by Frank Yerby
“How many have died, father?”
“Twelve thousand. Aurore tells me that the rate is two thousand a day. And everyone who has not left the city has the fever in some measure. Aurore recovered from a childhood siege so she fancies herself immune. Here, give me your handkerchiefs.”
The two youths passed them over, and Stephen drenched them in a rich perfume he had brought in a large vial.
“Bind them over your mouths and nostrils,” he commanded. “Even from this distance the stench is formidable.”
They rode into the twisted, deserted streets of the dying city. Paul’s horse shied with a mincing, dancing step. The young Frenchman brought the animal under instant control, leaning down at the same time to see what had frightened his mount. There in the street lay the naked body of a young woman. Even in death she was lovely. From her crumpled, twisted posture, it was evident she had been thrown from the window of an upper story.
“The death cart will pick her up,” Stephen said. “In two or three days perhaps.”
Paul got down from his horse, tugging at the cords that bound his cloak.
“No, no,” Etienne said harshly. “Save your cloak, Paul. She has no need of it now, and you would need a thousand cloaks to perform such missions of charity.”
Sighing, Paul remounted.
“She was beautiful,” he said. “What a pity—what a great pity.” Down by the levee a gigantic warehouse had been converted into a hospital and in this Aurore and old Caleen labored together with a dozen nuns and two or three other public-spirited women. Most of the regular hospitals of the city had been abandoned. A week before, Doctor MacFarlane had entered the largest of the infirmaries only to find it occupied solely by the dead: doctors, nurses, and patients alike had perished in a single night. Now all the churches, warehouses, and other public buildings had been pressed into service, and the priests paused in their labors among the sick to administer extreme unction to the dying and chant short masses for the dead who lay upon the straw between the pews, side by side with those in whom the tide of life was slowly ebbing out.
Stephen and Etienne and Paul dismounted before the warehouse. Stephen unslung the saddle bags in which he had brought wine and a few dainties to tempt Aurore’s fading appetite, although he knew well that the entire store would find its way to some one or another of the dying. In addition, he had brought a change of linen for his wife and a bag of tobacco for old Caleen.
Aurore’s lovely matronly face was pale and thin, and the circles that ringed her hazel eyes were purple, but she smiled bravely at her visitors.
“I’m so glad you came,” she said brightly. “Here, Stephen, help me turn this man over. He’s been lying on this side for four days now, and I’m afraid he’s getting bed sores.”
Stephen looked at her wordlessly. Then firmly he caught the bloated limbs of the fat old Irishman and heaved him up and half over. Instantly Paul Dumaine was at his side tugging away with him, but Etienne stood back, his pale eyes colder than ice. Aurore was right. The man did have sores. And not even the perfumed handkerchiefs could keep down that stench. Paul reeled dizzily to the door and was sick upon the ground. Aurore looked after him anxiously.
“He’ll be all right,” Stephen told her. “But ye—ye’re coming home with me!”
“No, Stephen,” she said gently. “That I cannot do—my place is here. But I wish you’d take Caleen back. She’s too old—and this is much too much for her strength.”
“Aye,” Stephen said grimly. “But I wish ye’d reconsider. I am not well fitted for the role of widower!”
Aurore laughed.
“Don’t worry, darling. I shan’t die. Life with you has been too good—I’m not anxious to take my leave of it. But there are things that must be done by somebody and this is one of them.”
“Where is Caleen?” Etienne asked.
“Probably out in the sheds with the Negroes. She performs daily miracles, ‘Tienne; but I fear for her life if she stays on. She has been attending blacks and whites alike and every patient in this place swears by her. Still . . .”
“I’ll talk to Caleen,” Stephen said. “But ye know well, Aurore, that neither I nor anyone else has ever been able to make the old devil do aught that she didn’t wish to. I’ll make the attempt, but I’ll wager she won’t leave ye.”
Stephen was right. Caleen flatly refused to budge. And in the end they had to ride back to Harrow without either Caleen or Aurore. The trip back was a long one. At one intersection they were detained for a full half hour by an unbroken procession of carts, stacked railing high with bodies.
“Those ships that were in the harbor when we came,” Paul said suddenly. “They brought it in. You remember what the man said, ‘Tienne?”
“Yes. It has been definitely proven that those ships were the carriers that brought in the disease. But as father says it is the fault of the city authorities that it was allowed to spread. That stupid ass, MacFarlane! Why he even published a statement that our miserably primitive sanitation was a preventative against the fever! He should be hanged!”
“Aye,” Stephen said. “He and all his fellows!”
Upon reaching Harrow their first act was to strip off the sodden clothes they had been wearing. Stephen rang for Georges.
“Take these rags,” he said, “and burn them. If they won’t burn, bury them. But on no account are they to be given to any of the people. Ye understand me, Georges?”
“Yas, maître,” Georges said doubtfully. “But these good clothes, them—why maître want em burnt up?”
“They’re diseased,” Stephen explained patiently. “Ye don’t want all of Harrow dead of the fever do ye!”
“No, maître!” Georges quavered, taking the clothes gingerly by the fingertips; “I sho don’t, me!” Then he went scurrying off down the long hall.
“Wash your hands afterwards!” Etienne called out after him.
It was a miserable summer at Harrow. There was little that Etienne could do to entertain Paul. Visiting, one of the chief pleasures of plantation life in the deep South, was actually dangerous. One never knew in what house one might run into a case of the fever in its most virulent form. The tracks were closed, and all assemblies were forbidden. This of course put an end to cock-fighting, animal-baiting, the theater, the opera and even gambling. In that summer of 1853 there was exceedingly little for two healthy young men to do.
Paul, however, was quite happy. He entered into the life at Harrow as though he had been born there. He painted portraits of everybody—Julie, Etienne, Stephen, and even some of the Negroes. He wandered all over Harrow, even in the driving rains, making sodden little sketches from which he painted huge landscapes.
Julie dogged his footsteps from morning till night. Cheerfully Paul took over many of the duties of Miss Hartly, a vinegary Boston spinster who had been Julie’s tutor and governess.
“What happened to her?” Paul asked Etienne.
Etienne laid a cautioning hand on his friend’s arm, nodding significantly toward Julie who was listening quite brazenly to the conversation. Then he jerked his head toward the door. Paul followed him outside, his eyebrows arching upward at all this mystery.
“What’s this all about, ‘Tienne?”
“Julie—I didn’t want her to hear. What happened was that the old fool suddenly decided that she could no longer remain in the employ of a family that kept slaves—or as she put it, that practiced domestic servitude!”
“Well—why can’t Julie hear that?”
“Paul, you just won’t understand! This is a very ticklish business nowadays, and the quarrels over it grow very bitter. Julie is still a child, we don’t want her mind upset by these things. Why, the Le Blancs stopped speaking to father for almost a year because he proposed a system of gradual emancipation.”
“And you, ‘Tienne—what are your views?”
“I agree with the Le Blancs. Father is a sentimental old fool!”
“ ‘Tienne!”
“Sorr
y, Paul. He is, though, however much you may admire him. But let’s talk no more of this.”
So throughout that terrible summer, of whose toll no accurate count has ever been made, life went on much the same at Harrow. Julie rose at seven, had her pre-breakfast snack of café au lait and a roll, then sat down at the piano to practice her music for an hour. For another hour she would read, all the time glancing wistfully at the clock whose hands crawled so slowly toward nine when Paul usually awakened.
After breakfast, Paul spent most of the morning until lunch instructing her in French and drawing with a patience that Etienne found amazing. Then at noon, they were served lunch in the study. The lunch consisted of sliced bread and butter covered with marmalade or guava jelly, accompanied by a slab of jujube paste and washed down with lemonade or orange-flower syrup or tamarind juice.
From lunch until dinner, Paul painted while Julie sat by his side, scarcely daring to breathe, and watched his deft brush moving over the canvas. But the other usual activities that kept her long summer days so full and happy were sadly curtailed. Of course she could study after dinner, with the help of her father or Paul, but because of the eternal rains she could no longer ride the fat Shetland pony over the place, or play in the yard, or swing, jump rope, or risk her neck on the joggling board. And no longer did the music teacher ride up to Harrow twice a week to hear her lessons on piano. Nor could she attend her weekly dancing class.
Most of all, she missed her mother. Stephen rode daily into the plague-stricken city, but nothing could induce Aurore to leave as long as she was needed. Harrow suffered from her absence; but there were always the sick to be aided, comforted, saved when she could save them, and sent to their God in peace when she could not. And at her side there was always Caleen. moving like a gaunt black shadow, working with matchless skill over blacks and whites alike. More than one young progressive doctor listened carefully to Caleen when she explained her methods. Afterwards they applied Caucasian method and science to what was to Caleen magic and ritual. The number of cures in the warehouse increased steadily.
Finally in the late Fall the rains abated, and the fever left New Orleans. But because it would be weeks before the city could be cleaned up even to its normally filthy state, most of the wealthy Creole and American families lingered at their summer cottages on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain and the social season opened at last with a nervous, hectic brilliance. There were parties and entertainments without number, and at last Etienne was able to do justice to his obligations as host. Paul was wined and dined and fated to the hilt. Many a dainty fan fluttered invitingly in his direction; and many a fond papa suddenly found himself faced with the necessity of digging deep in his purse for the necessary commission in order that his fair, or not so fair, daughter might have her portrait painted by the celebrated Paul Dumaine, fils, of Paris.
Only one thing marred the joyousness of life at Harrow. Two weeks after the epidemic had officially been declared over, a wagon rode slowly up the alley of oaks before Harrow. In it were Aurore, a manservant and all that was mortal of old Caleen.
Stephen looked down at the lean, covered figure.
“How long?” he asked.
“This morning, Stephen,” Aurore whispered. “ ‘Twas not the fever. She died of old age and weakness and fatigue.”
Stephen’s face was stern and set. He turned to Georges.
“Summon Inch,” he said, “and have Jean-Jacques and Raoul help ye carry her into the hall. She will lie in state at Harrow—not in a slave cabin. God knows ‘twas as much her home as mine. She did as much and more to make it what it was.”
A few hours later, bathed, clothed, and her limbs decently composed, Caleen lay in state in the great hall at Harrow. Stephen commanded the funeral invitations to be sent out just as if she had been of his own blood. But actually there was no need of them. The word spread through the Negroes from plantation to plantation and from them to the city. In the end, Stephen was forced to keep Caleen above ground for three days, while more than three thousand people, Negroes and whites alike, came to pay their last respects to the indomitable old matriarch.
Most of these were people whom she had saved from the fever, their relatives and friends. Some few came out of curiosity; but for the most part many a Creole lady or American woman of gentle birth wept openly beside the elaborate coffin. And the priests gave their consent to bless the earth wherein she lay, holding that she had gained absolution from her voudou practices through the strength of her good works.
Inch stood tirelessly beside the bier, his black face unmoving. It was not until, at the final rites, he saw Aurore, overcome with grief bury her head against Stephen’s shoulder and weep aloud, that he permitted the tears to slip silently down his smooth cheeks.
“She gave her life for you,” he muttered. “She—a thing that you owned like the mules that draw the cane wagons. This is a thing that must end—it must!” He felt a soft hand on his arm. Turning, he looked into Julie’s tear-wet face.
“Don’t cry, Inch,” she said. “Caleen’s in heaven now. The good God knows how good she was.”
Inch looked at the lovely, golden haired girl.
“I wonder,” he said harshly, “if there too she is a slave!”
Then he turned again to the grave where old Father DuGois was chanting the final mass. Julie’s black eyes widened staring at him standing there stiff as a rod of iron.
A month later, Etienne and Paul were riding upon the levee near the city. It was a bright November day, and the air was as warm as Spring.
“You’ve cut quite a swath, Paul,” Etienne laughed. “Every girl in three parishes is in love with you—including Julie!”
“She is sweet, your little sister, ‘Tienne. I sometimes wish she were older. As for the others—no thank you!”
“Not up to your Parisian standards, Paul? I think you wrong the Louisiana belles.”
“In beauty they match and top anything France has to offer. But frankly, ‘Tienne, they have no brains. Never have I met such insipid conversationalists!”
Etienne’s heavy black brow sank wickedly over his left eye. “The women of Louisiana,” he said, “are designed for other purposes beside conversation.”
“So I have discovered,” Paul laughed. “But afterwards it is so difficult to get free of them. ‘Tienne . . .”
“Yes, Paul?”
“What on earth is that?”
Etierme half rose in his saddle. A hundred yards down the levee a crowd was surging around a figure on horseback. As they drew closer, they could see that it was a girl.
“I wonder what. . .” Etienne began.
“Mon Dieu!” Paul gasped; “Tienne look! She’s riding astride like a man!”
Etienne touched his spurs to the palamino’s side and the two of them cantered up to the group. As they neared, the pedestrians made a lane for them. The girl sat very straight in the saddle. Her riding dress had been slashed to the waist, and under it she wore a pair of masculine riding breeches, which fitted snugly into the tops of slim riding boots. Her little hat was of the latest fashion, and her whole attire was indisputably expensive.
Paul was looking at the clubbed masses of black hair, drawn softly down upon her neck in a huge ball, and the deep brown eyes that were alight with an unholy glee. The lips were full and very red, and the smile was mocking to the point of insolence.
But Etienne was talking to the short, ugly man in the battered stovepipe hat who was leading the girl’s horse.
“What’s the trouble here, officer?” he asked.
“This ‘ere girl,” the policeman said, “were making a scandal. I’m booking her fur indecent display in public.”
Etienne looked at the girl, then back at the policeman. “The lady,” he said smoothly, “is—ah—a distant relative of mine.” His hand went into his pocket and came out with a well-filled purse. “Perhaps your honor might be prevailed upon to release her—to our custody?”
The policeman pushed back hi
s tall hat, and his eyes bulged at the sight of so much money. Etienne pulled out a ten-dollar bill.
“Well—uh—that is—” the policeman floundered.
Etienne drew out another.
“Right you are, sir!” the policeman grinned. “These things ought by rights to be handled within the family.” He passed the reins over to Etienne. Etienne gave him the money.
“And now, cousin . . .”
“Ceclie,” the girl said; her voice was soft, and very pleasant. “Cousin Ceclie—if you will ride with us, we’ll try to devise a suitable punishment for your high crimes and misdemeanors!”
The three of them broke away from the crowd in a spanking trot, and all the people laughed and cheered.
“Ma foi,” Paul said. “Ma foi, but you’re beautiful!”
“Perhaps Mademoiselle would be so good as to tell us her name,” Etienne suggested.
“It’s Cloutier,” the girl said, “Ceclie Cloutier.”
“But I know the Cloutiers,” Etienne said, speaking very rapidly in French, “and they are none of them like you!”
The girl’s face darkened into a frown.
“Speak English,” she said sharply. “I don’t savvy Frog!”
“You’re a Cloutier,” Etienne said in English. “And yet you don’t speak French, how can that be?”
“My father speaks it. He tried to teach me, but I wouldn’t learn. I don’t like it. ‘Tis a womanish language!”
“Ma foi!” Paul Dumaine said.
“Who is your father?” Etienne demanded.
“Phillippe Cloutier. We came here from Texas. I wish I were back!”
“Perhaps,” Etienne said with a slow smile. “Perhaps I can change your mind.”
“Never,” Ceclie declared. “Silly, simpering women, and lisping affected men, ready with a ‘La!’ at every breath. There’s not a one of you that can ride a really spirited horse or hit the side of a barn at above ten yards.”
“Perhaps,” Etienne said, “but there are other things—that we do quite well.”
“Such as?”
Etienne reined in his horse so that the animal sidestepped quickly. A half second later his flank was rubbing against Ceclie’s booted leg.
