by Lara Parker
The countess had to be wakened at nine, with the opening of the drapes, and because she despised the hot sun, she was always bad-tempered in the morning. She wanted tea and cakes, but if the tea was too cool or too weak, or the cake too dry, she sent it back with a sharp reproof. She insisted that the silver tray be polished to perfection and the linen cloth pressed without a wrinkle. Otherwise, she would allow neither upon her bed. She complained incessantly about Martinique, “this dreary jungle festering with flowers and pestilence.”
Her morning toilet consisted of a bath, the water infused with oils, and Angelique was expected to scrub her, but not too vigorously. After the bath came her powdering and her coiffure, an elaborate invention every morning.
The Countess du Prés considered herself royalty, and her soul’s true home Versailles. Therefore, Parisian standards were the ones she followed. Even in the sticky heat of Martinique, she wore a full silk gown and petticoats, preferring to suffer the discomfort of the climate, rather than to dress, as she called it, “like a peasant.”
Once the countess was attired and her room tidied, Angelique was released to go to the library. There, Josette’s tutor would be engaged in teaching the gay but inattentive child her lessons. Poetry and language arts, music, some mathematics and geography were all presented, and Angelique found it was an easy task to set the model of an industrious student. She was fascinated by all subjects and applied herself with great energy. She especially enjoyed literature and was always disappointed when the lesson ended.
Josette, on the other hand, was more interested in playing hide-and-seek, dress-up, and make-believe. What she enjoyed most were the instructions in becoming a lady. Clothes and manners were her obsession, and she talked constantly of going to Paris and being received at court.
Still, Angelique had to admit she had charm. Her nature was warm and her incessant prattle was filled with kind remarks and bright comments on people and the world around her. She was affectionate and leaned in to touch others when she spoke to them, ensuring their constant attention, her words bubbling over like a fountain. She was gifted musically, and, despite an appalling refusal to practice, she played the pianoforte with ease, picking out the notes from memory and singing in a high, lilting voice.
As Josette loved everyone, she loved Angelique, and the feeling was returned with some reluctance. Both being in need of a companion near their own age, in time they grew close. Although the countess never allowed Angelique to forget her place, Josette was oblivious to the contrast in their stations and treated Angelique as a sister.
She was generous to a fault and would have given all her toys and clothes to her playmate had the countess allowed it. But then Josette was always receiving new baubles. Nevertheless, she was jealous of nothing, other than her own flawless complexion, which she guarded religiously from the tropical sun. She was seldom seen out of doors without a parasol, and she was like another flower in the garden when she strolled there, her red-brown curls tumbling about her shoulders and her pretty figure graceful beneath the curve of the umbrella.
Lunch was in the shade garden with the countess, and Angelique was obliged to serve. The Countess du Prés instructed Josette on the delicacies of proper decorum at table, complete with the niceties of conversation as to topic and modesty of comment. Josette’s posture was corrected every thirty seconds, and the use and handling of each piece of silverware, saucer, and cup was considered with somber attention. Angelique, in turn, was educated on the specifics of serving an aristocratic table. The countess’s intention was to prepare both girls for their proper roles in life.
In the afternoon, Josette was required to write her lessons or work at needlepoint, and Angelique’s time was given over to spotting, pressing, and mending. The care and cleaning of all of the countess’s and Josette’s clothing and bedding fell to her. If the music or dancing instructor arrived, the girls would have a lesson, Josette receiving the special attention of the young lady of the household, with Angelique serving only as an accompanist or partner.
The countess insisted that dinner be formal, even though the necessities of dressing sometimes irritated Josette’s father, André du Prés. Angelique was fond of André, who was a sturdy little man with a warm heart, if a bumbling and distracted manner. He was devoted to the management of the estate, which gave him no end of anxieties. But he managed well, and his slaves were for the most part content.
André respected the Code Noir and did not beat his slaves. He gave them good rations, days off, and plots of land for gardens. He maintained a hospital for them, and even had a tendency to forgive them when they broke his trust, treating them like naughty children. He had the sense to know he could not raise sugar without them, and all his fortune depended on them. Dancing was allowed on Sunday afternoons, and the drums were never ominous or threatening, but joyful, full of singing that lasted well into the night.
Since Josette’s mother was dead and Natalie had agreed to come to Martinique to undertake Josette’s education, André felt beholden to his sister and catered to her wishes, appearing for supper in evening jacket and waistcoat. He had wispy blond hair with heavy sideburns and a ruddy complexion, the result of hours spent riding across the plantation. His most prominent feature was a pair of twinkling blue eyes that flashed whenever he smiled or frowned, for he was both fond of wit and prone to vexation in equal measure.
Angelique did not serve at the evening meal, since there was a butler. She ate in the kitchen with the other servants. It was at dinnertime that she most felt her position. The family dined happily on Limoges porcelain with Waterford crystal, whereas the kitchen staff used wooden bowls and crockery. Angelique would close her eyes and pretend that she balanced a silver fork in her hand and her bitter cider was fine French wine in a delicate goblet.
As the months went by, Angelique struggled to keep the Dark Spirit at bay. She never again used even the simplest magic. When she was ill, she waited patiently for her own body to make her well again. If the countess was particularly annoying in her demands, Angelique pushed to the farthest corner of her mind any temptation to employ witchcraft. She was successful in the role of a servant. She followed her gifts and was eager to learn, applying herself to the lessons given by Josette’s tutors, gaining as much if not more from the experience than her young mistress.
All for what? When the countess had hired Angelique, she had called her “drab” and “uninteresting,” never dreaming what passions simmered just below the surface. And even though these passions were kept well hidden, they still flamed and made Angelique vulnerable to painful cravings. Since she had no true friends, she never revealed these feelings and was very lonely. None of the other servants were her confidantes. She kept to herself, not simply because she was too proud to associate with those she considered inferior. Even though she had laid sorcery aside, the time she had spent in Port-au-Prince made the other servants’ conversation seem trivial and vacuous.
Yet her passions must needs go somewhere, must feed and nourish some fruit. And jealousy grew in her heart like a tree with intoxicating flowers. It flourished there, watered by tears of yearning. All the while she knew, especially when she reread passages from Othello or Macbeth, that jealousy was a grievous sin, an insane root that takes the reason prisoner. But try as she might, she failed to resist its poisoning influence.
* * *
On Sundays, the family attended Mass in the chapel on the plantation, and every servant and slave was required to attend. Sometimes the service was conducted by Father Le Brot. If he noticed Angelique seated with the du Prés household, he never acknowledged her, but she could not look at his small round body and jovial countenance without feeling deep gratitude that he had tried to save her life.
Only once did she imagine he was staring down at her from the podium, and she trembled when she heard the homily for the day. It was based on the tenth and last commandment: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, nor his wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, not his o
x, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.”
The priest seemed to be speaking directly to her as he continued to read from Exodus. “And all the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it they removed and stood afar off … and Moses drew near into the thick darkness where God was…”
Angelique had seen Pelée smoking and smelled the sulfurous vapors that rose out of coned fissures near the top of the volcano, fetid air that caused little birds to fall from the sky. The villagers always said the god was turning over in his sleep, but Angelique was afraid, for she believed in her heart the god of Pelée could only be the Evil One. The sermon seemed aimed at her that morning. How could the Father have known that Angelique had envied Josette from the very first day?
* * *
Saturday was market day and the most exciting day of the week. Angelique and the driver left in a small cart before dawn, the Atlantic thundering at the high shore where Trinité still lay sleeping. She never tired of riding down out of the hills early in the morning and always caught her breath when she saw the sea and the moon-shaped harbor of turquoise, with its necklace of pearl white sand that was Saint-Pierre. Looking back, she could see the towering amphitheater of mountains, with Pelée rising out of the forest, its head in the clouds.
Her throat tightened with anticipation as they drove into town, and all her dreams were reborn in Saint-Pierre’s steep, winding paths. The narrow streets were bright with color, and sharp angles of sunshine gleamed on the red-tile roofs.
The city had once been the haven of buccaneers and still offered its safe anchorage to trading ships from all lands. She always looked for a schooner with the American flag: a blue field with red-and-white stripes. Vessels of all sizes and shapes circled the cove, and the wharf bustled with activity. Saint-Pierre was the center of culture for Martinique, and the shop windows displayed fine jewelry, silks, leathers, and luxurious furnishings.
Angelique especially loved the huge cobbled square of Place Bertin, with its graceful fountains and elegant plantings. Her heart always soared at the sight of the handsome theater, three stories high, with seven arches formed by ionic columns in bas-relief and twin carved-stone stairways with wrought-iron railings. Often there was a troop of traveling players or a company of dancers performing, usually from France, and the posters advertising the enticements within made her mouth water.
It was therefore a thrilling day when André du Prés announced that he had purchased a brick house in town on a lovely tree-shaded avenue. What had been a fairly staid life in the country now took on renewed promise. Arrangements for moving into town occupied the entire family for months. The first night Angelique slept in the new house she lay awake staring at the ceiling of her small downstairs room.
She was tortured by the awareness that there was so much more to life. Since she had renounced her powers, she lived with a memory of the untapped potential that lay within her. What did it matter that she had, through ingenuity and perseverance, maintained a firm discipline against sorcery, if the future held no promise? Her soul was imprisoned, and she often felt that she had never left the lonely tower room at Basse Point.
* * *
Coming to live in Saint-Pierre renewed one pastime that brought great joy to Angelique’s life. On Sunday afternoons, freed from her duties, she took to wandering up the beach beyond the harbor and swimming in the sea. She would shed her clothes and take to the reefs once more, diving into the deeper pools, exploring the mysterious horizons of the ocean floor. The coral was lovelier than ever, elk horn, finger, brain, star, and flower, rich hues of copper and ocher, mauve and maroon. She rediscovered the undertow, breathing, swirling, the current pulling and curling the fans and grasses, and the curving coral reaching up, rounded, lumps of gray-green, etched into tiny mazes.
She found a wide sandy shoal that was covered with red starfish, thousands and thousands as far as she could see, delicate pearls jeweling their pointed arms. She swam through a school of blue tang, their false eyes taunting her as they skimmed around her. She ached as she watched the creatures, lively and free, fondling and feeding in the coral, and once again she was happy there.
There was a beach at which she sometimes swam where a deep channel lay between the shore and the reef. If she wanted to reach the coral beds, she was obliged to swim across this empty space of sea, which held a strong current. The bottom fell away swiftly, and she would look down into murky water, which seemed to stretch forever, with only swirling flicks catching the sunlight near the surface. It took many long minutes to cross the channel, the blackness slowly increasing as the water grew deeper, more dark and foreboding, before the bright coral again sprang into view.
When she lay in bed at night she sometimes felt she was crossing that channel, swimming and swimming through a watery purgatory, as indiscernible depths loomed beneath her and the current tugged at her feet.
Twenty
One afternoon Angelique wandered so far up the beach that she saw her old cottage in the distance. She hesitated a moment, susceptible to a mixture of painful feelings, then broke into a run and did not stop until she could see the porch, the yard around it, and the roof with a fine new thatch.
At first she thought the house was covered with giant spiderwebs, until she realized it was draped with finely woven and gauzy fishing nets, hanging from several tall stakes. She noticed baskets and tubs strewn about a well-tended garden plot, an outdoor fireplace, and, nearby, a rough-carved wooden chair.
She crept up to the door and peeked inside. The interior looked unfamiliar, and the house was certainly inhabited. The sleeping corner was a pile of quilts, and most of the front room was cluttered with fishing paraphernalia, poles and spools of line, nets and sewing tools, weights and hand-carved lures. The kitchen had a few copper pans, some pots hanging on the wall, and tins of crackers and salted beef lying on the table. A man’s clothing—a jacket and several plain shirts—were draped on the one straight-backed chair. She was surprised to see a small shelf of books and writing paper on the table.
When she came back out the front door and looked toward the sea, she saw the fisherman. He had pulled his boat up on the beach and was lowering the sail, which flapped and shivered in the wind. She stood and watched as he tied the sail to the boom and tended his lines, coiling them and twisting them in fluid motions. Then he leaned beneath the rudder arm and pulled out a strong rope, slinging it over his shoulder. Attached to the line were three or four long tarpon, their silver sides reflecting like metal in the afternoon sun. The fisherman was bare-chested and barefoot, and, as he drew nearer, she was astonished to see that he was only a year or two older than she.
He stopped when he caught sight of her standing by his door, and he looked down the beach to see whether she was alone. Satisfying himself that she was, he nodded to her and came closer to the house. Lowering his catch into a tub of salt water, he washed the brine from his hands.
She could see that he was strong, his body lithe and well formed. His skin was darkly tanned and salted with a fine mist of seawater, and his muscles were fluid and shadowed. His hair was a sandy color, his face was gilded by the sun and finely featured, and his eyes, when he looked up at her finally, were a mossy shade of green, the color of his fishing nets.
“What do you want?” he said at last. “Are you lost?”
“No,” she said. “I was walking on the beach when I saw the house.”
“You might call it a house now,” he said defensively, as though he thought she might take it from him. “When I found it, it was a pile of scattered timbers. What you see here, I built, all alone. I only thatched the roof last week.”
She looked down at his feet, which were long and veined, and she could see the bones moving as his toes hugged the sand.
“Once I lived here,” she said, “when I was small.” And she added hurriedly, “I mean, it was once my house—before it fell down and you built it a
ll again.”
“You lived in a magical place,” he said simply.
“Do you know the caves?” she asked.
“The caves? Of course. I go there often.”
She was startled by a feeling of joy in finding a kindred soul. “And the rooms where the sun streams in—”
“Where the rain has streaked the boulders with long, rusty stains—”
“And the pools are so clear the water is only a whisper of light.”
The boy looked at her a minute, then shrugged, and said, “I must clean my fish. Come, you can help me.”
The boy went into the house and returned with a small knife and a basket of limes. He jerked his head to beckon her over, and she walked to the tub, which had a broad slab of driftwood and a skinning blade lying beside it. He handed her the limes and the knife.
“You can squeeze out the juice for me,” he said.
She waited while the boy slapped the first fish on the slab and used a long blade to open the stomach down the creamy underside. The red guts spilled out onto the sand. The faint scent of the eggs rose to her nostrils as he scraped against the bones, turning the fish with an easy flick and carving off the head with a snap at the gills. His movements were deft and concise, and she was caught by the delicacy of his wrists and arms, the supple muscles, and the long slender fingers digging the crimson heart and lungs from the slick insides of the fish. She watched the pliant motions of his shoulders and back as he dipped the tarpon in the water again. Then he slid the fish over to where she stood and nodded to her, as though she would know what to do.
She cut a lime in half and pressed it between her palms, letting the juice flow over the skin of the fish, tasting the fresh tang in the air.
“That’s good,” he said, smiling. “It takes a lot.” There were amber glints in his mossy eyes. They worked for the best part of an hour, until the sun was low in the sky and she knew she would have to leave to be home before night. He made no offer to walk with her, but he said, “Will you come to the market on Saturday?”
