Cold Bayou

by Barbara Hambly

  The trumpeting voice of Madame Aurelié Viellard retorted, ‘The little slut can sleep in the quarters for all I care.’

  Veryl’s sparse white brows pinched down over his nose. ‘I haven’t spoken to anyone,’ he said, ‘of what my precious bird has told me. I hope that I may count on your silence as well?’

  Hannibal bowed at once and said, ‘Of course.’

  ‘M’sieu,’ spoke up Rose. ‘Please bear in mind that M’sieu Sefton may not be the only man here who has encountered Mamzelle Trask in her former life.’

  Uncle Veryl’s frown deepened at this colossal understatement. While crossing from the former plantation weaving house in which guests of color were being put up – crammed now to the rafters with the musicians, January’s mother Livia (and her maid), Minou and her daughter Charmian (and Minou’s maid and Charmian’s nurse), plus the mistresses of Henri Viellard’s brother-in-law M’sieu Miragouin, of the Viellard family lawyer and more yet to come – January had mentally tallied the number of white male guests likely to have encountered Mamzelle Trask in the High Water Tavern in Natchez. Even had they not been entertained – in one fashion or another – by the bride, they would almost certainly have heard her name.

  ‘It’s one reason,’ went on the old man, ‘that I wanted a small wedding, here.’

  By French Creole standards, some thirty white guests and almost that many ‘crocodile eggs’ – as the French Creoles described those ‘from the other side of the family’ – did constitute a small wedding, and January winced to think of the snubs the bride would have received in town. Even among the plaçeés, and the free artisans of color, she would not have been accepted. He knew full well that like his own mother, the Aubin and St-Chinian ladies of color had come only because of the prestige of being considered ‘one of the family’ and not because any of them would have so much as admitted Ellie Trask to her house.

  ‘I beg you not to think,’ he lied tactfully, ‘that we hold Mamzelle Trask’s past against her. But we are concerned for you, sir. M’sieu Singletary tells me that you’ve known the young lady for just under ten weeks …’

  ‘Would it not be better to wait,’ took up Rose, who as a former employee of St-Chinian’s had a certain degree of license, ‘and perhaps learn a little more of her antecedents—’ And her possible present connections, added January mentally – ‘before committing any irrevocable step—’

  ‘My dearest Rose.’ Veryl stood, and stepping across the little room – even the chief bedroom on the men’s side of the plantation house was barely ten feet wide – and took her hands. ‘To do so would be to put weapons in the hands of my foes: Acerrima proximorun odia … Why do you think my sister has brought along her lawyer? And that dreadful cousin of hers has hers in tow? The only thing to do was to present them with a fait accompli: to steal a march, in the words of the immortal Xenophon.’

  He looked gravely into Rose’s face, and tightened his grip reassuringly on her hands. ‘I know my Ellie. I feel as if we have known each other since … since our childhoods.’

  January could just hear his mother pointing out that Uncle Veryl’s childhood had taken place several decades before Mamzelle Trask’s.

  ‘I thank you for your concern,’ continued the old man, and smiled. ‘But what is love without trust?’

  FOUR

  ‘I was afraid he’d say that.’ Chloë Viellard, straight as a little soldier in her pale severe frock, frowned in the direction of the building that January had heard referred to as the Casita. That slightly ramshackle dower-house stood a hundred yards inland from the big house, surrounded by a shaggy copse of pecan trees, and about twice that from the old plantation weaving house on whose gallery January had found the younger Madame Viellard, sitting arm-in-arm with her husband’s plaçeé Minou.

  Torches and lanterns moved around the Casita in the darkness, as the elder Madame Viellard’s house servants cleaned it, swept it, and carried bedding along the shell-path through the vegetable garden to install in its four airy rooms.

  Evidently, January guessed, wiser councils had prevailed over Madame Aurelié’s wish that Ellie Trask be put up in the slave quarters.

  He could well imagine the comments being exchanged by the Viellard servants as they prepared that neglected dwelling for immediate occupation, at half an hour’s notice, in the dark.

  ‘But he’s right.’ Dominique turned on the rough bench at the end of the gallery, and frowned in protest. ‘Loving someone means trusting them.’

  ‘Does it?’ Candlelight from within the long weaving house glinted on the round lenses of Chloë’s spectacles as she raised colorless brows. ‘Given what I’ve seen of love, I must say that’s an extremely unwise attitude to adopt. I am not, however, certain that it’s true.’

  ‘It should be.’

  ‘And I’m sure it is,’ put in Hannibal, ‘depending on the limitations one puts upon the definition of “trust”. Initium sapientiae verbis definitionem, as the philosophers say. I love my beautiful Rose—’ he gallantly kissed Rose’s hand – ‘yet were I to desire a soufflé for my dinner, I’m not sure that I could trust her …’

  Rose yanked her hand free in mock indignation – she was notoriously maladroit in the kitchen – and Minou admonished gravely, ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I know what you mean, bellissima.’ The fiddler bowed to her again, and to the two ladies – bronze and ivory – on the bench between the smouldering cressets of tobacco and lemongrass. ‘In the circumstances, I should say that the odds are good that Uncle Veryl’s wholehearted trust in Miss Trask might well be … unwise.’

  ‘It is said,’ remarked Chloë, ‘that even the gods find it impossible to love and be wise. The question is, what can we do?’ Her wide blue gaze, cold as pale aquamarine, went from Hannibal to January, from Rose to Dominique.

  The old weaving house, now pressed into service as a guest house, dated from the earliest days of Cold Bayou plantation, older than either the Casita or the big house itself. A long building perched on six-foot brick piers, it had for years been given over to storage: barrels of nails, bales of moss harvested from the cypress marshes that stretched away behind the cultivated sugar fields, bolts of cheap cloth for the garments of the slaves. At some point it had been divided into five small chambers, and through the shut jalousies January could hear acrimonious voices as the various members of the family ‘from the shady side of the street’ strove to establish their rights to sleeping-places for the night.

  ‘I quite understand your position in the family,’ came the light, precise voice of Sylvestre St-Chinian – a small planter from Avoyelles Parish on the Red River and the son of old Granpere Aimé by his lifelong plaçeé Andromache Courtois. ‘But the fact remains that your father is only Uncle Gilbert’s brother-in-law, and M’am Laetitia is Uncle Veryl’s sister …’

  ‘So what am I to do, then?’ wailed a woman’s operatic contralto. ‘Take my poor baby boy and sleep in the quarters? Or up in the loft with the servants and the musicians?’ The tone could just as easily have been applied to cockroaches and spiders – of which the loft, January had already discovered, had an ample population. A moment’s mental calculation allowed January to place her as Solange Aubin, the half-sister of one of the removed cousins who as he recalled was seeking to marry one of the Viellard sisters. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ Solange added spitefully. ‘I know your side of the family always hated my father …’

  ‘No surprise,’ chipped in the dark, sweet Virginia drawl of Mamzelle Ellie’s maid. ‘Everythin’ I ever saw of him, your father was a hateful man.’

  ‘You jumped-up little tart—’

  ‘Ladies!’ pleaded Sylvestre, ‘Ladies—!’

  Glad for the moment that he was outside and not in, mosquitoes notwithstanding, January turned back to Madame Chloë. ‘Madame, if I may be permitted to say so, I don’t think there’s much you – or anyone – can do. M’sieu St-Chinian is well and truly of age.’

  ‘And if I may be
permitted to say so,’ added Hannibal diffidently, ‘is it really our business if he wants to commit an act which will almost certainly make him miserable?’

  ‘I’m very much afraid,’ returned the girl in her sharp, silvery voice, ‘that it is. Americans have been trying for years to introduce a bill in the State legislature to change the constitution so that family lands can be more easily divided, so that they can purchase land in the old French and Spanish landgrants without the entire families of the original grantees having to consent. This girl’s marriage to my uncle – since it’s his first – will give her equal voice in the disposal of the St-Chinian lands. Due to Uncle César disinheriting both his children, that leaves only the three of them – Uncle Veryl, Madame Aurelié, and now – or tomorrow, anyway – Madame Ellie St-Chinian – with rights over a substantial percentage of the St-Chinian lands. Since we can assume Veryl’s going to vote as Ellie tells him to …’

  Hannibal said, ‘Ah.’

  ‘And, I might add,’ the young woman went on, ‘in the event of Veryl’s death, two-thirds of the rights to his share of the lands will pass to her even if he makes no will … And I must say I would feel a great deal better were I sure that the girl is working only for herself, and not for members of her family.’

  ‘But she has no family,’ protested the soft-hearted Minou.

  ‘Oh, please, darling!’

  The fiddler thought about that one. He said again, ‘Ah,’ in a different tone.

  ‘I should say our best course of action,’ said January, ‘is to convince M’sieu St-Chinian to postpone the wedding, if we can. At least until we can learn something of Mamzelle Ellie’s family and background. Perhaps if you added your voice to ours? I’ll be seeing M’sieu Singletary as soon as he’s settled in his room—’

  ‘I’ll see if I can convince him to talk to Uncle Veryl as well.’ Chloë half-rose from the bench. ‘I’ve known M’sieu Singletary since I was eleven – well, we corresponded, anyway, which is more than either of my parents ever bothered to do while I was at school in the convent. For a man who’s spent the whole of his life with his head in Newton’s Principia, he does have flashes of common sense—’

  ‘And I would suggest,’ added Rose, who’d been listening with one ear to the escalating uproar in the weaving house, ‘that one of us – you or I, Minou – see what we can learn from … Valla, is it? Madamoiselle Ellie’s maid?’

  ‘I think that had probably better be you, Rose,’ said January.

  He was thinking only in terms of the fine gradations of social standing – maidservants often found the plaçeés intimidating – but his sister rolled her beautiful eyes and exclaimed, ‘Honestly, P’tit, I don’t think I could stand to hold two minutes’ talk with that pichouette! Please don’t think I’m haughty, because I’m not, I’m honestly not … But that girl Valla thinks the sun rises and sets on her because she’s nearly white – musterfino, she says, though anybody can see … Well. And when all’s said the only reason Uncle Veryl gave her to Mamzelle Ellie is because Valla was the only girl on this place who knows how to iron clothing and fix hair – she was Madame Molina’s housemaid, you know – the overseer’s wife, though the way Madame Molina’s hair looked this evening at the landing I’m guessing she’s not much of a judge! But Valla seems to think it was because she was so special and so genteel—’

  Movement in the twilight behind them – January glanced along the gallery as a woman mounted the steps. He knew her by sight from the Blue Ribbon Balls in town: Isabelle Valverde, whose protector was the husband of the eldest of Henri Viellard’s four sisters. The husband – Florentin Miragouin – was some twenty years older than Euphémie Viellard, and the plaçeé Isabelle, a handsome woman in her mid-thirties, whose present stoutness detracted little from what must have been dazzling beauty in her youth. Behind her trailed a maid burdened with luggage, and a girl of ten or so, carefully dressed in white linen with green ribbons in her curly brown hair. Her daughter, January guessed, who by her grown-up dress and graceful deportment was undoubtedly being trained to be a plaçeé in her turn.

  When Isabelle opened the French door into one of the weaving house chambers, January saw within the maid Valla – fair-complexioned as a Spaniard, delicate-featured and blue-eyed, and clothed in a dress of yellow-striped muslin which had clearly been cut and fitted for her rather than handed on from someone else. His first wife had been a dressmaker, and the significance of the new garment wasn’t lost on him: Is Mamzelle Ellie so grateful at having a maid of her own that she has a dress that fine made for her? Or is she already a confidante?

  The gold cross at her throat and the gold bracelet on her wrist looked genuine as well.

  ‘Is it true that Henri’s maman is suing Uncle Veryl to have that girl returned to the overseer here?’ asked Minou. ‘As property of the family, of course, he should have asked permission, but really, she can’t be that valuable even if she was a lady’s maid back in Virginia or Carolina or wherever it is she comes from.’

  Looking at Valla’s beautiful, discontented face, January reflected that if Madame Molina got her maidservant back – and overseers on small plantations like Cold Bayou rarely had more than one house-servant to help with all their cleaning, cooking, and laundry – she’d find the victory more trouble than it was worth. Those sharply intelligent eyes betokened the ability to cause a great deal of trouble for anyone who took her away from the more comfortable duties of looking after one pretty and generous girl in a wealthy house.

  It might, of course, he thought, be that the one who wanted her back at Cold Bayou was the overseer himself – a stout, powerful man who had been among those who’d met them at the landing, and whose tawny complexion and Nubian nose spoke of a mother or grandmother who had been a plaçeé herself.

  ‘I suppose Mamzelle will go to the Casita the minute her own room there is in order.’ Rose’s soft voice drew his attention back to the group at the end of the gallery. ‘I’ll walk over tonight and ask if she has everything she needs. Minou, thank you beyond what I can say, for offering me shelter in your room for the night—’

  The Casita, built as the result of some long-ago feud between lesser branches of the family who twenty years previously had been dividing the overseeing tasks between them, was rickety, but its four rooms were given over wholly to the bride and her maid. On the other hand, chambers in the old weaving house were at a premium.

  ‘Of course, darling!’ Minou cried. ‘It’s absolutely barbaric that they have simply noplace to put people, because they have to know that everybody always brings extra people to these affairs! They can’t seriously expect you to sleep in the loft with the musicians, although they’re perfectly sweet people and of course that’s where they’ve put Benjamin … For one thing, the place is festooned with cobwebs and hasn’t been swept in decades! And Aunt Laetitia has just been telling me – Laetitia St-Chinian, you know, old Grandpere Aimé’s youngest daughter – Aunt Laetitia has been telling me that she’s heard that Aristide DuPage – the Janvier family lawyer – is coming down on the next boat, the Evelyn B, tonight, bringing his plaçeé – that would be Nanette Picard, I think, a horrid woman who laughs like a donkey! – and Leonard Bossuet, who’s been courting Henri’s sister Sophie although not very enthusiastically since all this uproar about Uncle Veryl’s marriage started, and if he brings Constance Trepagnier with him – you know he bought her a house and settled an annuity of eight hundred dollars on her just last year? His mother is grass-biting furious over it …’

  Through the open door January could also see his mother, sitting close to the candles and working at embroidery, something she only did in company – she had her maid do the boring parts when no one was around. Now he saw her sit up, her eyes blazing. ‘And what makes you think you have the right to a room of your own?’ she demanded in a voice that could have razored flesh from bone.

  January muttered, ‘Oh, Lord …’

  ‘What right?’ retorted Isabelle Valverde. ‘I suppose, as
a member of the family …’

  ‘Florentin Miragouin’s cocotte?’ The Widow Levesque’s eyebrows shot up, as if she’d been confronted by a savage in warpaint claiming a place at a diplomatic dinner. ‘His – what are you? His third in five years—’

  ‘M’sieu Miragouin,’ Isabelle’s voice was deadly, ‘has done me the honor to keep company with me for five years now—’

  ‘Oh, an eternity! He’s slowing down,’ Livia added judiciously. ‘I scarcely think that qualifies you to displace someone who has been a member of the family for nearly forty.’

  ‘The Janviers,’ returned Isabelle coldly, ‘are scarcely family—’

  ‘No more than the Miragouins—’

  ‘And if they were I doubt they’d boast of the connection. What’ll you do, Madame Levesque? Get your voodoo daughter to put a cross on me?’

  Livia Levesque was on her feet now and tossed her embroidery aside, and January stepped through the door just as the silver-haired Sylvestre came up beside Isabelle, who looked as if she were getting ready to defend her right to a room with her fingernails. ‘Now, Maman,’ said January, ‘we all have to put up with inconveniences—’

  ‘Inconveniences?’ His mother turned upon him like an affronted queen. ‘Do you call having our rightful place pilfered out from under us by a woman who’s been through six different “protectors”, if you can call them that—’

  January had the impression that, though Isabelle’s face remained frozen, beneath her beautifully-wrapped gold-and-russet tignon every hair of her head stood on end with rage.

  ‘I’m sure Solange would be happy to share—’ began Sylvestre placatingly, and Solange Aubin recoiled.

  ‘That fat harpy and her wretched daughter in the same room with my poor little Stanislas?’ Solange clutched her son to her, a sturdy four-year-old whose silky curls hung in lovelocks down to his wide collar, and glared daggers at Isabelle’s daughter. ‘The girl’s been scratching since she came into this room …’