Creole Hearts (25 page)

The man showed him, rather reluctantly, into a reception room that had no outside windows. Murals of nymphs bathing in woodland streams decorated the walls, and the ceiling was festooned with gilt cupids. He stood watching the door, determined not to be taken by surprise a second time.

He heard footsteps hurrying across the slate of the foyer, then
Madame
Jean Fronchot appeared in the doorway.

"Guy!" Fabrienne cried.

He strode toward her as she rushed forward, hands outstretched. He caught her hands in his, wishing he dared take her in his arms.

"I could hardly believe it when Jacques told me you were here," she said, smiling up at him.

"I thought perhaps you'd forgotten my name."

"Never!"

Fabrienne looked older, though her face was still beautiful. She'd kept the same delightful figure he recalled so well.

"I've thought of you more times than I care to tell you," he said.

She disengaged her hands. "Have you come to France often since those long ago days?"

She's affected by seeing me, he thought, noting her flushed face and quickened breathing. He wondered if she noticed his own excitement.

"This is my first visit since then."

"You've made this trip, perhaps, to bring sons to school again?"

"No."

Fabrienne raised her eyebrows. Her eyes were the green of the Atlantic at mid ocean.

"You've had only daughters?" she asked.

"Fabrienne, I didn't marry."

She put her fingertips to her lips.

Though he hadn't meant to say it to her, to
Madame
Fronchot, so well married, Guy found himself pouring out what he felt.

"I was a fool to let you go. No one has suited me since, you've spoiled me for other women."

“But children? An heir?”

“I couldn't bring myself to marry for that alone."

"Oh, Guy . .." Her eyes filled with tears.

He could stand it no longer and reached for her, taking her into his arms, holding her next to him. He put his lips to her hair, to her temple. She brought her hands up to his chest, pushing him away.

He stepped back. "I forgot myself," he said. "I beg your pardon."

"It's just that I can't yet believe you're actually here," she said. "That you've come to my house. Is this the reason you returned to France?"

"No. I came to bring a young
cousine
to live with my sister and me in New Orleans. But I knew I couldn't leave the country without seeing you again."

"I didn't realize you had a sister. You never mentioned her."

"Yes. Madelaine's a year or two older than you."

"I can't express how happy I am to see you," Fabrienne said. "Of course you'll stay for dinner, for the night."

"No."

The hurt in her face made him wince inwardly. He decided he must tell her the truth.

“I still love you, Fabrienne and I don't want to know anything about the man lucky enough to have you for a wife."

Her eyes grew round with surprise. "Did no one in the village tell you?"

"Tell me what? I've met only Madame Henri, for I thought she was you. She informed me
Monsieur
Jean's name was not to be said aloud in her house."

Fabrienne began to laugh. She laughed so hard she had to hold on to Guy to keep her balance. He put an arm about her.

"How upset she must have been," Fabrienne said when she could speak. "Her husband and mine fell out before I married Jean. A family feud— you know how unreasonable those are. I tried more than once to reconcile them but it was impossible." She leaned against his arm and smiled at him.

His grip tightened. "Fabrienne, I want very much to kiss you and never stop. I think I'd better make my . . ."

"What a wonderful idea," she said. "Why don't you kiss me?"

"But I—your husband. . . ?"

"I've been trying to tell you. Jean's been dead for two years. I'm a widow, as I was when we first met."

Fabrienne reached up and pulled his head down until his lips met hers, and Guy lost himself in the remembered wonder of her embrace.

Chapter
25

Mardi Gras is coming, coming," little Ninette sang to a tune all her own. "Coming, coming, I can't wait for Mardi Gras."

"That's a nice song, Ninette, but it's not what the words on the page say.” Madelaine told her.

Try as she might, Madelaine couldn't seem to teach Ninette to read. The quadroon girl was her first complete failure and she didn't know why. Certainly Ninette was bright enough, she'd learned ciphering as quickly as any of the children.

"
Mademoiselle
Madelaine, I like to sing better," Ninette told her. "Going to sing and dance at Mardi Gras. Sing about Layotte—you know about Layotte?" Ninette rose and began to pirouette.

Eh! pou' la belle Layotte:
For the fair Layotte

Ma mourri 'nocent
 :
I must crazy die

Oui 'nocent ma mourri
 :
Yes, I must crazy die.

Ninette raised her arms and twisted her body as though she heard drumbeats. “I’ll dance the Calinda,
bamboula
. I'll dance voodoo, I'll dance and dance till the alligators crawl from the swamp, till Bras Coupe comes riding old alligator. Bras Coupe going to dance with me, going to dance ..."

Madelaine stopped listening when the child mentioned Bras Coupe. He'd become a legend among the colored, still living in the swamp according to them, and appearing to dance voodoo sometimes.

But of course he was dead, had been dead for many years. I remember him, Madelaine thought. I remember how he danced with me, something strange and compelling in his eyes making me forget where I was, who I was. Something called to me and, though I feared that summons, at the same time I yearned to follow where it led. What lay between us was more than attraction between a man and a woman, though that was there, too. Something mysterious—perhaps evil—beckoned me, and I longed to go.

"
Boujoum, boujoum
!" Ninette sang, imitating the big African drums.

Madelaine took a deep breath. She was forty two years old and still daydreamed of dancing voodoo, of her rendezvous with Philippe along the bayous. Living in the past. In a few months Guy would bring Cecile home to her, home from France, her fifteen year old daughter who wouldn't know her, who'd call her
cousine
, not
maman.
Perhaps seeing Cecile would make her feel as old as she was.

How was it possible to feel so young inside, forever eighteen?

"Will you dance in the Mardi Gras?" Ninette asked.

"I don't know," Madelaine said.

She'd never joined the street processions of costumed maskers, started four years ago by Creole youths just back from Paris. Mardi Gras had always been a Creole celebration, lasting from Twelfth Night to Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, with balls, public and private.

The
Americains
had frowned on masks in the early years of their takeover of Louisiana, and still issued edicts against them from time to time, but any true Creole loved to dress up and wear a mask.

Why not costume herself and parade unrecognized? Excitement flared in Madelaine.

"I have a costume with wings," Ninette said. "Pink and blue butterfly wings and my mask is pink and my slippers are blue and I'll maybe even fly." She leaped into the air, a graceful child as well as pretty. Did it matter she couldn't read? In a few years some Creole youth would undoubtedly ask her to be his placee.

Cecile would be no placee. Madelaine vowed her daughter would marry young, marry a man she loved.

What did Cecile look like? Madelaine had missed seeing her grow up, would never know her childish ways. A sense of loss dissipated her excitement. Philippe had been dead fifteen years and she'd been deprived of her child for almost as long.

Ninette's hands on her arm startled her.

"I wish you would wear a beautiful costume and be with me in the parade," Ninette said. "You look so sad, like you might cry. No one can be sad at Mardi Gras."

When she returned to Lac Belle, Madelaine couldn't dislodge the idea of a costume. At my age, she chided herself, I shouldn't be thinking of dancing in masked parades.

But why not? Who would know?

She stood up and examined herself in the pier glass. Her chin was still firm, she looked younger than she was, with scarcely any grey in her hair. As for her figure, her waist was slim, her breasts didn't sag. Masked, no one would guess she was Madelaine La Branche.

Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras. A time to be merry, to celebrate, for penitence followed, days of sorrow.

Ninette's singing echoed in her mind.
"Dance, dance the Calinda!
Boujoum, boujoum
!"

She'd stay in the townhouse, it would be easy to return there after the celebrating. And she would wear—what? The fashion called for leg of mutton or puffed sleeves, waists that dipped to a vee and bell shaped shirts held out with multiple petticoats.

If she went back to her own girlhood, though, she might dress as the Empress Josephine in the empire style with its high waist. A fur trimmed short spencer, open in front to show decolletage, but long sleeved against the coolness of the evening, could be made of velvet in a contrasting color to the gown. She had the sapphire and diamond tiara, Guy's gift from Paris that she'd never worn. Now she would—to dance in the streets.

Madelaine smiled.

She woke early on Fat Tuesday, hearing a peddler calling in the streets.

Oyster man! Oyster man!

Get your fresh oysters from the oyster man.

Bring out your pitcher, bring out your can.

Get your nice fresh oysters from the oyster man.

Quite like the old days, staying in the townhouse, excited about Guy taking her to a public ball, she and Annette Louise giggling over the glances of the young blades.

Annette Louise was a plump matron now, Gabe was grown—old enough almost to be the father of his mother's younger children, Nicolas' son and daughter, Philippe and Lisette.

Gabe was a handsome and accomplished young man. She'd see that Cecile met him, no matter what Guy thought. After all, Gabe was a Davion, not a Roulleaux, even if his mother had married one.

Odalie was ailing, some days she couldn't rise from her bed, but she insisted she'd live long enough to meet Cecile, for of all the servants, only Odalie knew what had taken Madelaine to France.

"I be seeing that little girl, nobody putting me in no oven till I do see Cecile."

"You'll live long enough to see her married, Odalie," Madelaine assured the old woman. "And you're not going into an oven."

Odalie was referring to the double brick vaults in the cemeteries where poor people could rent an upper vault for the remains of their loved ones, then when the time ran out, the bones were removed and put into a common, lower vault and the upper again rented.

"You're going to have a vault all your own, like old Louis has," Madelaine went on. "Do you think I'd put you in an oven?"

"No, you be my own, I be raising you up, you don't do that to me."

Madelaine had taken Josefina with her to the town house, since Odalie wasn't well enough to stand the short ride from the lake to the city. Josefina approved of Madelaine's notion to dance in the carnival parade, helping her dress and arranging the tiara in her hair with almost as much excitement as Madelaine felt.

When Madelaine fixed the blue velvet mask over her face, Josefina clapped her hands e a young girl.

"You don't look like anybody I knows," Josefina said. "All the gentlemen be wondering where the pretty woman come from."

"I don't intend to tell them," Madelaine said, buoyed by Josefina's enthusiasm. "I'll be like Cinderella and disappear at midnight."

But when she ventured out of the courtyard, she hesitated on the
banquette
, suddenly feeling very much alone and unprotected in the dusk. Should she have gone out into the parading earlier, while the sun still shone? That's when the children were out, she might have seen Ninette. Madelaine almost laughed out loud at her fears. She wasn't dressed like the Empress

Josephine to dance with the children, why not admit it? Maybe she was being foolish, but she wanted something to come of this escapade. Exactly what, she didn't allow herself to speculate over.

As long as she was masked and costumed she'd at least take a look at the procession--but

Madelaine found it impossible to be an observer. As she neared the undulating line of paraders hands reached out and pulled her into the procession.

"Who is she?" a man dressed as a court jester asked. "A queen, that's evident."

"The Queen of Beauty," another suggested, catching her about the waist and swinging her in an improvised dance in and out of the crowd.

"A toast to the Queen of Beauty," the first man said, lifting aloft a wine bottle.

Many of the revelers carried glasses, and now held them out to be filled. A man offered his full glass to Madelaine and, in the spirit of the celebration, she took it graciously and sipped before handing it back.

"Shouldn't beauty be for all?" a man dressed as an Indian asked. He swept Madelaine into his group, whirling her about before passing her on to the next man.

At first she laughed, intoxicated by the gaiety and singing, stimulated by the dancing and being able to act as she pleased without anybody knowing her name. Everyone was masked, and she didn't recognize a single person in the crowd. If a man's hand strayed to her breast it was easy to slip away to someone else. There was no need to wax indignant, for it was no insult to Madelaine La Branche, but a tribute to the Queen of Beauty.

But as the line, inching its way along, widened to fill the streets and spill up onto the banquettes, she found it harder to avoid unwelcome embraces, the press of so many bodies pinning her in place.

"A kiss, Madame Beauty," a bewhiskered, berobed man demanded, thrusting his bearded face at hers, his lips wet and soft.

She couldn't get away from him, all she could shift her face so his mouth was against her cheek instead of her lips. He kissed her neck, slobbering against her bare flesh. She felt her stomach churn in disgust.

"Let me go!" she cried, her voice all but lost in the wild merriment.

He paid no attention, plunging his hand into the low bodice of her gown to fondle her bare breasts.

Madelaine screamed and he laughed. She struggled to free herself but he gripped her fast and the crowd hemmed her in.

Why had she ventured into this madhouse alone?

She beat at him with clenched fists, but he didn't seem to feel the blows as his breath came faster and he pressed her close to him, seeking her mouth again. She jerked her head away, catching sight of a cane held by the man next to her.

Desperately, Madelaine grabbed at the cane, jerking it away from its owner. She knew the cane for what it was because Guy had one—indeed, every Creole man had once carried such a cane.

A sword cane.

She felt for the release lever. A sword would be of no use in this mass of people except in one way. As she pressed the release lever, she raised the cane into the air, tip pointing at the ground, hearing the snick of the steel sliding out of the wood. She brought it straight down as hard as she could.

Madelaine felt the sharp sword point penetrate the leather of her tormentor's boot, into and through the flesh of the foot.

He shrieked with pain, releasing her to grab at the cane.

Madelaine dropped the cane and tunneled her way through the crowd, arriving disheveled and panting on the
banquette
, where the crush was less. She flattened herself against the front of a building, watching the torch lit scene with fear and apprehension.

Would he try to come after her?

Voices spoke to her, hands reached for her and she shrank away as much as she could, afraid each man would be another like the one she’d stabbed in the foot.

“I want to go home,” she whispered. “Please, I just want to go home.”

“Your crown is falling,” a voice said, She saw a Greek soldier. Automatically she reached up and settled the tiara more firmly in place.

“That’s right,” the man told her. “Come out and dance now, empress.”

“No,” she said. “No!”

But his hands were insistent, pulling her relentlessly back into the mob of merry makers, up one street and down another they swept, laughing, shouting. Her head pounded and her feet hurt from bruises made by those who stepped on her fragile slippers. The Greek soldier had long since vanished, now other hands caught at her and tried to swing her in dances made impossible by crush of people.

She felt contaminated by so much handling, soiled as her gown was soiled by the dirt of the street.. She made a concentrated effort to break through to the edge on the procession, angrily using her elbows on resisting backs.

Again she neared a
banquette,
stumbling up on to it. Next to her a woman tripped and fell face down onto the wood. Madelaine distinctly saw a man step on her.