Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (141 page)

“He was a suicide, Félicité. Religious rites would have been denied him, as would burial in consecrated ground.”

“And so you threw him into a hole and shoveled the dirt over him as you would an animal!”

“Félicité, no,” he said, trying to catch her hands. “Don’t torment yourself like this. What happened was unavoidable, something to be accepted and done with as quietly and swiftly as possible.”

She struck out at him, knocking his fingers aside. “Leave me alone,” she cried. “Get out. Get out and leave me alone!”

He rose to his feet, staring down at her a long moment before he said, “I’ll send Ashanti to you.”

“I need no one,” she said fiercely. “No one.”

“Nevertheless.” His footsteps retreated to the doorway, where he stopped and turned back. “No matter what you think, Félicité, I am sorry.”

“I don’t need your pity,” she flung at him, his figure wavering with the film of tears that rose before her eyes. “And since my father is dead, I am free to tell you that I despise you. Never have I ever hated anyone as much as I hate you!”

“I know that,” he said, his voice a rustle of sound. “I have always known that.”

“If that’s so, then you will know not to come back here again, ever!”

He made no reply, but went out, closing the door quietly behind him.

The light was fading from the sky when Félicité, with Ashanti beside her carrying a massed bouquet of brilliant autumn leaves, found the place where Olivier Lafargue had been laid to rest. Located beyond the low palisade that enclosed the cemetery of St. Louis, it was unmarked except for a large barrel sitting on the heap of mud that mounded it. The rains of the last few weeks had raised the water table of the marshy ground to the point where it was necessary to weight the coffin to make it stay in the water-filled grave. From the splinters of wood that lay nearby she thought the barrel of iron ingots might not have been enough, that the gravediggers might have had to knock holes in the casket to keep it below ground. Even so, there was water puddled around the edges of the mound.

Despite the mud and wet, Félicité knelt and bowed her head to pray, with tears creeping down her face. She had already spoken to Père Dagobert, wringing from him a promise to say a mass for the repose of her father’s soul in disregard of the irregularity. There was nothing more to be done.

With a soft murmur Ashanti dropped down beside Félicité. She passed the bright-colored leaves she held to her mistress, who placed them gently at the head of the grave. Time stretched. A dog barked somewhere, and an anxious mother called. Evening was fast approaching. Already one or two candies had been lit, their glow reaching yellow fingers into the gray twilight.

With stiff reluctance, Félicité came to her feet. Ignoring the stain on her gown, she stood staring down at the heaped, soggy earth. Her thoughts were chaotic, weighted with anger and despair. She was alone now. Tomorrow or the next day they would come to confiscate her belongings, to round up the servants and take them away in chains to be sold. The plans she had put off so long would have to be made. She would have to find somewhere to go, though where that might be, she could not think. As the former mistress of a Spanish officer, the daughter of a suicide and a criminal, there was no one who would take her in. So blackened was her character that the nuns of the Ursuline might even spurn her.

What was there for her, then? Must she walk the streets to fall prey to some soldier or drunken dandy, to have her skirts slung above her head in some dark side street? There was Juan Sebastian Unzaga, but would he want her now? And when he was through, would she return to the streets, coming finally to accepting coins for the one commodity she had to sell? Or would she decide in all cynical practicality that if such was to be her occupation she might as well have the comfort and protection of one of the brothels that sat discreetly on the narrow streets near the river, at least until she grew too old and diseased to earn her keep?

The single thing that might keep her from that course was her own self. When all was said, she was the only person on whom she could ever afford to depend. Women who lived with men, who leaned on them, looking to them for their lives and livelihood, whether fathers, brothers, husbands, or lovers, were deluded. Men died, they changed, they left or were forced to leave. Without meaning to, perhaps, they encouraged females to look to them for support, and when the dependence was complete, when the natural self-reliance of female childhood had been submerged in willing servitude, the support might be unthinkingly removed. The woman who could not stand alone was like a crippled beggar, dependent always on the indifferent kindness of men. Those who sought their security in such would never find it.

“Well met, my dear Félicité. I thought I might find you here.”

Félicité whirled to face her brother, standing a few feet away. So engrossed had she been in her thoughts that she had not heard his approach. “You startled me.”

“A habit of mine, it seems. My apologies, fair sister, it was not my intention. I wanted only to come close enough to speak, to have you hear me out before you turn your back as doubtless I deserve.”

How could she berate him over her father’s grave? She made a weary gesture. “There is no need.”

“You are all that is most gracious and kind, Félicité, but I must speak. In my concern, and because of the harrowing events of the last months, I lost my temper. I would cut off my arm if it would serve to earn your forgiveness for striking you. I never meant to hurt you.”

“Consider it forgotten.”

“If the words you speak are from the heart rather than the mouthings of courtesy, then perhaps you will permit me to put forth a suggestion once again that I broached some time ago?”

   Ashanti, standing close beside Félicité, stirred, sending her a warning glance. Félicité was mindful of it, and yet this Valcour, subdued, consciously gracious, was the one she remembered best, her companion from childhood who had never harmed her before, though he might visit sharp reprisals upon others.

“I can’t remember a time when lack of my permission stopped you,” she ventured, curious, though wary.

“I realize the hours are not long since your father’s death, and you have not had time to consider what you mean to do, but I would like once again to beg you to come to France, with me.”

“To France? I thought you must have given up that idea long ago.”

“Never. I only waited, remaining not far away, until such time as you could come with me. That time is now. We can leave tonight if you will only agree.”

“Tonight? But why so quickly?”

“There is nothing to hold us here, either you or myself. It was a great misfortune that your father had to learn of what you had done to save him. Greater still was the tragedy of how he went about setting you free of your obligation to the turncoat colonel, but—”

“Wait! What did you say?”

“But ma chère, surely you knew?” He lifted a brow, all frowning puzzlement.

“No. No, I wasn’t told.”

“One sees why, of course, but I don’t see how they could keep it from you. It was told me by the guard whom I questioned concerning your father’s death. How he discovered your secret, no one knows, but last evening he was most despondent. He mentioned his daughter and the sacrifice she had made. And then this morning, he was dead.”

A great numbness beyond tears crept over Félicité. So deep was her feeling of unreality that she scarcely heard Ashanti as she whispered, “Don’t listen to him, mam’selle. Don’t listen.”

“What a great pity it would be if the action your father took to set you free was in vain,” Valcour went on. “I am sure that with his great love of France he would say to you, ‘Leave Spanish New Orleans, leave it and the past behind, go where you can forget and start anew.’“

Morgan had known why her father had killed himself, he had known and would not tell her rather than pass to her the burden of guilt she had been bequeathed. He had accepted her insults, shouldering the entire blame himself. And in return he had had from her a hard and hateful dismissal. He had not objected. That being the case, it seemed he might well have been glad of it, glad to have her out of his life.

“But what would I do in France?” she asked, the look in her eyes dazed.

“You need not worry. I have money enough for our needs for several weeks, even months if necessary. After that, I have ideas in plenty. There will be no necessity for you to do anything except come. The days ahead will be filled with pleasure and gaiety.”

“Pleasure?” she queried as if she had never heard the word. “I must go into mourning for my father.”

“Of course,” he said, his tone slightly impatient. “But when that time is past, there will be all the wonders of Paris to see. Together we shall storm the citadel of the court of Versailles, you with your beauty and I with my brains. And we will neither of us be — alone.”

It was that unaccustomed descent into sentiment that decided her. This was Valcour, the man she had laughed and teased with and with whom she had played tricks upon the servants and neighbors. He wanted and needed her with him to start over in their mother country. He was offering her nothing less than a chance for a new life, and in addition’ that greatest of all boons, forgetfulness. She took a deep breath. “If we are to leave tonight, we must hurry.”

“No, mam’selle, this is madness,” Ashanti said, but Félicité did not hear.

Valcour insisted on returning with them to supervise Félicité’s packing. To her protest that he would be arrested, he reminded her with cool irony of the pardon for all those not already caught in Spanish toils.

At the house, he took command. She could take no more than two gowns and two sets of underclothing. Anything else would be unnecessary; they would buy what was needed when they reached Paris. In the meantime, it might well cause a hue and cry; she must remember that legally she was stealing from the Lafargue estate if she took so much as a handkerchief. So strict was he, when it came to decisions over what she could and could not take, that it was a relief when he asked what had been done with the remainder of his own wardrobe that had been left behind, and on being told, went away to search for it.

Her relief was short-lived. He returned almost at once carrying a pair of breeches and a shirt with a coat and waistcoat over his arm. The trip in an open boat would not be pleasant, as it wound its way 150 miles or more through the bayous to the ship waiting in a secluded bay near the mouth of the river, he said. There would hardly be room for her, much less her skirts and panniers. Moreover, the less attention they attracted when they went through the gates of the town, the better it would be. There was no time to stand arguing, or those self-same gates would be closed for the night. She must array herself as a young gentleman without argument.

A short time later, dressed in masculine attire, with her hair plaited into a queue topped by a tricorne, wearing her most somber pair of shoes and carrying a cane, she was ready. Valcour picked up her bundle, but she took it from him.

“A man does not carry a burden for another,” she said.

“Quite right.” Holding the door, he gave her a thin smile and bowed her through. “This,” he said with a strange whimsy, “is the last token of respect you can expect from me.”

Ashanti had disappeared toward her own room when they had reached the house. Now she stepped from the darkness at the foot of the stairs to accost them.

“Mam’selle,” she said, “I must come with you.”

A spasm of distress crossed Félicité’s face. “But Ashanti, I thought you understood—”

“I do. I know that I have become a slave of the Spaniards to be sold at public auction, but if I am caught with you I will say I ran away, that in effect I stole myself. And if no one stops us, it will not matter.”

“I wish you could come, really I do. But we must go through the gate. If two young men are seen with a servant girl it will look odd.”

“Not so odd as you might think, mam’selle, especially if I giggle and press close to you. But if you would prefer, and if you would give me words in writing that say I have your leave to be on the roads at night and a purpose, then I will make my way through the gate alone and join you later.”

Félicité glanced at Valcour. “Is there room in the boat?”

“Little enough,” Valcour said, his narrow gaze on the maid.

“Please, could we take her? It would mean so much.”

“I will not get in the way, M’sieu Valcour,” Ashanti assured him, her black eyes meeting his squarely. “I will be most useful, and — valuable.”

“Valuable,” Valcour mused, then glanced at Félicité’. “I suppose it could not hurt to have an extra piece of movable property.”

Félicité frowned. Was he suggesting that they might sell Ashanti at some later date? She could never do that, not even if in dire need, not ever. “But Valcour,” she began.

“A most wise thought,” the maid murmured.

“Let us go, then,” Valcour said. “We have wasted enough time already.”

Despite the minutes they had spent teasing themselves over it, they were passed through the Tchoupitoulas gate without problems. The guard barely glanced at Ashanti. His problem this night was apparently not with those few leaving the city, but with those who wished to come in. He was there to prevent the gathering of large, angry groups, not to interfere with the homeward journey of planters who lived outside the wall of the town.