Tender Fury
Page 36
Gabby slowly opened her eyes feeling as if she had just come down from a high mountain, surprised to see Marcel leaning above her on one elbow, his features soft and dreamy.
“You are not sorry, are you, cherie?” he asked, searching her face for traces of regret.
Sorry? She was sorry perhaps that Philippe could not find it in his heart to love her as much as Marcel did; sorry to see her son lose his birthright; but no, she was not sorry that she had given herself to Marcel, that she had shown her gratitude in the only way she knew how. Just as she had shown Rob so long ago. Marcel had made her his and she had no regrets.
Gabby’s answer was so long in coming that Marcel experienced a twinge of pain. When her answer finally came it made all the waiting worthwhile.
“I feel no remorse, Marcel. You have been patient and loving and I am glad you have finally made me yours.”
“It was well worth the wait, cherie,” he whispered tenderly, more than pleased with her answer. “Did… did I please you?”
“Did you doubt it?” Gabby asked shyly.
Marcel smiled. There was no doubt in his mind that Gabby had enjoyed their passionate encounter. Her cries of delight and ardent response to his caresses told him that much. What he did still doubt were her feelings for him. A woman in love did not have the name of another man on her lips at the peak of her joy. It was obvious to Marcel that Gabby still held strong feelings for her husband, no matter how cruelly he had treated her in the past.
“You were so gentle, so tender,” Gabby continued, fearing that she had somehow hurt his feelings when he remained silent for so long, staring pensively into space. “Nothing like… like…”
“Don’t mention that name to me, cherie.” His voice was soft, but Gabby could detect an underlying hint of steel. “You and I and our child will go to France as planned and you will soon forget you ever belonged to another. The past died tonight with our coming together. Our loving made you mine for all time.”
Gabby sighed, a nagging guilt tugging at her heart. Could she ever return Marcel’s love wholeheartedly without recriminations? she wondered wretchedly. She drifted off to sleep listening to his heart beats keeping time to the ominous rumbling coming from somewhere deep within Mt. Pelee.
When Gabby woke next it was still dark and at first she thought Luella had put Jean to her breast. But when she opened her eyes she saw Marcel’s tousled head bending over her, lips tugging gently at an erect nipple. She touched his hair. Startled, he raised up, a sheepish expression on his face when he realized he had awakened her. He could not help but want her again and when his passion would not be quelled began his tender ministration.
“I’m sorry, cherie,” he apologized guiltily. “My need for you is so great that I could not help but feast at so bountiful a table. I think I could easily become addicted. Soon I shall become as fat as Jean.”
Gabby smiled at his boyish delight in her. “Do not apologize, mon coeur,” she chided gently. “Although you may have to fight Jean for the right, you are free to feast to your heart’s content.” Before long time for words was past as Marcel once more lost himself in sweet, willing flesh.
The next day the lovers awoke to a day as bleak and dreary as the previous one. Only now the situation became more desperate; a dull, red glow was clearly visible at the neck of Pelee. Shortly after dawn Marcel readied the carriage that would carry them from St. Pierre while Gabby prepared Jean for the journey. Soon they joined the maelstrom of traffic leaving the city. It seemed to take forever before they had gained the serpentine graveled road winding up St. Pierre’s amphitheater of hills. But before they were able to enter the Trace itself, they were met by a pair of soldiers from the government troops sent over in a vanguard from Fort-de-France to protect the beleaguered city from looters. Both soldiers stood in the middle of the roadway, pistols drawn.
“What is it, Sergeant?” asked Marcel after he reluctantly halted the carriage at the barricade. “It’s imperative that I reach my plantation by nightfall.”
“Not if you intend traveling along the Trace, Monsieur!” replied the soldier. “In places the road no longer exists. We are here to prevent anyone from entering.”
“Are you sure?” gasped Marcel, quailing inwardly. With the Trace gone so was their last link to safety.
“It would be suicide to attempt that road. Think of your wife and child. Go back to St. Pierre. You would be safer there than on the Trace.”
It was obvious to Gabby that Marcel was shaken but trying hard not to show it as ashen-faced he turned the rig and headed resolutely back to the city, masking his rising fears behind stony features. There was no longer any doubt in either of their minds that Pelee was about to erupt. If not today, then the day after that or the day after that. The big mystery was what trajectory it would take. Judging from the ash and lava flow during the past month, St. Pierre had no hope of escaping unscathed.
Marcel handed Gabby out of the carriage. “Don’t unpack, cherie. If there is some way to escape the city I’ll find it,” he promised, kissing her gently on the lips and ruffling Jean’s fuzzy head before hurrying away.
During the hours that Marcel was gone Gabby paced nervously, ever mindful of Pelee’s dramatic performance. She was nearly wild with anxiety when he finally returned, a wide grin splayed across his handsome features.
“Hurry, Gabby,” he urged when she met him at the door. “Get Jean. We’re leaving!”
“How? The soldiers said the Trace was impassable.”
“We’re not going to Le Chateau. I don’t have time to explain. Just hurry or we’ll be too late!”
“Too late for what? Please, Marcel!”
Seeing that she would not move until she learned their destination, he hurried explained. “The Windward is in the harbor but sails within the hour. Her captain deemed the situation in St. Pierre critical and is loading as many women and children aboard as he can safely handle. As the owner’s wife you are automatically guaranteed passage as long as you arrive before she sails.”
“What about you?” Gabby protested. “Is there no place for you?”
“Please hurry, cherie,” Marcel urged desperately. “We will talk later.”
A loud rumbling and new spewing of ash and rock from Pelee hastened Gabby’s steps. Within ten minutes they were in the carriage once more and inching their way to the docks through throngs of people wandering aimlessly about. Before they had traveled very far Marcel realized that there was no way they could reach the Windward before she sailed unless they abandoned the carriage and set out on foot. Cradling Jean in his arms he took Gabby by the hand and led her through the crowded streets.
As they neared the docks the crowds became so dense that Marcel had to hand Jean to Gabby and literally fight every inch of the way, pulling them through the passage he opened. Marcel cursed when he realized the cause of the mass of humanity swelling the docks.
The Windward loomed before them. On the gangplank stood a flank of sailors holding back a crowd of fear-crazed people with long, sharp pikes. Already the ship was spilling with human cargo. It was obvious to everyone but the people on the docks trying to board her that she was already overloaded.
“They are waiting for you, cherie,” Marcel called to Gabby as he clawed his way forward in hand to hand combat. They gained the foot of the gangplank not a moment too soon. To their dismay, the seamen were retreating to the deck preparing to run in the gangplank and cast off the lines holding the ship to the dock.
“Wait!” cried Marcel frantically above the roar of the crowd. “Madame St. Cyr and her child have arrived! Let them board!”
Suddenly the captain’s worried face appeared at the railing and, recognizing Gabby, he sent two sailors to escort her aboard. When Gabby realized that Marcel was not coming with her she clung to his hand, panic-stricken to think that she might never see him again. “Marcel!” she cried as he gently loosened her hold upon his fingers.
“Go aboard, Gabby,” Marcel commanded, tears mi
sting his eyes. “Take care of our son.” Then he lifted her hand to his lips and tenderly kissed her fingertips before he was jostled back amidst the throngs, his parting words echoing in her ears. “Je t’aime, je t’aime!”
“Marcel! Marcel!” Gabby cried, trying in vain to find his face amid the sea of people. “Please take care of yourself!” If only she could return his words of love!
Just then the captain appeared above her, peering over the rail. “Hurry, Madame St. Cyr! We can delay no longer.”
Squaring her slight shoulders. Gabby turned and resolutely followed the sailors on board the ship, clutching Jean to her breast. Almost immediately the gangplank was run in and the moorings cast. A puff of wind filled the sails and the Windward nosed out of the harbor. A strange lump gathered in her throat when she turned to view the thousands of desperate people left behind in the doomed city. Was Marcel one of those doomed, she wondered, choking back a sob.
Gabby had no more time to dwell on Marcel’s fate for Captain Bovier, whom she remembered from her previous journey, appeared at her side. “Look to Pelee, Madame St. Cyr,” he said, pointing to where the glow at its neck had grown brighter with each passing hour. “I would have been safely out to sea by now had I not waited for your arrival. Had you delayed one moment longer I would have been forced to leave without you. It’s strange that Monsieur St. Cyr would leave his wife and child in the city at a time like this.”
Gabby flushed. “My… husband wanted me to return to Bellefontaine with him but I had not recovered sufficiently from childbirth to hazard the journey,” lied Gabby, unwilling to divulge at this time the true status of her marriage.
Seeming to lose interest in the subject, the captain grunted out a reply that he had duties to perform and left her standing at the railing watching the shoreline recede from view. Finally, when there was nothing left to see, Gabby made her way through the people milling aimlessly on deck to the cabin she had shared with Philippe through both happy and sad times.
Chapter Twenty
Each passing day found Philippe viewing Mt. Pelee with growing alarm. Since the day he had left Gabby and little Jean in St. Pierre he had been plagued with conflicting emotions. He was angry. He was sad. He was bereft. He was hurt by Gabby’s rejection, discounting his own rejection of her and his son. Afterward, he had been so distraught that he made straight for his lawyer’s office before allowing second thoughts to muddy his thinking. Then he left immediately for Bellefontaine where he plunged wholeheartedly into the arduous task of processing his newly cut cane into sugar and rum. The heat was oppressive; the air too humid, too still. A deep sense of foreboding prevailed. Even the natives went about their work as if doom’s day were near, sensing as only the superstitious can the presence of an awesome, all-powerful force.
No matter how hard Philippe tried to banish thoughts of Gabby from his mind, he found himself dreaming of her as she had been at the final parting. Her outpouring of love, her need for him had been amply demonstrated by her passionate response to their tumultuous joining. Even her words had proclaimed her love for him. Why then, when he confessed his own love, had she thrown it back at him by insisting Jean was his son?
Weren’t their love and need for one another enough? he reasoned irrationally. Perhaps, given time, he would feel differently, especially in view of the fact that Gabby might never bear another child. But it was a decision he would have had to come to himself.
Philippe wondered if the divorce papers he had signed had made Gabby happy. Certainly Marcel must have been overjoyed to learn that soon he would be able to legalize their relationship as well as openly claim his son. Philippe cursed bitterly. By all that’s right and holy Jean should be his son!
“Damn! Damn! Damn!” he exploded, causing the slaves working nearby to shake their heads sadly, knowing full well the reason for his discontent. Why did he allow anger and pride to rule his life? he wondered, casting a guilty eye around him when he realized his embittered outburst had been observed.
In a fit of despondency, Philippe had even taken a pretty mulatto to his bed. Suzette had been born on the plantation but was too young and too afraid of Amalie to flaunt herself before Philippe. But with Amalie out of the way and Philippe’s wife nowhere in sight, Suzette grew bold and displayed her ripe sixteen-year-old body before her master, promising delights he could not resist. Her skin, the color of caf? au lait, still held the dewy bloom of youth and her rich, black hair hung in rippling waves to the middle of her back. The night Philippe finally took her to his bed, she had teased and taunted him mercilessly, appearing from nowhere to entice him with her flashing, black velvet eyes, pushing out her breasts until they strained against her flimsy blouse. Without a word, his face set in grim lines, he had grasped Suzette by the wrist, pulling her along after him into the house, past a wide-eyed Tante Louise and into his bedroom.
Allowing neither of them time to disrobe, Philippe flung her on her back on the bed and mounted her with a violence that surprised even him. It was as if he wanted to punish her for the sins of every woman on earth. Philippe was dismayed as well as shocked to find Suzette a virgin. Immediately he became more gentle, but quickly learned Suzette wanted no gentleness. Once the initial pain of entry was past, she was like a young tigress, urging him on until he had broken through her maidenhead. Without missing a beat, Suzette gave herself up body and soul to the act she had long anticipated, saving herself for this very moment with this very man.
Philippe had to admit, although grudgingly, that Suzette had entered his life at a time when he feared for his sanity. To lose himself in her sweet, young flesh had been like a balm… for a while. After the first week or two, even venting his lust upon voracious little Suzette was not enough to coax him from his doldrums. She had been no more than a pleasurable diversion, unable to completely fill the void left by Gabby. There were times he even longed for Jean’s soft downy head nestled in the crook of his arm.
On the morning Gabby and Jean boarded the Windward, Philippe stood in the fields of cut cane beyond the house, eyes focused on Pelee, his heart in his mouth. The dull glow at the neck of the crater grew redder by the minute, the spewing of ash and rock a continuing process now; a sooty mist blocked out the sun casting the world below into dim shadows. He could plainly see white-hot fingers of lava splaying downward from the cone.
The awesome sight inspired fear in Philippe’s breast. With sinking hear the realized that Gabby and Jean lay in the direct path of Pelee’s lava flow! Suddenly he was possessed by a conviction that in only a matter of hours the mountain would blow apart. St. Pierre, the only town in its path of destruction, would disappear in a sea of molten lava! Never once did he consider that the flow could take a different direction, that it could destroy Bellefontaine. Irrationally, it was at that moment when the possibility existed that neither Gabby nor her son would survive Mt. Pelee that Philippe came to a momentous decision.
Mounting his horse, he rode at breakneck speed through the stubble of cane back toward the house. Once in his room he threw together a change of clothes and shaving gear and, calling to Gerard, left instructions for his overseer.
Philippe was barely beyond the banana groves when it happened. It struck with hurricane force, a scaring wind that swept down from the mountain. His horse reared in terror and Philippe fought desperately to control him and keep his seat. The banana trees around him bent nearly to the ground and he could feel the heat generated by the wind burning his body. As quickly as it came it was gone. With a wary eye on the mountain Philippe coaxed his mount on with gentle words.
Suddenly the glow at the neck of Pelee was spreading above him as a blinding, red ball blossomed out of the side of the crater. The volcano exploded, and exploded, and exploded, and the ground beneath him rocked with each new shock. Black smoke spewed up from the throat of the volcano and the entire side of the mountain flew away. A white cloud shot with flame burst out of the gaping hole in the volcano’s side and hurled downward toward the sea.
Suddenly, his horse lunged, and he felt himself lurch wildly into space. He was falling over the edge of a ravine, drifting, turning, nearly dreamlike, hurtling slowly downward. Philippe heard his horse scream in fright. He felt like screaming himself. Then he hit the water.
When he tried to move, there was a sharp throbbing in his head. The heat was unbearable and he wanted a drink of water. Hearing the rush of water, he reached out, felt rough, jagged rocks. Memory came rushing back with startling clarity. Rising on an elbow he saw that somehow he had reached the rocks after his fall into the river. Looking up he realized that he had fallen over twenty-five feet and he was amazed at the miracle of his survival. Another miracle made itself known when, looking around to get his bearings, he spied his horse on the opposite side of the river calmly grazing at a clump of grass.
Waiting a few moments until his head stopped spinning, Philippe stood up, stepped to the edge of the water and threw himself in. The only way he knew of reaching St. Pierre in time to save Gabby and his son was on horseback. He began to swim against the current with long, hard strokes. Though not wide, the river had been swollen by recent storms and Philippe struggled hard against the undertow. But he was a strong swimmer and, given his superior strength and determination, he finally reached the other side only a little downstream from his horse. Choking for breath a minute or two, he pulled himself up onto the bank where he lay gulping huge lungsful of air before scarring off toward his mount.