Dark Masquerade (5 page)

She very nearly answered in the affirmative, hoping she would be invited to ride some of the magnificent sounding horses in the stables, but she remembered in time that Ellen had not been a rider. Ellen had never liked getting dirty and overheated, even before her bout with malaria, and then she had been advised to stay out of the sun. Quickly Elizabeth shook her head, summoning a deprecating smile.

“Too bad. I had hoped for company,” Darcourt said, and then forgot her. But she found Bernard watching her, a tiny frown between his eyes.

As the morning advanced the cloud cover burned away and the sun came out bright and golden. Drawn by its dazzling light and the fresh scent of spring from the new green growth, Elizabeth wandered out onto the front gallery and stood with her back against a pillar. The soaring height of the pillar and the upper gallery hanging high above her head made her feel small and insignificant. A part of her doubted that she would ever feel that she belonged to such grandeur, that it was comfortable and ordinary.

It was a fairly new house, she knew, built only three years before with a portion of the profits from several bountiful years in the cane fields. There was a smell of mortar rising from the brick floor beneath her feet and a suspicion of the scent of new lumber lingering still under the overhanging roof. The sun gleamed on the line of white pillars marching across the front of the house and cast trembling shadow patterns of the oak leaves onto the floor.

Elizabeth raised her face to the touch of the sun. It was a beautiful day, a day to be at peace with the world and yourself. The thought brought a wry smile to her mouth. She pushed away from the pillar and moved on down the gallery.

The wide colonnaded galleries that bounded the house on three sides invited strolling. They gave the house an open, airy look that detracted from its square bulk. They also shaded the inside rooms from the force of the semi-tropical sun. They remained cool and comfortable throughout the long summers, with the help of the ceilings and the thick plastered walls. The shade of the oaks, a natural grove of mixed live oaks, white, and red oaks, contributed to the aura of coolness. They stretched away on all sides, the oaks, old, huge, with blue lichen clinging to the bark of their wide spread arms. They wore the old rags of Spanish moss, hanging in tatters from them, with pride.

The light breeze moving through the trees swayed the gray moss back and forth and brought with it the heady fragrance of sun-warm sweet olive. Elizabeth stopped, looking around her for the shrub. She had discovered it growing at the corner of the house near the back wall when the sound of a voice came to her through the nearest open window.

“I am sorry, Madame, if I disturb you at your correspondence, but I must speak with you. I cannot see you alone now that the child and his nurse have been brought into your room.” There was a note of reproach in the French maid’s voice.

The rustle of silk, as if someone turned, could be heard, and then Grand’mere’s voice came sharply. “Well, Denise?”

“My room, Madame. My eyes never closed the whole night long. It is an impossibility for me to relax. I am with that one so much. It is too much to ask that I sacrifice my nights also. You must not ask this of me!”

“Why not, pray?” The old lady’s words were clipped, even.

“Madame knows why. It is inhuman to ask. Please have some consideration for my feelings.”

“Are your feelings more to be considered than the welfare of my great-grandson? No. Give me no more whining. You have been with me a number of years, Denise, and I would not like to dispense with your services, but if you will enact to me such tragedies then I must think of dismissing you.”

“Oh, no, Madame! I could not bear—”

“I will give you a character and send you back to the city in my carriage. You cannot expect more than this. I dare say you will find a new situation in a month or so.”

“How can you say so, after the years I have served you? New Orleans will be full of the yellow fever in a few more weeks, and—and I am no longer familiar with the new modes from Paris. I would so much prefer to stay here.” There were tears in Denise’s voice, and Elizabeth found herself in sympathy with the haughty maid now being so humbled.

“Tears? All this for my sake, Denise? I think not. No, for your new position you must stipulate that you want to go to someone enroute to White Sulphur Springs or one of the other resorts for the summer to escape the fever.” Grand’mere’s voice went relentlessly on. “And as for being no longer comme il faut with fashions, I suggest you seek another old lady to bully, someone fat and dull who will not care to be so modish.”

“Madame!”

“Or perhaps, since you have become so friendly with Madame Alma you might ask her to allow you to share her room.”

“I have done so, but Madame Alma refused.”

At the maid’s whispered reply the old lady gave a bark of laughter.

Elizabeth was uncomfortably aware that she was eavesdropping, but she hesitated to move away for fear she would attract their attention or make some sound on the rough brick floor. It had sounded as if the maid was frightened to stay in the back bedroom, but why? Whom had she spoken of as that one? Elizabeth could not help but feel sorry for the maid, despite the fact that the woman had been less than pleasant to her. There was such a chilling implacability in the old lady’s voice, such ruthlessness in her handling of the situation. Elizabeth was not at all surprised when the Frenchwoman suddenly capitulated and agreed in a subdued murmur to speak no more of the matter.

“Denise!”

The woman’s answer came from farther away as though she had started to leave the room. “Yes, Madame?”

“The spiders, you know of them?”

“A thing like that does not remain a secret in a household where the linens are washed by servants.”

“Of course. I have no idea where the blame lies, but I was distressed, most distressed, by the incident. All our lives were endangered, that of my grandson, even my own, in a most stupid and reckless manner. I will be displeased if there is a recurrence of anything of a similar nature.

“I assure Madame that I had nothing to do with it. I swear!”

“It doesn’t matter. You will remember what I have said. Whoever the culprit may be, I deem it your duty to prevent such a thing from happening again.”

“Madame, I beg of you, be reasonable—”

“That will be all.”

“Please, Madame—”

“I said that will be all.”

Elizabeth heard the door of the room closing, and quiet descended. Overhearing the autocratic manner in which Grand’mere spoke to her personal servant, hearing the cold voice, had brought home something that she had begun to forget while in the old lady’s presence. Despite the consideration, despite the smile and the concern for her comfort, Grand’mere had no use for her personally. She was as indifferent to Elizabeth’s ideas and to her supposed rights as Joseph’s mother as she was to Denise’s pleas and protests. Grand’mere would remain pleasant, even considerate, as long as Elizabeth’s wishes did not clash with her own.

Carefully she turned and began to retrace her steps back along the gallery. Then she saw Bernard.

He stood with his arms folded, leaning against one of the columns. His face was a mask of immobility, but its very blankness was proof that he had seen her listening to his grandmother’s conversation. Why hadn’t she coughed or made some noise to let them know she was there? Too late she realized that she had not wanted them to know. In her need to know more about the family, she had allowed her curiosity to overcome her scruples. But though she felt the heat of a blush rising to her cheeks, she had no intention of standing there like a cat caught with cream on its whiskers. Summoning a cool smile she continued walking and would have passed him if Bernard had not put out his hand.

“Could you spare me a few minutes of your time, Madame? There is some business of your husband’s estate that must be settled.”

“Yes, of course,” she replied.

“In the library then, if you please.”

She inclined her head and walked on beside him as he straightened and strolled toward the front of the house.

“You have a beautiful home,” Elizabeth said, for something to break the silence.

A sardonic smile touched his mouth and was gone. “You think you can be happy here, then?”

Elizabeth admired the house but she was not awed by it like a gawking country girl, and she resented the implication that she must be. Still, she answered mildly. “It’s early to tell, but I am sure I shall be.”

“Are you?”

Something in his voice brought back the creeping horror of the spiders spreading out over the sheet of her bed, and she did not answer. She went ahead of him through the front door, which he held open for her.

The butler stationed in the wide central hall jumped to open the library door, his black house slippers making no sound on the marble tiles. They passed through the door and it was closed behind them. Bernard drew forward a chair for her, and then seated himself behind the desk.

As he sorted the papers on his desk and took a bundle of documents tied with blue ribbon from a drawer, Elizabeth watched him covertly. After the excitement of the night before, she had forgotten Grand’mere’s hint that Bernard had something he wished to discuss with her. She had no idea what it could be and she could feel her nerves tightening. What could the business of Felix’s estate have to do with her? Her father had never confided the business details of their property to her mother or to Ellen or herself, and she had had no reason to suppose that things would be different in her pose as Felix’s widow. The legalities were the province of men. She knew absolutely nothing of Felix’s affairs. She was on shaky ground. The only thing that gave her the confidence to sit quietly and wait for Bernard to begin was the reflection that Ellen was unlikely to have known anything of them either.

His papers in order, Bernard leaned back in his chair, one hand rubbing at his chin.

“It’s odd,” he said pensively. “You are not at all as I pictured you.”

Apprehension ran along her nerves, and then subsided.

“No?”

“From Felix’s letters I pictured a sweet, fragile creature. One now bowed down with grief, of course.”

Letters? Elizabeth hardly noticed the soft sarcasm. She swallowed hard and hoped that he would attribute her sudden lack of color to pain.

“Not everyone puts their grief on display, Mr. Delacroix.”

“No.” He glanced down as he uttered the emotionless monosyllable, and then looked up again. “You have not, I think, always been well?”

Careful. A warning whispered in her mind, but she did not heed it.

“I was fully strong enough to bear Felix’s son and to care for him.”

“And yet he has a wet nurse?”

Color rushed in a warm wave to her forehead. This was not a subject a lady discussed with a man. Her hands were in her lap and she kept her eyes on them, hoping he would see his error. But the silence grew long and he did not speak.

At last she said with difficulty, “Perhaps I have not been as strong as I might. Our circumstances the last few months—there was so little. We were very grateful for the draft you sent as well as your kind invitation to Oak Shade.”

“Thank my grandmother. Both issued from her. You say we, I believe your sister was living with you.”

“Yes. She—she is dead.” The lies came harder than she had imagined, and yet it was no lie. Her sister, Ellen, was dead.

“So I understand. It must have been most distressing. A virulent fever, I think it was?”

“Yes.” That was what she had written to Grand’mere when she had sent the letter saying they were ready to travel. There had been no difficulty about the handwriting. Because Ellen had been so weak, the one other letter they had exchanged had been penned by Elizabeth. A fever had seemed a reasonable ailment with which to account for her own death. There were so many fevers, most of them deadly.

He was silent. Raising her head, Elizabeth looked toward the window where dust motes drifting to the floor turned lazily in the sunshine. A bird called, the repeated two note shout of a cardinal, in the top of one of the oak trees. She could sense Bernard’s scrutiny as he leaned forward and picked up a miniature sword letter opener. The action restored a portion of her composure. He was not as controlled as he would like to appear.

“Ellen Marie—” His voice was soft, but something in his tone made her turn to him quickly.

He sighed as if dissatisfied, and the suspicion flickered in her mind that he had been testing her reaction to that name. Then she dismissed the thought as a figment of her imagination. She had done nothing that she knew of to arouse his suspicion. The thought of the letters Felix might have written to his brother and his grandmother flitted across her mind. But the thought was banished when Bernard straightened in his chair as if about to speak. As she regarded him across the expanse of the heavy desk, Elizabeth thought she saw reservation lingering in his eyes. He waited a moment longer and then his dark brows lifted and he shrugged, a gesture that made him seem suddenly foreign.

“Ellen Marie—forgive me if you dislike the use of your given name, but there is already a surfeit of Madames Delacroix in this house. What I must speak to you about may be distressing to you, but it is necessary. Before my brother left Oak Shade he made his will, one of the practical but still rather grandiose gestures young men going to war are apt to make. His marriage and the birth of his son nullify this will, of course, under our laws, and your son is now heir to my brother’s portion of this estate. Felix was no fool. He sent his instructions to me, and to our commission merchant in New Orleans. In the event of issue from his marriage I was to be appointed guardian to the child and director of his estate until the child reached the age of twenty-five. In addition, a small piece of property belonging to him situated on Bayou St. John was to be sold and the proceeds of the sale deposited with our commission merchant in your name. This money was to be yours to use for whatever you desired, a dress allowance if you wish. It was to give you a certain independence. It seems that Felix wanted you to feel secure. This has been done. The purchase price of twenty thousand dollars, less commission, has been deposited. You may draw on this account up to one thousand dollars at any one given time. Any sum over this amount will be subject to my approval.”