by John Brunner
Yet as the evening wore on he grew ever more despondent.
Then of a sudden he spotted the millionaire he had so nearly met aboard the Isaiah Plott. Luck was on his side after all. Now he must call forth miracles of melody and tone. Tonight must mark a breakthrough!
Must.
Today he had learned that the Grand Philharmonic Hall was unlikely to pay its way beyond Easter. There was talk of conversion to a roller-skating rink, to compete with the one at Mechanics’ Hall on Dryades. If that happened his contract might be extended: for a year at a reduction of twenty percent…
With all his might Gaston willed that his miscellaneous band should touch the heart of the financier. He whipped the air with his baton like a stagecoach driver hurrying his team through a pass in Indian territory.
But these were players used to going their own way. All his exertions made no discernible difference to the music, nor the audience’s reaction.
Gaston’s heart ceased trying to swell.
To the fuming Manuel, however, even that much success was something to be jealous of. Could that jumped-up French idiot outplay the musicians he hired? Could he play at all? Perhaps the piano, genteel ornament of ladies’ drawing rooms, but could be handle a man’s instrument? Could he march all day in hot sun with a trombone or a tuba? He’d melt like lard before the band reached the end of the street!
After swallowing his pride because so many of his friends assured him that—short of playing at one of the grand balls—this was the plum of the Mardi Gras jobs; after being kept waiting so long for an audition that there was no chance to find another booking tonight; after being obliged to don this horrible straitjacket and wear out his arms with the weight of all this food and wine and liquor and tread the same damned path to and from the kitchen for hours on end; after all these affronts to his dignity, Manuel José Miguel Campos y Gomez was on the verge of eruption.
He sincerely hoped he was going to get through this night without doing what he most wanted: hurl a laden tray at Gaston’s resplendent vest.
But it was going to be hard.
For only the third time since the invitation was extended, Drew planned to take up Barber’s offer of accommodation at the Limousin.
He had hoped not to be at New Orleans for Mardi Gras. He had spent Thanksgiving and Christmas of last year with Susannah and her children; they had proposed he return to St. Louis at this season, and he had intended to do so. The vagaries of the river being what they were, he had nonetheless been obliged to lay over here, and with spring coming on he felt it convenient to resume his regular trade and his regular day of departure: Thursdays, for Louisville.
Which in the ordinary course of events would have been most welcome. Every winter he chafed under the restrictions climate imposed, to the point where once Tyburn had declared he must be a railroader at heart, risking a blow from his knobbed staff.
Ketch got away with it. No one else could have. Not even Drew’s ex-cub Fernand.
He thought frequently about Fernand. Although their parting had been almost as acrimonious as their coming together—he never having forgiven the youngster for invoking a law he loathed—he kept tabs on his former pupil’s progress and was gruffly pleased whenever he secured a post superior to the previous one. Fernand had spent last summer in the upper-river trades, chiefly between St. Louis and Vicksburg, after a long spell of drudgery in short trades on the lower river. Drew approved. In his view all pilots should always keep abreast of what was going on throughout the river system, old-fashioned though such an attitude might be compared with the specialization some of the younger captains were advocating.
But then, the noisiest among them was not himself a pilot.
“A little learning is a dangerous thing!
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.”
That was a quotation he had become extremely fond of, for it matched his own opinion to a T. He kept resolving to locate someone who could tell him what “Pierian” meant.
During Christmas at Susannah’s he had talked in glowing terms about Fernand, to the point where—with the sort of gentle insight he had come to love in her—his sister-in-law inquired why he had not kept on the young man as a permanent co-pilot.
Taken by surprise, Drew produced an unpremeditated answer. “Oh, I taught him what I could! Maybe one of these days he’ll realize he needs to know more, and I’m the likeliest to help out. Maybe not. But it’s in the nature of young men to break loose and make their own way in the world. Their own mistakes, too.”
Susannah nodded wisely. “Those, at least, whose fathers have not so behaved as to render the prospect of adulthood unattractive… You should bring him to meet me, Hosea. You make him sound like the sort of son I always imagined you would want.”
At first he was inclined to be angry: did she even yet not know that the reason he was single was because he cared more for her than any woman he had met? Then the deeper import of her remark hit home, and he heaved a sigh.
“You’re right. I’d hire him back tomorrow if he asked.”
That same evening Elphin, proud of the theology he had imbibed at college, tried to advance a defense of slavery based on the curse of Ham, whose descendants were doomed to be hewers of wood and drawers of water.
“My boy drew no more water than most, and less than some!” Drew barked, making another of his rare attempts at a joke. “And there’s a fair slice of Ham in him!”
But the company thought he was referring to something else, so his play on words fell flat.
Not, indeed, that the atmosphere was conducive to merriment. Susannah was as well as could be expected; she suffered with aches in her joints, and there were signs of the poor nervous co-ordination that later might become paralysis, but she was able to lead a fairly normal existence. Jerome, on the other hand, was declining and could only rarely join the family. Most of his time was spent either in bed in a darkened room, or attending an expensive steam-bath establishment where vapors based on pine extract, sulphur and mentholatum gave temporary relief from his wheezing and coughing.
Maintaining his late brother’s family was proving costly. Now and then he was afraid he might say so out loud. Perhaps it was as well that chance had landed him here.
At all events he would have been happy to pass today as he generally did in port: carrying out inspections, eating his meals alone and retiring early with a volume of poetry to the stateroom which was far more of a home to him than any building on shore—including the one he had bought for Susannah.
But one thing prevented him. On waking this morning he had discovered, moored in plain view, the new Nonpareil aswarm with sightseers.
Briefly he had been tempted to go look her over himself. Better sense had prevailed, and he had done no more than examine her meticulously through field glasses. He had been told most of the details of her construction, since river gossip had centered on it for months past. What he saw confirmed his already-formed impression. Probably she was as fast as claimed. Conditions would have to be absolutely favorable, though, if she were to outrun the Atchafalaya. She looked top-heavy. In his attempt to reduce her underwater cross section, thus increase her speed, Parbury had overreached himself.
The rival boat’s presence, however, loomed on the horizon of his awareness like a storm cloud, and it was not long before he realized it would be unbearable to remain here overnight with the city rejoicing about him and himself brooding over the all-too-distinct possibility that the Nonpareil might boast unseen resources. It was after all true that she operated at a pressure fifty pounds higher than the Atchafalaya’s…
Therefore he sent a message to Barber and, when all was secure about the boat and two armed watchmen had been set to stand overnight guard, quit her to enjoy, if he could, some small share of the festivities.
From the instant of her putting in hand, the new Nonpareil had eff
ected a transformation in Miles Parbury. Publicly he had controlled himself in the old days, well enough for his acquaintances to forgive him when he did lose his temper—as who would not forgive anyone that sacrificed his eyesight for a cause they too believed in? Privately his behavior was a different matter, especially when his insomnia and his wife’s acutest fits of rheumatism coincided.
But the sudden restoration of self-confidence, due to others and particularly Gordon and Woodley giving evidence of their faith in him, worked a wonder. Soon he was even heard humming songs popular when he was a boy.
Now the Nonpareil had made her first run and been proved fast, he was in seventh heaven.
Not that his rediscovered happiness pleased Adèle. Instead she resented it, because day by day, bar occasional deceptive remissions, her plight grew worse. Then, to compound her misery, she began to lose teeth. Since she was no longer fit to leave the house, a dentist had to be found who would bring his instruments and chloroform to her. Dr. Malone recommended one. Competent he might be; he was also casual, and after suffering his ministrations Adèle went back to an old tune: how Dorcas had betrayed her by not fetching the Electric Doctor. On days when the pain was fierce, she would scream that Dorcas was hurting her deliberately when helping her to her commode, or the devotions she grimly persisted in.
So far Dorcas had resisted the temptation to turn her mistress’s charge from fantasy to reality. But it was getting stronger, for at the moment when she learned that Fernand had been turned from the house with an insult, something deep within her, already eroded by her parents’ rejection, had seemed to crumble. What to call it? Charity, perhaps, not in the modern sense of scraps of food and cast-off clothing for the deserving poor, but her meed of loving-kindness. When she looked at herself in the glass next morning, she recognized that she had grown older of a sudden. The light of youth had been put out behind her eyes.
Hitherto she had fought the annoyance she felt at Mrs. Parbury’s reproaches, the captain’s attempts to fondle her breasts under the pretext of blindness. Henceforth she had no qualms about deceiving them for her own advantage.
The following day she had to escort Parbury to the Pilots’ Guild again. Instead of returning at once, she continued to Griswold’s and brazenly marched in—discovering to her vast relief that the customers included women, quite respectable in appearance, rather than just men as she had feared. Into Mr. Griswold’s own hands she delivered an envelope superscribed Mr Fernand Lamenthe, late of Str. Atchafalaya. To be called for. It contained a note begging him to make contact by any means possible. And she had signed it: “With fondest love.”
If she had lost charity, she had gained patience, or was obliged to. Ten days elapsed before she heard from Fernand, for he had secured a trip to Memphis—an engagement few pilots cared to undertake, as the city was continually ravaged by yellow fever. She occupied the interim making inquiries about Cherouen. It was not long before she convinced herself that his refusal to attend Mrs. Parbury was not due to having too many patients, for he was accepting others every week… all wealthy. All extremely wealthy. But her mistress told her she was lying.
And then more patience was demanded of her. Willing though he also was to pledge his love, Fernand made it plain that during his time as a cub he had resolved not to marry until he was not merely a qualified but an established pilot, commanding the Guild’s full rate. To support a wife and family on his present earnings, he would have to go on accepting every trip he was offered, no matter how clumsy a tub the boat was or how disgusting her cargo.
Within a year—two at most—he should at last be admitted as a full-fledged member of the river fraternity. Already some of his influential colleagues, like Barfoot and Tyburn, were complaining about the way he was cold-shouldered, risking the Olympian wrath of Parbury and its dutiful echo among the Parbury Pirates.
Let the breakthrough come this summer! Dorcas prayed for that with all the fervor at her command. But not at church. True, on learning that Fernand was Catholic, she had temporarily breached the wall of Mrs. Parbury’s detestation by agreeing to accept instruction and making a spectacular conversion. Now she attended mass at least twice a month and likewise made regular confession. But this was all sham. She enjoyed planning what she would say to the confessor, calculating how to make it credible without ever quite telling the truth.
She had an excellent model to imitate. The next time Mrs. Parbury woke in agony following her servant’s reception into the church, she decided the conversion was a trick to disguise the fact that her husband was being unfaithful with her. Thus encouraged, Parbury’s pawing and poking redoubled. Dorcas wanted to slap his face. But she mastered herself and made out she was content with a reproof no fiercer than a mother’s to her child. Meantime she was milder than that mother’s milk to her mistress, and when the priest next called he was able to damp down the fires of her fury. Still, the embers smouldered—on Dorcas’s side too.
How much longer must she endure? How much longer must she feed the captain with false compliments, or beg forgiveness of his wife for offenses she had not committed?
Stifling all such thoughts, she closed the house door and resignedly allowed Parbury’s hand to enfold hers. Ordinarily, because of the unpredictable schedules of its members, the Pilots’ Guild could not hold a carnival celebration; the level of the river might prevent too many people from attending. However, last year a steamboaters’ convention had been held in New Orleans and much business had been successfully transacted. In the first flush of enthusiasm it had been agreed that any participants who could should meet again on Mardi Gras at Martineau’s, the restaurant most patronized by river folk.
Thither Dorcas must now guide her master, despite the fact that every street was awash with riotous crowds.
But she was prepared to brave anything. For she also had a rendezvous tonight.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Imelda Moyne gushed at her husband, clasping his arm with one hand while vigorously fanning herself with the other. And added, turning to her son for confirmation, “Auberon, isn’t it magnificent?”
While in Europe, Auberon had attended parties in a Venetian palazzo, the castle of a German duke, a château on the Loire whose owners had contrived to remain its owners despite three revolutions, and sundry embassies. He had repressed his democratic principles long enough to bow before royalty and nobility who could trace their ancestry back past Columbus. In consequence even this, the finest of New Orleans’s Mardi Gras balls, was signally failing to impress him.
Admittedly some of the biddies were stunning, particularly those who had abjured the ugly fashion of the crinoline and were wearing gowns with the bustle now popular in Europe. A handful were even swinging their butts, when dancing, with movements that would do credit to a cooche-cooche girl. But it was all for show, like the vast loads of jewelry they—and even more their mothers—were sporting in the harsh radiance of the gasoliers. One could not imagine them fainting handily into a gentleman’s arms, as their European sisters did on the least excuse.
Moreover he suspected that the caviar had been spun out with paddlefish eggs and the butter with something resembling that ingenious new French food for the poor, margarine, about which several people had interrogated him this evening because, as they said, now they had to pay servants wages as well as keeping them they were being bled dry by the expense.
Still, the wine was drinkable and there was plenty of it. Feigning to agree with his mother, Auberon helped himself to another glass from a passing tray and went back to his conversation—if such it could be called—with Arthur Gattry’s sister Violet and her husband Morton Farmiloe, who had somehow been convinced that the future was to be made secure for sugar planters by a process to transform molasses into a dry hard substance like celluloid.
At least Farmiloe’s small talk was marginally more cheerful than his wife’s. Last time she had come here it had been to hear Gottschalk play, and she was telling anybody who would listen how cut up she
still was about his death.
Louisette was dancing with Arthur, as befitted a girl and her betrothed. Her persistence had worn down her parents’ opposition; the engagement had been announced on New Year’s Day and the wedding set for early April, although some considered Lenten weddings unlucky.
Auberon too would gladly have taken the floor, if only to escape. But every girl to whom he had contrived an introduction had displayed a full card. Really it was vexatious! And there was a distinct shortage of jolly fellows of his own age with whom he could at least have cracked jokes. If only Joel… But that was halfway past repair.
“Excuse me! You have lately been to Paris, I understand—the city of my ancestors, as it happens.”
Turning in response to a tap on his shoulder, Auberon answered lightly, “Oh, they say good Americans go to Paris when they die, so I decided to be ahead of schedule.”
And found that the man addressing him was taller than himself, black-haired and sporting a black moustache, with red highlights on either cheekbone and at the tip of his nose. Conveniently, the Farmiloes had been distracted by people on their other side, while his mother and father were moving away to congratulate the family of a girl who, like Louisette last year, had been attendant on the “queen.”
Grateful as much for that as for this, Auberon accepted a slim hand-rolled panatela from a tortoiseshell case which the stranger proffered. The tobacco was outstanding. He said so.
“Ah, you’re a man of taste. I was put on to these by my chief nurse. Apparently some relative of hers is in the business.”
Valetudinarianism being common in New Orleans, it was on the tip of Auberon’s tongue to express sympathy. But “chief nurse” did not sound like what an invalid would say, and in the nick of time he corrected himself.