by Frank Yerby
Long before they reached the house, night had fallen. The coachman slowed the horses to a walk, and they went down all the dark streets leading toward the house. But as they reached the center of the city, they went faster; for here the streets were garishly illuminated with burning barrels of pitch and tar, by which means the medical authorities sought to purify the air.
Again Odalie put her head out of the window. On the corner a cask of pitch was blazing, the great flames shooting straight up into the air, unstirred by any wind; and above them the sooty black smoke clouds billowed. From the opposite corner the roar of a cannon split the night open from one end of the street to the other. The horses jumped and reared. The coachman lashed them savagely, fighting for control. The coach rocked and pounded through the dark streets, the horses gathering speed everytime a cannon boomed. Odalie sat in the swaying coach and prayed that the explosions of artillery would indeed change the air currents so as to drive away the malignant vapors that were rapidly converting New Orleans into a city of the dead.
When at last, bruised and sickened, aching in every muscle, and holding on tightly to her shocked nerves, Odalie reached her father’s house, she was met at the door by a slave.
“Maîtresse,” the woman said. “The baby him sick, yes. Your papa sick, too, him. Mebbe they die.”
Without a word, Odalie shouldered her aside and went up the stairs two at a time. In his little bed, Etienne twisted soundlessly, his naturally dark face flushed a deep mahogany red. Odalie put a hand to his forehead. It was so hot that she drew her hand away with an involuntary cry. Then she ran from the room toward her father’s bed chamber, calling to Jules and Jean as she went.
The old man lay unconscious and shrunken upon his bed, his eyes wide and staring, and his breath coming out in feeble puffs and whistles. In one glance Odalie saw that there was no hope for him, the look of death was already in his face and his breath was weakening.
Even as she stood there, the proud old eyes opened suddenly. “Get Father Antoine,” he whispered. “I have sins to confess— many sins. . . .” Then he sank back upon the bed. No need to tell him that the old Spanish priest had been dead these three years. No need to tell him anything—no need to do anything but kneel beside his bed and say a prayer for the tranquility of his soul. Pierre Arceneaux was dead.
Dry-eyed, Odalie came out of the room to meet Caleen in the corridor.
“I sent Jean for the doctor,” the old woman said. “I told him to ride fast, him. The baby is ver’ sick, yes!”
“Father,” Odalie said, “Father. . . .” Then she bent her face against Caleen’s shoulder and cried aloud, dry, racking sobs, utterly without tears. Caleen patted her gently upon the back and stroked the thick black hair.
“Don’t cry, maîtresse,” she said. “He good man, him. The Virgin and all the saints pray for his soul, yes. He don’t stay one hour in purgatory I bet you.”
An hour later when Jean returned, he and Jules started to work in the courtyard, tearing up the flagstones to make a grave for Pierre. Odalie had decided not to risk another trip to the graveyard. Sitting in her room holding the fever-racked body of little Etienne in her arms, she could look out of the window and watch the two Negroes working, their pickaxes rising with a dull gleam in the flickering light of the torches. Behind the house, on the street side, the barrels of pitch and tar cackled fiercely, hurling their flames straight up, higher than the houses. Now and again from the distant parts of the city, a cannon boomed; then another and another until the whole night echoed with the crash of artillery. Even now, as she watched the slaves, the police were setting up a twenty-four pounder on the corner nearest to the house, beneath the swinging chains of lanterns. When, a half hour later, they fired it off, the whole house shook and all the windows rattled. In her arms, little Etienne was thrown into convulsions by the explosion. Still holding him, Odalie dashed to the window, and tore it open.
“Stop it!” she screamed. “Stop it, for the love of God!”
But the roar of the great field piece drowned out her words. Odalie hung out of the window holding the child, and the acrid smoke from the gun stung her eyes and throat. She opened her mouth to cry out at them again, but the dead carts were turning into the street, not one but many of them, stretching out of sight around the corner. Odalie closed the window and sank back into her chair, cradling the sick child to her breast. The cannon crashed. In the courtyard, the pickaxes bit into the earth. The pitch barrels crackled, the great flames roaring up past the windows, and the smoke hanging heavy and black like a pall over all the city. And in the intervals of silence the wagons of the dead creaked endlessly by in the nightlocked street.
“Holy Mother of God,” Odalie prayed. “Holy compassionate Mother of God . . .”
Then Caleen was coming into the room leading a strange doctor.
“I am Doctor Lefevre,” he announced a trifle pompously. “My colleague, Doctor Terrebonne, died this afternoon of the cholera. May I see the child, please.”
Without a word, Odalie passed Etienne over to him. The doctor laid him upon the bed and began his examination. Finally he straightened.
“ ‘Tis not the cholera,” he said, “for which you may be grateful. He has yellow fever. We may be able to pull him through.”
He sat down and pulled from his bag a great array of small vials and powders.
“Tisanes, cataplasms, and purgatives,” he announced. “We shall try them first. Tonight you will administer seven grams of Julap, and four grams of calomel. If he is not improved by morning, we will try a spoonful of croton oil with three drops of mercury.”
“My God!” Odalie whispered.
“That should break the fever. Afterwards we will continue treatment with calcined magnesia, olive oil and juice of citron, alternated with ptisan of tamarind, cassia and cream of tartar. . . .”
“But he is only a baby . . .”
“You want him to live, don’t you?” the doctor said sternly.
“Yes,” Odalie said, “yes.”
“Then do as I say. ‘Tis fortunate it is not cholera. About that, medical science knows little. But we know the causes of yellow fever, hence we can cure it. You see, Madame, the stagnant water around the city becomes heated by the sun and evaporates into the air, which is then saturated with aqueous vapor. When the temperature diminishes, the water vapor descends to the surface of the earth bringing with them miasmata formed by the decomposition of certain bodies under a favorable state of the atmosphere. When these are absorbed through the pulmonic passages, yellow fever results.”
“Yes,” Odalie managed, stunned by this barrage of medical terminology. “But will he live?”
“Of that no one can be certain. Much depends upon the patient.” He stopped, smiling wryly. “I once saw Monsieur Fox fight a duel. He stood without moving, without even lifting his pistol, and allowed Monsieur Waguespack to fire at a perfectly stationary target. Then, badly wounded, he sighted slowly and carefully and brought down his man. With the inheritance of such courage, this child should certainly survive. Good night, Madame Fox. I’ll call again tomorrow.”
Doctor Lefevre kept his word. He called daily at the Arceneaux mansion, often neglecting other of his patients to do so. The great beauty of Madame Fox, marred as it was by the sleeplessness and weeping, was still enough to move a man of stone, much less a still young and somewhat impressionable doctor. But little ‘Tienne got no better. Pierre Arceneaux slept the long sleep beneath the flagstones of his courtyard, and Jean and Jules, too, were now laid in death before the door of the stables. Every day someone of the household died.
Finally, Doctor Lefevre looked down upon the barely breathing child in whom the fever still mounted.
“There is but one hope,” he said, looking up at Odalie. “Sometimes the fever is cooled by a diminution of the blood. We must bleed him.”
“No!” Odalie cried. “No!”
“ ‘Tis the only way, Madame,” the doctor said patiently. Odalie looked at h
im, her black eyes widening; then, turning her face to the wall, she nodded silently. Doctor Lefevre stood up and opened his satchel. His face was haggard with sleeplessness, and his thin fingers shook. But he took out the instruments and laid them upon a cloth. Old Caleen watched him, her eyes blazing in her black face. The doctor bent over Etienne, scalpel in hand.
“No!” Caleen screeched. “No! you no cut him, you!” She sprang forward and gathered little ‘Tienne into her arms. “Maîtresse gret fool!” she stormed. “We go back to Harrow, now! And I cure him, me! No great fool of a docteur kill my baby! Come now, maîtresse. Come!”
The doctor glared at the old woman, but Odalie followed her helplessly out of the room. An hour later, they were on their way back to Harrow on horseback, since there were no longer any slaves to hitch and drive the carriage. Caleen rode behind Odalie on the single ancient nag, the baby cradled in her arms.
Four hours later they reached the plantation. Old Josh spied them from the levee, and dashed off to inform his master. So it was that when they turned up the oak alley before Harrow Stephen was waiting.
“So,” he said. “Ye’ve come back.”
“I have brought you back your son,” Odalie said with great dignity, “so that he may die in the house of his father.”
Stephen looked at the tiny bundle of skin and bones that had once been a healthy, prattling child of almost three years.
“If he does,” he said grimly, “God and Our Lady forgive ye, for I never shall!”
Then, taking Etienne in his arms, he marched up the steps and into the house.
XIV
FOR the next four days Harrow was a gigantic madhouse. The work in the fields was totally neglected. The field Negroes hung around the big house day and night, watching the windows from which the lights never vanished. Even old Josh sat no more on the levee, absorbed in his eternal fishing; instead he stationed himself at the foot of the great stairs, waiting for news of the young boy. The house servants moved about like ghosts, fear written all over their sleek brown and yellow faces. For the maître was consumed with an icy, deadly soft-spoken rage. They knew it and they started at the sound of his too carefully controlled voice.
Old Caleen was in complete charge of everything. “Doctors, posh!” Stephen said. “Dirty, murdering sawbones! Caleen knows as much as any ten of them. Ye do as she tells ye and be damned quick about it!”
So it was that the strongest hands on the plantation found themselves pulling on the cords that moved a great overhead fan, under which the child’s crib had been placed. Sheets wet with the coolest water that could be found, were constantly wrapped around the sweltering little body. And Caleen stubbornly, persistently got drop after drop of orange juice, lemon juice, lime juice down the parched little throat. The precious ice was brought out from its deeply buried storage place and wrapped in thin cloths which were then placed upon the boy’s blazing forehead. Inch by inch, Caleen fought the temperature down, and kept the slender thread of life from snapping.
On the morning of the fourth day, Little Inch was standing by the crib. His coal-black, chubby body was clad in a castoff shirt that came down to his fat, dimpled knees. And his bright shoe-button eyes rested fearfully on the face of his little master.
“ ‘Tienne die?” he asked.
Caleen bent forward suddenly. Slowly she extended a trembling hand. Etienne’s body was wet from head to foot; but this time from his own sweat. And his forehead, where Caleen’s fingers rested, was cool to the touch, and entirely free of fever.
“No,” the old woman said. “ ‘Tienne no die! He getting well him!”
Stephen, dozing fitfully in the big chair beside the bed, came awake at once at her words.
“What’s that?” he said. “What did ye say, Caleen?”
“Look,” Caleen pointed. “Fever all gone. He sweats, him. He better now—soon he be all right, yes!”
“Holy Blessed Mother of God!” Stephen whispered, looking down at his son. Then, raising his head, he called out: “Odalie!”
Odalie came into the room, all color gone from her face, even her lips white, defined only by their contour. Her black eyes swept from the face of her husband to the tiny form lying peacefully upon the crib.
“Is he—is he . . .” she managed; but the child opened his blue eyes.
“Mo ganye faim,” he whispered. “Mo ganye faim.”
Odalie took a half step forward, and fell into Stephen’s arms. He let her weep there against his chest, until the ruffles of his shirt front were sodden with her tears. Holding her there, close against him, he raised his eyebrows at Caleen.
“What on earth is he saying?” he whispered.
“He say him hungry. That Negre—Gumbo French. He hear me talk and Little Inch. Now I go get him soup, me.” She slipped from the room.
“Stephen,” Odalie said, “Stephen . . .”
“He lives, Odalie. That’s all that matters. Ye can forget the harsh words. And in the growing, he will need both a father and a mother. Our differences must not be permitted to affect him. Ye can find it in your heart to tolerate an old boor for a little longer, can ye not?”
“Tolerate?” Odalie said. “Oh, Stephen—Stephen, why can’t you understand?”
“I think I do,” Stephen said. “Come, we must leave him alone to sleep now.” They went over to the crib and looked down. Etienne was sleeping like a tiny angel. Then they tiptoed from the room.
“Who’d ever have thought what a treasure I was buying in that old witch?” said Stephen.
Then they went down the stairs and into the dining hall.
Mike Farrel called the next day from his rooms in the city to pay his respects to the mistress of Harrow. He stood before Odalie, twisting a big kerchief nervously in his powerful hands.
“I come to ask your forgiveness, me lady,” he said. “Yez have no use for the likes of me, I ken, and rightly, no doubt. But if Stevie’s wee one had died, I would have felt myself a murderer.”
Odalie watched him, completely at ease, smiling a little.
“I never thought yez would take on so about the wenches,” he went on. “Yez have me word I’ll never trouble yez again.”
“You’re welcome at Harrow,” Odalie said softly. “I ask only your word that you will leave the servants alone. Stephen dotes on you. Please come whenever you will.”
“Thank yez, me lady,” Mike said, and bowed himself out with great dignity. By virtue of his new position, Mike was bidding fair to become a gentleman. Even vanity had its point, Odalie decided.
Before the middle of winter, Etienne was running around the house as vigorously as ever before. Only he seemed to have retreated into his own private world of childhood, into which he permitted only the slightest glimpses. Little Inch was constantly at his side, but Andre brought little Stephen less and less frequently to play with him.
“They have brought forth a monster!” he confided to Amelia. “The last time ‘Tienne wanted to play the Spanish Inquisition, with our Stephen, of course, as the victim of torture. This time, be was Jean LaFitte, the pirate, ready to extort ransom by putting out little Stevie’s eyes. I tell you the boy is mad!”
“ ‘Tis the after effects of the fever,” Amelia said gently, cuddling their third child to her breast. “He will get over it.”
“He has a sickness of mind,” Andre insisted. “Like that La Laurie woman who tortured her slaves.”
“You don’t have to take our son to visit him,” Amelia said. “After all, Stephen never brings him here.”
“That’s true,” Andre mused. “I wonder why?”
Late in March of 1836, Stephen met Andre at the fork of the river road, and the two of them rode in to New Orleans. Andre was afire with enthusiasm.
“Don’t you see, Stephen?” he demanded. “This means everything to us. As soon as Texas wins her independence—and she will win it, never you fear—we must annex her!”
Stephen smiled.
“Softly, Andre,” he said. “The peo
ple of Texas may have something to say about that.”
“The people of Texas! Why, they are as eager for annexation as we! Don’t you see, Stephen, out of Texas we can carve five slave-holding states—more than enough to counter-balance the Northwest Territory?”
“Aye,” Stephen said grimly. “And ‘tis a thing that troubles me: this race between us for more lands, more peoples, more votes. I have good friends in Philadelphia and New York. Ye know I go to Philadelphia once each year to settle my accounts and arrange future transactions. And now there is much bitterness because of this thing.”
“Filthy money grubbers!” Andre said. “They dare to point at us in scorn because of slavery. Everybody knows that slavery is the natural order of things, ordained by God. Why, the blacks themselves have benefited by it. We took them out of ignorance and savagery and gave them useful work, and care and kindly treatment. Why, the thing is just right—simply and beautifully right—on the face of it”
Stephen threw back his head and laughed aloud.
“How I envy ye your Louisiana faculty for self-delusion!” he chuckled. “Slavery is a very convenient and pleasant system—for us. But I’ve often had qualms over the rightness of a system which permits me to sell a man as though he were a mule. Still, I have my leisure, which I haven’t earned, and my wealth, which I don’t work for—so I cannot complain really.”
“Stephen!” Andre’s voice was thick with shock. “You talk like an abolitionist!”
“Forgive me, my lad,” Stephen smiled. “I couldn’t resist needling ye. We’ll talk no more of this.”
“But we will,” Andre declared. “And you may tell your Yankee friends that if they interfere we shall leave them and continue on alone in our own way.”
Stephen was no longer smiling.
“Aye—there is talk of that now,” he said. “Not much yet—just a whisper. But it will grow. ‘Tis a terrible thing, this secession business. Can a hand declare itself independent of the body? Or a foot or an ear or even a head? Sever them, and blood will flow. I tell ye, Andre, that what we have here in America is something new in the world. ‘Tis not a loose collection of sovereign states bound by the flimsy paper of a treaty which can be nullified at the whim of any one of them. This is a people’s government—the truest republic the world has ever seen.”
