneath his words, but Uncle Robert let it pass, and brought the conversation back to New Orleans, as if the local scene clearly interested him more.
I saw Aurore’s gaze rest upon her older son in momentary pain, and then turn sadly away.
Never have I sat through a longer, more uncomfortable meal. It was the custom to serve fish, flesh and fowl at a Creole dinner, and before the meringue glacée arrived I had lost all taste for food. Mama was deliberately tormenting Courtney by flirting with his brother and I think it made no difference to her whether Justin responded or not. She wanted only to punish Courtney.
I tried to talk to him about anything that came to mind, to distract him from what was going on across the table, but I could sense the growing anger in him. Not against my mother, who deserved it, but against Justin.
It was not until the meal was nearly over that Uncle Robert astonished me. Always in considering marriage to Courtney Law I thought in terms of an escape to that spacious house in the Garden District. There Papa would be more comfortable than he could ever be in the narrow confines of the house in the Quarter. Even my mother would be happier there, away from Uncle
Robert. And Tante Aurore would probably welcome company in her empty house. As for Courtney—if I married him, I would try to make him a good wife. I was doing this to save my father and Courtney must understand that fact. But I would also do my best to carry the responsibilities of a wife and if possible make Courtney happy. I did not think true happiness for me would ever be possible. I could only hope that Justin would have the consideration and the desire to move elsewhere. I gave him no part in the picture I was building. Perhaps he would want to move to another part of New Orleans, and since there was no love lost between him and Courtney, I would seldom see him after that.
But while we ate our dessert, Uncle Robert spoke the words that caused my make-believe to vanish like a pricked bubble.
“I want you to know, Courtney,” my uncle said, his affability increasing with the good food and wine, “that I shall be proud to have you for a nephew-in-law and to encourage your career as a coming young lawyer in this town.”
He glanced at his wife and Aunt Natalie dutifully added her own words of agreement. I sat frozen in my place.
“We have spoken of giving you and Skye a bedroom on the third floor larger than the one she now occupies.”
Mama looked as startled as I felt and I knew that she too must have been thinking in terms of leaving the Tourneau house.
Nervously Aurore crumbled bread in her plate. “But, Robert—” she faltered, “I should be lonely in my big house. I had thought—”
He patted her hand benevolently. “Of course, my dear. That would not do at all. There will no longer be any point in keeping the house. It can be sold and you will then be able to move into a small cottage I own on St. Ann Street. You will be most comfortable there and not far from your son.”
Thus carelessly, he disposed of our lives, giving us no opportunity to speak our own wishes. Or if we had spoken them, I am sure he would have dismissed them lightly. It was only the wish of Robert Tourneau that mattered. How, I wondered, had I ever thought him kind and understanding? It seemed to me now that even the pointing of his small black beard had a cruel look.
I was afraid Tante Aurore would crumple into her plate after her bread crumbs, but once more Creole training—and the fear of Uncle Robert—kept her upright. If she did not trust her voice, her hands, her eyes, at least she did not burst into tears or topple over in a faint.
To my own surprise, I found myself speaking. “The house in the Garden District is Tante Aurore’s home,” I reminded Uncle Robert. “There is room for us all there, without crowding you in the Chartres Street house. Perhaps Courtney and I would like to live there.”
Uncle Robert shook his head as if I’d been a stupid child. “You do not understand these matters, Skye. The house will not be available. It must be sold. Aurore will do as I advise.”
Tante Aurora’s lips trembled and at last her control dissolved. She put a handkerchief to her eyes and wept uncontrollably.
“It is not possible!” she wailed. “I—I no longer own the house!”
“What are you saying?” Uncle Robert demanded, the affability falling away from him. “It has been in your name from the first. I have never had any taste for the place.”
Courtney tried to comfort his mother, at the same time throwing an angry look at Justin. “You had better tell M’sieu Robert the truth,” he said. “I have not yet had the opportunity to do so.”
Justin seemed faintly amused. “My brother means that I have just purchased the house from my mother, sir. I wanted it to fall into no hands but my own. The transaction was completed only yesterday.”
Uncle Robert half rose from his place, the mottled red surging into his cheeks. Then he remembered where he was and sank back in his chair. By an effort he managed to speak levelly to Justin, while the rest of us watched aghast.
“By what right did you take such a step, monsieur? Do you not know that money had been poured into the upkeep of that house? With never a penny contributed by those closest to Aurore! Meaning yourself, monsieur. Of course it would be easy to confuse, to take advantage of Aurore. Easy to persuade her to give up her property. She has never had a head for business—”
Where his tirade might have led, I don’t know. But it was broken off at that moment because our waiter appeared, prepared for the customary serving of New Orleans’ famous café brulôt.
We sat in rigid silence watching, each one thinking his own thoughts. The waiter brought in the silver bowls and ladle with a flourish. The ignited cognac was poured over the contents of a bowl. In our dining room the lights were extinguished and the blue flame leaped high. Our strained faces seemed to brood in the blue light as the waiter ceremoniously ladled the mixture over and over again, raising the ladle and allowing the flaming blue liquid to stream back into the bowl. Once for good measure, he strewed a few flaming drops across the table near me, and so tense were my nerves that I nearly screamed. But the drops burned harmlessly for a moment and then went out, with apparently no more than a stain left on the cloth.
Then the lights came on again and the coffee was served to us in tiny cups. No one spoke until the waiter went away.
By that time Uncle Robert had apparently remembered that he was host and Justin his guest.
“We will continue this discussion another time, monsieur,” he said stiffly. “Do not consider that the subject has been closed.”
Justin nodded. “At your service. But let’s have it clear that my mother and I will continue to live in my father’s house. And if Courtney wishes to bring his bride there, he will be welcome.”
Uncle Robert restrained himself, but the hand with which he raised his coffee cup shook so that the liquid lapped brown against the rim. The moment of danger when there might have been an open conflagration between the two men had once more passed. The unhappy meal was over.
Now I felt trapped whichever way I turned. I could not bear to continue living in my uncle’s house when I married. Yet neither could I endure existence under the same roof with Justin.
As we left the table Tante Aurore came to me, still a little tearful, and took my hands. “I am happy for Courtney,” she said. “You will make him a good wife, chérie. You must come to visit me again soon.”
I promised that I would, feeling sorry for her. Of us all, she, perhaps, had been the most helpless in Uncle Robert’s hands. It must disturb her greatly to have gone against his wishes. I wondered if all his seeming kindness to her had been a form of cruelty by which he revenged himself for her long-ago insult to him. My mother had once said that he never forgave anyone for anything and my mother had been right more often than I had admitted.
As we walked out of the restaurant to our carriage there was once more a moment in which I found myself beside Justin Law. So near to me he was, and so dear, yet I must not feel, I must not think.
“May I congratulate you on your coming marriage,” he said so softly that only I caught the mockery in his voice.
I thanked him, outwardly cool, and turned away. What right had he to mock me when he did not want me for himself? Here was further unkindness. I saw that Courtney looked pale with strain and I went to him quickly, slipped my hand through his arm.
“I know how you feel,” I whispered. “But don’t let them see. We must have a talk together soon, you and I. Perhaps on the day I visit your mother.”
He pressed a hand over mine, thanking me, but I knew he was sick at heart and growing a little desperate.
During the days that followed before my visit to the Garden District, I had long hours in which to think of this trap of my uncle’s making in which we all seemed to be caught. I paced my cage from wall to wall, futilely seeking some way out.
What happened to me no longer seemed to matter. I wanted to do what I could for my father’s sake and I meant to try with all the courage in me to do it without betraying my true feelings. But there was a limit to which the human spirit could be pushed, and the situation did not depend wholly on me. I could not believe that any chance existed for thi
s marriage if Courtney and I had to live in the Tourneau house. As long as we were here, Courtney would be under my uncle’s thumb, bound to him by long habits of gratitude, admiration, affection. Robert Tourneau was Courtney’s ideal of the Creole gentleman and any blame he might place upon what was happening, I think he would place upon himself, or upon Justin.
And how could he adjust to living in this house with my mother so close at hand? I knew now that there could be no making my mother recognize the harm or the guilt of her own actions. She saw herself in an altogether different role and would never believe the ugly reality. Yet neither could we accept the strain of living beneath Justin’s roof. Courtney disliked his brother too much. And I—but my thoughts darted quickly away from that futile path of longing and torment.
The only solution seemed escape from New Orleans altogether. But how could that be managed if Uncle Robert would not help us? And I knew he would not. Around and around, over and over, until my very spirit smarted at the hopeless circuit. About Justin I would not think at all. Or at least only in the quiet hours of the night when I could not help myself. Then would come bittersweet memory and dreams of what could not be, to weaken me in my resolve. But always in the morning I would put the weakness aside and the thought of Justin with it.
The answer I sought came to me suddenly one night from some well of consciousness within me. How often it seems that difficult problems are thus solved. There is no answer anywhere that the mind awake can find. And then from this inner source, without warning, fully fledged and thought out, comes an answer. I lay wide awake until morning broke knowing that I must postpone my painful visit to Aurore Law no longer. Sunday afternoon I would go out to the Garden District. And somehow, while I was there, I would see Justin. If he was not home, I would wait until he came.
For I knew now that Justin held the answer to my problem and that he alone might be able to help us all.
EIGHTEEN
The fact which had come out during the dinner at Antoine’s concerning the ownership of the Law house must have upset Uncle Robert mightily. In the days that followed he was preoccupied and had little to say to any of us. More than once I wondered wryly if the white king had, after all, managed to make an unexpected counter-move, and if Uncle Robert had been forced to reconsider the game in a new light.
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