Feast of All Saints (71 page)

Suddenly she rose. He had the full glass again to his lips and was for a moment confused to see her standing on the other side of the room.

But Cecile had just entered, with Marcel behind her, and had come to straighten the light coverlet on the bed.

“Ah,
petit chou,”
he reached up to stroke her face.

“Monsieur, there’s a message for you,” she said.

“And you, brat, what are you doing home from school?”

Marcel glanced uneasily at his mother. “Monsieur Jacquemine sent a boy to school, Monsieur, asking that I please find you, that there is urgent business, and he requests…”

“Find me? Find me?” Philippe gave in to a wild laugh. “Lisette, soup!” he said now, the finger pointing straight at the tester. She moved silently, almost gratefully out of the room. “Why, I’ve been here for two months, what does he mean, find me!”

“Apparently, it’s very important,” Marcel shrugged lightly. Cecile was wiping Philippe’s face. He slipped his arm about her waist. “He asks that you come to his office as soon as you can.”

“Ah, that’s impossible, not today,” Philippe took another swallow of bourbon. Jacquemine, urgent business. Jacquemine could answer all these questions about the Parish police jury, and just might likely know the cost of a new maid. He couldn’t have some black sloven about this place, no, it would make his
petit chou
, Cecile, miserable and frankly he could not endure soiled bodies and fumbling service himself. No, it would have to be a fancy girl, a thousand dollars at least,
Mon Dieu!

“But Monsieur,” Cecile was saying gently. “If it’s urgent business, Monsieur, perhaps if you were to have some dinner and then a little nap…”

“Oh, urgent business, urgent business, what could be urgent business!”

Cecile’s eyes narrowed for an instant, considering. He did not see her turn quickly to look at Marcel. He threw the coverlet back and gestured for his blue robe. Marcel held it open for him, and Cecile tied the sash.

“I only meant, Monsieur, if it were urgent business perhaps it concerns the country, Monsieur…”

Lisette had just come in with the tray.

“You want to see me go back to the country,
mon petit chou?”

“Ah, Monsieur, never!” she whispered slipping her hands under his arms, her head inclined to his chest.

“They don’t need me in the country,
ma chère,”
he said moving with her into the dining room. “I assure you,
Bontemps
has never been in more capable hands!” He made a great dramatic gesture as he pulled back the chair. The aroma of the hot gumbo, shrimp, spices, the green pepper, filled the room. “No, they don’t need me and they won’t see me until the harvest, urgent business, they can go to hell.”

Cecile pulled the napkin from the ring and placed it in his lap.

“And you,” Philippe said now, regarding Marcel who stood patiently at the door. “We talk tonight, you and me, all that about the Parish jury, do you think you’d show a particle of common sense when it comes to purchasing a decent slave?”

Marcel’s face drained. He glanced at Lisette whose steady brown eyes were fixed on Philippe.

“Well…I…yes,” Marcel swallowed. “I could.…”

Philippe was studying him, then he laughed as he picked up his spoon. “Oh, never mind, my little scholar,” he said, “I’ll put this in Jacquemine’s hands. If I have to see him, I will put it in his hands. Urgent business. He can straighten all this out…
Mon Dieu
, I guess it’s time.”

Marcel followed Lisette from the room. Cecile was talking softly. He should dress, rest a little before walking uptown.

“Well,” Marcel said taking her arm. “He’s going to do it! Now, when he goes to see Jacquemine.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it, when I have those papers in my hand,” Lisette turned away from him. “What’s all that urgent business about anyway?” she asked as she started across the yard.

Marcel murmured softly, “I don’t know.”

At half past two he helped his father with his boots. He was talking in a low voice, telling him that Lisette had been a good girl all summer, and she knew it wasn’t going to be easy for her when she was free, but she’d work hard, she wouldn’t come to him for anything and Monsieur Philippe nodded, his eyes glassy, as he ran the comb through his hair. “My coat,” he gestured. Cecile had just brushed it. It was days since he had even gone out of the house. “Just a little white wine,” he said now as he inspected the faint glimmer of a gold beard. Cecile had shaved him that morning and done it well.

“Monsieur,” she said so sweetly, “no more wine now, hmmmm? The sun’s so hot.”

“Walk with me a ways,” he gestured for Marcel. “Business in this heat. All business ought to be suspended until October, anybody with any sense is at the lake.” But then he laughed and clasped Cecile again as he rose to go. “That is, anybody, but me.”

He took his time in the Rue Royale, leaving Marcel long before he reached the Hotel St. Louis where he went to the long elaborate bar at once. The air was cool under the lofty ceiling, and though the day’s auctions were over, he nevertheless found himself considering the block. Jacquemine could handle all that well, of course, and he himself disliked buying slaves, in fact he hated it, especially if some family were to be separated and there would be a piteous squalling child and a mother frantic, ah, it was too much. But what if Jacquemine made a mistake? Some haughty girl that would take on airs about serving a colored mistress,
Mon Dieu
, that was all he would need, and
Ti
Marcel,
Ti
Marcel haggling with a slave trader? The way he went on about Lisette he was more likely to buy some downtrodden creature out of pity than a good mulatto maid. Mulatto maid, now that was a luxury, she didn’t have to be a mulatto, but then what would Cecile think, he had never stinted on anything with Cecile, Cecile had from him the best! But the price, it could damn well be a thousand dollars in these times, couldn’t it, and with that quick shift, a series of figures invaded his brain, bills for Marcel’s fall coats, he’d have to come up with something when he freed Lisette, bond or no bond, she’d need a start somewhere, a few months rent before she’d find a position, and his son, Leon, had just written home for some enormous sum, he was buying Europe apparently, piece by piece. Cold beer, he had told the bartender and now it was gone. He gestured for another glass.

And those gowns for Marie again, and what exactly was that witch Colette up to, coming and whispering to him that Marie was getting herself into deep waters with a colored boy? What colored boy? While Marcel had come to see him one evening, played a hand of faro, and talked vaguely of a “good marriage” with one of “the old colored families.” The matter of dowries, that was it, dowries, he had been calculating roughly these expenses, dowries, these old colored families, they were as fussy and proud as any white family, of course he’d have to see to that, his Marie would not be married without a dowry, but what in the world did Colette mean with all that foolishness about “some colored boy?” Didn’t Colette and Marcel speak to each other, what was this about? He would certainly rather see his
belle
Marie married to some good upstanding colored planter or tradesman than…than…hmmm, take that Lermontant boy, for instance, that beautiful giant of a boy. Dowry, those Lermontants with their mansion in the Rue St. Louis, they’d want his eyeteeth.

It gave him a pleasant though minor sensation to envision Marie in a bride’s white, and it crossed his mind swiftly as he downed the second beer—deliciously cold, he ordered a third—that she ought to be the child he sent abroad, really, it would make more sense. But in all probability it wouldn’t save him a dime. In fact, the cost of Marcel’s
up and coming venture would be staggering, a
pension
in the Quartier Latin, his allowance, the proposed travel, and all those years at the Ecole Normale. Of course he approved of the Ecole Normale, whatever the Ecole Normale was! He laughed suddenly at the riotous thought of his son, Leon’s face, should he ever discover the identity of this
petit
scholar who could read four languages and was his father’s…ah, well! Leon had all the education a planter could use. He drank the third beer down. But it was important Marcel come home four years from now with some means of supporting himself, at least in part, or there would be no end to all this in sight. Of course, he could set him up, some rental property, but he had mortgaged that property to pay for something, well, maybe Marcel could manage those properties for a reasonable commission, the question was, how to manage the formidable sum of four thousand dollars at the moment, or should it actually be five?

He had just opened the door of the notary’s and moved into the cool shade of the office when he was aware that something was not right. He turned, unsteady on his feet, a drinker’s sweat breaking out uncomfortably all over his face, and peered into the sparse crowds of the street. It was Felix, his coachman, he was sure of it, he’d seen him and Felix had looked away! Felix should have been at
Bontemps
, and Felix had looked away. Perhaps that damned Vincent had sent him on some errand, but Felix had pretended not to recognize his master, this was absurd.

“Won’t you step inside, Monsieur?” came the grating voice of Jacquemine from the door of his inner office.

“I’ll have a drink, that’s what I’ll do,” Philippe murmured. His eyes widened as he saw through the open door. A cluster of dark-clad figures surrounded the mahogany desk, there was his sister-in-law Francine, her husband Gustave, and a tall gentleman with very familiar white whiskers clutching a leatherbound folder. Aglae was sitting in front of this man, Aglae! And beside her, rising slowly and ceremoniously with a remarkable intensity of expression on his silent features, was Vincent.

“What is this?” Philippe’s eyes narrowed.

“Please sit down, Monsieur,” the notary mopped his forehead. “Please, please, Monsieur, please…”

It was almost dusk when Philippe emerged from the office. He glared at Felix and before the coachman could turn away, Philippe had snapped his fingers and beckoned for him with such a dour expression that the man didn’t dare ignore the command. “Go to my woman’s house in the Rue Ste. Anne and get my valise,” Philippe said
in a low voice, oblivious to the family filing out of the office behind him. “And bring it to my room in the hotel. I want you there in one half hour.” He strode across the Rue Royale and toward the St. Louis, and within a matter of minutes had been shown to the cool solitude of his regular suite, stuffing a few coins in the bellhop’s hand.

“Your usual, Monsieur?” the drowsy black face waited.

Philippe stood glaring into space. “Yes,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. He was cold sober now, his head throbbing, and he knew that if he did not have a taste of beer he was going to be ill. He fell heavily into the large
fauteuil
by the grate and folded his arms. His mind struggled for some calculated analysis among a morass of emotions not the least of which was fear. He had almost signed those papers. During the first few moments, confused, weary as he was, he had almost signed! And drunk, yes, drunk. And they had known he was drunk when they put the pen in his hand. There had been that moment of total sentimental weakness when he had been almost willing to do what they wanted him to do. A serpent’s tooth, that Vincent! Even in the privacy of this room, Philippe’s face flushed to the roots of his yellow hair. And Aglae, that reptile in the gentle guise of a woman. He had almost dipped that pen! It was no use attempting to rest, he could not sit still there, he could not stand still. He ended pacing the floor, and when Felix entered he took him roughly by the lapel.

“You go to my wife’s suite, you hear me,” he all but snarled. “You tell her that I will dine with her in the main salon. I request the presence of her brother along with her. And then we shall go back to
Bontemps.”

Felix nodded quickly. His coachman’s dignity did not give way easily to fear. “Yes, Michie,” he said calmly enough and stood waiting to be released.

“And as soon as you’ve delivered that message, you go back to the Rue Ste. Anne. You tell my woman that I won’t be back for a while, perhaps not until after the harvest. And you find that damned Lisette and you tell her to behave. If my boy is there…” he stopped. He let Felix go. “Never mind, don’t say anything to my boy. Just do as I told you, now go on.”

The dining room was crowded when he came down. Aglae and Vincent sat together waiting for him, and Aglae’s eyes met his boldly as he pulled back his chair.

He smiled almost sweetly as he removed his napkin from the ring, and then with the same composed and pleasant expression he turned to his brother-in-law.

“A serpent’s tooth, Monsieur, is what you are. So you would have my land, would you, and everything that I own.”

He noted the immediate pain in Vincent’s face. The flush to the
smooth white cheeks. The young’s man’s eyes, however, were as cool as his sister’s eyes.

“Philippe,” he whispered. “You may never believe this, but I did what I thought was best.”

Again Philippe smiled at his wife. His head was very clear, and the small amount of cold beer he had consumed had steadied him in his sobriety and soothed his grinding stomach. “And you, Madame, how disappointed you must be that your little plan has failed.”

“Monsieur,” she said at once as she straightened her napkin and reached slowly for her glass. “I do not care to know the reasons for your extravagances, the neglect of your responsibilities, or why you have all but lost my father’s plantation including that portion of it which belongs now and has always belonged to his only son. And you are very right in assuming that I do not wish to push this to a suit. But if you do not set your affairs in order, if you do not clear every debt against the house and land which my brother and my children stand to inherit, I assure you that though it may kill me to do so, I will proceed against you in a court of law. You have not won any battle today, Monsieur,
you are on trial.”