Authors: Lorena Dureau
"She's trying to suffocate us in mosquito netting!" wailed
Monique indignantly. She stood in the center of the room, draped in
white lawn and green-striped cotton, amid a sea of multicolored bolts
of cloth, while Celeste stood beside her draped in flowered muslin,
looking equally woebegone.
Vidal was utterly bewildered to find himself suddenly
confronted by a tangled maze of female flip-pantries instead of a
sinister adversary waiting to meet his half-drawn sword. He listened
awkwardly to the reason for the young girls' noisy rebellion, flushing
all the while beneath his smooth olive complexion as he tried to
straighten out the problem as quickly as possible so he could be gone
from that confusing world of muslins and lace that he had so
unwittingly invaded.
"But you said to cover them up more, senor," the governess
explained defensively, while the poor dressmaker, in peril of
swallowing her mouthful of pins, continued to stare in dismay at
Vidal's tall, imposing figure standing there before her with his hand
still on his sword hilt.
From the expression on the girls' tear-streaked faces,
they gave the impression that their virtue had been about to be
violated instead of protected.
"I… I only meant a… an extra ruffle
or two perhaps," he faltered. "I don't know how to explain…
but I'm sure you can think of something appropriate that will meet with
my cousins' approval and yet not be too… too
provocative…" He searched for the right phrases, while the
women gaped at him in silence, offering little assistance. "Something
stylish, you understand… yet decent…" His voice
trailed off lamely. Quickly he backed himself out the door.
A couple of days later Vidal made one of those impromptu
visits of his to Mlle. Baudier's classes. The governess was in the
middle of teaching Celeste some new chords on the guitar as he
entered. Celeste had taken readily to the string instruments and was
progressing with surprising rapidity in the mastery of them. The young
girl especially seemed to like the Spanish guitar that Vidal had bought
for them.
"Ah, Mlle. Baudier and my lovely little cousins," he
greeted them with a trifle less formality than he customarily addressed
them. "And how goes the music lesson today?"
He had just returned from his morning rounds about town
and was especially striking in his rust-colored frock coat and black
leather riding boots that rose up smartly to cover the knees of his
sleek nankeen breeches.
"Our little Celeste is doing splendidly with the guitar."
The governess beamed as she looked up from where she was putting the
young girl's slim fingers into the correct position on the strings for
the next chord. "Monique, on the other hand, seems to prefer the
mandolin," she added with a smile, although it was evident that her pet
was little Celeste, whom she found more docile and studious than her
restless elder charge.
Vidal cast a curious glance over to where his more
troublesome ward sat with a mandolin lying listlessly in her lap. She
looked cool and fresh in her soft flowered muslin with tiny rosebuds
spilling generously over her long flowing skirts and an upstanding
ruffle discreetly veiling the low sweep of her décolletage.
"The thought occurred to me as I rode back home just now
that my cousins here might like to learn some of the dance steps that
are popular around Europe right now," he offered.
The girls immediately perked up at the mention of dancing.
"If Mlle. Baudier will play a cotillion for us, I'll show
you the way it's being done these days," he suggested.
Celeste quickly handed the guitar to her governess and
rose eagerly to put herself at Vidal's disposal as a partner. Just the
thought of dancing with her handsome guardian brought an excited flush
to her delicately chiseled features.
"Better yet, the quadrille!" exclaimed Monique, setting
aside her mandolin and also rising with a new surge of energy.
"Of course, you know whichever you do, it should be with
at least a set of four couples," began Vidal, who had already taken
Celeste's outstretched hand into his. "Let's see how you do the
two-hand turn," he invited the delighted young girl.
Mlle. Baudier struck up an appropriate tune, and Celeste
let him swing her around in a two-hand turn, her bright skirts of
jonquil-flowered muslin swirling along to the rhythm.
"Fine! Fine!" declared Vidal approvingly. "And now you,
Monica, let's see if you can do as well as your sister just did."
He caught the tiny dimpled hands that Monique hesitantly
extended toward him. They felt softer, fleshier, than Celeste's slimmer
ones had been. There was a sensuousness about them that made him want
to squeeze tighter…
Not to be outdone by her younger sister, Monique whirled
around with her guardian in a two-hand turn that sent her full skirts
flying in a cloud of rosebuds. "Very good!" came Vidal's cry of
approval. "Now, if this were a quadrille, and you had to go into a
ladies' chain, which hand would you offer the lady opposite you to pass
her?"
Monique stood there for a second, finding it difficult to
think while her hand still rested in his.
"Why, the right one, of course," she finally replied and
extended her hand daintily in the direction of the imaginary girl
across from her.
"Correct. And then which hand would you give to the man
opposite you?"
"The left."
"Good," approved Vidal. "And now another turn in place
with your partner, right?" he caught both her hands and whirled her
around once more.
Monique's breath was coming more rapidly now, but she knew
it was more from the fact that her guardian was holding her hands than
because of the turns. In spite of herself, she couldn't help admiring
the sinewy grace of those long, athletic limbs as the smooth, clinging
breeches encasing his thighs set off to advantage the fascinating
ripple of the muscles beneath them.
Celeste was applauding merrily. "Oh, please, Cousin
Miguel, let me do the turns again!" she begged excitedly.
Almost reluctantly Monique yielded her guardian to her
sister, but she continued to watch him through veiled eyes while he
caught the younger girl's hand and repeated the steps with her.
Afterward, he proceeded to show them other geometrical patterns for
both the cotillion and the quadrille, which he told them were in vogue
in Europe at that moment.
Monique found herself looking forward to her turn with her
agile guardian. That aroma of lavender and tobacco that she had come to
associate with his nearness… the feel of his hands holding
hers tightly as he whirled her around… it all left her
giddy, as though she had been imbibing too much wine.
When finally, after another half hour or so, Vidal brought
his impromptu dancing lesson to a close, his tireless wards seemed to
be bounding with more energy than when they had begun. Despite their
protests, however, he insisted that he should withdraw and allow them
to go on with their more serious studies of Spanish and French grammar
which still had to be hurdled that day, urging them to put some of
their revived energies into their forthcoming language lessons.
As Monique watched her guardian walk across the room to
the exit, admiring the disturbing rhythm of those fascinating thighs
once more, she found herself thinking how different things had seemed
between them when they had been dancing together. The memory of his
presence lingered. There was something about that proximity that always
disconcerted her. It was so difficult to tell what her guardian was
really like. Every time she thought she knew, he'd say or do something
so completely unexpected…
That afternoon, for the first time, Monique paid a little
more attention than usual to her Spanish lesson. Perhaps if she learned
more about Miguel Vidal's language, she could understand him a little
better, too.
Monique
and Celeste had been getting ready all day. Since early
that morning, they had had the upstairs maid running in and out of
their room keeping the coals hot in the brazier for the curling iron.
Every time the door opened or closed, snatches of girlish
giggles could be heard, and there was such an air of excitement in the
household that Mlle. Baudier had finally agreed to suspend classes for
that day so the girls could devote themselves entirely to their
elaborate preparations for what was to be their first outing to a real
theatrical performance.
Grandmother Chausson sent up two large tortoiseshell combs
for them to use with the full-sized black lace mantillas that Cousin
Miguel had brought them from Spain. Despite Monique's momentary
resistance to wearing something so "unpatriotic" as a typically Spanish
headdress to the performance, once she saw how elegant and ladylike the
graceful black lace mantilla made her look, she offered no further
objections.
Vidal had dressed in his royal-blue silk frock coat and
breeches, tastefully trimmed with a silver and blue brocade vest and
his finest white cravat and cuffs. Then he had gone down to enjoy a
glass of wine with Grandmother Chausson in the parlor while he waited
for his cousins to finish getting ready.
Five-thirty in the afternoon seemed like an unusually
early hour to him for a theatrical performance, but Grandmother
Chausson had explained that many of the theatergoers liked to finish
out the night—sometimes until dawn—at the
festivities offered on the ground floor of the theater itself or the
nearby Cond
é
Ballroom.
Since the city's first and only theater was only a few
blocks away and it was still daylight, Vidal planned to walk there but
to return in the carriage.
Celeste was the first to emerge from her "cocoon". She
entered the parlor blushing with pleasure as Vidal and her grandmother
duly greeted her with exclamations over how lovely she looked in her
bouffant gown of pale pink muslin trimmed with a deep rose velvet sash
streaming down the back from the bustle of her generous overskirt. With
her honey-colored hair caught up high to support the curved comb and
long black lace veil draped over it, the girl seemed to have turned
into a woman overnight.
When Vidal and Grandmother Chausson asked for Monique,
however, Celeste suddenly lost her newly acquired aplomb. She explained
uncomfortably that her sister had had a last-minute idea. "She should
be down shortly," the young girl assured them uneasily.
At that moment Monique appeared at the head of the
staircase. Grandmother Chausson let out a little cry of amazement, but
Vidal was absolutely speechless, as they both stared at the voluptuous
little figure in the long flowing white gown, relieved only by the
black lace mantilla, slowly descending, wraithlike, toward them.
"My God! But the child has gone daft!" exclaimed Aimee
Chausson in dismay.
Vidal, however, could only stare in dumbfounded
fascination at the way the thin silk gown, free now of the usual side
and back padding and layers of starched petticoats, cascaded gently
over the sensuously rounded body beneath it, caressing every curve and
indentation as it undulated to the girl's rhythmic movements.
"Don't you like it?" She smiled, quite pleased by the
attention her entrance had won from all of them. "It looks Grecian,
doesn't it? It's so classic! They say this is the latest style in
France these days."
"Merciful God in heaven! You might as well be naked!"
gasped her grandmother. "You can see
everything
!"
"Monica… if you don't want to give your
grandmother a heart attack, you'd better go right back upstairs and put
on your
tournure
or
cul
or
whatever you call it," advised Vidal, finding his voice at last.
"And your petticoats, too!" snapped Grandmother Chausson
quickly.
"But it's so warm tonight," Monique protested, obviously
disappointed. Celeste was standing to one side grinning away with an
"I-told-you-so" look dancing in her soft brown eyes.
Just then Mlle. Baudier came dashing down the stairs, her
usual implacable calm completely gone and her eyes popping out of her
head more than ever.
"I assure you, I have nothing to do with this!" she
exclaimed as she spotted Monique standing in the parlor still
indignantly trying to defend her dubious efforts to be the vanguard of
high fashion in New Orleans. "Only ten minutes ago I checked the girls,
and they were all ready to leave, dressed the way any decent woman
going out on the street should be. I can't imagine what came over the
child…"
"I tell you this is the latest fashion," insisted Monique,
her cheeks coloring with frustration and embarrassment. "It's called
the Greek Revival—the return to classicism. I read about it
in one of the journals the dressmaker brought with her."
Vidal was smiling condescendingly at her now. "My dear
cousin, I'm sure you mean well," he conceded, "but I'm afraid New
Orleans isn't ready yet for such an extreme mode." He was beginning to
see more humor in the situation now than scandal. "I'm afraid such a
style really is beginning to gain some popularity in Europe," he
assured the skeptical elderly ladies.
"No respectable woman would ever go out on the streets
without her padding or petticoats," insisted Grandmother Chausson
emphatically, while Mlle. Baudier nodded in agreement. "It simply
wouldn't be decent for a female to show off the natural shape of her
body like that in public! What is this world coming to, anyway?"
Monique was silent now, but it was evident she was still
bristling beneath that drooping surface. It was only after the repeated
urgings of her inappreciative audience and Vidal's firm stand that she
couldn't go to the theater until she was dressed properly that the
young girl finally acquiesced. Reluctantly she allowed Mlle. Baudier to
lead her back upstairs.