Feast of All Saints (23 page)

He wondered sometimes how his father endured it, how he could not when taking the measure of these small bodies think of his own little girl. But much as Richard sometimes resented Rudolphe, resented him particularly today for all his wisdom in the matter of Marie Ste. Marie, he respected him in his profession as everyone did. He knew his father had never attempted to escape an obligation in his life, and would not have shifted the responsibility of this wake to his son had he the choice. There were old families who needed Rudolphe tonight, people who would have been wounded if he did not come himself.

“You’ll do well, you always do,” he had said to Richard earlier. “Every time I step into the street, it seems someone takes my arm and praises you. You have a special gift in this regard so use it, and pity your cousin Antoine who hasn’t the slightest smattering.”

Richard didn’t really believe all this. It was business perhaps, building him up to do his job. He did not believe it because to him real grief was the most awful feeling he had ever known, and his own miserable mumblings at funerals seemed an insult. He did not understand that he radiated a depth of genuine concern that people sensed, in his manner as well as in his words.

So walking up the Rue Dumaine in the twilight, he felt an awful apprehension, redolent with memories of his own sister, and knew from much past experience that he was all the more susceptible to it at this time of day, this quiet dreary sensual time between the sun and the moon when the Saturday night excitement of the Quarter had not yet begun though the business was all but concluded and the lamps were lit beneath a sky the color of blood.

It was deepening to purple over the river, descending in layers of violent gold and red clouds behind the masts of the ships; and cicadas
sang in the dense foliage of walled courtyards, while from open windows came occasional billowing curtains, and the sounds of supper, tinkling, the scrape of a knife.

Without realizing it, he turned his eyes to everyday things, a horse and cart passing, a woman on an upstairs gallery who stopped beating the dust from a small Turkey rug long enough for him to pass.

But when he reached the block where Dolly Rose lived, the mother of the dead child, he came upon a strange pocket even at this quiet time, a stretch of some ten or twelve doors where the only sound was the song of the insects and the remote melancholy ringing of a church bell. The sky darkened; the stars seemed low, and yet the distant corner lamp remained dismal against the azure gloom, unable to shed its full light until the real night. He quickened his pace, as if someone, something were following him.

And it was with relief at last that he reached the archway of Dolly Rose’s courtyard drive.

A man stood there, a lean square-shouldered man of color, dressed in a coat that seemed quite fresh for the balmy summer and very smartly cut. He wore a slight mustache, no more than a line of dark hair, and his eyes, flashing on Richard quite suddenly from the shadows of the archway gave him a mild shock. They looked at one another, and it seemed the man was uncomfortable, on the verge of saying something, yet did not know how to begin. The man was also obviously struck by Richard’s height.

“Can I be of service, Monsieur?” Richard asked.

“Can you tell me, is there a wake here tonight?” the man asked. His pronunciation was slightly sharp but what marked the voice more distinctly was its flat, inflectionless tone. For some reason this made his words rather expressive.

“Yes, Monsieur.” Richard answered. This the man might have learned very simply from the black-bordered notices that fluttered on the lamp posts nearby, on the trunks of the trees. These had been posted all about the Quarter in the late afternoon. “It’s upstairs.”

“But is this wake open to all the friends of the family?” the man asked.

Ah, that was the problem. “Monsieur, it’s open to everyone who knows Madame Rose or her family, it is not merely for close friends. I’m sure if you know them at all you would be most welcome, there will be many many people there.”

The man nodded. He seemed relieved, yet uncomfortable, and a little annoyed with himself for that discomfort. And there was something distinctly familiar about his face. Richard was certain he had seen him before. As for the clothes, he was quite sure they were from Paris. Paris maintained such a vast lead in fashion, it seemed you could always tell these gentlemen who had just come home.

“Permit me, Monsieur, I’m Richard Lermontant, the undertaker,” Richard said quietly. “If you will follow me?” he gestured to the door.

The man bowed his head, did not say his name and behaved as if this were of no consequence, following Richard into the short hallway and up the carpeted stairs. Entering the parlor, he moved quickly away behind a crowd of men and women along the wall and Richard at once turned his eyes to the small bed surrounded by white chrysanthemums on which the child was laid.

Because funerals had been his life for years, Richard never associated these particular flowers with funerals. That is, they had for him no morbid resonance, and were always just what they were meant to be when brought into such a room; something lush, beautiful, and alive—springtime—an offering amid the sorrow that brought to mind the cycle of life and death at the very time when death weighed so heavily on the soul. He was glad to see them now. And quickly greeting Antoine who took his leave, Richard moved silently, invisibly along the borders of the room, around the clusters of whispering women in black dresses and gentlemen with hat in hand, until he stood over the large fragile bouquets and looked down through the perfume, and through the smoke of the wax candles, at the dead child.

She was a little older than his sister had been, and perhaps every bit as pretty. In fact, her beauty shocked him. He had seen her often enough on the high seat of Dolly Rose’s carriage, her bonnet ribbons whipped in the wind, but she was all clothes then, bundled up except for a dimpled cheek. And he saw for the first time here her rounded bare arms and pale throat. Of course she appeared to be asleep. They all did, no matter what the manner of death, no matter how acute the suffering. This child had died of lockjaw, and yet she lay serene in this lifelike posture. It never failed to give him a moment’s pause. And he was surprised as he brushed a loose strand of hair from her forehead to realize that she was already stiff. But there was no odor, in spite of the heat, except that of the rose leaves and orange leaves beneath the sheets, and the heavy flowers.

And pleased with this and a dozen other minor details (Antoine did this sort of thing perfectly), he was relieved of everything for the moment but his contemplation of her face. She was baby-round still and very white, could have been a white child for all a stranger knew, and her brows seemed a bit too dark against her forehead so that her expression in death was too serious. It was as if she were having an absorbing dream. There was a sound then that he could not have identified, but he realized that it was a series of narrow white petals breaking loose from a flower and falling down to the pillow beside her head. He moved to pick these up, but an unusual thought struck him. They were soft as the child had been in life, but was no longer. He felt the impulse to leave them there. But no one else would have understood.
Then he saw nestled with the thick chrysanthemums a prim spray of white rosebuds. He took one of these and quickly breaking its long stem, tucked it in with the pearl rosary beads intertwined in her folded hands. He touched it lightly and drew back.

Dolly Rose was not there. Her godmother Celestina Roget, haggard and pale, rose now to go, whispering to Richard that she had been up three nights and three days with the sick baby and must see to her own house. “You watch her!” she said, and gestured as she left to a rear bedroom beyond the arch of the hallway. Muted voices came from that room. And when at last the door was flung open Dolly Rose did not come out. Rather a white man appeared who came down the long passage, went up to the coffin, looked down, and then retired to a far corner of the room.

He was a striking man, young, perhaps twenty-five, his black hair gleaming with pomade and curling just above his collar. A thick mustache and a fullness to his sideburns gave him a distinction that was rare in one so young, but having a hawklike expression he carried it well. His eyes now found some indefinable spot in front of him and he remained fixed on it, even when Dolly Rose finally entered the room. She glared at him from the doorway and was ushered, even pulled, by two other women to a nearby couch where she buried her face in her hands.

Richard could see at once that she was drunk. She was at that point of grief and drunkenness, in fact, where there might be trouble. And I have Antoine to thank for warning me, he thought bitterly, and Madame Celestina for leaving me to handle this on my own. Dolly looked up from time to time at the white man as if she were going to shout something at him, but she did not. And the other ladies, none of whom seemed quite to have her glamour, even in these moments, were clearly afraid as they held her by the arms.

Dolly Rose had, in fact, been a remarkable beauty, that kind of quadroon who had given the Salle d’Orléans its fame, but hardly the legendary faithful mistress who weeps upon hearing of the marriage of her white lover or throws herself beneath the wheels of a passing cabriolet. Rather she had gone through white admirers as through pairs of gloves, spending lavishly with each new connection, and never thinking to save for the future, often gave to her slaves taffeta and merino dresses that had scarce been worn. She had provoked duels, neglected creditors, adored only her mother and her daughter, both of whom were now dead, and had in the last few years been on bad times, though everyone said she might make a perfectly fine connection at any moment that she chose.

Once she had been friends with Richard’s sister, Giselle, and even come to dinner often at the Lermontant house, and Richard could
remember them as grown-up girls of fifteen exchanging secrets behind the curtains of a bed. The little boys used to sing to her, chanting as they surrounded her skirts, DOLLY Dolly, DOLLY Dolly, DOLLY DOLLY ROOOOSE! Richard could still remember that engaging rhythm and how she had laughed. And from all the talk he had heard of her waning beauty, he was quite impressed to see she was very lovely still.

Hers was an unusual face, not so much for its pale
café au lait
skin, nor its diminutive nose and mouth. But rather for its shape, not being lean like the faces of so many Creole girls, but rather square with high rounded temples beneath her dark waves, and eyebrows very flat across the almond shape of her eyes, rising slightly at the outside before they curved down. It was this straightness of the eyebrow, and the manner in which it set off the eye beneath it that had always intrigued him. Pretty was the word he thought of when he looked at Dolly, because there was a gaiety and loveliness in her looks that sometimes beautiful women lack.

But her friendship with Giselle had ended badly. One summer Dolly had left the convent school and commenced to appear at the “quadroon balls.” Rudolphe forbade Giselle to see her. And Dolly was not invited when Giselle was married at Nuptial Mass. Old Madame Rose, Dolly’s mother, was rude to the family, and Dolly took her first white lover in due time. But everyone had liked Dolly. And Richard would have known, even if he hadn’t been told, that half the furnishings of the room had been supplied for the funeral by his father. There were the Lermontant mirrors brought around merely to be draped, and the clocks set out merely to be stopped, extra chairs from the Lermontant storerooms, and even the settee beneath the front windows, as well as tables, the decanters of sherry and the glasses. It had all been brought up late that afternoon in a covered cart by Placide, the old valet, and passed quietly through the carriageway to the back so that no one was the wiser. And though it was of no consequence to him personally, Richard was rather certain that the bill for all this would not be paid.

Now, taking a deep breath, he approached Dolly tentatively only to discover that she did not know him, in fact, did not appear to know anyone, and the women who surrounded her appeared anxious and somewhat put out. Meanwhile, people entering turned their heads to the white man as though his face were a light. And he sat rigid, eyes on the floor.

In short, it was not a good situation. But as Richard slipped into the far corner behind the white man where the shadows might conceal him, the man of color in the Parisian coat approached.

“Vincent,” he said to the white man and he extended his hand.

Slowly the white man lifted his head. There was about him an air of wariness which was suddenly dispelled.

“Christophe!” he whispered, and at once they clasped hands.

A mild shock passed through Richard. It was Christophe Mercier! At once he recognized the smooth square face, and he understood completely the manner which bordered on the arrogant as the man stood before the white man’s chair. But their clasp was warm, lingering. “You came on my account?” the white man asked.

“And for Dolly,” Christophe nodded.

“Ah, then you know her.”

“For many years. If there is anything I can do, you must tell me.” Christophe’s voice was low, inflectionless as before. “But here, this is the undertaker,” he gestured for Richard to step forward, “his name is Lermontant.”

The man gazed up into Richard’s face and only then did Richard sense his torment, shrouded as it was by the shadow of his dark hair and black brows, the deepest eyes peering like lights.

“Lermontant, Monsieur,” Richard whispered with a slight bow.

The man nodded, and from his waistcoat he drew out a small card. The name was Vincent Dazincourt and Richard knew it at once. It was an old Louisiana family, and the name of the first lover that Dolly had taken years before. He was the father of the child. “Anything,” the man said, “any expense, the best hearse, the best horses…”

“It’s arranged, Monsieur,” Richard assured him. But at this moment, Dolly Rose came across the room.