Feast of All Saints (79 page)

“That you stop this, Monsieur,” Aglae said. “Your children have not seen you for three days. Miss Betsy is crying, Monsieur…”

“Miss Betsy loves me!”

“And Henri is old enough to know now…”

“Henri loves me!”

“You must eat, Monsieur…you must have a decent meal…”

He laughed, his head still bowed, the fleece on the backs of his fingers golden in the firelight. “I must have love, Madame,” he whispered. “Why don’t you tell your children what you think of their father, Madame, what you have always thought of him?” Vincent moved silently, slipping out onto the gallery against a backdrop of cold rain, the door closing behind him. “Why share that secret only with your brother?” Philippe asked. “No, Madame, it’s time you made them privy to the hell of ice and snow in which they were all conceived…”

“You are a fool, Monsieur,” Aglae said. “We begin the harvest tomorrow.”

•     •

As soon as Aglae opened her eyes, she knew that Philippe was in the room, and Philippe had not been in this room in five years. But a fire burned on the hearth, and its warmth had awakened her, used as she was to order that fire only when she herself was up and dressed. Beside her, Miss Betsy slept, having awakened in the night afraid, and been taken into her mother’s bed. Now Aglae rose carefully, smoothing the comforter over her daughter’s shoulders, and stood beside the bed letting her lank flannel gown fall down around her ankles as she slipped on her robe. The long heavy braid of her salt and pepper hair had caused the familiar morning ache at the back of her head. She moved to the mirrored doors of her armoire, and saw through the mirrors the figure of Philippe sitting near the licking flames. He wore riding boots, his frock coat with the fur collar, and beneath a worn weary red-eyed face gleamed the brilliant azure of his silk tie. “Why are you here, Monsieur?” she asked. “I am going to dress now, Monsieur.”

“Are you?” he said. His head wagged slightly as he looked at her through the same mirror. These were fancy clothes. The gold chains of his watch crisscrossed the buttons of his embroidered vest, and there mingled with the sour fermented breath the clean smell of his cologne.

“You propose to ride the fields when you have been awake all night?” she asked, opening the door. “I suggest you leave this day’s work to Vincent, and Rousseau.”

“I’m not riding the fields, Madame,” he said with obvious amusement. “I’m going into New Orleans for an extended stay.”

When he said this, her frail form slumped slightly in the empty hanging gown. She let her head rest for a moment against an outstretched arm, hand clutching a black broadcloth dress on its hook. “Monsieur, we begin cutting today!” she said through her teeth.

“Do we, Madame? Well, your unpaid overseer won’t be here to manage it for you this year, he’s taking a leave of absence. Do you see this?” and he drew out of his coat a folded sheaf of papers. “All signed, Madame, just as you wanted them, your beloved
Bontemps
is no longer in my hands. And as soon as you exercise your new power of attorney by writing several drafts on your bank for me, these papers are yours. One thousand each, I think, and six drafts, that should be quite fine. Date them a month apart. I’ve always known you to be a woman of your word.”

“And what then, Monsieur!” she turned angrily. The little girl in the bed stirred, a sharp limb heaving the white comforter.

He shrugged, his blue eyes fired with a wild animation, red-rimmed as they were, and heavy and listless as his great frame appeared in the small curved-legged chair. “We’ll see, hmmmm? Six
drafts, Madame, one thousand each, and we’ll see. I’m a gambling man.”

“You’re making a dreadful mistake,” she said, her voice for the first time infected with a slight resonance.

He had risen and drawn near the bed, his arm sliding down under his little girl. “Miss Betsy,” he whispered.

“Hmmmm, Papa…” the child whispered.

“Kiss me,
ma petite, ma chérie
…” he breathed, lifting the sleepy child. Aglae moved barefoot and silent into the dressing room and clutched her forehead in her right hand as if she meant to break by sheer force the bones of her own skull.

It was half an hour before she was dressed and had the drafts signed for him. The immense study of the lower floor was cold, without a fire, and a concealing fog rolled up the length of the French windows between their saffron draperies. Her hand was stiff as she signed her name. And Philippe, a glass of whiskey in hand, walked to and fro on the immense Turkey carpet, humming some sweet air from the opera that Aglae knew but did not know. She watched him dully, and when he made some turn so that he might see her, she held out the bank drafts, her eyes cast down.

“What will I tell the children?” she asked.

“I don’t know, Madame,” he set down his glass, the papers folded and placed in his pocket. “But whatever you tell them, think on it carefully, as they are most likely to believe it, every word.” He went out the door.

Aglae sat still. Then she rose so quickly, she upset the random items of her desk, but took no notice, walking rapidly into the main hall. Her steps quickened until she was almost running as she passed out of the front door. Philippe had just mounted, and he gestured for Felix to ride on. The rolling fog from the river shrouded the entire avenue of the oaks so that almost nothing could be seen of it but the dim arching outline of the nearest trees.

“Monsieur,” she cried, her voice barely carrying on the moving air. But he turned his horse, urging it backwards and to one side and then came toward her. “Don’t do this, Monsieur,” she cried. “Don’t go!” She stood stiff, her hands clasping her skirts, looking up at him. “Don’t do this!” she said firmly. “You were doing well, Monsieur, you had the reins again.” The words came in tight blasts, the body tense as if something of immense value might escape. “You don’t want to do this, Monsieur!”

But he only smiled as he urged the horse on again, the black mare shying to the side, and he looked above her, beyond her, as though surveying the immense façade of the white two-storied house. The
smile was vague and unfamiliar and seemed to have nothing to do with this moment or with her. He dug his knees into the horse’s flank, and the sharp hooves sent a spray against her dress from the wet grass. Her hand shot to her throat as though she were suffocated, and a cry died in a gasp on her lips. She saw the horse and its rider penetrate the limitless mist. They became colorless and without the faintest sound over the wind, and then vanished altogether right before her eyes.

It was getting dusk when Philippe reached the Rue Ste. Anne and he saw at once that the front rooms of the cottage were dark. His hand was all but frozen on the reins, and a frost clung to his hair and to the ruffled fur of his collar. He guided the mare back the shell-paved alley, Felix following him, and the dark wet banana fronds slapped at him lightly as wearily he put up his arm. Felix dismounted at once to fill the bucket at the cistern, and the kitchen door creaked open showing Lisette’s face. Philippe gave her a nod and a wink as he jumped down, and said, “Ah, there’s my girl.”

A light swelled behind the lace curtains of Cecile’s bedroom, and in an instant, Philippe had Cecile in his arms. She was soft, hair down, in her silk dressing gown, and so hot that her fingers all but burnt his freezing face.

“Precious, precious,” he breathed to her, lifting her off her feet, the warmth of the little room seeping about him like a delicious fluid. “Don’t cry now, my precious, there, there, don’t cry,” he breathed as he carried her toward the unmade bed and felt her shuddering as he covered her small mouth with his own. All of her rounded limbs yielded to him as her head slipped into the hollow of his neck. “Take off these wet clothes, precious,” he whispered, and watched through a haze, it seemed, as those tiny dark fingers worked a miracle with the buttons, the coal fire glowing, blinding his watery eyes.

It was after midnight before he awoke against the pillow. She had a plate of oysters for him, hot bread with lots of butter, and a cup of thick soup which he drank, chewing the bits of meat with a slight moan. He stretched, his knuckles scraping the mahogany behind him, and snuggled back into the pillow, his eyes closing. “And Marcel?” he whispered drowsily, his head turned away from her, on the verge of sleep.

“Gone to the country, Monsieur, for a long visit,” Cecile said. “Do you want your nightshirt, Monsieur?”

“No,
chère
, just your arms,” he sighed. “A long visit, in the country, a nice long, long visit,
that’s
good.”

After a week, he sent the miserable and anxious Felix back to
Bontemps
for his trunk. Marcel had already been in the Cane River
country for two months, and it would be three months more before he was to come home.

N
ONE OF THE NIECES
and nephews, the cousins, aunts, and uncles had left
Sans Souci
though it was four days after New Year’s. And the eleven rooms of the rambling mansion were fragrant with blazing fires, and the smell of roasting meat still wafted from the slave cabins on the cold air. The day was mild, however, for this time of year.

Marcel rose early despite a long night of toasting and dancing, and after a brief bit of small talk in the parlors, went off for a walk along the Cane River, alone. He was worried about the family in New Orleans, and he found it soothing to wander the banks of this broad swiftly moving stream, at times approaching the very edge of the water, at others roaming some thick bracken for a silent visit to an oak or a tall stiff magnolia which had become a milestone on his private landscape for mornings such as this.

He loved this river; far smaller than the Mississippi it was manageable for his heart. One could row across it, fish in it, wade in it, with none of that awe or reverence which the Mississippi inspired. The sky was streaked with clouds, and a pale blue, the sun slanting warm through the crisp air.

It was midmorning when he came back, and he was tempted to send for his horse and ride out beyond the borders of the plantation through an uncleared and eternally mysterious land just to the south. But he was still tentative with the horse. He had learned to ride in spite of his fear, and he rode well. But a tension always preceded the decision to mount. He thought better of it as he came up the broad front steps, and pushing open the double doors on the immediate warmth of the parlor, saw a letter from Christophe lying on Tante Josette’s desk.

Christophe had written faithfully since Marcel had left, letters coming as often as three times a week by the steamboats that plied the river, and the letters were always candid, leaving nothing to doubt. Chris said things Rudolphe would have never committed to paper. Richard’s notes contained no information whatsoever, and Marie did not write at all. And often Christophe wrote, “Burn this when you are finished,” and as Marcel tore open the soft blue paper and found the usual three pages crowded with a remarkably clear though ornate script, he saw these words again: “Burn this when you are finished.” He had not burned a single letter and he would not burn this one.

Marcel put the letter into his pocket, and felt, as he always did after Christophe’s letters, that he couldn’t bear to stay away a moment
longer, he had to find some way to go home. That he could be of no help to his mother or to Marie stung him. However, he was loving the life of the Cane River country, and when he had written Christophe that he had given himself up to it completely he had been telling the truth. But there was so much more that he wanted to tell Christophe, so much he was aching to tell, and soon after his arrival, he had realized he could not commit the real content of his feelings to paper. He simply lacked any gift with the pen. Another failing in a series of personal failings, which in some way was the real drama of his life: that discovering music in earnest that first year at the opera, he himself could do nothing with it; and loving art always as he trudged here and there with his sketchbooks, he himself could do nothing with it; and now it was the same with literary expression, his passion for literature not lending him the slightest gift for writing of his own. And his mind teemed. Not only with thoughts of those he loved at home, but with a thousand realizations that had come to him in the country, and he wanted so much to talk with Christophe, to feel the easy exchange of ideas between them, that this desire approached physical pain.