“I’d like to look at some of your back issues,” Langston said. “To document what happened in my campaign.”
“We’ll be glad to help you.” Dawson banged the bell on his desk for the office boy. While they waited he asked Langston what dates he wanted. Langston gave the dates, and told him more about the attacks in Virginia. At the end of every sentence he fixed his black eyes on Dawson, his spine perfectly erect. It felt somehow like an accusation.
Dawson listened, increasingly uncomfortable. He knew white men were bitter over their losses; he knew they wanted to recover the world they’d known. He understood their anger, but he couldn’t countenance their rage, this violence. He felt these brutal stories like blows deep in his heart. Hearing them, knowing what they meant, was like looking at Langston, seeing him shift from race to race. This was like hearing the South shift from honorable to savage. It felt like an accusation. Dawson banged again on the bell.
For the rest of the day he felt uneasy, as though something hurried behind him, rapid, incessant.
22.
A BITTER FIGHT IN LOUISIANA.
It Ends with the Defeat of McEnery and a Victory for the Reform Element—The Struggle Marked by Bloodshed—Five Men Killed and a Dozen or More Wounded.
NEW ORLEANS, January 6.—The campaign which ended last night, by the election of fifty-six Nicholls and forty-eight McEnery delegates in this city, virtually determines the Government of the State of Louisiana and of the City of New Orleans for four years to come … The contest between the rival factions of the party has been the most savage and bitter ever known …
As the campaign grew warmer the pistol was appealed to. It was opened by a political murder of a very aggravated kind. Then Judge Trimble and Editor Ramsey met and killed each other over the question of McEnery’s reception in Farmerville. The next day the chief of police of Opelousas and a merchant of that town killed each other over their choice for Governor, and on New Year’s Day the “Reform” leader, the Hon Pat Mealey, was killed in an affray resulting from the two factions cheering their respective candidates. The wounded in these political disturbances have numbered over a dozen, some of whom may yet die.
—THE NEWS AND COURIER, JANUARY 9, 1888
February 1, 1889. Charleston
MARIE-HÉLÈNE BURDAYRON, the Swiss girl, sat at the kitchen table, the cook’s baby on her lap. He was nine months old, heavy and loose-limbed, liquid eyes, soft red mouth, fair greasy hair. His mother, Celia Riels, was a stout young German with a red face and gray eyes. She stood at the other end of the table, her arms bare. She was leaning over the pale carcass of a whiting, boning it. Hélène was holding the baby until the doctor arrived. The baby was feverish and fretful. She jiggled him on her knees, but he wouldn’t quiet. He fussed, making little coughing cries.
Jane Jackson, the parlormaid, came in from the yard, a man behind her.
“Here’s Dr. McDow,” she said.
Dr. Thomas McDow was in his midthirties, slight, hollow-chested, slope-shouldered. He had a long, pale undertaker’s face, dark hair, a thick drooping mustache, and a weak mouth. His eyes were black and bold.
“Doctor,” said Celia. She was still holding the knife, her hands slimy with fish.
He didn’t answer. He pulled out a chair and sat down in front of Hélène. Instead of leaning forward to look at the baby he leaned back, fingering his mustache, and looked at Hélène. He asked about the child.
Hélène said it was not hers.
“The baby iss mine,” said Celia Riels, wiping her hands on her apron. “He iss crying through the night,” she said anxiously. Eighteen days after the baby was born her husband had died in a fall. He’d been a carpenter, and he had been fixing a roof. Now she was alone, and frightened all the time.
“How old is he?” The doctor was still staring at Hélène.
“He has nine months,” said Hélène. She pretended her English was better than it was. She heard the English words, they flowed through her mind, but she couldn’t make them flow through her mouth. The Dawson family spoke only French at home.
“Put him on the table.” The doctor opened his bag. He watched as Hélène spread out a cloth with one hand, holding the baby with the other.
Hélène tried to lay the child down on his back, but he struggled to sit up. “Ah, non,” she said under her breath. “Reposes-toi. Tais-toi.” She felt the doctor watching her. The baby twisted, fussing. Finally the doctor asked Hélène to pick him up for the examination. She sat on the table and held the child facing out, his back against her chest. The doctor stood in front of her and put his palm against the child’s forehead, then pressed his fingers under his jaw. He stood very close to Hélène. His legs were near her thighs. Her legs were tightly closed.
McDow frowned. He slid his hand inside the baby’s nightshirt, against his hot skin. He tapped on the chest, listening. He looked into the baby’s throat; Hélène could hear him breathing. His hands, moving on the baby, were very close to Hélène’s body. Once his knuckles brushed against her breast. Her nipple, actually. His touch was quick and intent. It was thrilling. She looked up to find his eyes directly on hers.
Celia had dried her hands and came over to Hélène. “Give me him,” she said, and Hélène handed her the baby.
The doctor asked more: Does he cough? Is he eating? He told Celia to turn the child around, so he could examine him from the back. While she was doing this he looked again at Hélène. His black eyes drilled into hers, direct and intimate, as though he knew her very well. It gave Hélène a fine thrill, like a needle. She felt it in her body. It felt like power.
She lifted her chin and turned away.
As Celia held up the baby, Hélène nodded goodbye to everyone. As she left the room she felt his eyes on her.
* * *
MARIE-HÉLÈNE BURDAYRON WAS twenty-two years old, and from Geneva. The Dawsons called her Hélène, which was more distinguished than the common Marie. She had met Madame Dawson at the agency in Lausanne, when she and the children were in Europe. It had been Frank’s idea. “If you find a nice young woman, bring her back with you,” he had written Sarah, “so we can all speak French with her at home.” Sarah had offered her a position. The situation was good: the pay was generous, the children well behaved, the parents correct.
Hélène liked living in this tall white house, driving in the Dawson carriage. She admired the handsome captain, who was an important person in this city. (Hélène thought he was the most important person. She had never met the mayor.) The household was distinguished, and Hélène liked being part of it. She enjoyed her position, which was superior to the servants. Jane and Celia and the young parlormaid and Isaac and his family all lived out in the kitchen building, the dependence, in the backyard.
But Hélène lived in the house with the family. She ate breakfast with the children, and dinner with the whole family. She was like an adopted daughter. The captain and Madame petted and teased her as though she were their own child.
She’d agreed to stay for two more years. When she went home, with her references and her savings, she’d be a person of distinction. She’d find a good position, a good husband.
She hurried across the wintry yard, hugging herself against the cold. The yard was big and open, with trees along the back edge. The trees were bare now, the lawn gray. Her breath rose in little plumes, like a dragon’s. She thought about the doctor’s gaze. She’d enjoyed it. She knew how she looked to the world: beautiful. She had a beautiful young body, strong legs and soft hands, white skin and dark eyes. When she fixed her hair in the morning she admired her face, her broad forehead, straight nose, dimples. Her eyes were dark and heavy-lidded. Des beaux yeux. A man in Lausanne told her that once, in a café. Que tu as des beaux yeux, ma petite. It was not what he’d said about her eyes, but the fact that he’d called her ma petite that made a liquid shiver run through her. As though he owned her. She liked it. He didn’t own her, but she liked the shiver.
In the morning, wa
tching her fine eyes in the mirror, she arranged her lace cap over her hair, pulling some soft wisps out from under the ruffle. Her white lace ruff lay neatly over her black collar. She knew she dressed neatly and moved prettily; she knew her small feet in trim boots, her narrow waist, neat hands. She felt herself pleasing as she walked through the Dawsons’ high-ceilinged rooms. She was an ornament to the household.
Hélène went through the front hall and up the stairs. She used the front stairs, the ones the family used, the spiral stairs. Not the steep, straight, narrow servants’ stairs in back.
The children were at school. They’d gotten off late this morning, because Ethel had taken so long to dress. They’d had to take the cars, instead of walking the ten blocks downtown. Ethel had to go in to her parents to ask for the fare. Hélène disapproved. Ethel was spoiled. Warrington was her favorite.
Hélène would tidy their rooms, and then she’d sew, sitting in the window and singing. She had a pretty voice, everyone told her that. (Madame called her “ma rossignol,” my nightingale. Madame loved her.) Sometimes Hélène imagined that someone on the street would hear her. A man would look up and want to know who she is, the beautiful young woman in the window. Like a fairy tale.
She could be a character in a fairy tale. She’d come here from across the sea. She was living in a sort of tower, awaiting her future. A stranger might want to take her away with him.
Running up the stairs, her steps quick and light, she could feel something around her, the next thing, like mist in a canyon. Her future was so close she could nearly touch it. Soon it would begin.
She was ready: she was young. That was her secret.
Madame was elegant and correct, she dressed beautifully and spoke perfect French. Hélène respected her for all that. But Madame was old, though she didn’t realize it. She didn’t know that age was lapping at her feet.
Madame was old and Hélène was young, which gave Hélène a kind of power. Age had no connection with Hélène. Hélène’s hair was not so long as Madame’s (she’d never seen anyone with such long hair), but Hélène’s was thicker. It would always be thicker, because she would always be younger. She was entitled to this. She couldn’t imagine being anything but young. Her body, moving quickly through these rooms, was like that of a princess. She was a princess of youth, la princesse de la jeunesse.
Hélène’s bedroom was on the third floor, beyond Warrington’s room. A painted iron bed, a little chair, a bureau. The window looked out on the back garden, but it wasn’t here that she sat. She took her sewing box and a jacket of Warrington’s and went to sit in his room. This window looked out to the side of the house. It overlooked the backs of the houses on Rutledge Avenue, at right angles to this one. Hélène raised the window a sliver and felt the sudden slice of cold air against her knees. She sat down and began to sing. She was a nightingale.
In the kitchen the doctor finished examining the child. Beef tea, he said to Celia Riels, every two hours. Hot compresses on the chest.
Celia nodded anxiously, holding the child against her. He fussed, mouth crumpling with unhappiness.
He’ll be fine, the doctor said. Celia nodded, jiggling the baby. “Thank you, Doctor,” she said.
The doctor started packing his things. His face turned away, he asked her about the French woman. What is her name, and how old is she? Where is she from? Is she married? Where does she sleep, out here, or in the house?
Celia told him the family called her Hélène, but her real name was Marie. She slept in the house.
Jane came in and stood listening. She set her hands on the back of a chair and lifted her foot, scratching one ankle with the other. She had fair skin, and got rashes easily. In the winter her hands and feet were always cold, her fingers chapped.
The doctor repeated the name. “Marie,” he said. He closed his bag. “If I ever want another wife, I’ll think about her!”
He said this jovially, smiling at them as though he expected them to laugh.
After he left, Celia held the baby against her chest. Shush, she said. She was thinking about the night, how he would sleep through. She’d start making the beef tea right now. He was still whimpering, little explosive snorts like a kettle.
Jane set down her foot, still holding on to the chair as though she were steering it. “I’m thinking he was drunk, the doctor,” she said. She was Irish, and had had some experience with this. Her father, in particular.
Celia said he was not. She didn’t want to have had her child examined by a drunkard.
“Will you have a look at his eyes,” said Jane. “Those heavy lids. And all that talk about Marie, what is he thinking? He’s a married man. He’d never have said all that sober.” Jane nodded to herself. Having said it, she now believed it.
“He was not,” said Celia, indignant. She turned from Jane, joggling the child. Shush, shush, she said.
Jane held her elbows, scratching them through the fabric of her uniform. In the winter she itched all the time. She felt slighted by the doctor, who had not looked at her. And she wasn’t fond of Hélène, who put on airs.
The next afternoon Hélène took the children to dancing school. They went in the big phaeton, with Isaac driving, wearing his frock coat. Ethel and Warrington, dressed up for class, sat on either side of Hélène, arguing in French. Hélène sat very straight and pretended that the carriage was hers.
Ethel leaned across her to slap at Warrington and Hélène grabbed her wrist. “Taisez-vous! Soyez sages!” Be quiet, she said fiercely. Be good. “Vous vous battez comme des loups.” You fight like wolves.
“Yes,” Warrington said triumphantly to Ethel. “Sois sage, loup!” Be good, wolf! He bared his teeth at her.
Ethel gave him a venomous look and turned to stare at the houses. They’d just turned onto Rutledge, heading downtown. A man stood outside one of the houses. It was long and narrow, set sideways. Along its side stretched a garden, from the street to the fence behind, beyond which was the Dawsons’. The man stood in the front of the garden, near the street. As the carriage passed, Hélène saw it was the doctor.
He bowed, his eyes fixed on her. She bowed with great formality, like the queen. She was young and beautiful, and a member of the Dawson household.
* * *
AFTER THAT Hélène saw him often, standing in the front of the garden, or out on the street. Sometimes he was in the back of his garden, looking over the fence into the Dawsons’ backyard. When he saw Hélène he bowed, holding her eyes with his.
In the kitchen, they’d told her he’d asked about her. They’d told her what he’d said about becoming his wife. Hélène had lifted her chin, shaking her head. He’s a married man, she’d said primly. Jane and Celia were watching, she could feel their stares. Inside she smiled.
In the kitchen they knew all about the McDows. They knew all about everything. Servants’ gossip flows through backyards and kitchens, then into their families, through the bedrooms, the dining rooms, then into the parlors.
The McDows had only moved to Rutledge Avenue a few months ago. At first it was just the doctor, his wife, Katie, and their daughter, Gladys. Then Katie’s father moved in. C. D. Ahrens was a widower, a stout fair-skinned German, affable and prosperous. He’d started the big wholesale grocery store down on King Street, and for a long time he and his family had lived over the shop. But first Katie moved out to marry Thomas, and then later his wife died. That was when C.D. bought Katie and Thomas the big handsome three-story house on Rutledge. He moved in with them for a while, but then he moved downtown to the Waverly Hotel. Katie was like her father, fair and heavy, with thin flyaway hair and turned-in feet. Unlike him she was anxious, her little blue eyes always darting around. Another woman seemed to live with them, too, or anyway she spent much of her time there. Her name was Julia Smith, and she was an old friend of Katie’s.
In the kitchen they knew all about Julia Smith, who lived a block and a half down Bull Street, in the carriage house behind Mrs. Calder’s hotel. Julia was
the young widow of William Smith, who was one of the Benjamin Smiths, who’d built the elegant Bee’s Row houses. Those Smiths were related to the wife of Senator Augustine Smythe—and neither the Smiths nor the Smythes had been happy when William married Julia. Her father had been a pharmacist, and in trade. She had not grown up with senators’ daughters, but with shopkeepers’ daughters, like Katie Ahrens. After William died (a shooting accident, out duck hunting) Julia was relegated to the outskirts of the Smiths’ tribe. The Dawsons knew about her, but they didn’t know her. They didn’t see her. They didn’t know anyone who saw her.
In the Dawson kitchen they knew all this. In the kitchen they were deeply snobbish, and could calibrate the social levels with exact precision. They were proud of the Dawsons’ position, which was elevated, and they knew exactly where other families stood in relation to it. The Dawsons didn’t know the McDows, either.
In the kitchen they knew that McDow was from up-country, and somehow disreputable, with some stain hovering around him. He’d had legal trouble in Tennessee, or Mississippi. He’d shot someone. At least one person, maybe more. His patients weren’t from the upper circles either: they were Negroes and poor whites. Servants. There had been talk about another scandal, dead bodies and insurance companies, fake death certificates. It had been last year. Corpses had been dug up from a potter’s field and then people claimed them as relatives, saying they’d just died. Insurance claims were filed, and doctors had signed death certificates. McDow hadn’t been charged, but his name was mentioned. In the Dawson kitchen they felt superior to the McDow kitchen. The McDows had only two servants, both black: a cook, Emma Drayton, and a coachman, Moses Johnson.
Now Hélène saw the doctor every time she left the house. In the morning, when she walked the children to school, he always seemed to be standing where he could see them pass. He bowed, and she returned the bow without speaking. On the way home he was there again. He bowed again, his black eyes on her. He took off his hat with an elaborate gesture.
Dawson's Fall Page 17
