January shook his head. ‘I know what Mademoiselle Deschamps is to you, sir,’ he said softly. ‘I’m here because a man in New Orleans is threatening to tell all the world.’
Cadmus Rablé, who had started out of his chair with angry words on his lips, settled back. But January could feel the anger around him still, like a bull with his head down.
‘How much did she tell you about why she left New Orleans?’ January asked. ‘And, I presume, why she left Paris?’
‘You seem to know a God-damn lot about it, for a music teacher.’
‘I’m a friend of the young man who asked her to marry him,’ said January. ‘And who is in jail now, and facing hanging, because he refuses to admit that he knows your granddaughter, loves your granddaughter, and was with your granddaughter at the time he’s supposed to have murdered a man in a New Orleans hotel room. And because I am his friend, I have come here to find out what the hell is actually going on so that I can keep him from going to the scaffold like the hero of a cheap melodrama. Oh, and by the way,’ he added, as the distant drumming of hooves sounded on the avenue that led from the house to the river, ‘whatever is going on, Louis Verron got wind of it and has been trying to kill me since a week ago Friday night.’
Rablé’s eyes widened. ‘You’re not the buck Louis’s been going around saying how he raped a French maidservant that was staying with them?’
‘That would be me.’
‘T’cha!’ He turned his head, listening to the sound of the hooves as well. ‘When Celestine told me she’d told Isobel about us – about my wife and myself, and who we really were to them – I told her then it was a mistake. No matter how many Bible oaths you take of secrecy, no matter what kind of resolve you think you’ve got, it’s going to get out. So far I don’t think she’s told Marie-Amalie – who is the sweetest child in the world but has no more control of her heart than Celestine does, God bless her. Noisette – Madame Rablé – was that way.’ He shook his head, regret and tenderness turning those bright, watchful eyes suddenly soft. ‘She swore when she gave up our child to Eliane . . . Well.’ He shook the thought – the softness – away and listened for a moment to the sound of boots on the front gallery, the voice of a servant at the door. ‘Take your bath, sir. I’ll have clothes sent out. And I’ll deal with this.’
TWENTY-THREE
While January was gingerly clipping what beard he could out of the scabbed mess of the left side of his face – and praying that Mademoiselle Deschamps would indeed recognize him as her piano teacher with his hair shaved back to the crown of his head – the butler who’d earlier served him coffee entered the laundry room with the information that, when he was ready, he was to go up to the house. ‘Michie Louis, he sure in a state,’ the man added.
‘Blankittes mostly do get in a state, when they mistake a man’s identity about what he did, and then get proved wrong,’ returned January mildly.
He recalled what his mother had said about the New Orleans Verrons now being the poor side of the family, and he hoped that Isobel’s mother – and Cadmus Rablé – retained enough control over them that he wouldn’t have to be watching his back for the rest of his life.
And that Isobel wouldn’t have to be watching hers.
As he crossed to the house from the laundry, he made enough of a detour to note that only a single horse remained under the giant tupelo trees out front. So the Ulloa boys, at least, had been sent away.
So far, so good.
Cadmus Rablé, Louis Verron, and Isobel Deschamps – grown from the pretty girl he’d known to lovely young womanhood – were seated in the parlor when January came up the back gallery steps and into the house. To the girl’s startled look, January put a hand to where his hairline had been and explained, ‘I shaved it back, Mamzelle, thinking the men your cousin talked to might not be looking for a bald man.’
Mademoiselle Deschamps’s strained and tired face transformed into what looked like the first laughter it had seen in weeks. ‘Oh, brilliant, sir!’
‘Yeah, God-damn brilliant,’ snapped Verron. January remembered the voice. In daylight, Verron was younger than he’d expected, in his late teens. Dark hair fell in a splash over dark blue eyes. The features, the rather delicate mouth, were refined rather than brutal, but icily cold. ‘You tell anyone about my cousin?’
Rablé made a swift, slight cautionary gesture. ‘You mean, other than the letter in the bank?’ His eyes held January’s, and January shook his head.
‘There is no letter in any bank, sir,’ he said. And, to Verron, ‘No, sir. I told no one. That wasn’t my intent.’
‘And what was your intent, M’sieu Brilliant?’
‘My intent – sir – was to secure your cousin’s happiness, and your peace of mind, by helping her to marry a British gentleman of good family. She goes to live in Ireland, taking her sister with her to bring out in London when the time comes, and you no longer have to worry about who finds out what.’
‘Not that no-good bastard Blessinghurst? Because I’m here to tell you, M’sieu Brilliant Goddam Piano-Player, Blessinghurst has no more intention of marrying my cousin than he has of running for Pope.’
Nearby him, January was aware of Isobel Deschamps turning her face aside and clenching her hand before her lips, but he only said, ‘No, not Blessinghurst. I mean Viscount Foxford.’
‘I can’t,’ Isobel whispered. ‘That’s all over.’
‘Mademoiselle,’ said January softly, ‘please forgive me if I ask this of you bluntly, but why is it all over? Germanicus Stuart has put his own life in jeopardy, rather than say that he even knows you, much less that he was with you the night before you left New Orleans. Are you being blackmailed? And is it by Blessinghurst?’ He spread out his bandaged fingers for her to see. ‘I have risked my life to come to you and find that out.’
She drew in breath, let it out, and her clenched fist became an open palm, pressed to her mouth, as if to gag back whatever words might come out. She shed no tears, though by the look of her eyes she had shed many during the days just past. After a moment, she took her hand down and said, in a small but steady voice, ‘I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through, M’sieu Janvier.’ She called him ‘vous’, now, as her grandfather did, rather than ‘tu’.
‘Was it Blessinghurst?’
The fact that this was already known made her nod.
Louis began, ‘I’ll goddam kill him—’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ said Isobel. ‘It was . . .’ She took another breath, and then her shoulders – slim as a half-grown fawn’s in a gown that looked like she’d had it made in Paris – relaxed, and she turned in her chair to face her cousin and her grandfather.
‘He did try to – to degrade me,’ she said, the hesitation not coming from coyness but from the fact, January guessed, that she’d been raised as a good Creole girl, had never uttered the word ‘rape’ before, and didn’t quite know how to speak it aloud in company. ‘I bit him, and stabbed him with my hatpin . . .’
Louis turned pale as ice, but January said, ‘Good girl. Did he pretend to be in love with you?’
Encouraged that the roof hadn’t fallen in, she nodded. ‘But it never felt real. He’s very rich, so I didn’t understand it.’
‘He’s not rich,’ said January. ‘He’s an actor; his real name is Stubbs. Which means, I think,’ he said slowly, ‘that he’s being paid by someone rich.’
Their eyes were on him: shocked, outraged, enlightened.
Louis said, ‘Who the hell—?’
Isobel said, ‘That’s why—’ and stopped herself, uncertain. January raised his brows. She glanced apologetically across at Verron. ‘If you’re an heiress – and I’m not a great heiress, but I know what Beaux Herbes is worth now – you get to learn what the boys are like, who just want the money. They all say the same thing: “Your eyes are like stars; your lips are like honeyed roses; I would like to carry you off to the Kingdoms of Arabia . . .” which always sounded terribly uncomfortable to me, from wh
at I read in Tante Cassandre’s geography books . . . But it’s as if they’ve learned it from a book.’ A little smile tugged at the side of her mouth, and she added, ‘Sometimes you can tell which book.’
‘That is no way for a well-raised girl to talk!’ objected Louis angrily, and Isobel rolled her eyes.
‘Honestly, Louis, you don’t think girls talk amongst themselves?’ She turned back to January. ‘And he didn’t sound that way, sir. But he felt . . . wrong.’ She grimaced, as at a questionable back-taste. ‘I can’t explain. Maybe I wouldn’t have noticed if I’d met him before . . . before Gerry. Le Vicomte.’
‘So Blessinghurst didn’t come along until after you had met Viscount Foxford.’
She nodded, suddenly shy.
‘How long after?’
‘Four or five weeks,’ said Isobel. ‘At Twelfth Night, I think . . . M’sieu le Vicomte –’ she stammered a little on the words – ‘had just come to Paris himself, when I arrived to stay with my Tante Cassandre.’
‘And did you tell this Foxford,’ demanded Louis bitterly, ‘that you are a negress?’
‘I am not a negress! Look at me, Louis!’ she almost shouted as he jerked to his feet, paced to the open French windows that looked out toward the green rise of the levee and the river beyond. Springing up, she followed him in a soft rush of blue-and-white dimity, caught his sleeve, pulled him around to force him to face her, like the children they’d both once been together. ‘Look at me! Do I look any different than I did back in September? Than I did back when we’d dance together in dancing class? Than I did when you asked to marry me?’
Louis struck her hand away. ‘I look at you, and all I see is what Lucien Brinvilliers, and Tom Pourret, and Gautier Charrette, and all the rest of my sisters’ suitors are going to say when this Blessinghurst gets to shouting it all over town that there’s tar in our bloodline—’
‘Your sisters are no more related to Grandpere than they are to . . . to M’sieu Janvier here—’
‘And do you think,’ demanded Louis, ‘that is going to make one mustard-seed of difference, when the story gets around? “Where there’s one, there’s more,” is what they’ll say!’
‘When did the story get around?’ asked January. ‘And how do you come into it, anyway, M’sieu Verron? Don’t tell me Blessinghurst spoke to you?’
Through gritted teeth, Verron said, ‘The bastard had the effrontery to write to me, demanding money to keep quiet.’
Both January and Isobel stared. Isobel whispered, ‘Oh, the blackguard!’
And January, ‘The idiot! Didn’t he know you were likelier to kill him than pay?’
Quietly, Verron replied, ‘We may trust that he will know, as soon as I return to town.’
Baffled, Isobel turned to January. ‘But how did he know about Louis? About Uncle Charles? Would he have done all this: searched my room in Paris, intercepted Gerry’s mail . . . The Verrons are not that wealthy—’
‘No,’ said January, who had been, for the first moment, as taken aback as she. ‘No, he would not. Not if he used his knowledge to break up your love affair with Foxford back in Paris. He didn’t ask for money then, did he?’
The girl shook her head. ‘Only that I must leave Paris and never see or speak to Gerry – M’sieu le Vicomte – again . . .’
‘We may take it, then,’ said January, ‘that those were his original instructions. But when he got to New Orleans,’ he added drily, ‘I assume His Lordship couldn’t resist what they call in prizefighting “a side-bet” to make a little money for himself. And when you couldn’t lay hands on Blessinghurst, sir –’ he had to force himself to give the coldly furious young gentleman that honorific title as he bowed to him – ‘you came after me, about whom you heard . . . from Madame Deschamps, I presume?’
He nodded. ‘That your wife was asking questions about Isobel, yes.’
Rose would be outraged that her inquiries had been immediately assumed to stem from him. He could just hear her: What, cannot a woman have thoughts of her own? Is she but the pawn of her husband . . .?
‘And to answer your question, Louis,’ said Isobel in a tight voice, coming back to stand between her grandfather’s chair and January’s, ‘yes, I did tell M’sieu le Vicomte that my grandfather’s grandmother came from Africa, with no admixture of blood in-between—’
‘Do you think that makes a difference?’
‘No,’ said Isobel defiantly. ‘It doesn’t. Not to Gerry. He said, “My darling, it wouldn’t matter to me if you were from Africa yourself, or from China or Siberia or the South Sea Islands.” The English – Europeans – look at these matters differently, Louis—’
‘Not that differently.’ If he could have physically gashed her with the words, he would have.
‘Maybe not that differently,’ temporized January, ‘were Mademoiselle in fact from Africa or China or somewhere more exotic. But as matters stand, having lived in France myself, I can attest that it would be her appearance rather than her ancestry that would cause comment, if such were the case.’
Louis sniffed.
‘And you better thank God that’s how they look at things in England –’ Rablé jabbed a finger at the young man – ‘as that’s where your cousin’s going to go wed – and Marie-Amalie – if I have anything to do with it. Was it you, told Isobel’s Maman to get rid of Pierrette?’
‘Of course it was.’ Louis waved aside his cousin’s cry of outrage. ‘That’s the first thing a blackmailer thinks of, is getting at the servants.’
‘And I suppose that’s why you got rid of that poor valet of yours, what was his name – André – the year before last?’
‘May I ask, Mademoiselle Deschamps,’ put in January, ‘when you told Viscount Foxford of your relationship with M’sieu Rablé? In Paris, or that Thursday night in New Orleans?’
‘Oh, in Paris!’ said the girl. ‘I would never have kept such a thing from him for so long!’
‘In a letter, or face to face?’
The girl looked aside again, and color came up under the delicate pink of her complexion. ‘In a letter,’ she said, her voice stifled, and Louis flung up his hands in disgust. He seemed, January reflected privately, to have both knowledge and considerable sensitivity around the subject of blackmail.
Isobel winced at his gesture, but went on. ‘That’s how Blessinghurst knew of it. I know, because he . . . he showed me the letter. I already knew Gerry – M’sieu le Vicomte – had not received it, but I didn’t think anything of it, when we realized it had gone astray.’
She pressed her hands to her mouth again, then to her cheeks, as if trying to force back the flush of shame. ‘At first – when Milord Blessinghurst took me aside at a ball and told me he knew – I thought he was threatening me because he wanted to marry me himself. But no. He said I was to leave Paris, or he would see to it that everyone in Louisiana knew about what poor Grandmama had done. I asked him why – I begged him to tell me – and he only laughed and said, “Don’t trouble your pretty head about it, my dear.” Hateful!’ She shook her head. ‘Hateful. But I didn’t dare tell Gerry, because there was Maman to think of, and Marie-Amalie. I thought I had put it all behind me, that I could live again . . . Then at the Truloves’s ball, to see Gerry – and Blessinghurst . . .’
‘Yes,’ said January thoughtfully. ‘Gerry and Blessinghurst.’
‘I didn’t know what to think. Only that I had to get out of there.’ Isobel shook her head. ‘It was like a nightmare. Two days – the Thursday – after the ball, Gerry waited for me outside my house in the morning. He leaped up on to the step of my carriage as it came out, said he would cling there to the window until I told him what Blessinghurst was to me. I said, he is the man who will destroy my family, if you are seen speaking with me this way.’
She folded her hands, staring out through the French doors toward the levee, struggling to keep her countenance. No boats passed on the river in this isolated season – Bayou Lente might have been the only civilization on the p
lanet. Its limits, the boundaries of the world.
‘Gerry came to the house that night. He knew Maman goes early to bed; I’d told him that in Paris. He sent up a note, and when Marie-Amalie went upstairs, I – I went across the street to talk to him, standing in a doorway. He asked what was it, that Blessinghurst had threatened? At first he didn’t believe me, didn’t understand how completely such talk would ruin us, for in truth one great-great-grandmother meant nothing to him! But I made him understand. We talked – hours; it was after two when at last I came in. I still had some idea that Blessinghurst wanted to marry me, for some reason – that he was playing some kind of game with me . . . But looking at what you’ve said, M’sieu Janvier, about him being an actor, and where would he have gotten the money to come here, of all places, and at the same time Gerry did . . .? It’s someone who doesn’t want me to marry Gerry, isn’t it? But why?’
From the window, Louis growled, ‘I think that answer’s obvious.’
Don’t be an ass, January was careful not to say. ‘Myself, I would hesitate to proclaim any answer obvious, sir. Foxford’s mail was clearly being watched before Blessinghurst got hold of Mademoiselle Deschamps’s letter about her ancestry. We’ve already established that the man didn’t arrive in Paris until after Viscount Foxford began trying to fix his interest with your cousin. Doesn’t that sound as if someone heard that Foxford was firmly on a path that would lead to matrimony and took what steps he thought he needed to keep him off of it? Including hiring another suitor, first to turn the girl aside – which didn’t work – and then to render her ineligible.
‘Foxford had a friend – the Irishman Derryhick—’
‘Yes,’ said Isobel swiftly, ‘Patrick. He was in Paris with Gerry. That Thursday night, Gerry said he’d been out with him that evening, that M’sieu Derryhick had seen how distracted he was and had asked him what was wrong. Had he spoken to me, he asked . . .’
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