All Souls' Rising (19 page)

He poured himself a thimbleful of rum and drank it and went out. It might have been Arnaud and his huntsman returning, and though their encounter had not been so pleasant for the priest to wish much to repeat it, he was curious. But strolling around the corner of the church he saw that it was a group of new riders coming up from Ouanaminthe. They were mulattoes all five of them, all with excellent horses and well dressed. Of the wealthy, educated classes. Père Bonne-chance did not know them; he did not think they were of this quarter, probably. One or two of them looked familiar, though, and he thought that he might have seen them previously. It was possible, even likely, that this was so, for many if not most of Ogé’s party had remained at large after the leaders were taken.

The warmth of the rum spread leaflike veins all through his chest, tendrils curving down into his stomach. He licked his lips and walked a little nearer the trail, wondering if he would hail the riders, or they him. The leader had a strangely freckled face that Père Bonne-chance felt certain he would have recalled if ever he had seen it before. His aspect was forbidding, and his eyes passed over the priest coldly and without a pause.

The same two goats were cropping grass beside the trail again, and Père Bonne-chance changed his course, as if all along he’d only been going to round them up. As if the passage of these riders were so wholly unremarkable that he had not even noticed them. They passed on.

He had not been much frightened by Ogé’s rebellion; really it had gone over too quickly for him to take alarm. In these parts the whole affair had been very smoothly managed, with only one white man killed and that by accident. As well, the mulattoes might have taken him to be in sympathy with their faction, since he lived openly with Fontelle. She was a
quarteronnée
and their children therefore were all officially
sang-mêlés
: that is, one sixty-fourth-part Negro. Père Bonne-chance had been sensible of the idea that Ogé was fighting for their rights.

But the unlucky little army had paid him no mind, as if he’d been a
bête de cornes
himself, grazing blindly by the trail. It was thus that he’d come to know that a few days before his capture Ogé had cached most of his arms somewhere up the river, where Arnaud and the other party had gone. The two journeys might well be connected; on the other hand perhaps they were not. Thinking these things, Père Bonne-chance continued to pursue the goats, which went their own way, ignoring him.

Chapter Eleven

T
HE EVENING OF
A
UGUST
22 found Claudine Arnaud sitting upon the gallery of the
grand’case
at Habitation Flaville. Wine had been offered her; she had refused it. An embroidery hoop lay on her skirted knees, and once in a long while she might make a few desultory stitches, but her real purpose was to hold one hand concealed beneath the pale square of linen. If any hallucination appeared to plague her she would surreptitiously prick her thumb with the needle’s point and the sharpness of the pain would most often banish the specter, whatever it was.

She was alone on the gallery but for the girl Marguerite, who sat idly, her plump milky hands folded in her lap. This was some distaff cousin of Flaville’s
gérant
, an orphan or something of the sort, who’d been sent out here from France to catch herself a husband. Claudine’s near-professional appraisal was that the girl made quite delicious bait. She was well formed, a flaxen blonde, with large liquid blue eyes that seemed to show intelligence, though in truth there was next to none. In its place were a few decorative accomplishments—watercolors, playing the spinet—and a deep bovine tranquillity. She sat now, a slave fanning her, her lovely blue gaze bent on nothing at all, as pleasantly vacant as a cow chewing its cud. Some man would surely value this quality, Claudine suspected, if not to preserve and protect it, then to lay it to waste. Since she had come here she had shared a bedroom with pretty Marguerite and she believed the girl was so perfectly blank she did not even dream.

Within there was a dampened clatter of plates and utensils being laid for the evening meal. Out of the speedily gathering dark at the end of the lane which led through the cane fields in the direction of Le Cap, Claudine thought she saw a horseman coming. She moved the needle nearer her thumb beneath the hoop, but this rider lacked the pearly shimmer of most of her other phantasms…only the tails of his duster fluttered deliriously over the hindquarters of the horse. She glanced at Marguerite but of course there was little to infer from the lack of reaction there.

As the horseman came nearer, at a brisk trot, she thought she could see a white blaze on the horse’s forehead. A moment later, she recognized the doctor. Now that was a peculiar cruelty, and a new one, a phantom appearing to remind her that there had been
a time before
—when she had seen him coming just this way, expanding from a dot at the farthest remove down the string-straight line of Arnaud’s
allée
. To imagine that on that day itself she’d thought her situation was unbearable, that thought seemed laughable now. This zombi had been sent to tantalize her with the thought of going back in time to reach that day of innocence again. She sank the needle deep into her thumb and twisted it, biting her lips the while. When she opened her eyes again the doctor was still there and had in fact dismounted from his horse.

“Your pardon, ladies,” he began. “Can you tell me, how far have I to go to reach Ennery?”

Claudine began to speak and caught herself. She cut her eyes toward the girl, in search of any clue at all. Marguerite overlooked the apparition blandly and spoke in her most musical tone.

“I don’t know how to answer your question,
monsieur
, but I’m sure you are most welcome here.”

Claudine breathed out. She rose to her feet, blotting her wounded thumb on the underside of the embroidery before she laid the hoop down. She saw from Doctor Hébert’s look that he had not recognized her. Assuming an ironic smile, she made him a curtsy, thinking that if she had attempted any such gesture at their first meeting she would most likely have fallen down. But she was well beyond embarrassment and now that Marguerite had answered for the doctor’s presence on the physical plane, she found that the unlikeliness of the event almost amused her.

“You are well out of your road once again,” she said, rising and putting out her hand with a mock-regal gesture as he came up the few steps to the gallery. “This is not Ennery but Acul.”

“Madame Arnaud,” the doctor said. “My happiness to see you.” He bowed over her hand. “But how…”

“Oh, I am a guest here myself, you understand.” Claudine emitted a sort of social laugh, but this joviality was too much and nearly strangled her. She cleared her throat. “This is Habitation Flaville, but as the family is from home, Monsieur and Madame Lambert are my hosts and will be yours.”

The doctor released her hand. “Oh, but I should not intrude.”

“Nonsense, you will stay, of course.” Claudine smiled, not quite cuttingly. “After all, the road you can’t find by daylight is unlikely to appear to you after dark.” She turned, rustling in her crinolines. “Marguerite, had you not better go and tell Madame Lambert that there will be one more to dine?”

The blonde girl rose from her seat and turned her face aside as if in modesty, most wonderfully displaying her soft profile and long alabaster neck. She held the pose for a moment, then moved with her sleepy rippling grace into the house. Claudine watched the doctor narrowly, but if he’d been impressed he did not show it.

I
NSIDE THE HOUSE
, the doctor delivered himself of a group of apologies, demurrals, and finally thanks to Madame Lambert. She was a short woman, tiny almost, but she seemed strong and full of practical energy. Her three daughters all bustled about, ordering adjustments to the dinner table and sending house slaves to make up another room. The doctor’s saddlebags were sent for, clothes hung up and brushed. Someone pressed a drink into his hand. In the midst of all this Monsieur Lambert returned from overseeing the cane fields, with him a youth named Émile Duvel, who was an expected and invited guest for dinner and the night. Introductions were made. The doctor tottered on his rubbery legs. Long hours riding after his idle stay in Le Cap had left him saddle sore again, and he was chagrined at having lost his way so thoroughly. Madame Lambert plucked at his elbow and conveyed him to the rear of the house on the pretext of showing him his room.

Within the chamber she slapped the door shut with her round forearm (she was rather a stout woman though small) and wheeled on him with a bristling vigor that was almost alarming. He took a step back.

“As you are a physician,” she said, “you must tell me what you think of Claudine.” She spoke in a loud forced whisper. Short as he was himself, she scarcely reached his breastbone. Her round black eyes crackled at him, their pupils large.

“Tell me, what is your concern?” The doctor made a series of evasive motions with his hands.

“Oh, I cannot say exactly. She has changed. She scarcely will eat a mouthful at any time of day, and takes no wine or spirits either, when she used to be so, so…”

“Enthusiastic?” the doctor finished, thinking he saw in her expression some knowledge of Madame Arnaud’s dipsomania. Madame Lambert looked at him closely and he was careful not to smile.

“Might it be some wasting fever?” she said. “Often she seems to stare at nothing, sometimes I seem to hear her speak to no one. In her room she speaks when no one is there.”

“I see,” the doctor said. As it struck him, these were symptoms of insanity rather than illness. “Of course, if the lady does not choose to consult me…but I will be as observant as I am able.”

Madame Lambert seemed a little deflated. “I should be grateful for any opinion…I fear for her, indeed. She was once a dear friend to me, and yet she always seemed ill-suited for this country.” She nodded to him and went out. The doctor followed her back to the others.

At table he endured some raillery about his poor sense of direction. Claudine Arnaud began the joke, but did not join in the laughter it produced. The girls were giggly, all but Marguerite, whose bland state of calm seemed quite unshakable. Émile Duvel, who clerked on the nearby Noé plantation, cut through the hilarity, raising a finger as he looked at the doctor.

“Still it is no laughing matter to ride over this country alone, whether one knows his way or not. So much unrest among the cultivators.” The table quieted, but for Duvel’s voice. “And if there really were to be—”

“
Assez
.” Monsieur Lambert spoke from the table’s head. “Why look for trouble? I’m sure it’s all been settled now, besides.”

“
Monsieur
, you are too good.” Duvel turned to the doctor again. “Do you know what this man did?”

“Émile…” said Monsieur Lambert. But Duvel continued. The girls on either side of him were smiling, anticipating this version of a tale they’d heard before.

“Last week a fire was set to some buildings at Chabaud’s. They caught the man who did it—he proved to be a
commandeur
, but from another plantation. And when examined he confessed there was a plot among many
commandeurs
to raise a general insurrection of slaves in these quarters.” Duvel looked to the head of the table. “And why should he confess it if it were not true?”

“Naturally, to shift attention from himself,” Lambert said. “And under such ‘examinations’ as they are wont to give, a man might contrive any fantasy.”

“Perhaps,” said Duvel, “and yet, a
commandeur? Après tout
, he was not some
bossale
or maroon as you know. And if there was no plot what would bring him from Desgrieux plantation to work such mischief on Chabaud?”

“If in truth he did so,” Lambert said mildly. “It may be that since he had come from elsewhere he was the likeliest to be falsely accused.”

“You are ingenious in your defense of them,” Duvel said. “Be that as it may, the authorities of Limbé determined from this fellow that there was indeed a plot and that several of the leaders were here,
chez Flaville
. Can you imagine what would take place if such an intelligence came to some other
gérant?
”

Sidelong, the doctor had been looking at Madame Arnaud, as his hostess had requested. It was true that she only picked at her food, and interesting that she took neither wine nor liquor. She seemed inattentive to the anecdote, but the doctor would not necessarily have said she was in worse health than when he had first met her. One corner of her mouth was drawn down, though; perhaps she’d been victim to apoplexy?

“Can you imagine?” Duvel was repeating. The doctor roused himself.

“Indeed, I think I can,” he said. His eyes were on Madame Arnaud’s hands lying idle by the sides of her plate, but what he seemed to see was a pair of black hands crossed and transfixed with a nail through their pale palms.

“Quite,” Duvel said. “But this gentleman gathered all his slaves together and when he told them of the accusation he said that he could not believe it. Your words, sir—” Duvel raised his voice to overwhelm Lambert’s nascent protest. “Your very words: ‘If I have given you any reason to seek my life, you may take it now with no resistance and without the trouble of a general riot.’ And to be sure they all wept and protested their fidelity.”

“I took no risk,” Lambert said.

The doctor looked at him. His close-cut curly hair was grizzled and his face was creased with friendly wrinkles, like an old hound’s.

“Kindness is repaid with kindness,” he went on; “abuse with abuse.”

“Well, we must all hope that you are right,” Duvel said. The doctor noticed that his tone had changed, and he now looked at Lambert with almost a doglike devotion.

“If all the owners and
gérants
shared your goodness,” Duvel said, “it’s true we’d have much less to fear.”

“I believe we have dispatched this subject,” Lambert said, and nodded to the doctor. “Do tell us something of yourself.”

In his effort to comply, Doctor Hébert let it slip that he was unmarried. This news created a partially suppressed sensation, for it seemed that Duvel was the only frequent courtier at this house, though not for any want in its attractions. The Lambert daughters were pretty and charming all three: Héloïse, Madeleine, Emilie. They were small and dark-haired like their mother, with ice pale skin carefully maintained. Their being close in age, the doctor had trouble distinguishing which was the elder, which the younger; besides they often seemed to speak and react almost in unison.

W
HEN THEY HAD DINED
and the slaves had cleared away the table, Marguerite made a display of her skill at the spinet. Émile Duvel stood by the instrument, joining his tenor to her high piping voice, until the three sisters became restless and organized an attempt at dancing. Claudine sat at the room’s farthest edge, near a window covered with mosquito net, one hand covering the other with the embroidery hoop caught between, studying the situation as it evolved.

The shift to dancing was a little coup for the Lambert girls. Claudine was aware of a rift developing between them and Marguerite these days. They were bright and quick where she was slow and languorous, so perhaps it was natural they should not well like her, all but Emilie, who had formed an attachment. But even she would not break with her sisters in the matter of Émile Duvel, who was their property as they saw it (though before Marguerite had come they had not liked him so much either). So they would dance, leaving Marguerite to the provision of accompaniment, fastened to her bench.

The doctor was game to play his part, though shaky from the saddle as Claudine could well see, and she surmised he was no virtuoso of a dancer at the best of times. He propelled Héloïse around the floor in a bearlike fashion, and though she tried to engage him in conversation he was too much occupied by his effort not to step on her feet or knock over the smaller articles of furniture. Duvel was far nimbler, but perhaps less obliging. The two men kept dutifully sharing the three sisters round, but Duvel’s eyes kept running to Marguerite, over the neat dark head of his partner.

There was a crackling sound that seemed to come from beyond the window, plainly audible to Claudine over the spinet’s tinkling, yet knowing it must be an echo from within her skull, she tried to ignore it. At last she could not help herself from glancing out to see the phantasmal tongues of flame licking through the cane fields. Her lips worked drily. Often the appearance of her demon was fore-told by such displays, and this time there even seemed a taste of smoke in the air. She stabbed her needle deep into her thumb, gasped, and resolutely turned back toward the frail bright bubble of the room, where the parents overlooked the dancing with fond glances, or maybe only with fatigue…