Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (98 page)

He was attempting to divert her attention, as he had before when she took an interest in his writing. Let him, then. Cyrene, moving into his arms, accepted his kiss. It made no difference, after all. She knew what he was and still could not escape her attraction to him, could not afford to defy him, to dare him to denounce the Bretons to the governor. His possession of her was inescapable, therefore she might as well take what enjoyment she could from it. It was little enough recompense.

Nevertheless, on the following morning, when René had left the house for the coffeehouse or to see the governor or to wherever it was that he disappeared of a morning, Cyrene went at once to the writing table in the salon. The polished surface was clear, without so much as a scrap of paper on it, though the inkstand with its plume on the rest stood ready. The lacquer box sat against one wall. Though Cyrene shook the lock and tugged it, and even delved into it none too gently with her hairpin, it remained securely fastened, holding its secrets.

On the evening of the Mardi Gras masquerade ball held by the governor and his wife, the official Government House was lighted from top to bottom. Torches flared beside the doorway, illuminating the avid faces of the crowd gathered in the muddy street to see the arriving guests who trailed behind servants or link boys carrying lanterns. It had rained during the day, and the night sky was dark with low-hanging clouds that threatened another deluge, but that did not deter the spectators. They jostled one another for the best positions, vying with vendors of hot rice cakes and meat cooked in pastry, of oranges and candied violets, and, at the same time, keeping a sharp eye out for pickpockets. Wide-eyed, they stared at the costumes the fortunate ones had either commissioned for the occasion or else gathered together from odds and ends unearthed in old trunks. The audience seemed to be divided equally between those who saw beauty in everything and those who searched out only the faults with comments more ribald and candid than prudent.

“What is he got up as, a tailor’s dummy?”

“I think he is supposed to be the fat German king of England.”

“Look at that. Anybody who would wear a cartwheel around her neck can’t be bothered that her backside looks like the aft end of a whaling ship.”

“She’s despised Queen Maria Theresa, idiot!”

“And I’m the Queen of Sheba!”

“Ah, here is the good
père
in his robes.”

“Yes, who looks like he should be defrocked.”

“Only see the dainty shepherdess with her little crooked staff—”

“And unless I miss my guess, looking for another staff that’s neither crooked nor little.”

Due to the wet and muddy streets, René had hired a sedan chair to carry Cyrene to Government House. The vehicle with its four bearers was by no means luxurious; the leather seat was cracked and smelled of sweat, the stale perfume used to cover such odors, and the mildewed straw in the bottom that was caked with dried mud. René walked beside the chair with one hand on the door and the other on his sword hilt. The sword was not only a part of his costume as a musketeer, it was also a sensible precaution. Due to the throng in the streets, it was a night when the undesirables of the town could be expected to creep from their holes.

Cyrene and René had to wait in line before they could approach the door of Government House, so they had ample time to hear the various quips and jests flung at the guests. When it was their turn, René handed Cyrene down, then tossed a coin or two to the sedan-chair bearers, bidding them to have a drink while they waited until the ball was over. There was a murmur of disappointment over the cloaks she and René wore, which hid their costumes, but Cyrene deliberately closed her mind to it as she passed quickly into the building.

In an anteroom set aside for that purpose, René and Cyrene were relieved of their cloaks. Cyrene shook out the layered gauze in varying shades of green and gold that made up her costume of a wood nymph. At the same time, the mud was quickly brushed from René’s boots by a servant stationed for that purpose. Their appearance attended to, they adjusted the ribbons that held in place their demi-masks of cloth in the loose and fluttering fashion of the Venetian court, then allowed themselves to be led to the ballroom.

The assemblage of richly clad and jeweled people, chandeliers holding hundreds of candles like starbursts, elegant appointments in wall hangings and furniture, excellent music, food, and drink, and convivial company would have been outstanding in Paris itself. In this backwater post of New Orleans, it was brilliant. What was more, the guests were well aware that there had never been such a gathering in the short history of the town and suspected there might never be again. It gave an added zest to the excitement occasioned by the masquerade, a vivid, almost feverish pleasure that was the stuff of which legends are made. Never had the guests of the marquis smiled so much or laughed so shrilly, never had wine tasted so delicious or food been so ambrosial. The music caught their mood, enhancing it, singing in their blood. They danced as if their feet would not be still, until they were breathless and laughing with exhaustion, until the windows were thrown open to the coolness of the night to dissipate the heat and smell of so many warm, ripe, and liberally perfumed bodies.

Outside the rain began to fall again, the noise and cool wetness of it drifting into the room. No one paid any attention. What did the weather matter when there was pleasure to be had?

Cyrene danced a half-dozen times, once each with René and Armand, once with a harlequin, once with a grenadier, and twice with a saintly King Louis IX complete with a halo for a crown whom she was sure was the governor. Time ceased to have meaning. Secure behind her mask, there was, for the moment, nothing that could touch her, not even the sight of René in attendance to a lady dressed as an abbess who must be Madame Vaudreuil. She was supremely happy in the round of gaiety, with the beat of the music and the physical exertion of the dance throbbing in her veins and her mind. There was within her, she discovered, a capacity for pure enjoyment, an ability to forget problems and unpleasant situations and live only for the moment.

And then she saw Gaston.

It was him; she did not doubt it for an instant in spite of his mask. No one else had his combination of square build and hard-muscled shoulders or his cap of wild curls like the goat god Pan. No one else would dare to appear at the governor’s masquerade dressed in the beaded leather and moccasins of a
voyageur,
a river rat who was only one step from being a convicted smuggler.

The music of a fast-paced
contredanse
was just ending. Cyrene sent her partner for a glass of wine, then made her way toward Gaston. She came up behind him where he stood near an open window.

“What do you think you are doing here?”

So annoyed was she, and so frightened for him and angry also over that fright, that her voice shook. He turned to face her, and through the slits of his mask his eyes were warm with understanding. “I had a visit from a gentleman of your acquaintance, chère
.
It was he who brought me.”

“René,” she said bitterly.

“Not at all. It was Moulin.”

“Armand?”

“A fine friend, and a good man to have at your back.”

“I’m glad you like each other,” she said with deadly sarcasm, “but have you taken leave of your senses? What do you mean showing up here, dressed for all the world like an advertisement for your crimes?”

“No one has recognized me,” he protested.

“A piece of luck you don’t deserve. You must leave at once.”

Irritation tightened his lips. “If you will stop making a fuss, there will be no need. You’re the one likely to get me arrested.”

“Don’t be so unreasonable, Gaston. What can be the purpose of running into danger like this?”

“What danger, Cyrene? I understand that Lemonnier has arranged an alibi for us, Papa and Uncle Pierre and me. So far as anyone knows, we were never here on the night of the warehouse fire. I could ask what reward he had for his good work on our behalf, but that would be an unnecessary insult. It seems to me that you have paid for my safety; why should I not enjoy it?”

It was, of course, as he said. There had been time enough for the excuses made for the whereabouts of the Bretons to be accepted. Why, then, should Gaston not reappear? She abandoned that ground with mingled relief and chagrin, shifting for another attack.

“But to come here dressed as you are — it’s like a slap in the face.”

“A calculated gamble, it may be. Would a guilty man dare? No, therefore I must be innocent.”

“Why gamble when you can be safe?”

He gave a slow smile. “Why should I be safe when with just a little courage I can be one of the favored ones, a guest of the governor instead of only a trader’s son condemned to stand outside, like all those others out there, watching the high and mighty at their play?”

“It doesn’t matter, not any of it, compared to being free,” she said, her eyes dark as she glanced around her.

“So you say, but you are here and the others are still outside.”

It was true, what she had said. None of it mattered, not the fancy gowns and fine surroundings, not her parade of admirers, not playing opposite the governor in the amateur theatricals or even being among the elect at the masquerade. She had wanted freedom and had traded the degree of it that she had for a prison of a different type, one made tenable by paint and gilding and the appeal of desire-drugged senses. It was no less a prison for all that. She had gone into it with her eyes open, however. There was no one who could rescue her from it except herself. The main thing that was required for that rescue was the will to effect it. All she had to do was find that will.

Beside her, Gaston interrupted her painful reverie with a harsh whisper. “Who is this coming?”

She looked up. Advancing toward them was a man in the costume that might have been that of a Roman general, consisting of a toga and breastplate worn, most incongruously, with a pair of breeches and a curled and powdered wig. He was burly and quick-moving. He scorned a mask so that the unpleasant expression on his face was pronounced in contrast with the blankness of those around him. Recognition was slow, but when it came, it rushed in upon her with sickening force.

“Dear God,” she said under her breath.

“What is it?”

“The officer at the warehouse.”

“Who?”

Gaston had not been there when the officer had caught and thrown her to the ground, mauling her as he made his capture, which had been rescinded only by René. Gaston did not know, nor was there time to explain. The lieutenant stopped before them and placed his hands on his hips.

“I’d know that hair anywhere,” the man said, a sneer on his wet mouth as he surveyed the shining curtain that hung down Cyrene’s back. “I had me a handful of it and of a soft tit. And I’ll wager I have the same again, or else a nice conversation with the governor about you and about your friend here who looks mighty like a thief and a smuggler to me. What say you, my pretty? Will you play or pay?”

16

THE LIEUTENANT WAS so sure of himself. In his crude conceit, Cyrene saw, he thought he held the upper hand, thought he could frighten her into submission. Fear was a part of the emotion that leaped in her blood, but a greater portion was sheer rage at being threatened once more. She was grateful for her mask, which concealed both, however, as she faced the officer in his ridiculous costume with her head high and her shoulders squared.

“I don’t believe, m’sieur,” she said with deadly coldness, “that I have your acquaintance.”

She would have turned away then, back to Gaston who stood frowning at the other man, but the lieutenant grabbed her arm. “You know me, all right, and you’re going to know me a lot better. Don’t go all high-and-mighty on me or I’ll have to take you down a peg or two right here.”