Iron Lace (26 page)

Now, after tonight, he knew no woman could ever satisfy
him except his sweet, passionate little ward. With a woman like
Azema—and he had known so many like her over the
years!—it was always so superficial—pleasant enough
at times, yet devoid of any real sentiment for either of them. He knew
that with Monique, however, it would be an
entrega total
—a
complete giving of one to the other—a perfect fusion of two
beings. She was worth waiting for. With Monique he was learning the
sweet torment of loving someone above all others… even
himself.

After
the intense heat of the summer months, Miguel was
surprised at how cold it was this first day of November—All
Saints' Day. In keeping with the French custom of "Toussaint", or the
Spanish one of "Day of the Dead", Monique and Celeste insisted that
they attend the traditional picnic in the cemetery.

For in New Orleans, All Saints' Day was a social
occasion—the fall counterpart of spring's Easter Sunday, when
each one put on his or her new winter outfit and sallied forth to mass
to pray for the souls of their dead and then went to the cemetery to
visit or perhaps even spend the day with them.

Although their grandmother was satisfied with just getting
out her best gray silk dress and matching woolen cape, Monique and her
sister each had her "robe de la Toussaint" for the occasion, and even
their lovely beaver-trimmed capes of royal-blue velvet with large
matching fur muffs were new.

In the spirit of the occasion, Miguel also treated himself
to a new black double-tiered cape, which Monique noted proudly only a
man with a superb figure like her guardian could show off to advantage.

Since the five-year-old cemetery was on the fringes of the
city, they had taken the family coach there, with Miguel riding up top
beside the coach-man and the women inside with the picnic baskets and
the enormous bouquets of flowers that the girls had been growing all
summer "for Mama, Papa, and our little brother".

Once at their destination, however, they left their coach
at the gates and joined the continuous flow of townsfolk ambling about
the cemetery. A holiday mood pervaded the atmosphere. Vendors were
everywhere, offering refreshments and a wide assortment of real and
artificial floral pieces.

Although there were some graves in the new St. Louis
Cemetery, the majority of the resting places were above ground, a
lesson learned after the many disagreeable experiences the city had had
with the old St. Peter burial grounds where corpses often used to come
bobbing up to the surface after floods or excessive rains!

At that moment that strange City of the Dead, with its
rows of little windowless "houses" of whitewashed brick and plaster,
adorned with wrought-iron fences so similar to those of the city just
outside its walls, looked like a veritable garden in bloom, belying the
dreary wintry day.

There was a wrought-iron bench in front of the Chausson
tomb, so Grandmother Chausson sat down with Mlle. Baudier to keep her
company and, setting the picnic baskets beside her, began to hold court
as many among that constant stream of people passing by stopped to pay
their respects as they made their way up and down the lanes of
whitewashed tombs.

A tall cross draped in black in the center of the grounds
bore mute testimony to the ancient rites that had been held there the
night before, when the priests had performed their imposing midnight
chants for the response of the departed souls interred there. Some of
the parishioners had kept votive candles burning on the resting places
of their loved ones throughout the night, but many, including
Grandmother Chausson, who hadn't been able to attend the ceremonies of
the night before were simply asking one of the numerous monks strolling
around the grounds to pause and give a special blessing.

After about an hour or so spent in receiving visitors at
their family tomb, Monique and Celeste became restless and asked
permission to go call on some of their friends in other parts of the
cemetery; and since the place was thronging with so many friends and
clergy, Grandmother Chausson saw no harm in letting them go off for a
little while, as long as they didn't leave the grounds. Miguel had
momentarily gone to do some visiting on his own with the governor and
the Ducoles, and had promised to bring back some pineapple beer on his
return.

Like children just out of school, the two girls left their
grandmother with Mlle. Baudier and ran off down the rows of tall
whitewashed tombs to see who else was there they knew. After pausing to
greet a few of the families they had known since childhood, they
suddenly heard a familiar voice greeting them from behind.

"Heavens! It's Maurice!" murmured Monique uneasily. Her
first instinct was to try to avoid him, but Celeste, assuming that, as
always, her sister would want to have a few words alone with her beau,
immediately left them and took up vigil in front of the row of tombs
behind which Maurice had led Monique so he could talk to her more
privately.

Clad in his high-crowned hat with a dark gray cape that
Monique couldn't help thinking rather overwhelmed him, her friend
looked appropriately fashionable for the occasion. His blue eyes had
brightened at the sight of her, and he pulled her even farther behind
the tall two-story tombs at the end of the lane near a wall of crypts.

"I'm so happy to see you!" he exclaimed with delight.
"It's been over a month! I've waited for you by the carriage entrance
several times, hoping you'd find a way to steal out as you used to, but
I was beginning to fear your guardian had made good his threat and sent
you to a convent."

Monique smiled and shook her hooded head. "Of course not!"
she replied. "I just haven't felt very much like going out by myself
anymore. Sneaking out like that is for children. A lady doesn't go
stealing out of stable entrances."

Maurice looked at her curiously, as though he could indeed
see there was something different about her.

"Yes, Monique, you really are a woman now," he agreed, his
eyes sweeping admiringly over her. "I've never seen you look lovelier.
I still get angry every time I think of how your guardian thwarted our
elopement, but don't fret, my dear. I haven't given up hope that the
day will come when we can marry right here in New Orleans with both our
families' consent. Your guardian can't stand in our way forever."

"It was probably for the best that he stopped us," she
told him. "It wasn't right to run away like that. I realize that now."

"Yes, I suppose so," admitted Foucher reluctantly. "It
would be better, as you say, to do things right with everyone in
accord. Perhaps after your cousin himself marries, he'll be in a more
amiable mood toward the idea of matrimony in general. Has he set a date
yet?"

Monique lifted her brows in surprise. "A date?" she
repeated in confusion. Maurice couldn't possibly know yet about her and
Miguel. "Yes, Azema Ducole must be pressuring him to make an honest
woman of her by now. She seems like the type of woman who gets what she
wants."

"Azema? Oh, no, Maurice, you're mistaken. My guardian
doesn't love that horrid woman anymore."

It was Maurice's turn now to be surprised. "Well, you
could have fooled me," he replied. "I saw him with her just last week.
It was Monday afternoon, I think… yes, that was
it… last Monday. My father's business partner has his
offices in the same block, so I go by there often."

Anger and disbelief welled up in her. "I… I'm
sure you're mistaken," she reiterated, lashing out at him for having
even suggested such a thing.

"I tell you it was him. I saw them with my own eyes. I was
riding down Chartres and there he was standing in the carriage entrance
of the Ducole town house, holding his horse by the reins and taking his
leave of her. He was kissing her hand, and suddenly she bent forward
and kissed him on the lips. I remember thinking that they were acting
like an engaged couple."

"You're wrong… you're wrong!" insisted Monique
as the row of crypts in front of her began to dissolve into a sea of
tumultuous gray waves. Her eyes had lost their focus and everything
seemed to be swimming in a distorted haze through the tears welling up
in them.

"Oh, what does it matter anyway?" Foucher said with a
laugh, not wishing to make an issue of so trivial a matter. "Come
quickly, my sweet, and slip me a little kiss. I've missed you so!"

He felt for her waist beneath her cape and pulled her
lightly toward him, but she drew back impatiently. She seemed so angry
he didn't dare insist, although the vehemence of her refusal bewildered
him.

"By all that's holy, Monique! I mean no disrespect. After
all, if we had succeeded in eloping that night, we'd be husband and
wife now. Have you thought of that?"

"I… I have to go," she said feebly, wanting to
run away from him… to run away from that horrid
place… to run away from what he had just said. She broke
free of his embrace and dashed off, running up the lane behind the row
of tombs, forgetting about Celeste waiting at the end of the other
path, forgetting everything except Maurice's words about her guardian
and Azema. The memory of Miguel's caresses was searing her
flesh… every spot he had touched was throbbing. Just the
thought of his making love to Azema the way he had made love to her
infuriated her. Maurice had to be wrong. Miguel couldn't still be
seeing that horrid woman!

The stinging tears so blinded her eyes that she couldn't
see where she was going. The dazzling white tombs with their gay
flowers and decorations blended into a kaleidoscope of colors and
patterns that she could no longer recognize. So distracted was she that
she hardly noticed Padre Sebastian as he stepped out from behind a
monument farther down the row of tombs and gave her a brief greeting.
With unseeing eyes, she rushed past him, her dark blue cape flying
behind her, its hood thrown back and her long gold hair glinting like a
ray of sunlight on that otherwise dreary day. She never even noticed
how the monk had continued to stand there, staring after her with dark,
smoldering eyes long after she had gone by.

Miguel
was desperate. He couldn't understand the change that had
come over Monique in the past two weeks. She had suddenly turned
hostile toward him again. Perhaps his hopes of marrying her within a
few months had been premature. She probably needed a year or two more
yet. Some girls her age might be ready, but his ward had led such a
sheltered, pampered existence up until now that it was probably too
much to expect her to grow up so quickly. Lately she'd been so petulant
toward him that he feared she might never declare a truce in her
private war against him and Spain, no matter how the present
hostilities between their respective countries might end.

He was glad he had insisted on giving their
ever-fluctuating relationship a little more time to stabilize. One
minute the girl would have him so exasperated that he'd be cursing
himself for a fool to have ever been interested in such a spoiled brat;
yet the next, there he would be smiling with tender indulgence at her
caprices and thinking that, no matter now long it might take, it would
be worthwhile waiting for so charming a child to ripen into the
delightful woman he knew she could be. Then he would begin hoping all
over again…

His rebellious ward also seemed restless, but, as far as
he could judge, for entirely different reasons. That very afternoon, Mlle. Baudier had come bursting in on
him while he was busy going over the household accounts to inform him
that Monique had slipped out of the house again.

Racing off to the plaza, he found his unpredictable ward
in one of her "patriotic demonstrations" with Foucher and some of his
friends, promenading around the square singing the "Marseillaise" with
the French tricolor on her blue bonnet and her gown of red and white
stripes hanging loose "in the revolutionary mode"! He was beside
himself with rage. Everything he thought he had gained over the past
months suddenly seemed to have been for naught. There she was, more
recalcitrant than ever. If anything, she seemed to be deliberately
trying to provoke him!

Taking her by the arm, he literally dragged her away from
her rebel friends, and not a moment too soon, for already a few
gendarmes were coming out of the guardhouse to break up the
demonstration, while several Spanish priests stood watching
disapprovingly from the door of the church.

Now, at the town house once more, he marched his defiant
ward straight into the parlor and, slamming the door angrily behind
him, turned to look down accusingly at her.

"Will you please tell me, Monica, what in the world has
come over you?" he demanded. "Have you forgotten our pact so soon?"
There was torment now as well as anger in his dark eyes.

Monique flushed and turned away, unable to look another
moment into the face that had been haunting her dreams ever since that
night of the hurricane. "You should be the last one to speak to me of
pacts!" she lashed back at him angrily. "Just like most of your
countrymen, you're deceitful and say one thing while doing something
else!"

He looked at her in bewilderment. "Whatever are you
talking about? I meant what I said when we made our pact. If you'd only
stop all this childish carrying-on and show me and your grandmother
that you're mature enough, I'd marry you in an instant. But it's
behavior like today's that makes me doubt you're ready to take a
woman's role…"

"And why should you worry about my qualifications as a
woman when you already have one to fill your needs?" she suddenly flung
back at him with all the venom she had been hoarding inside of her
those past two weeks.

He shook his head, confusion beginning to corrode his
anger. "I… I don't know what you mean," he faltered. "What
woman are you talking about?"