Feast of All Saints (72 page)

The tender flesh surrounding Philippe’s pale blue eyes quivered, and there was something both skeptical and imploring in his expression. He looked away from her, in his own good time, to Vincent who sat mortified, his eyes on his plate.

“I loathe you, the pair of you,” Philippe whispered. His voice broke. Yet his lips remained fixed in that same polite saccharine smile.

“Be that as it may, Monsieur, set your affairs in order.” Aglae said. “Or I will do it for you. Once and for all.”

“C
OME IN
.” Richard had answered the door himself. He followed Marcel into the parlor and gestured almost ceremoniously for him to sit down.

Marcel felt in his pocket for a cheroot, noting quickly that Grandpère was not about, neither was Madame Suzette. “May I smoke?”

“Of course,” Richard was pacing the floor.

Marcel was irritated, not good company. The last few days had been all but unendurable to him, and there was more to come. Monsieur Philippe had left near the first of September without a farewell so that Cecile had been on edge for weeks, and absolutely nothing had been done about Lisette. On the contrary, the notary Jacquemine denied any knowledge of Monsieur Philippe’s intent to emancipate her
when Marcel approached him, and he claimed he could not reach Monsieur Philippe in the country which Marcel knew was untrue.

Meanwhile at school all hummed with the excitement of Augustin Dumanoir’s departure for France, and a party was to be given for him tonight in the Mercier flat. In fact, school had been canceled today in honor of Augustin’s voyage, the entire Dumanoir family had come in from the country, and it was they who would provide the catering and the musicians for this evening’s fête. Even Juliet shared the enthusiasm though she could not recall from moment to moment who the Dumanoirs were. She had bought herself a new dress.

Of course Marcel upbraided himself daily for his jealousy, and he was ashamed when Christophe had taken him into the dining room one night, spread out a map of Paris on the table and tried to draw him into talk of the streets, the famous places, the boulevards. “This isn’t like you to envy someone’s good fortune,” Christophe had said finally giving Marcel’s shoulder a squeeze. “You’ve worked too hard all summer, you need a little rest. And maybe I haven’t told you how well you’ve done. The fact is, you’ll be ready for your examinations by spring.” A little sadness had come over Christophe then, and over Marcel as well. Of course Marcel knew the time was drawing near. Of course he knew it was foolish to envy Augustin. But how explain that the very pain of having to say farewell made him anxious for it to commence?

Perhaps in these weeks if he could have spent a little time with Anna Bella it might have been better for him, but her child had been born at the end of August, and the community let him know through hushed whispers that it had been difficult for her, though the baby was a healthy boy. “Who would have thought?” Louisa had said to Colette. “A girl like that, it should have been as easy as a field hand.”

Mon Dieu
, Marcel had looked to heaven, counting the days until his sixteenth birthday in October, thinking yes, leave, with the early spring. That is, if Marie…if Marie and Richard…?

“Are you going to tell me?” he said suddenly, looking up at the giant figure that was moving relentlessly back and forth across the parlor, “What is it?” Marcel struck the match on the sole of his shoe, lit the cheroot, and let out the smoke.

“Don’t you know?” Richard asked. He had knocked on Marcel’s bedroom door at dawn, making Marcel promise to come up to the house as soon as he could. “We must talk about it,” he had said.

“But what?” Marcel asked now. “Is it Marie?”

“Then you know nothing about it?” Richard stopped. He was in the middle of the room, hands clasped behind his back as usual, the face remarkably lined for that of a boy of eighteen, the expression commanding an uncompromising respect.

“She hasn’t spoken to me,” Marcel said. “Why, she’s been with my aunts…”

“She hasn’t spoken to you because she doesn’t know what’s happened,” Richard said. “Because I cannot get near her to tell her. And the time has come for me to speak to you directly and for
mon Père
to speak to you directly. He’ll be here within the hour.”

“But tell me…”

“Your aunts have refused to receive me any longer in their flat. They say that I am no longer permitted to call on Marie there or in her own home. You know I have never been able to see her in her own home. Well, don’t you see what this means, Marcel, I want to marry your sister! And they know that.”

Marcel could feel the blood rushing to his face. A surge of protective feeling for his sister was warming him, angering him.

“This is foolishness and I’ll stop it,” he said. “They can’t make this decision for Marie.”

“But they have made it,” Richard said turning, his hands clasped before him now as if to tighten the grip of one hand on the other helped him to think. He walked slowly in a small circle about the center of the room. “They said unimportant things at first, she was too young, I was too young, the little soirees were intended for all the young people, perhaps we’d misunderstood…”

“I’ll take care of it!” Marcel said furiously. He moved to go. “You leave this entirely to me.”

“But you don’t understand,” Richard said. “They’ve had words with my father, it’s gone too far.”

Marcel stopped. He was attempting to consider all the elements coolly as he settled back into his chair. He knew that Cecile was somehow incapable of even recognizing the prospect of this marriage: Marie to a man of color, it ran against some impregnable wall in Cecile’s mind. But his aunts, all along he had counted on his aunts! They had been so good to Marie, and he had relied upon them to supply for her all the mysterious feminine machinery that a wedding would require.

“They simply don’t understand that Marie is old enough to know her own mind,” Marcel said flatly. “And they don’t know that I have already spoken of this to Monsieur Philippe.”

At that Richard’s head made a sharp decisive turn toward Marcel. “You have done that?”

“Without the mention of names,” Marcel shrugged. “After all, you haven’t formally proposed.”

“That’s what I mean to do this morning,” Richard said, “As soon as
mon Père
comes home, we mean to present the proposal to you.”

“You have my blessing, you know that!” Marcel said. But he was so angry with his aunts that it was difficult to contain himself.

“But what did you say to your father?” Richard’s voice had sunk to that baritone whisper so that Marcel could barely hear the words. “Did you make it clear to him that you were speaking of a marriage, you were speaking of a man of color,” the voice all but died on the word. “Did he think you were speaking…of something else?”

“No!” Marcel said. But even as he made the negation he was recalling that dim conversation, the drunken blue-eyed man across from him who was winning from him at cards. The whiskey, and those large white fingers that could still snap, snap, snap, so sharply, in spite of their softness, for Lisette to fill the glass.

“He’s coming back before the harvest, he’s bound to,” Marcel said gravely, drawing himself up to his full height, “and when he does I shall make it absolutely clear to him, Marie’s wishes, your intentions, your family, your name. There won’t be any difficulty, Richard, let me promise you that. I promised it to Marie a long time ago.”

Richard was looking down at him almost dreamily, his dark eyebrows coming together in the smallest frown.

“But you see, Marcel, your aunts have insulted us, and they themselves have gone to Monsieur Philippe’s notary, and they have threatened us with Monsieur Philippe’s anger when he comes to town. It is Monsieur Philippe, they say, who will put a stop to this once and for all.”

Marcel turned.

His eyes moved toward the lace curtains and, his shoulders lifting, he let out a heavy breath. Had Jacquemine taken a message from them, when he had steadfastly insisted that he could take no message regarding Lisette? But that wasn’t important, was it? It was the content of the message that mattered. It was the attitude that had been engendered in Monsieur Philippe, the degree of distortion, the quality of the lie. What did Monsieur Philippe know of this community, its better families, the future that lay within Marie’s reach? To Monsieur Philippe, the
gens de couleur
were women, beautiful women, with occasional sons shipped off as soon as possible for other worlds abroad. A whirling confusion was rising in Marcel, something fed and fanned by frustration, a confusion he’d known keenly only once before. It had to do with Anna Bella and the sharp vision of two white men riding in a barouche through the narrow dirt street that was the Rue Ste. Anne.

“No!” Marcel whispered. “No!” This will not happen to my sister, this will not happen! He turned to see Richard’s face unchanged, the same softly tragic expression drawn there as if by a knife. “I will talk to Monsieur Philippe,” Marcel averred. “Monsieur Philippe will listen to me!” He put his hand to his temple as if to collect his thoughts he must somehow touch them, massage them, and when he spoke, his voice was private, barely audible. “He’s been good to my mother, but he
can’t, he can’t wish that for Marie!” And he stared into Richard’s eyes as if imploring Richard to concur with him, assure him.

Richard’s mobile features evinced a ripple of fear.

The front door had opened. There were those heavy and urgent steps that always signaled Rudolphe, and then the slamming of the door, the tinkling of china somewhere beyond the dining room arch, glasses on a glass shelf.

Rudolphe’s face was haggard, all but unrecognizable so that it gave Marcel a start. “Well, let’s go on then, now.” he said at once as if in the midst of a conversation that, in fact, had not begun.

“But where?” Richard whispered.

“Not you, I’m not talking to you, you stay in this house,” he said roughly. “I’m talking to Marcel. Your father’s notary just sent his clerk to my shop for me. He wants to see me, and he wants to see Christophe, and he wants to see you!”

Marcel didn’t move.

It wasn’t fear, and yet some instinct in him, wild, unreasoning, held him to the spot. In years after he would remember this, remember it with a certain awe.

He did not say farewell to Richard. He stepped forward slowly to follow Rudolphe out into the sun, to follow Rudolphe silently, rapidly through the hot dusty streets to the school.

Christophe, of course, had no idea why this summons and wanted to know.

“I have no answer!” Rudolphe cleared his throat, walking too fast for the others with little regard for the heat. “Perhaps he wants to inquire as to my son’s character!” He was furious. “My son’s character!” His hand beat his chest in a convulsive gesture. “And he inquires of you!”

Christophe, patient as usual, said nothing.

But when they reached the notary’s office, Jacquemine greeting them with an unctuous smile said, “Ah, Marcel. You wait over there,
mon fils
, across the street under the awning in the shade. I must talk to these two, the undertaker,” he nodded affectedly, “the school-teacher,” he nodded affectedly, “and you wait,
mon fils
, please, until I call.”

“No!” Marcel said.

The man was startled. His mossy gray eyebrows rose. “Go on, do as he says,” Rudolphe whispered and he reached out to reassure Marcel with a gentle pressure on his arm.

He could see nothing over the green curtains that covered the lower half of the glass. The heat was relentless even in the shade. And when his watch told him he had waited for half an hour, he stepped
into the street. But no one had emerged from the little office, no other client had gone in. He ran his hand through his tight closely cropped hair and turning took up his vigil again by the wall.

Suddenly the door opened and Rudolphe emerged only long enough to gesture for him to come in. But then there was that hesitation, as unpredictable and irrational, as it had been in the parlor of the Lermontant house before. He stood still, staring at the office. He could not have explained it to anyone, and it seemed his mind was empty of thought as he finally crossed the street.

“Sit down.” Jacquemine wore the same unctuous and artificial smile. Rudolphe sat opposite the man, in front of his desk, Christophe stood against the wall.

“Monsieur Philippe,” the notary began, though Marcel remained standing, “is pleased to take up the matter of the marriage of Marie Ste. Marie to Lermontants son. He will discuss this in due time when he can do so in person, that is, with the Longemarre sisters…your aunts, I believe…and your mother, of course.”

Marcel looked at Rudolphe. Rudolphe’s eyes were fixed on the notary. They were glazed with fury, and Christophe’s face was grimly set. There was no relief, no happiness. What on earth had been said?

“Get to the point, Monsieur,” Christophe said suddenly. The notary was startled, insulted.

“I had asked you…” Jacquemine said…“to take this matter into your own hands!”

“No!” Rudolphe shook his head adamantly. “This is your job, Monsieur. I think you should explain it to Marcel now as quickly and as simply as you can.”

“…and it is Monsieur Ferronaire’s wish that you do not discuss this with your mother, that you do not burden her, he has been thoroughly explicit on this point, that he wishes to make it plain that he will only support you in this enterprise if you assure her that you have chosen to learn the undertaker’s trade.”
He tipped the brown bottle upward, and the last of it flowed like water into his mouth. The light exploded as the door to the yard opened and it gleamed on the cypress boards. A loud peal of laughter shook the rafters, and suddenly in one instant of silence came the distant peal of the Sunday morning bells.
“Now, listen to me, Marcel, this isn’t the end of the world, and you’ve got to face it, that silver spoon you were born with…it’s been taken away, Marcel listen to me, in two years, two years, I know this isn’t what you wanted, but we’ve got to talk business now, in two years you can be
earning a decent wage on your own
…” On your own, on your own, on your own. The ivory balls crashed across the table. Here, he held up the bill, she slipped the bottle of whiskey into his hand. Well, open it, a fresh glass. The sight of the grease on the glass disgusted him. A splendid looking Negro was talking to Marcel, a Jamaican with a shining black skin and a high-bridged nose. He wore a waistcoat of bright striped silk, and a glistening camellia in the lapel of his long flaring coat, don’t play billiards, thank you, the whiskey exactly like water not the slightest sting.
“Has been extremely generous in this matter, but wishes to make it clear that you must earnestly work for two years at the undertaker’s trade, the terms of the apprenticeship
…” That soft bleary-eyed son-of-a-bitch, those damned kegs in the yard, those slippers, coward, coward. Here, buy yourself tickets for the opera, take that schoolteacher if you like, schoolteachers don’t make much, get your mother some flowers, new suit, new gown, new candles, linen napkin, goose down,
“Now listen to me, Marcel, I know what you’re thinking, this isn’t the end of the world, you’ve got to face it, you are like a son to me, I’ll teach you everything I know, you know when you are ready you’ll earn the best wages I can pay you under the circumstances,”
Shades of Antoine, on the edges of things, that bitter smiling poor relation, never, never!