PART THREE
1831
Neville
Chapter fourteen
Spring brought beautiful weather to New Orleans. The sky overhead, as blue as could be imagined, was broken by fleecy white clouds that drifted slowly by. The date was May 15, 1831, and a warm breeze blew across the crowd gathered for the ceremony. The faculty of the Ursuline Convent was gathered together on a small platform that had been erected in the courtyard. The black robes of the priests and nuns, highlighted by blinding white collars and hats, made a startling contrast to the colorful dresses of the family and friends of the graduates. As Chantel glanced around, she thought, It looks like a tulip garden with all the beautiful colors of the dresses.
Indeed, the women in the predominately Creole gathering had worn their best—gowns of pink, blue, green, and yellow that caught the sparkling sunlight. The air was light, the final speech had been made by the bishop, and now the diplomas were being handed out. Chantel moved forward, listening to the names of her fellow students. Finally she heard her own name called out, then a slight pause and the words “Summa Cum Laude.”
A sound of applause came to her, and she flushed as she reached forward and took the diploma from Sister Martha. The nun smiled at her and whispered, “I’m proud of you, Chantel.”
“Thank you, Sister.” Grasping the diploma as if it were a precious jewel, Chantel turned and flashed a smile at Neville. To her surprise, he kissed his hand and waved it at her.
As she made her way back to her seat, a wave of memory swept over her. She thought of the past months that had come and gone, and sadly wished that her father could be here to share this day. She continued to live at home with Collette and Perrin, but the house had become a torment for her. It was Cretien who had made it a special place for her, and every time she entered the door it was with a pang of grief. She thought of the lonely nights when she had wept herself to sleep, and after all these months her loss seemed to grieve her even more.
She made her way to her seat, glancing once again at Neville. He wasn’t looking at her at that moment, and she saw his profile and thought of how his friendship had helped her endure the recent struggle.
Chantel sat there until the ceremonies finally came to an end. They stood to their feet, graduates and guests alike, and the bishop said a brief prayer. Then the graduates went to their families.
Collette and Elise smiled at her and kissed her, but it was Elise who was the warmest.
“You did the best of all, mon chère!” She beamed and hugged Chantel again so hard that it almost made her lose her breath.
“I’m very proud of you—and your father would be so proud, too,” Collette said. She was wearing a light, summery blue dress and looked very pretty as she stood there. Collette had never been unkind to Chantel directly, but since Cretien’s death she had been preoccupied. It hurt Chantel that her stepmother seemed to grieve so little at the loss of her husband.
Nevertheless, she managed a smile and said, “Thank you, Mama.”’
“Aren’t you going to give me a present, Chantel?”
Chantel laughed and bent over to ruffle Perrin’s hair. He was three and a half years old now and resembled his mother more than his father.
“You’re supposed to give me a present,” Chantel teased.
Perrin scowled at her and then shrugged. “Okay. You can have one of the toys that I’m tired of.”
“That’s not very generous, Perrin,” Collette said. She turned to Chantel. “You’ve worked so hard, dear, but now, perhaps, you can rest a little.”
Elise was still excited over the honor Chantel had won. “You were the very best!” she said. Then she laughed and shook her head. “I thought I’d never get you raised.”
Collette gave Elise a hard look, for it grated on her nerves that a servant was in many respects closer to Chantel than she was.
Chantel started to answer, but at that moment Sister Martha came up and in an unusual gesture put her arm around Chantel and squeezed her. “Well, I’m going to miss you around here.”
“I’ll miss you, too, Sister Martha. But we’ll only be a few blocks away. I’ll come and visit you.”
Sister Martha shook her head and gave a slight laugh. “I doubt that, but it would make me very happy if you would. When our students move away we rarely see them again. Now, what are you going to do with yourself? Get married, I suppose.”
“Oh, no, nothing like that!”
“What? Not ever? Perhaps,” she said, “you’d like to stay on and become a nun.” Her eyes twinkled as she said, “But I don’t think that is your calling.”
At that moment Neville appeared and said, “Good afternoon, Sister Martha. Are you proud of your prize student?”
“I certainly am. But I must say that I occasionally suspected that some of her essays were assisted by another hand.” She stared hard at Neville and said, “I call no names, you understand.”
Neville flushed and said, “Well, I did give her some help from time to time.”
Sister Martha nodded and said, “You would make a good Catholic, Mr. Harcourt.”
“That’s quite a compliment, coming from you, Sister.”
“You must come and see me. I believe I could enlighten you if I just had time enough.”
Neville laughed and said, “I’m afraid of you, Sister. You’re too good an evangelist to suit me, but I appreciate your offer.”
Sister Martha went to speak to the other graduates, and Neville said to Chantel, “I’ve come to take you away to celebrate.”
But at that moment, Chantel was surrounded by a trio who wore the same costume of graduation. “Chantel! You won! I’m so proud of you!”
“Thank you, Leonie.” Chantel took the shy kiss from the girl, then said, “Are you ready to face the world now?”
“Well, I am!” Simone was beaming as she came to exchange hugs with Chantel. “I’m so glad to be out of this place I could scream!”
“The sisters are saying the same about you, Simone.” As usual Assumpta Damita de Salvedo y Madariaga dominated the group. She held up her hand to flaunt an enormous diamond ring that looked like blue ice. “How do you like my graduation present?” She laughed. “Father never thought I’d make it. I wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for you three!”
“Congratulations to all of you,” Neville smiled. “I’m not sure the world is ready for the Four Musketeers.”
Damita went directly to Neville. “Don’t you have an expression of congratulations for me, Neville?”
Neville looked flustered but gave Damita a quick kiss on the cheek. “Is that the best you can do?” Damita mocked. “Chantel, teach this crude fellow how to express himself!”
“Come along, Neville,” Chantel said, taking his arm. “This brazen woman will eat you alive.” She turned to leave, but then stopped and called back, “Remember, one for all and all for one!”
Antonio’s Restaurant was absolutely gorgeous—at least Chantel thought so. She sat across from Neville, feasting her eyes on her surroundings: enormous ornate mirrors framed in curved, French gold-leaf frames, chandeliers that shed their light in brilliant cascades over the tables adorned with white tablecloths, fine china, and silver flatware polished so highly that she could see her reflection in the flats of the knives.
“This is wonderful, Neville, but isn’t it awfully expensive?”
“Well, I’ve got enough to pay my share. I’m sure you do too.” Neville stared at her without expression and then burst into laughter when he saw her expression. “I was only teasing,” he said. “This is my treat.”
Their waiter came, a tall, thin man with Gallic features, who apparently spoke only French and assumed that his customers did as well.
“May I recommend the shrimp and andouille omelet, sir. It consists of sautéed shrimp and andouille sausage and wild mushrooms folded in a fluffy omelet and touched with a spicy Creole sauce.”
“Does that sound good to you, Chantel?” Neville continued in Fr
ench.
“No, I would like fish tonight.”
“In that case, mademoiselle, we have fresh fillet of snapper, grilled over an open flame. It is served with sour-cream mashed potatoes and a spicy smoked tomato beurre blanc. It is accompanied by a salad tossed in sherry vinaigrette.”
“Ooh, that sounds good. I’ll have that.”
Neville studied the menu and then ordered oven-roasted duck. “Is that good?” he asked the waiter.
“Certainly, sir. We serve only the finest food here. This is a deboned, crisp, oven-roasted duckling served on a field of peas and hickory-smoked bacon ragout with green onion mushroom rice. And what wine shall I bring?”
“Just coffee, if you please.”
“No wine?”
“No, we’re trying to quit,” Neville said.
Chantel giggled and said, “Water will be fine for me. Thank you very much.”
After the waiter left Chantel said in English, “Neville, you were teasing him.”
“He looks like he needs a little teasing. As a matter of fact, he looks like he has a bad stomachache.”
“Neville, what a thing to say!”
When the food came Chantel threw herself into it.
“I’m eating like a field hand!” she exclaimed. “It’s a good thing I’m so tall.”
“You mean it’s better to be tall and fat than it is to be short and fat?”
“It’s not easy for me to gain weight. I don’t think I’ll ever get fat. Neither will you. My mother was never fat, and your father wasn’t either.”
Neville’s father had died six months earlier of a sudden heart attack, and now she asked rather timidly, “Do you miss your father a great deal, Neville?”
“Oh, we weren’t as close as most fathers and sons—but, yes, I do miss him.”
“I still miss my mother and father dreadfully. I suppose I always will.”
“It gives us something in common. We’re both orphans.”
“I wish you wouldn’t use that word. It makes me sad. But it’s true enough, I suppose, and it does make us closer, doesn’t it? You’re my best friend, Neville,” she said suddenly. “I don’t know how I would have gotten through these last months without you.”
Neville was touched by her words. “We are best friends,” he said. “I want you to know that if there is anything I can do for you, you can always count on me.”
They finished their meal and then chose for dessert deberg cake, a vanilla sponge cake moistened with rum syrup and layered with strawberries and lemon-butter cream and topped with a dark chocolate ganache.
As Chantel ate with great enjoyment, she asked, “When are you going to get married, Neville? You’re getting to be an old man.”
“I guess twenty-three is fairly old to seventeen. But soon you’ll be eighteen, and I think, according to all the laws of such things, you’ll be classified as an old maid.”
“I think it’s better to use the term maiden lady.”
“Well, as long as the thing doesn’t sound bad, I suppose it’s all right.” He sipped his black coffee, then put the cup down and grew serious. “What do you want to do now that your education is complete?”
Chantel folded her hands and leaned forward. “I want to move back to Fontaine Maison. It’s gone downhill since we left there, and I want to build it up again. I always loved it so, Neville.”
Her eyes glowed, and she did not realize what an attractive picture she made. Elise had fixed her hair in a French roll. Her skin, as always, was her best feature—creamy, perfect, and smoother than anything imaginable.
Neville toyed with his coffee cup, then shrugged slightly. “Sometimes it’s hard to go back to old times that we liked so much. Things aren’t the same.”
“But it will be the same for me. I just know it will.”
“Have you talked to your stepmother about this?”
“Yes. She doesn’t care.”
“Well, financially it would be possible. Your father left you a separate trust so that you’ll be independent. At least you will be, in a few days.”
“I’ve been wanting to ask you about that, Neville. Isn’t it unusual for a man to leave a daughter a separate trust?”
“As a matter of fact, it is. Most men are afraid women aren’t to be trusted. One of my clients left his daughter a fortune, but she didn’t get it until she was thirty-five years old. He didn’t think any woman younger than that would be able to handle it.”
“Why do you think my father did this for me?”
Neville squirmed a little in his chair and ran his hand over his hair. “You did it, didn’t you, Neville?” she insisted. “You talked my father into this.”
Neville shifted uncomfortably. “Well, I did use what influence I had with him, but he wasn’t really hard to convince. He loved you very much, Chantel, and he wanted you to have the good things in life. Or what he considered the good things.”
Chantel took Neville’s hand. “That was so sweet of you,” she said. “If you hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be able to go back to the plantation.” “Well, it belongs to the three of you—but Perrin won’t be a full owner until he’s grown, of course.”
“You’re always looking out for your little sister, aren’t you?”
Neville gave her an odd look and lifted his eyebrows. “You’re not my sister,” he said.
“Well, not really, but I like to think of you as my brother.”
Neville studied her for a moment, then suddenly grinned. There was an impish look in his eye. “I have a graduation present for you.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t have done that! This dinner is present enough.”
“Of course I should.” Reaching into his inner pocket, he pulled out a package. “Congratulations. And please accept this little gift as a token of my admiration.”
It was a small package, no more than five or six inches square and an inch-and-a-half thick. Chantel removed the paper wrapping, then lifted the lid of the box. She gasped and then put her hand over her mouth with shock. “Neville, what a beautiful pistol!”
“It’s the one you wanted when you were just a little girl.”
Staring down at the pistol, she touched it and said, “It’s plated with silver.”
“Yes. It wasn’t very attractive before. I thought a silver-plated derringer might do for more formal occasions.”
“Neville, you’re crazy!” She picked the gun up, and Neville uttered a muffled grunt and leaned forward. “Please don’t wave that thing around in here. I’ll teach you how to load it and shoot it—but not in a restaurant.”
“It’s just what I wanted,” Chantel said. “Thank you so much.”
“Well, I hope you don’t have occasion to use it.”
“I promise to shoot only young men who become too familiar.”
“Good idea. Now, I expect I’d better get you home.”
Chantel took Neville’s hand and stepped out of the carriage. As she walked up to the iron gate that kept the courtyard secure, she fumbled in her reticule and found the key. He took the key and opened the gate, then Chantel turned and said softly, “Neville, this has been so wonderful! I will never forget it.”
“Won’t you?”
“No! You’ve made it a perfect graduation for me.”
Neville was watching her carefully. They were almost the same height, and a shock ran over him as he realized that the young girl he had known was gone forever. The girlish figure had disappeared. Her hair was glossy in the moonlight, her lips stirred with a pleasant expression, and there was a light of laughter in her dancing eyes.
“Chantel, I’m about to break a promise I made to my mother when I was much younger.”
“You shouldn’t do that, Neville.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to.”
“What promise did you make her?” Chantel asked.
“I said I’d never kiss a young lady until she was at least eighteen.”
Chantel giggled, expecting that he would kiss her on
the cheek and make a joke of it. But Neville leaned forward, put his arms around her, and kissed her full on the lips. Chantel was unable to move, so surprised was she, and then she felt an unexpected pleasure. He had a clean smell about him, and his lips were firm against hers.
She had thought often about being kissed, but now that it had come it had caught her completely off guard. She found herself kissing him back.
Neville drew back, a startled expression in his eyes. He cleared his throat. “Well, you can shoot me with that pistol now.”
“No, I won’t do that.” Chantel put her hand on his arm and whispered, “Good night, Neville. It was a wonderful evening. And thank you for your gift.”
Chantel shut the gate and watched as he walked back to the carriage.
Chapter fifteen
“Why, you’ve grown up! You’re a fine young lady now!” Simon Bientot and his wife had come to greet Chantel, who got out of the carriage and stood before Fontaine Maison. Marie came to embrace her, and Simon shook her hand.
“You’re all grown up!” Marie echoed, admiration glowing in her eyes.
“Well, I hope I won’t grow up any more. I’m too tall now.”
“Nonsense. You are just right,” Simon said stoutly.
“I’m five-feet-ten. Most men aren’t much taller than that.”
Chantel had reached a separate peace over her height. For a time she had tried to stoop over to make herself appear shorter, but Elise had kept at her until she finally straightened up, and now she had a fine carriage. She wore a gray traveling dress that outlined her figure well, and the fading rays of the sun caught the golden glints in her auburn hair.
“Let me get your bags, and you go in, Miss Chantel,” Simon said.
“All right, Simon, but tomorrow I want to see everything.”
When she stepped inside an eerie feeling came to her. It was as if she had stepped back in time, for just the appearance of the foyer took her back to her earliest memories. She knew that Marie was standing beside her, and Elise, who had accompanied her, was waiting, but for one moment she could almost hear her father’s voice calling her name. Quickly she shook her shoulders and said, “I’m anxious to see my room. I’ve missed it so much.”
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