Ciji Ware (48 page)

In actual fact Corlis wasn’t keen to be reminded about her own string of eerie experiences. However, King’s invitation to peek inside the magnificent old residence was too tempting to refuse.

“Well, I do admit, darlin’,” she said in her best magnolia accent, “that I
am
a bit curious to see the last remainin’ Kingsbury-Duvallon family manse.” More seriously, she added, “But after that, I’ve
got
to get on home. Poor old Cagney—”

“Ah… Cagney,” King echoed. “We certainly can’t let that boy starve.” He ruffled her hair. “If you come inside the house, I promise I’ll behave, though really, after this morning, that’s asking a lot of a poor southern boy like me.”

“King! Stop that!” she said sternly and broke into laughter. “Well, at least
try
to stop that.” She gently touched his cheek. “This is going to be hard for me, too, you know.”

With a bittersweet sense that their short, sensual idyll was drawing to a close, they left King’s car and walked, hands clasped, down the brick path that led along the side of the graceful old house. In Corlis’s view, the structure’s faded blue exterior walls, the peeling white trim, and the odd broken shutter merely gave the grand old dwelling a romantic, melancholy appearance. As they continued down the uneven moss-covered path, King pointed out various architectural features on the two-story facade that was both elegant and decadent, a testament to past glories and present decay.

He led the way around the side of the house, heading for the back door. Inside the kitchen King’s aunt, Bethany Kingsbury, stood at a large, old-fashioned white-enameled stove, clad in an apron and wielding a large spatula. Her gray hair was pulled back in a tidy bun, but for a few stray wisps grazing the nape of her slender neck.

“Oh, King, darlin’!” she exclaimed delightedly. “I’m so happy you’re back!”

“Mornin’, sweetheart,” King said. “How’s the cold?”

Bethany brought a lace hanky out of her apron and waved it cheerfully, “A bit better, sugar… but don’t kiss me and thanks for asking. Now, you
must
tell me everything about poor, dear Emelie’s funeral. I was so sorry I was feeling so under the weather—” She stopped short when she saw Corlis step beyond the screen door. “Why, hello!” She deposited the last piece of French toast onto a platter and wiped her hands on her apron. “You’re that newswoman on WJAZ, aren’t you, dear?” She scanned Corlis’s face. “Why, you’re just as pretty as you are on TV. Prettier, in fact.”

King swiftly accomplished the introductions.

“Got any
pain perdu
to spare there, Aunt Bethany? We’re starving.”

“Of course, darlin’. You two just sit right down at the kitchen table while I take this breakfast tray up to your grandmother.” She leaned toward Corlis and disclosed, “My poor mother has difficulty feeding herself nowadays, you know? I won’t be too long. Now, y’all enjoy every bite, y’hear?”

“What a lovely woman,” Corlis commented, taking a bite of crisply fried bread that Bethany had slathered with powdered sugar and cane syrup.

“Believe me, she, my grandmother, and my sister, Daphne, are the only members of my family that I’d subject you to,” he declared.

“Well, consider yourself lucky that I’m an out-of-towner,” she retorted. “Except for my aunt Marge, of course, there’s
nobody
else in the McCullough clan I’d subject you to.”

“You have the makings of a first-rate southerner, my dear.”

When they had finished their breakfast, King led the way down a shadowed corridor toward the front of the house. En route, he described the curious features of his family residence.

“The foyer is typical for a place of this vintage,” he explained, opening a door on his right, “but this curving staircase is rather grand for the size of the house.”

“It’s absolutely magnificent!” Corlis exclaimed, craning to get a better view of a line of family portraits marching up the wall to the second floor.

“And here’s the double parlor,” he said, escorting her into the living room.

“Why double?”

“See the two fireplaces? Very European. A throwback to pre-Revolutionary France.”

“I think my place on Julia Street had one of these double parlors,” she said eagerly, “but they put up a wall to make the bedroom when they turned it into apartments.”

Corlis gazed around the room, her attention caught by two elegant marble fireplaces with a raft of family photographs on each mantel.

“Wow…” she said on a low breath. “No wonder you knew what costumes we should wear to the Jeffrieses’ ball. Looks like
everybody
in your family likes to play dress-up!” she added, staring at a raft of broad-shouldered, handsome young men in their prime dressed as courtiers in doublets and silken hose.

King chuckled, pointing to a silver-framed color photo, now anemic with age.

“That’s Mardi Gras, back in the day,” he explained. “That’s my mother, Antoinette, as queen.”

“Boy, is she good-looking…”

“‘Prettiest debutante of the season,’ as my grandmother would be quick to tell you.”

“And who’s that gorgeous guy next to her?”

“Let’s see…” King said, taking a close look. “Avery Labonniere, the Dean of the Architecture School where I teach. He was king that year… and—”

“No… not the king…
that
guy!” she insisted, pointing to a tall, exceedingly handsome figure standing to the right of the carnival king.

“Believe it or not, that’s Lafayette Marchand,” King said with a slight grimace. “He was a duke in my mother’s court when he was going to Tulane Law School.”

“You’re joking,” Corlis said. “He’s a good-looking man now, but where I come from, looks like
that
can make you a movie star. Wow… Lafayette Marchand.”

“Here’s Aunt Bethany when
she
was queen two years before my mother,” King said, pointing to another photo in a matching silver frame showing a striking young woman with black hair.

“What a knockout
she
was,” Corlis exclaimed. “Gee… your mother and your aunt knew Lafayette Marchand way back then. Were they upset when you fired him as your godfather?” she asked curiously.

“Well, when it came to Lafayette, Bethany had the good sense to figure out that appearances weren’t everything. My mother and I try not to discuss it.”

“Did your aunt Bethany never marry?” Corlis asked.

“No, she never did. She takes care of my grandmother. Always has.”

King continued to gaze pensively at the photos on the mantel.

“So?” Corlis asked after a few seconds. “Where did this supposed ghost make himself known?”

“What?” he said absently. “Oh, the ghost.” He pointed across the room to a stately rosewood cabinet. The open doors revealed a wide selection of liquor bottles. “Right over there. See the mirror on the wall next to the armoire?” He took her by the hand and walked toward the massive piece of furniture. “I was standing alone, right here, seriously reflecting on what libation I felt like making myself that day prior to a Sunday family dinner, when this… presence… this
something
seemed to appear and glide past the looking glass, turning into a kind of vapor trail as it wafted into the foyer. It was mighty strange, I can tell you.”

“You think it could have been André Duvallon?”

“Who?” King asked, puzzled.

“The banker my aunt Marge told us was mentioned in Corlis Bell McCullough’s diary,” Corlis prompted.

“Oh, right,” he agreed, nodding. “I never knew the name of whoever supposedly shot himself in this room, or even that there
was
an André Duvallon in the banking business. My grandmother just mentioned one time that
somebody
,
way back when, reportedly died in this house by his own hand.”

“Too bad nobody knows which unhappy relative it might have been,” Corlis commented.

“Frankly, I would’ve thought it was an André Kingsbury, not an André Duvallon,” King mused. “My mother’s family built and has owned this house since the 1830s, and as far as I ever heard, the Kingsbury-Duvallons in
my
line were only joined together when my parents got married.”

“Oh,” Corlis responded, disappointed. Had she incorrectly surmised that poor, distraught André was heading his horse and buggy home to Orange Street when Corlis’s namesake had hopped aboard his carriage?

“Listen, sugar,” King broke in, rousing her from her reverie. “Let me just run upstairs and say a quick hello to my grandmother. She’s pretty frail, or I’d introduce you. Then I’ll take you back to Julia Street. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

“Fine…” Corlis murmured, hardly aware of his departure as her attention was drawn to the armoire that doubled as a drinks cabinet.

Nearby, a blue-and-white Spode bowl filled with fragrant potpourri stood on a curve-legged table under the gilt mirror where King said he’d thought he’d once seen a ghost. As she approached the beautiful inlaid cabinet to inspect its brass hardware more closely, an aromatic whiff of dried flowers floated up from the porcelain container of crushed petals, giving off a melancholy perfume of ashes of roses, solemn and funereal, and evocative of tragedies past.

Corlis braced her hands on the table’s highly polished surface to steady herself against the unsettling effects of its potent aroma.

Get away from that smell! Just walk over to that window and breathe some fresh air!

However, all she could do was hold on to the edges of the table for dear life because, much to her dismay, a vision began to form—the Kingsbury-Duvallon double parlor in an earlier day, lit by gaslight, and filled with additional furniture as massive as the rosewood armoire. Her swift intake of breath intensified the pungent, evocative scent of potpourri that despite her best mental efforts to stay grounded in her own century began to transport her to a time in which poor André Duvallon paced to and fro between the matching pair of fireplaces, appearing dangerously distraught.

“Oh… no…” Corlis whispered, as she fought off a frightening blackness that was fast engulfing her. “Not now! Not
here
!”

***

Corlis Bell McCullough stood off to one side, watching André Duvallon stride over to a magnificent wooden cabinet and pour himself a large tumbler of absinthe. With an unsteady hand, André lifted the glass filled with the potent spirits to his lips. Tears drenched his cheeks. He drank deeply of the milky-green liquid then set the glass upon the table next to the rosewood armoire. Immediately, he refilled it.

“André…” Corlis pleaded worriedly. “Really… I wonder if you should—”

But he waved his free hand at her in dismissal and began to pace the parlor once again, his finely polished boot soles slapping against the cypress floor’s wide planks.

“It’s over… It’s finished. There’s nothing further to be done.”

“But surely, André, you could go to the authorities about these… these threats, and—”

“Authorities!” André scoffed. “Will they care if your husband and his partner ruin my good name, or Etienne and Julien LaCroix’s? The local officials have been so corrupted by you Americans and your damnable money they’ll merely turn a blind eye.” He paused in the middle of the room and raised one hand to his forehead, as if to ward off a throbbing headache. “I am seriously overextended financially, Corlis, with notes coming due on money I have advanced your husband and Ian Jeffries to keep them quiet.”

“Oh, dear Lord…” Corlis murmured.

“And Julien LaCroix is now so besotted with Martine and the idea of becoming a father to the poor little bastard they have created together that he cannot see what is right in front of his face!”

“Lisette…? He has not realized that the little girl is…?” Corlis could not bring herself to finish her scandalous sentence.

“Yes. Lisette,” André confirmed in a low, defeated voice. “Julien’s half sister, Lisette. His unborn
child’s
half sister, Lisette. His own
father’s
child—Lisette!” he cried, his handsome features grotesquely distorted by burgeoning anguish. He slammed his fist against the chimney piece, rattling a blue-and-white Spode bowl filled with aromatic potpourri. “Damnable
le plaçage
!”
he shouted, impotent with rage. “White men’s lust for these women has forged alliances far more sordid than anything Henri and I were party to.” André’s cheeks were ashen now.

“Please… for your own sake, you must remain calm,” Corlis pleaded, but André was oblivious to her entreaties.

“My family’s good name, the financial stability of my bank… this very house, which I persuaded my unsuspecting brother-in-law to pledge as collateral to save my bank from insolvency—all will be lost!”

“Who?” she asked, confused.

“My sister… Margaret’s husband, George Kingsbury!” he railed. “He has pledged
this house
to help me keep afloat!”