Tansy

by Gretchen Craig

“Yes.”

  His scowl held fast. “You had only to tell me that you didn’t have enough money.”

  “Valere, I don’t need more money. I do it because I want to.”

  The line between his eyes deepened. “Why?”

  She looked at him. What would he think when she told him? He’d always been mild and accommodating. But his marriage had gone sour, he was hurt, he was not himself.

  “Because I’m bored.”

  His head jerked back. “You’re bored?”

  “Yes. I’m bored.”

  Valere leapt to his feet and towered over her. For the first time, Tansy felt intimidated by his size, by his strength.

  “You mean I bore you. After all this time, you’ve decided I bore you.”

  “Valere, that’s not what I meant. I’m simply bored all the hours of the day I spend here with only my own thoughts for company. I like teaching. I like being with the other teachers and with my students. I feel useful, Valere. And for the first time in my life, I’m good at something.”

  “You’re good at being my placée. That’s what you’re good at. That’s what you’re good for. That’s who you are. My placée.”

  Tansy wanted to stand, to meet him on her feet as he was on his, but Valere stood so close his knees brushed her skirts. She gripped the arms of her chair.

  “I am your placée, but that is not all I am. I am a teacher, Valere.”

  He leaned over, his hands painfully pressing hers into the chair arms. “I signed a contract. Your mother signed a contract. You are my placée. You are not a teacher.”

  Tansy heard the tremor in his voice. “Valere, sit down, please.”

  Abruptly, he swiped his arm across the side table, knocking the lamp to the floor, spattering whale oil across the boards. Thank God it had not been lit.

  He drew himself up. “You will be here in this house when I want you. Anytime, day or night. You will not go to the Academy again. You will be here for me!”

  Immobilized, Tansy stared at his hard eyes, at his clenched jaw. A trembling started at her knees, moved through her body, down her arms, into her fingers. He was telling her she had to be nothing. She was nothing. Only a body for his convenience.

  What if she just said no. I won’t. She searched his face. He’d never asked for much. Just that she be kind to him, receptive, available. And now, his eyes were red-rimmed, his cheeks flushed.

  But what if she said no?

  If he had railed at her, perhaps she would have tried it. But he stepped back, his hand plowing through his hair. “You need me, Tansy. Don’t forget that. You and Alain. I take care of you. I protect you.”

  She pressed her palm against her mouth and closed her eyes. Yes, he did. He did take care of them. She didn’t have to stand on the street in front of a brothel, hoping to earn a few coins with a stranger. More important, Valere ensured Alain had enough to eat, that he was safe, that he would have a future.

  She dropped her hand into her lap and gazed at Valere’s polished boots. “One more week,” she said quietly. “I have to go one more week, to finish.”

  She heard his intake of breath. He had won. “One more week then.”

  He took his hat and paused at the door. “It’s only the marriage that has you upset,” he said. “I have neglected you, Tansy. I won’t anymore.”

  The door closed. She listened to the house for a long time. A cricket had got into the kitchen again. A mockingbird sang in the courtyard. And all the world was gray.

  But she had done the right thing. The necessary thing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Christophe rented a room in one of the smaller hotels at Lake Maurepas. He stretched his legs along the walking paths and chatted with old friends from New Orleans and new friends from Baton Rouge. Late afternoon, he met the coach and smiled when Musette disembarked.

  She turned her cheek up for a quick kiss. Her hand on his arm, their strides comfortably matched, they strolled along the lakeshore in the shade of tall pines.

  “I’ve missed you,” she said.

  He squeezed her arm. “I’ve missed you, too.”

  They walked to the end of the pier and watched a water bug glide over the surface, a turtle stick its nose out of the water for a breath of air. A pelican splashed down and skied to a stop to float and look pensive.

  “I love it here,” Musette said. “Thank you for asking me.”

  “I don’t know why we didn’t do this last year, or the year before.”

  “Because we got to see each other any time we wanted last year and the year before. Are you happy in Baton Rouge?”

  He leaned on the pier railing. “It’s a challenge every day, learning the curriculum, staying ahead of the students. They’re quite a different kettle of fish compared to ten year olds. Like every other healthy sixteen year old boy, their minds are on girls, short, tall, fat, thin.”

  Musette laughed. “But you like it.”

  “I do.”

  She asked him another question, her tone somber. “Then you’re not coming back?”

  He took her hand. “No, I’m not coming back.”

  She leaned against him, her arm around his waist. They watched the sun go down, then retired to their room.

  Christophe had told the truth when he said he’d missed Musette. He hadn’t tried to find anyone else to bed in Baton Rouge. He was too raw. Too disappointed and hurt and ... furious. Tansy refusing to marry him had torn him open, but he hadn’t been surprised. He knew her. He knew she needed — he knew she thought she needed — a protector. As if Valcourt’s money could keep her cocooned from all the uncertainties and fluctuations in life. He might almost forgive her timidity. She had been raised to be timid. When he was angriest, though, he called it cowardice.

  What he did not forgive was her coming to him in the night. Her loving him, letting him love her. Her body had been as hungry and demanding as his own. She had wanted him. She had loved him. And then she’d said no. Again. He hated her for it.

  But this was Musette. He pulled off her tignon and ran his fingers through her long hair. Slowly, he undressed her, revealing all her glorious length of limb and heaviness of breast. He ran his hands along her arms, over her hips. She drew him to the bed. Yes, he had missed Musette.

  The fourth day of their vacation, Musette chose to nap while Christophe took a rented pole and a bucket of bait to the shore. He lay back on the grass and occasionally thought to watch his line. He didn’t care whether he caught anything. He just liked the excuse for sitting idle next to a body of water, enjoying the sun and the breeze and the birdsong, a straw hat pulled over his eyes. Eventually he lost his shade. He put his shoes on and gathered up his pole and what was left of the bait.

  Coming from the lake and entering the main pathway back to the hotel, he nearly collided with a well-dressed woman with a parasol. She startled. She stepped back. And she rooted into the ground, her eyes fixed on him.

  He couldn’t speak. Why had he not thought she might be here? Why had he taken the chance?

  He saw only her eyes, wide, shocked, pained. He hated her. He hated the yearning he saw in her face.

  “Christophe,” she whispered.

  She smelled of jasmine, her flawless skin as pale as moon glow, her eyes darker than night. A flood of heartache swept over him, drowning him. She had loved him. And then she’d let him go.

  She raised her hand as if to touch him.

  He turned away. “Don’t.”

  “Christophe, please.”

  He froze her, burned her, punished her with his gaze. He wanted her to hurt. To be sorry. He wanted to grab her to him, to take her mouth, kiss her eyes, her neck. He craved her with a desperation stronger than the night she’d left his bed.

  “I … ” she said.

  She what? She’d changed her mind? She had had only to pick up a pen and paper to tell him so. And she had not.

  He brushed past her, leaving her on the path, his heart pounding with bitter pain.

&nbs
p; ~ ~ ~

  Tansy couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t see. Her arm and shoulder burned where he’d brushed against her. She groped for the bench across the path. Nearly concealed amid azalea bushes she lowered herself and dropped her head. She fisted her hands to stop their trembling and gulped air into her lungs.

  He hated her. It was in his eyes. He hated her and he would not forgive her. Ever. She tried to benumb herself. This was an old hurt. She had no reason to grieve afresh. It was over.

  Yet suddenly her lungs expelled a long hard sob, and then another and another. She shook with desperate gasping shudders. The rush of tears flowed down her face and neck and into her bodice. She fought to control herself before Valere looked for her on the path.

  She heard his steps crunching on the oyster shell walk. She bit her lip and stretched her hands open. She must stop this. With a ragged breath, she wiped her cheeks and stood up.

  “Here you are. Hiding in the bushes.”

  She swallowed to clear her throat. “Azaleas,” she said. “They must have been gorgeous in the spring.”

  He peered at her. “Your face is red.”

  Tansy waved vaguely toward a patch of wildflowers across the path. Perhaps there was ragweed among the daisies and buttercups. She didn’t know. Valere wouldn’t know either. “Ragweed. Did you hear me sneezing? Let’s move away.”

  She took his arm and together they strolled back toward the cottage where Maman sat with Alain.

  “I believe I will have trout for supper. And perhaps quail.”

  “That sounds good, Valere.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Christophe crossed the grounds in long, hard strides to the other side of the parkland where a stream flowed toward the lake. He tossed his pole and bait bucket to the ground and splashed into the water without removing his shoes. The cool water came up to his calves and then over his knees. He pushed and splashed upstream, his heartbeat too loud in his ears to think. He couldn’t let himself think. He didn’t dare feel. He pushed on, shoving at dangling willow branches, stumbling through mud and muck.

  When his mind cleared, he slowed his wild plunge against the creek’s current. He had no idea how far he’d come. Probably half way to Bayou Manchac. He put his fist on a cypress tree and pressed his forehead against it, his breath still harsh. He could have stayed in New Orleans. He could have seen her every day at the Academy. He could have seen Alain. God how he missed Alain. He hadn’t even asked about him.

  Things could have gone on as they always had. Until there would have been nothing left of him but an aching shell.

  Wet to the waist from stepping in holes and tripping over sunken logs, he dragged himself up the bank onto a grassy spot. Elbows on his knees, head bent, he thought of all the platitudes people used to soothe themselves. Life is no flower garden. There was ever only one Eden. You can’t always have what you want. Suffering makes you stronger. God never sends more trouble than you can bear. He raised his face to the sky and laughed. All true. And none of it did anything to ease the ache.

  It would get better, he told himself. Even broken hearts healed.

  Somewhere along the way, he’d lost his hat. He ran his fingers through his hair and eyed the thick growth along the banks. He’d have to return the way he’d come, in the creek.

  He slogged back to the hotel in his ruined shoes, his heart heavy and bruised. Musette would wonder where he was. He’d have to tell her he couldn’t stay.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Tansy worked hard at being pleasant the rest of their time at Lake Maurepas. Didn’t Valere make himself agreeable to her mother and hold Alain’s hand when they walked along the lakeshore? Hadn’t he been particularly kind since she’d agreed to give up teaching — since she’d agreed to give up any sort of life beyond tending to him?

  She schooled her countenance to show nothing but good cheer. That was the bargain, wasn’t it? Yet the harder she tried to be light-hearted, the more she felt her true self retreating deeper behind the façade of happy smiles. She resisted the rising poison of resentment, but in unguarded moments, it bubbled up from her core, and she wondered how long she could pretend all was well.

  When Valere left them to join his wife at the family plantation for the rest of the month, Tansy’s tension headaches eased off. Frederick rented a cottage for Martine and himself, which made Alain very happy. He fished with Frederick and played with the stray kitten Martine adopted. Even Estelle seemed happy with her Monsieur Girard, who’d taken a set of rooms at the hotel.

  Tansy reached for the mantra that once had kept her focused on the happiness to be found in any present moment. There is only now, she’d so often told herself. She found no comfort in it anymore. Yes, the lake breezes full of summer scents charmed her. Alain’s laugh, his delight in being alive restored after weeks of grieving for Christophe, relieved her. Yet contentment remained as remote as happiness.

  Alone at night, she punished herself with memories of Christophe. That day when she was still a girl, hidden in the jasmine vine, the scent sweet and heavy — her first kiss. It had not been Christophe’s first kiss. He’d flickered his tongue over her lips and she was ready to give him everything he asked of her. Then Maman had screeched at them from the French doors. The next night, Maman had put her on the market. Tansy passed a hand over her eyes. Such an ugly phrase. Slave women were put on the market. She’d seen them through the open archways at the Maspero Exchange standing on a block. Before Maman had gripped her arm and rushed her away, a well-dressed gentleman had lifted a woman’s skirt with his cane, another had pinched her behind. Tansy had avoided that corner all the years since.

  Abruptly, she sat up in bed, tense and angry with herself. She was no slave. Put on the market was just a turn of phrase. She struck a match and lit the lamp. She would read until she slept. No more memories. No more brooding. She had made the right decision to placate Valere. He was Alain’s father. He held Alain’s future in his hands.

  At the end of the month, she and Alain returned to New Orleans. Musty air and a family of mice who’d taken up residence welcomed them home. She opened the windows and doors, set traps for the mice, and hoped she didn’t catch any. After supper as Tansy read to Alain, he had a sudden fit of coughing. She stroked his back as the cough wracked his small frame. Within minutes, sweat plastered hair to his forehead. She placed her hand at the back of his neck. Fever. Well, fevers were common in childhood. She fetched a damp cloth and wiped his forehead and chest. He’d be fine in the morning.

  With no warning at all, his supper erupted from his mouth, sour and pungent. She kissed his face and held him close. “Poor baby.” She cleaned him up and put fresh sheets on his bed. Then she gave him water with a little wine in it to help him sleep.

  Valere came in about ten o’clock that night. She didn’t greet him at the door as she usually did but called him to the back of the house. She sat on the side of Alain’s bed, a basin at her feet, a cloth in her hand. “He has fever.”

  Valere put a hand on either side of the doorway. “He seems to be sleeping all right.”

  She smoothed the hair off Alain’s forehead. “He is, isn’t he? I thought you were at Havenwood.”

  He heaved a great sigh. “I was there. For a few days.”

  So what was he doing here? Hardly anyone remained in New Orleans in the summer. With whom would he play cards, smoke, drink?

  “Will you sit with him while I change clothes?”

  Valere seemed suspended in the doorway.

  “Valere?”

  “Yes. All right. Go and change.”

  Tansy slipped out of her shoes and put her soiled dress in a basin to soak. She brushed out her hair with quick strokes, put on her wrapper and slippers, and returned to find Valere had not moved from the doorway. Still, she was glad he was here. Valere didn’t let his imagination run away with him. She took his arm and leaned her head on his shoulder. She knew children had fevers all the time, but it scared her nonetheless. It could be anything. Yello
w fever, diphtheria, cholera, pneumonia. “It will probably amount to nothing,” she said.

  Valere patted her hand. “He’ll be fine.” He paused a moment, uncharacteristically embarrassed. “Are you coming to bed?”

  She looked at him, wondering if she had heard him right. “And leave Alain alone?”

  “No, of course not. I was concerned you might overtire yourself.”

  She knew better. How could he think of the bedroom with his son lying sick?

  “Well, I’ll be off. Just stopped in to say good night.”

  “Can’t you sit with me a while?”

  “No, no. I’ll go on.” He pecked her cheek and was gone. He had not even stepped over to the bed to feel Alain’s cheek.

  In the early hours of the morning, Alain woke in a coughing fit. His nose ran, and he cried when he coughed. Tansy made a tea with honey and lemon and helped him sip it. “Honey is the very best thing for a sore throat, sweetheart. Drink it all.”

  He slept again, and Tansy dozed in her chair. By daylight, Alain’s ear throbbed and his cough scraped at his throat. She gathered him in her arms and carried him to Martine’s back door. When Martine finally arrived, sleep rumpled and heavy-eyed, she took one look at Tansy’s face, then at Alain’s glazed eyes.

  “I’ll send Frederick for the doctor.” She hurried back into the house to rouse him and tell him where the doctor lived. Then she followed Tansy back to Alain’s bedroom.

  “I’m out of honey,” Tansy said.

  “I am, too. I’ll get some from Mrs. O’Hare.”

  When Martine returned with the honey, she said, “Two other children Mrs. O’Hare keeps are sick. Fever and cough and sore throat.”

  Tansy made a concoction of lime water, Mrs. O’Hare’s honey, and orange juice. She coaxed Alain to sip at it every few minutes until it seemed to settle his cough.

  Frederick came in a short time later. “The doctor is on a call. I left word for him to come as soon as he gets in.” He knelt beside Alain’s bed. “Feeling rough, are we?” He looked at the glass of juice on the table. “Think you can drink a little more of this?”