by Lynn Shurr
“It’s heavy,” Angelle complained, shifting her weight from foot to foot and making the bed creak with each movement. “And the sleeves are too short.” The child examined her arms where her nightie protruded from the small puffed sleeves of the dress.
Laura moved into the room. “Well, it would look much better without the nightgown. Here, let me roll up your nightie so you can see how the dress really looks.”
Angelle pushed her away. “No! The sleeves are too short. I won’t wear it. I hate this dress. Get it off me!”
The child tore at the skirt, trying to raise the dress over her head, but Pearl’s zipper held firm. Instead, her grappling wreaked havoc among the garlands of rosebuds hand sewn by Laura. Her hysteria grew as she tried to claw her way out of the gown. Her shrieks brought Robert running from his place in the parlor where he had been told to await Angelle’s grand entrance.
With her father’s arms around her, Angelle quieted. Pearl removed the gown and hoop over the child’s head. The hoop caught in the flannel of the nightie, and off went the nightgown, too, leaving Angelle shivering in the cotton panties with Sunday emblazoned across the rear. The child raised her arms to accept the warmth of the nightie again. Then, Laura saw the cause of the unreasonable hysteria that made her brand Angelle a spoiled child only a moment ago.
Scars, Angelle had hideous scars on her back and upper arms. Pink, thick and shiny like an ugly growth, they contrasted with the child’s porcelain complexion. Laura became aware that she had never seen Angelle without long sleeves, even on that broiling day of her interview. She assumed long sleeves were part of the required and nun-enforced parochial school uniforms Angelle wore on even the most scorching weekdays. The fact the child always dressed alone Laura assumed was due to the same overdeveloped, seven-year-old modesty her own niece had passed through. Most unforgivable of all, Laura knew she stared at flesh damaged by fire and could not move her eyes away.
Angelle’s big, brown eyes watched Laura unblinkingly as the nightie lowered over her shoulders. As soon as her head came free, Angelle, tears forming, said, “Now you think I’m ugly, too. Mama thinks I’m ugly. Now you do, too.”
“No, no,” Laura whispered. “You couldn’t help what happened to you.”
Robert moved aside as she went to the child and held her. Angelle sobbed on her shoulder.
“I’m so afraid of fire, the doctor says, because I got burned as a baby. Madame Leleux said if I wanted the spell to work I had to light the two red candles, sprinkle the magic powder over them and burn some of your hair and Daddy’s hair in the flames together. Then, you would love each other forevermore.”
Laura’s eyes met Robert’s over Angelle’s shaking back.
“But I was afraid, and it looked like I didn’t need a spell when you were out in the garden together. Then Tante Lil ruined it all, and I had to light the candles. Had to. You came in before I could finish. Now the spell won’t work, and you won’t love me or Daddy. You’ll go away. And I have no more Christmas money to give Madame Leleux and the Virgin Mary for another spell.”
“I love you, Angelle. Truly. Even if I do go, I can still love you,” Laura comforted.
“Mama went away, and she doesn’t love me.”
Robert interceded, taking the child and carrying her to the door. “Miss Laura won’t go.” He looked directly at her and formed the word, “Please,” with his lips. “Tomorrow I’ll see if you can be in the Court of Winter with me. You have to wear long sleeves in wintertime, and I think Dr. Bourgeois’ little girl is exactly your size. Maybe you could trade dresses.”
Dimly, Laura listened to more words of comfort as the father carried the child to bed.
“It was worse than that, way worse.” Pearl appeared to be talking to herself as she examined the tears in the gown.
“Tell me about it, Pearl. Tell me all about it because I don’t understand what’s going on here.”
For once Pearl did—without prodding or leading questions or innuendos. “You saw how crazy Miss Vivien is at Thanksgiving. Well, when she first come here, she wasn’t so bad. Everybody knew the baby came way too soon after the wedding, but they pretended not to notice and fussed over Angelle like any other newborn. Angelle, so pretty just like a tiny china doll, not red like some babies, but she had this big birthmark on her back. It was black, black. Real particular about looks, Miss Vivien kept her covered up even in the summer so it wouldn’t show. The child always had to be spotless clean, too. They had another maid besides me back then before Mr. Bob stopped growing cane. That woman was forever changing the child before Miss Vivien would hold her own baby.
“Then, things went really bad. Miss Vivien didn’t work and wasn’t much use around the house, so she took to clubs and such, got involved with tracing the family tree. She sent money to politicians with beliefs like David Duke and worked with their campaigns.” Pearl snorted.
“Miss Vivien got a real shock when she found out Adrien LeBlanc was her great-great grandfather and not just some uncle by marriage way back. See, by then she’d heard all the rumors about there being black blood in the family. Don’t matter much to no one anymore, but it did to Miss Vivien. After that, she wouldn’t take Angelle nowheres.
“I was with the Judge the night Miss Vivien tried to burn that birthmark off Angelle. He had his room next to the library then. Mr. Bob and Miss Vivien had the front room. Then came Angelle’s nursery and Miss Lilliane’s room over the garden. When the judge shut his door, no one disturbed him. I’d go to him through the closets. See that little door there behind the sewing machine? Looks like a closet. Well, it’s a staircase going up to the judge’s bedroom, and it was built into the house long before the judge and me got together.
“So there we were doing the nasty when we heard this shrill, high-pitched scream from Angelle like isn’t normal for a child. The shrieks went on and on. We ran to the nursery, the two of us barely dressed, and there Miss Vivien stood holding a burning rag on a stick against Angelle’s poor little back.
“Turned out she and Mr. Bob had a fight about her not showing Angelle in public. He went outside to cool off, and Miss Vivien decided to ‘purify’ the child. Yes, she used that very word, to purify the child of her black blood. She accused the judge and me of, well, keeping up the family tradition, I guess.
“They took Miss Vivien away to some private crazy house. T-Bob sat by the child in the hospital, day and night, blaming himself for not being there to protect her and setting Vivien off in the first place. But you know how children bounce back. Wasn’t much damage except for the scars, we thought, and that could be fixed some when she got older. Except whenever Miss Lilliane lit a match, the child pitched a fit, so the old lady had to smoke in her room after that.”
“And that led to Miss Lilliane’s accident and more guilt for Robert,” Laura assumed.
“I have my own thoughts about that. See, Miss Vivien came back cured, we thought. They talked of reconciliation, if you know what I mean, between her and Mr. Bob and maybe another child on the way. About then, the judge started having chest pains, or maybe he thought our doing what we were doing might upset Vivien, so I slept out most nights at Tante Lu’s. I wasn’t around that evening, but I saw the place next day, had to help clean it up. No matter what the judge told the fire chief, there wasn’t much damage to Miss Lilliane’s bed. Only the quilt T-Bob used to put out the fire got burned up. The room smelled of lighter fluid like someone had splashed it on the floor.”
“When Miss Lilliane woke up, all she saw was a sheet of flame between her and the door, and like she always says, she panicked and went straight out the window. Seems T-Bob is always trying to make up to her for bringing Miss Viven into this house. That’s why he takes all he does from her.”
Laura stayed quiet for a while, absorbing it all. “And Angelle never got over her fear of fire.”
“Oh, it cleared up some. She stopped having fits if someone lit a match, but she never goes too close to a flame even now. At that
Halloween bonfire, she wanted to hear the stories, but we stayed way back in the trees to make her feel safe.”
“Then she couldn’t have started the fire at Domengeaux’s.”
“Whoever said something that crazy?” Pearl mouthed her disgust.
“A stupid but well-meaning outsider, Pearl. Thanks for the explanation. I’ll see you at breakfast.”
Laura went to her room. Not that it did her any good to lie down in Caroline Montleon’s bed. She could not sleep. In the next room, she heard Robert still calming Angelle, and farther down the hall, Miss Lilliane coughing in her own bed. The old lady had been confined since her tirade in the garden. Her lungs simply would not clear. Divine retribution, thought Laura.
She might as well know it all. Laura picked up the diary for 1863 that she hadn’t returned to the private library and sprang the lock after diligent work with a metal nail file. If tonight was the night for all the LeBlanc family skeletons to come out of the closet, one more would not matter. If she was going to stay here, and it seemed she must for Angelle sake, she should know all.
The first few entries read much the same as the previous years—more hardships, more privations, more slaves running off, and no word from Adrien. Caroline wrote, “I have learned the Union Army is one day’s march from Chateau Camille. I hear they take everything, even the fence posts for firewood. What shall I do?”
By the time the enemy army approached Chateau Camille, Caroline Montleon had acted. “I called Tante Inez, who stays by me, and the other servants. ‘Shall we hide the silver, they asked?’ ‘But no,’ I answered. ‘Lay the table with it and the fine china. Kill the chickens, bake the pies, use the last of the wheat flour and get the wine from the storeroom. We are having guests for dinner.’ They thought I had gone mad, but obeyed.
“I met the Yankee general in my best ball gown of deep green silk and gold lace, now three years out of mode, but what do men know of fashion? I welcomed him to my home and explained my husband had fled to France rather than fight against the Union, that Monsieur Le General could have respite from his dusty journey without fearing hostility. General Alexander Moore immediately posted guards around my property.
“We dined as civilized men and women do and afterwards, I had Catherine play the piano so we could dance. Ah, my child looked at me with hatred, but she did not understand my strategy. Tonight, the children and I sleep in the upper rooms, the staircase guarded by a sentry. Chateau Camille is safe. What care I for the thoughts of others?”
Laura skimmed over short entries and missing dates as the Yankee officers continued to occupy both Caroline’s time and home. Finally, a longer entry slowed Laura’s reading.
“The good general has asked my permission to come up the stairs to use the library. I can see he is a man of intellect and sensitivity. Poor heart! He has but a sickly wife and one homely daughter waiting for him in Pennsylvania. He showed me their tintypes, which he carries in a little leather case. He remarks on the vigor of my children. Little Felice willingly goes to his lap. She has so little memory of her father. I do wish Charles to be less aloof and Catherine less spiteful to this kind man, but then, things are seldom as we want. Perhaps, I will join him in the library.”
Caroline LeBlanc did join her good general that evening in the library and later on other evenings, invited him to her own room for further discussions. The words were not explicit. Perhaps, the mother feared her children would find the diary sooner or later. The most blatant statement followed a short paragraph about a small spate of luxuries contributed to the larder, courtesy of the United States government.
“I did not realize how I longed for freshly ground coffee in the morning or the pleasures of the marital bed at night before the Yankees came.”
That sentence made Laura smile and sympathize with the woman who might as well have been a widow and lived under one roof with a desirable man. She felt Caroline’s dismay when another child appeared to be on the way. This time the mistress of Chateau Camille did not rant. In resignation, she called again upon Tante Inez and her potions.
“Once more I have tasted of Tante Inez’s elixir, and I write with regret as I await the start of the pains. This child would have been loved by its father and despised by society. I do what must be done reluctantly.
“Again, I have bled too freely. Tante Inez cautions that at my age, I must not do this again. I stay abed longer than necessary for my general tells me he must soon march on and return to his war.
“How ironic that as soon as I was able to sit up, the young officers, who believed me to be overcome by a fever, came to cheer me. We played at cards. From observing Adrien who taught me many things, I could have won often, but in their kindness, the young men allowed me to triumph hand after hand. My mattress is stuffed with their good greenback money and some hard and lumpy coinage, too. Sin should not be so well-rewarded. It tempts one to go on sinning as Catherine, my little nun, reminds me when she comes to my bedside to pray morning and night.”
So that was it. Another dreaded LeBlanc secret revealed. The heroic Caroline had saved the family seat by sleeping with a Yankee general and aborting his child. Clearly, her gambling winnings had seen the family through the rest of the war and into Reconstruction. These funds, later entries said, were supplemented by “Letters of Regard” and additional money from the guilt-stricken General Moore. Nothing was heard from or mentioned about the silent Adrien LeBlanc.
Laura, ashamed over her intrusion, but not shocked by the revelations that must have rattled a woman of Miss Lilliane’s generation, crept silently up the stairs in the night and replaced the diary in its original space in the row of little brown volumes. Only a few diaries remained, but Laura declined to take any more unless invited. Feeling pregnant with secrets, she returned to Caroline’s bed.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mardi Gras obsessed the town. For the entire week before the event, the Ste. Jeanne Parish Library was devoid of business. The staff, white and black, could talk of nothing else over coffee. They took the grandeur of past costumes, the beauty of former queens, five, ten, twenty years ago, out of storage for the sake of conversation over the last crumbs of King Cake. Laura’s piece of the coffee cake, gaudy with its yellow, green and purple icing, held the little plastic baby doll representing the Christ child.
“That means you bring the cake start of next year, or maybe you have a baby of your own by then.” The staff chuckled and elbowed each other. Laura strongly suspected her piece of cake had been rigged, but she laughed with good humor and threatened, “If you want to eat what I can bake, you’ve got a deal.”
Laura did not attend any of the satellite parties revolving around the great galaxy of the Mardi Gras ball, but she would attend the main event. Her trustee Jules Picard had seen to that. Oozing bonhomie, J.P. dropped by the library and thrust a ticket on his new librarian, implying that to purchase one was a civic duty. His being president of the Mardi Gras Association had nothing to do with it at all. In fact, buying two tickets would show even more community support. Laura assured J.P. that she needed only one ticket.
Though Picard came on like an ignorant country Cajun for the sake of his appliance business, Laura soon realized he was one of her most astute board members, more politically minded than even the regal lawyer, Arthur DeVille, uncle to Denise, and related to many by that name. Jules tuned into public attitudes even more than the Reverend Ramsey Polk, her black representative who seldom spoke at meetings, but nodded in dignified agreement or withheld his vote in silence. The appliance king had a more realistic view about business than either the doctor or the undertaker.
“None of our Cajun boys after a nice young lady like you? Well, that’s mighty slow of them. Being a widow don’t matter. Just means they don’t have to break you in—like a good used appliance.” He squeezed Laura with one plump hand. “Just teasing you, sugar. I hear you got other interests.”
“Not really.” Laura took the embrace and the comment as they were meant
, all part of Jules Picard’s style.
“Now, Arthur tells me his niece has been throwing little pink fits over you living out at the LeBlanc place. She says it’s immoral and all, but we just don’t listen to that. Besides, if something immoral is going on, I’m sure you’ll get married one of these days, heh?”
He leered at Laura and pinched her arm. Knowing Jules, this could be a warning clothed in comedy or simply another of his jokes. Hard to tell.
Laura gave an evasive answer. “Believe me, with Miss Lilliane under the same roof, we are well chaperoned.”
“See you at the ball for sure now.” Picard hurried away in his usual state of hyperanimation, as if he were always in the midst of filming a thirty second television commercial for slightly dented washing machines at Big, Big Savings. He left Laura unsure whether he meant his last statement as a casual remark or an order.
****
Stores, schools, banks and all forms of local government, except the police department, closed on Mardi Gras day. Religion had nothing to do with it. Baptists lined the streets for the big parade, along with Catholics and those who had fallen by the wayside. Mardi Gras was the biggest party of the year, and no one, not bank teller or store clerk, teacher or student, wanted to be left out.
Laura selected a place to watch the parade on the curb near Dot’s Antiques and Used Furniture, far enough from the church green and the ruins of Domengeaux’s store not to stir unpleasant memories. She stood alone among the revelers, some masked, some half drunk, all wading in street gutters half-filled with beer cans. Angelle and Robert would ride the floats. Pearl, like everyone else, had the day off. Miss Lilliane stayed home under doctor’s orders but vowed she would go to the ball that evening with or without his permission.
Clearing the streets with his siren, Police Chief LeDoux in his black and white patrol car led the parade. Following in the fire truck, bulky Chief Fontenot blasted the siren every few feet while his lean assistant waved intermittently at the crowds. A troop of small children, probably little Fontenots, clung to the ladders and threw sparse handfuls of peppermint candies to the less fortunate youth. Either they were gauging the length of the parade or were hopeful of keeping whatever they had left afterwards. A few teenagers booed as one peppermint arced into a crowd of twenty people. Chief Fontenot drowned them out with a prolonged, ear-splitting shriek from his horn. Laura made a mental note to enter the bookmobile in next year’s parade with a more lavish supply of candy—if she stayed in Chapelle.
