Ciji Ware (53 page)

Numb with fatigue and shock, he guided the boat downriver at a slow, steady speed, careful to stay at enough distance from the shore to avoid sand bars, and close enough to keep out of the treacherous currents that could swamp the craft in an instant.

Martine hadn’t told him… hadn’t told him…
a sorrowful voice repeated in his head.

***

From the moment Corlis Bell McCullough returned from André’s house on Orange Street, she had not donned a corset, or for that matter, left her rooms on Julia Street. Nor had Randall returned home. By late afternoon she had sent Hetty out with her two sons to play at the house of a neighbor child. Somehow the sound of their piping voices made her want to scream.

Corlis opened the bedroom door and like a sleepwalker wandered slowly down the hallway toward the parlor. An unseasonable May rain had been falling in sheets for several hours, but now watery sunlight pierced the thunderheads outside the sitting room windows and glistened on the wrought-iron gallery that hung over the street.

What in the world had been happening since André had shot himself?
she wondered. Who had learned of his death by now? Would Randall be arrested if André had left a suicide note somewhere that revealed the whole sordid business? Or perhaps the secret of Ian Jeffries’s financial hooliganism would simply die with the young banker, and she alone would know of the calumny committed by her husband and his partner. André’s ominous prediction echoed in her ears.

Ian Jeffries would not hesitate to do you or your husband bodily harm.

She
must
find out what was going on! At the very least she should venture over to Girod Street and pawn her last gemstone bracelet for her flight from New Orleans.

Corlis quickly donned a wide-collared, hunter-green jacket and skirt trimmed with black braid. She must appear as if everything were normal, she cautioned herself. She selected a small black bowler hat with feathers to match and pulled on black crocheted gloves. Lastly she seized a lacy black parasol from the umbrella stand near the door and squared her shoulders.

No one must know what I’ve been privy to.

It could mean her own personal safety.

The
banquette
outside glistened from the recent rain. However, Julia Street had remained a channel of alluvial mud. Several times en route she was forced to press her back against buildings to avoid being showered in muck from a passing carriage.

At Girod Street the pawnbroker leered at her over the counter.

“I’d pay for more than what this bauble’s worth if you’ve a mind for a different exchange,” he said suggestively, fingering her wrist as well as the bracelet in question.

“Sir,” she replied stiffly, “I will take this gem to your competitor across the road if you do not quote me a fair price for it.”

Grudgingly he offered half the bracelet’s value, but she grabbed the gold coins he offered. At least the money was enough to cover an escape from this swamp for herself and the children.

It was close to dusk when Corlis neared the structures that her husband and Ian Jeffries had erected. She eyed the stately row of columns stretching down the entire block and considered the irony that their classic Greek design had come from the minds of such lowly creatures as Randall McCullough and his partner.

Her apprehension turned to a grinding foreboding when she went around to Common Street and cautiously peered into the saddlery. Mr. Bates sat at his desk, unmindful of her presence in the doorway. Adjacent to Bates’s office, she could hear horses pawing the straw in their stalls, but she saw no sign of anyone but the stable boys.

She retraced her steps to Canal Street and stopped a moment to gaze into the shop window of the dressmaker, Annette Fouché. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Julien LaCroix, at a dead run, approaching the front entrance to the town house of Martine Fouché.

“Mr. LaCroix!” She hailed his harried figure. She plastered a smile on her face. “Excuse me, Mr. LaCroix… May I have a word with you for a moment?”

But Julien apparently hadn’t heard her call to him, for he had already disappeared through the front door. Corlis followed in his wake, drawn as if by someone reeling in a fish on Bayou Lacombe She stared, her mouth slightly ajar, as the heir to Reverie Plantation dashed through the large foyer, down a hallway, and took the stairway to Martine’s small gaslit reception hall, two steps at a time. Corlis had just reached a round table where visitors left their calling cards when Julien, on the landing above, began to pound on Martine Fouché’s door.

“Martine!” he shouted. “Let me in! Martine, I demand that you open this door at once!”

In an instant the door did open, but only a crack.

“Hush!” a voice hissed. “Martine’s just fallen asleep!”

“It is five o’clock in the afternoon!” Julien retorted. “I demand—”

“She’s had the baby,” the voice said accusingly. “As I predicted, the minute you left to go upriver—”

Dumbfounded, Corlis gazed up the stairwell at Julien, who applied his shoulder to the door and forced it open.

“Well… what was it?” he asked in a trembling voice that revealed his agitation. “Boy or girl?”

“A boy. We’ve named him Julien… after you,” Althea Fouché announced reproachfully.

“Sweet Jesus!” Julien exploded in bitterness and despair.

“Julien… I-I… thought you’d be pleased,” interposed a voice from farther inside the Fouché apartments.

In the flickering gaslight Corlis could barely make out the shadow of Althea Fouché, who stood blocking Julien’s entry into the flat. Behind her, an open door framed a large ornately carved, canopied plantation bed in the chamber beyond. In the parlor, on a blood-red silk chaise longue, a figure lay supine, poised against an enormous mound of lacy pillows.

“Pleased?” Julien echoed.
“Pleased?”
he repeated, his voice rising in a wave of angry accusation. He strode into the foyer and slammed the door behind him. Corlis heard a muffled voice say, “Would you two have played me for a fool until the bitter end?”

By this time Corlis had advanced up the stairs to the top of the landing. She could distinctly hear the argument that was raging behind the closed door.

“Julien LaCroix!” Althea cried. “Stop this at once!”

Next Corlis heard the sound of an object being flung against an interior wall.

“Damn you both!” Julien shouted.

“I simply cannot permit this!” Althea declared loudly. “Control yourself. It’s outrageous that you should barge in like this… especially
now
!”

“I suppose you expect me to leave my calling card, like Etienne or Henri once did?” retorted Julien, furious at the women’s betrayal. “I am the
father
of this infant, Althea, and I demand to hear the truth from Martine’s own lips!”

“Julien…” protested the feeble voice of Martine Fouché. “You are no gentleman to be behaving this way. You must go at once. We will talk of these complicated matters when I have regained my strength. I promise you,” she beseeched. “Return in two days’ time and I shall—”

“You shall
what
?”
Julien shouted. “Erase all that has happened? Mend what cannot be mended? You two have
lied
and
cheated
and
deceived
us all! You were in league with Jeffries and McCullough all along, weren’t you?”

“Never!”
Althea exclaimed.

“Well, believe me, those two blackguards will be run out of New Orleans forever, if I don’t kill them first!” Julien shouted. “And your daughter, Lisette, will never forgive you, Martine, when she learns of your treachery!”

Corlis suppressed a small gasp when she heard Julien rage against Randall and Ian. She glanced over her shoulder, debating if she should make a hasty retreat down the stairs and escape undetected. Yet, she was driven to speak to Julien about André. To ask him—

“Lisette will understand that what was done was done for her security,
and
the future of my new grandson!” Althea declared stoutly. “Don’t think we weren’t aware that it was your own ambition, as well as that of McCullough and Jeffries, to wrest this land from Martine. And all the while you protested your love for her.”

“I did love her! I
do
love you, Martine,” Julien cried, anguished. “As God is my witness, I saw
past
the differences in our races, but you never
disclosed
to me—”

“All you really wanted was the deed,” Althea interrupted. “My daughter may not be bold enough to say it, but I shall. You behaved like a cad, Julien LaCroix!”

“Julien?” Martine said softly. “Be just. I truly care for you. But my mother and I were being threatened at every turn. What could you expect us to do, under the circumstances?”

“To be true to our love,” he replied sorrowfully. “Speak truth to me. That is what I expected of you.”

“And did
you
always speak the truth to Martine, monsieur?” Althea demanded.

Corlis was startled when the door at the top of the stairs was yanked open, and Julien appeared at the threshold.

“Julien,” Martine called beseechingly. “I am your mistress, with no legal claim to you or your affections…”

“We had long gone past being merely patron and mistress, Martine,” he said in a voice laced with despair. “At some point in this sorry affair, you should have told me of your prior relationship with my father. Who knows better than his son what he… was like? I would have understood. Now I cannot.”

“So you are judge
and
jury!” Althea spat. “The tale is always about
you
,
isn’t it Julien LaCroix? The white man’s drama!”

Shocked to hear such disgust openly expressed by a woman—and a black one at that—to a white man, Corlis retreated into a corner shrouded in deep shadow.

“I cannot answer for what I might do,” Julien said stiffly, “if I remain here a moment longer!”

“Then go!” ordered Althea, who stood by the door.

Julien strode out of the apartment and down the staircase. He seemed oblivious to Corlis’s presence less than five feet away. Nor did Althea glance in her direction, but flung shut the door after their visitor with a resounding bang. Corlis remained frozen on the landing only an instant, but by this time Julien had reached the foyer.

“Mr. LaCroix!” she called in a loud whisper. “Mr. LaCroix… please wait!”

Julien whirled around in the corridor with a startled look written on his distraught features. “What in heaven?” he began. Then he scowled, his black mustache drawing into a tight straight line above his upper lip.

“Please, just spare me a moment,” Corlis pleaded, rushing toward him. “I was with André when he—”

She fell silent, emotion constricting her throat. She gazed up at his pain-filled countenance as her own eyes misted over and wondered at the misery they’d all suffered in this infernal swamp.

“
You
were with André?” he asked, incredulous. “He showed you his letter to me?”

“Letter? There was a letter? He must have written it while I was waiting on the veranda,” she murmured. “Before he—”

“Before he
what
?”
Julien demanded.

Corlis stared at him, stricken. “You don’t know what happened? André’s letter didn’t tell you what he was planning to do?”

“No,” Julien replied, his eyes full of dread. “What did he do?”

“André’s dead. He shot himself. In the temple.”

“Oh, God! No!” Julien said, bringing a hand to his ashen face as if to ward off a blow.

“But his
driver
knew he’d killed himself! Wasn’t he the one who delivered the letter to you?”

“He delivered it to Reverie when I wasn’t there. My wife received it. We’ve had the fever up there. Perhaps he merely handed it to a servant near the gate and left without calling at the house. André’s missive did not state directly that he planned to take his own life, but I was worried… I wondered—”

“It was so… dreadful,” Corlis said, barely above a whisper. “He had asked me to leave his house,” she disclosed honestly. “I told him that I had only just learned of Ian Jeffries’s extortion, but I had no idea that he would… that André would do… what he did.” She choked as tears began to stream down her face.

“Your husband was Jeffries’s partner,” Julien said, unmoved by her show of emotion, “and I’ll wager he was in the thick of it.”

“He may very well have been. He’s a weak man,” Corlis agreed sadly. “I dare say he didn’t put up much protest against Jeffries’s scheme to extort money and influence, but I really don’t think Randall was anything but an accomplice. At least that is what André led me to believe. André warned me that Ian Jeffries, if pushed, wouldn’t hesitate to do Randall and me bodily harm.” She looked at Julien beseechingly. “That’s why I had to warn you! Please be careful. There’s been too much—”