by John Brunner
Caesar had been assured that just such a chance would come his way. He could still scarcely credit that the promise had proved true, far less the means which had brought it about.
Unconsciously he touched a small hard object hidden under his shirt, which hung around his neck night and day. He was never to take it off until its leather thong rotted naturally. He had inspected it as best he could without removing it; it consisted of two squares of black felt sewn together, with a feather intertwined among the stitches, and inside there was a lump that might be the last tooth he had lost, which had been required of him, and some dust or dirt, and a herb that had had a powerful stink, now faded.
A trickenbag. And moreover one prepared by Mam’zelle Josephine in person.
He shook his head. Until recently he had thought of all such magics as laughable; also they evoked nightmarish childhood memories. But even if it had been mere despair that led him to spend his minute savings on this charm, he could not deny he had been well repaid.
As usual, he shelved the mystery and hurried on his way.
At the wheel of the steamer Henry Clay Work Fernand was concluding his dawn watch and struggling with all his might to keep from yawning.
And to exclude from his mind a nagging thought which kept recurring against his will. Was it possible that in sacrificing two years of his life to train as a pilot he had made a terrible mistake?
It was not the quality of his tuition that had soured his dream. Gruff Hosea Drew might be, but he responded honestly to good work well done, and eventually he had pronounced himself satisfied with his cub, reported the fact to the Pilots’ Guild, and arranged the issue of his license.
But there was no welcome for Fernand at the Guild’s parlor. He was qualified; therefore he was allowed to enter. But once inside, nobody sought his company. He would post his report and exchange a few frigid civilities with those of his colleagues who did not cut him dead. Were he in a defiant mood, he might purchase a cocktail before leaving—but only for himself. His offers to buy for others were routinely declined.
Some of this was due to having been Drew’s cub. The treatment Drew received was identical. The grudges of the war were dying hard, and Parbury—who ruled unchallenged at the Guild—was among the unforgiving.
More, though, was due to the same cause that had led to him quitting the Atchafalaya at the end of his training. He had gone out of his way to display unfailing courtesy toward Whitworth. But the watchman was unimpressed. So far as he was concerned, people with “a touch of the tarbrush” were irremediably inferior to all white men, and the notion of one being trained as a pilot infuriated him beyond measure. He had complained countless times about the futility of trying to educate Fernand in such a skilled job, and when, one day, he addressed the younger man as “Rastus” and ordered him to bring coffee as though he were the texas tender, they nearly came to blows. Fortunately he made the mistake of doing it within hearing of another pilot, an experienced man called Ezekiel Barfoot, who had seen enough of Fernand’s ability to throw the insult back in Whitworth’s remaining teeth.
But his existence became progressively more miserable, and as soon as he qualified he took what jobs he could find on other boats. Most were black-owned, running in short or way-business trades, for a shadow of the prejudice Whitworth exhibited fell across all too many owners and officers.
Nonetheless there was magic in the name Atchafalaya; as he had realized with something of a shock, Fernand was the only cub so far trained on any of that splendid series of vessels. Though he was likely to be in charge of sugar and tobacco and the casual workers who had harvested them, rather than the genteel society that now patronized Drew, with their servants and their leather baggage monogrammed in gold, he had not so far found himself at a loss for employment. His proudest moment had come when by chance he found himself serving alternate watches with fat and wheezy William Tyburn. He had ascended to the pilothouse with tread as quiet as a great cat’s and stood behind Fernand while he was cutting off a bend, new this season, all its reefs prickly with snags, without having bothered to send out leadsmen.
Fernand was halfway across a bar that came to within inches of the hull when he realized he was no longer alone. Sweating and almost shaking, somehow he completed the crossing. Dead silent until they were again in the channel, Tyburn said at last, “So Drew’s a teacher too.”
That held out hope—hope that in time he would no longer suffer slights at the Guild parlor.
One day, Fernand swore to himself, he would be back in charge of a great and famous riverboat. One day he would be able to escort his mother on board and install her in the finest of the staterooms for a voyage that would go down in history. And at his side there would be… a girl… The vision blurred. It always had to take second place to his steersmanship. But he knew what face he wished the girl to wear.
Her tobacco-colored gown protected by a starched white apron, Dorcas Archer kneaded dough for bread. There was something magical about the transformation of powder and water into food, and it helped her to face the rest of the day. Just as the earliest yeasts had settled unbidden from the air to leaven loaves and ferment wine, so the spirit which infused eternal life—
She checked the thought. That image was popish, offered by one of the priests who had comforted her at the Ursuline convent, or possibly another who had called here to console Mrs. Parbury but paused long enough to interrogate the servants: to wit, herself and Fibby, the fat black woman who had been dead James’s nurse and stayed on as cook-housekeeper… It frightened Dorcas to reflect that, in spite of her wrinkles and sunken cheeks, Fibby could be at most twice her age.
Was hers to be a similar future? Sometimes she feared so. Sometimes she regarded her situation—lucky though she was to have employment with a respectable family—as just another trap like the one she had been born into. The only daughter of a couple who both blamed her for not being a boy, she had been raised in a house ruled by spinsters: four of her mother’s sisters and one of her father’s. They were accustomed to think of themselves as wise virgins, and when they were not reading the Bible or at prayer meetings, they searched for signs of sin in others like buzzards quartering the air for the reek of carrion.
Not, as she constantly swore to the Lord when she was alone, from lust or concupiscence (whatever that might be; she had not yet plucked up the courage to ask anybody) but purely because there was no loving-kindness in her home, Dorcas had—she had…
Well, yes, she had! But what name to put to her deed she could not tell. The boy with whom she had done it had said something, blush-faced—he was fair, his eyes were like chips of sky—but she had not heard correctly, being distracted by waves of an unprecedented sensation. And there was about as much chance of seeing him again as there was of returning home. Her father and mother and aunts had been explicit: were she to show her face in town once more, they would run her out on a rail.
Vaguely she had dreamed, aboard the steamer that her last half-dollar paid her fare on, of making a new life in New Orleans. But the other new life growing within her had rendered that impossible. Her shame had been made public, on a public street. Had it proved a boy, she would have called him Jonas after his father; a girl she would have named…
Stop. As things stood, the Lord had been merciful. She was granted a roof over her head, enough food, clothing plain but serviceable, duties she was fit to bear, lying no more heavy on her than her body in the arms of the boy who— Stop. Down that path danger lay.
Her slender olive hands divided the dough into four equal loaves and laid them to prove under a damp cloth.
She tried to prevent herself from awarding each a name.
A bell jangled on the wall. She greeted the signal with relief, although her next daily obligation was one that ran counter to her conscience, for it was to assist Mrs. Parbury at her devotions before the shrine in memoriam of James. The notion of such idolatry made Dorcas flinch. On the other hand, nobody could say the nuns had not b
een kind in her hour of greatest need, and if one allowed for the suffering she had undergone, so too had Mrs. Parbury.
At least the captain hadn’t awaked first, which was a minor mercy. Mornings when he did were apt to become intolerable. Quickly she rinsed her hands and hastened to respond.
But Mrs. Parbury barely suppressed a groan while being helped to her commode, and another escaped her when she bent to her prie-dieu. Worried, Dorcas hovered near the door… and then had to lift her mistress to her feet when her orisons were over. Today the pain from her rheumatism was so acute, she could not endure the prospect of being dressed, and returned to bed.
“Shall I send for Dr. Malone?” Dorcas offered. She liked and trusted that blunt-spoken man; it had after all been he who recommended her to the Parburys.
“Malone does me no good!” came the querulous answer. “I want to see the new doctor—Cherouen! And I mean to, and my husband may go to the devil!”
Dorcas clasped her hands in dismay.
“He’s going to the Guild parlor today,” Mrs. Parbury went on. “There’s no question of my leading him. You must do it. And on your way back you will call at Dr. Cherouen’s house and say I want him urgently. Tell him to bring the electrical machines I’ve read about in his advertisements.”
More perturbed than ever, not just because since her arrival she had scarcely gone half a mile from this house, but also because she knew the captain’s attitude toward doctors who issued dodgers and hand cards, Dorcas ventured, “Ma’am, Mr. Parbury did say—”
“I know what he said!”—in a weak but venomous whisper. “But he doesn’t live in this wreck of a body!”
Noises came from the adjacent room: a cough, followed by the chiming of the captain’s watch. It was too late to argue. With a sigh Dorcas turned away.
“Very well, ma’am,” she muttered.
But it wasn’t well in any sense at all.
When the steward knocked at the door of his first-class cabin, Auberon Moyne was already drawing on his clothes. What had roused him was the changing note of the Franche-Comté’s engines as she nosed into the treacherous passages of the Mississippi delta.
But he was on edge anyhow. He was coming home for the first time since the war. Determined to give their sons the best possible education, his parents had dispatched him to the Sorbonne in Paris, and his younger brother Gabriel to Heidelberg. During vacations, and now since the end of the last academic year, they had been instructed to visit museums, art galleries, and archeological remains. Having made a few dutiful attempts to comply, Auberon had discovered that such places bored him. Of late he had compromised by buying guidebooks and souvenir photos at his official destination, then taking the next train for Deauville or Menton, or some other popular resort, in search of agreeable society. Being tall, with crisp brown hair, gray eyes, and an intriguingly broken nose—the result of a boxing match that went too far—and moreover since he was that alien curiosity, an American, he had little difficulty in finding jolly companions with whom to squander his not ungenerous allowance. He had been introduced to all the dissipations proper to a young Frenchman of aristocratic background:, race meetings, gambling clubs, cabarets, restaurants with private rooms where a lady might discreetly make rendezvous with an admirer, and—inevitably—brothels.
Oh, yes: Europe had afforded him a liberal education, albeit in subjects his parents would not have approved. Consequently he intended to make sure they never found out. He had toyed with the notion of telling the truth in a letter to his sister Louisette; sport though she was, however, he feared she might tattle. So the only person here at home who knew what he had actually been up to was his cousin and lifelong confidant, Joel.
Putting final touches to his appearance before the mirror, Auberon wondered whether the two of them would still be on intimate terms in future. Emancipation had ruined the Siskin family. Convinced of a Confederate victory, Joel’s father had bought slaves when everybody else was selling them. Thanks to that, Joel had had to abandon hope of a college education and the career he dreamed of as an author and poet, and take what jobs he could with ephemeral local newspapers.
Some of the new tastes he had acquired, Auberon felt, might be out of Joel’s reach now…
He briskened. At all events his cousin had relieved the dismal prospect of returning home by describing the new amenities Langston Barber had made available at the Limousin.
He planned to sample them at the earliest opportunity.
Because—he tried and failed to suppress a cough, and spat red into his washbasin—there might not be very much time.
A musical chinking of silver and porcelain announced delivery of breakfast to the suite occupied by Mr. Hamish Gordon at the St. Charles Hotel. As on all mornings since their arrival, it was prompt to time. Gordon’s amanuensis Matthew Rust made a note of the fact in the journal he was instructed to keep during this trip, before emerging to inspect what the floor waiters had brought.
The coffee was hot; the toast was crisp; the grilled steak was oozing a suitably reddish ichor. The local newspapers had been brought, plus two New York papers forwarded by railroad express and four telegraphic messages concerning a deal in borax which was currently interesting Gordon. All this Matthew verified with forced unhurriedness, aware of how the waiters must feel when confronted by this slim blond boy who gave the impression of being at least three years younger than his chronological age of eighteen.
But if there was one thing he understood, it was how to please the clients of a hotel. Orphaned at thirteen, he had been adopted by his mother’s brother, proprietor of a celebrated resort hotel in the village of Catskill, New York, and apprenticed to his uncle’s trade. Beginning last summer, he had been delegated more and more responsibility. Gordon, taking refuge from exhaustion due to overwork, had been impressed by his competence and approached him when his two-month stay had a week to run. There could have been no negative answer to the question he posed: “Matthew, how would you like to see the world before you sink your roots? If you’d care to work for me, you shall.”
And he had been as good as his word.
Of course, if the financier decided to purchase a property and settle down, as he often said he might, things would be very different. Matthew hoped fervently that by then he would have been taken to enough fascinating places to supply a fund of precocious reminiscence. To be world-weary and cosmopolitan before coming of age seemed like an enviable condition.
Sometimes, though, he felt that the strain of putting up with his employer’s moods had already brought him halfway to being old.
Unable to repress a sigh, he poured a cup of coffee so that it would be at drinking temperature when Gordon sipped it, and went to tap on the door of the other bedroom.
Last night Gordon had stayed out late. However, he enjoyed a resilient constitution. Three cups of coffee and the steak restored his usual spirits. Mopping his spade-shaped black beard, he boomed at Matthew, “Well, boy, when do we set off on our excursion?”
“At eleven, sir,” Matthew replied. “The boat is called the Isaiah Plott, and she is to return about six in the evening.”
“Are you looking forward to today?”
Gordon had not so far mentioned how long he had been away from his native Scotland, but now and then the burr in his voice grew so strong, Matthew failed to discern his meaning. Wishing not to admit that that had just happened to him again, the boy put on a reflexive smile and half shook his head.
“Hah! Well, you’ll have to stomach it at all events! I’m coming to tak’ a gey interest in the boats that ply their muckle river!”
“So do I, sir!” Matthew insisted, realizing belatedly that there had been another misunderstanding.
Under bushy eyebrows Gordon regarded him. At length he shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Then it must be this town that disagrees with you—or city, as you Americans will have it. Aye, it is sweltering, but scarcely more so than Washington, and out on the water we may ex
pect a refreshing breeze.” He uttered an unashamed burp. “Eleven o’clock, you said? We’ll be there ahead of time because I want to look at the boat’s engineroom. Lay out my clothes, and be sure you select a silk shirt.”
Worried, aware how out-of-place his much-worn garb made him seem among the other people who had come to welcome first-class passengers off the Franche-Comté—and there were many of them, for this was her maiden voyage and she had broken the record for the Cherbourg–New Orleans run—Joel Siskin scanned the vast echoing volume of the customs hall.
He should not have been here. He had, in fact, strict orders to be somewhere else, and he expected to lose his job in consequence. But there was an overriding reason—
“Auberon!”
The shout burst from him unintended. A heartbeat after spotting four matched steamer trunks painted with the name MOYNE, he had recognized his cousin approaching to confront the customs inspectors: that, despite a newly grown moustache, a suit of the latest Parisian cut set off by a resplendent mauve cravat and a gold stickpin, and an expression on his face which betrayed amazement at the all-pervading stench, compounded by steamer smoke, goods of myriad kinds from tobacco to tarred rope exposed on nearby wharves to bake in the sun, and sewage and ordure discharged casually into the river.
Could he have forgotten the odor of his native city?
That reflection offered the first check to Joel’s enthusiasm, and the second followed a moment later. He was not alone in coming to greet Auberon, naturally. There, the other side of the wooden barrier which he had circumvented by putting two bits in the proper hand, stood the rest of the Moyne family—bar, of course, Gabriel. There was Uncle Andrew, as Joel had been raised to call him; there was Aunt Imelda; and between them Louisette, fair, slender, sparkling-eyed…