Bal Masque

by Fleeta Cunningham

  ****

  Lucienne might have saved herself the anxiety of trying to contact Philippe at the horse race, for at the end of the week he came to Mille Fleur to look over a brood mare he wanted to buy. While waiting for René to return to the house, Madame Toussaint made Philippe at home on the veranda and excused herself to send for her husband. From the upper gallery, Lucienne caught sight of him taking his ease with a fine cheroot and a glass of wine. Making sure none of the household, especially her mother or Marie, saw her, Lucienne slipped to the stairs behind him.

  “Philippe, I’ve been frantic to talk to you.”

  “Ah, the Dupre bride.” He whispered a reply without turning. “Conversing alone with me will soil your reputation, you know. Are you inviting such an embarrassment?” His sardonic words twisted her heart.

  “Do you think it might? Perhaps Armand Dupre would change his mind if it did.”

  She caught the quick look of amusement he gave her. That lean face with its dashing widow’s peak, those dancing black eyes that seemed to see everything—she wanted to hold that picture in her mind. He could thank his heritage for his ink-black hair and olive skin, she supposed, but the casual arrogance belonged only to him. “I didn’t have any say in the engagement. You realize Papa and M’sieu Dupre put it together between them. I wouldn’t accept a proposal when my affections were elsewhere. I tried to tell you the day of the horse race, but I couldn’t get near you. You must have been distressed to hear of the engagement.”

  “Of course, I was desolate, but I supposed the old men arranged things.” He waved his cigar and considered the fading ember. “I fail to see how any lady of good taste would prefer the colorless Dupre to someone as entertaining as myself.” He leaned against the railing, bending to put his cigar out. “But you will marry the man and live in his fine, boring house in New Orleans, and go to the usual round of somber parties and dreary theaters, I suppose.”

  “I will not marry him.” She put utter finality in her voice.

  “Indeed?”

  “Philippe, I have a plan, a marvelous plan.” Hurrying her words for fear someone would come and overhear, she told him of the masquerade ball and how she’d convinced Armand to participate by coming in costume.

  “And how does that enable you to escape the throes of matrimony, chèrie?”

  “By giving him someone else to marry, of course.” She rushed on with her plan. “I’d thought Dorcas would do it, she’s always looking at him in that silly, swoony way girls do, and I thought she’d trade places with me. But she won’t. She says she couldn’t get by with it because she has blue eyes and, oh, well, she won’t. But my cousin Pierrette is mad for Armand, and I know she’ll do it. Besides she’s supposed to stand up with me, and she has a butterfly dress, too. Not exactly like mine, but nobody’ll know that because nobody’s seen them. And then there’s a mask to cover her face. And I’m sure she’ll love the idea.”

  “And you, p’tite, where will you be while this masquerade of a wedding takes place? Hiding in the sugar house? Or pretending to be your cousin and witnessing your own wedding?” He laughed softly in the shadows.

  “No, you and I will be on our way, eloping to wherever it is people go when they want to get married without the family blessing.”

  The sound of an opening door stopped her words and any response Philippe might make. “Philippe Pardue, I’m glad you waited for me,” René Toussaint called from the doorway. “Come along. I have the breeding records for that horse you’re determined to take from me.”

  Philippe glanced to the corner where Lucienne hid in the shadows. She waved frantically and pelted lightly up the stairs. She’d done it! She’d put the plan together. And wasn’t Philippe surprised at how cleverly she’d managed? Now she only needed to talk Pierrette into it. And she would, she knew, because she’d always been able to lead Pierrette anywhere she wanted.

  ****

  “So my pretty dresses will serve a good purpose after all,” Grandmère Thierry said with satisfaction as she sat with her granddaughters in the cozy parlor three days later.

  Lucienne smiled at her grandmother. Grandmère, small and quick in her ways, had a girlish twinkle lurking in dark eyes barely touched by any sign of age. “I’m so glad they won’t go to waste.” She glanced at Pierrette across the room, relieved that her grandmother and her cousin had come to stay a few days before the small masquerade that would open the season. “It wouldn’t be fair for Pierrette to have to wait till next year, and I probably won’t have another chance. Next year, I might not be going to balls.”

  “Lucienne, it won’t be the same, not nearly as much fun, if you and I aren’t going together,” her cousin assured her. Pierrette, two years younger than Lucienne, had made her New Orleans social debut early in the fall. The girls had gone to all the Christmas parties and balls together and drawn any number of admirers. Some arrangement for Pierrette’s future had been discussed, though no announcement would be made until Lucienne’s wedding had taken place.

  Grandmère put her glass of lemonade aside with a moue of distaste. “And this masquerade wedding of yours, Lucienne. I’ve never seen the like. Why not do the thing properly at the cathedral? Some fine notion of your papa’s, I suppose. All this rush and flurry to get the thing over with. The family will be incensed. Is he ashamed of this marriage or just not interested?”

  Hurrying to her grandmother, Lucienne caught the older woman’s hand in her own. “Oh, no, Grandmère. Papa didn’t make all the fuss about having it so soon. M’sieu Dupre insisted on the date. He and Armand are terribly busy and have to make trips to take care of business. This arrangement is for their convenience. Papa said if we couldn’t do it now, it might be as long as two years before things settled down again.”

  “Humph, M’sieu Dupre and his convenience, indeed.” Her grandmother sniffed. “I suppose I can’t say too much. My grandmère arrived in this country on her fifteenth birthday and was wed within a week. It worked out as well as any marriage could, my own mother being the third of her seven children. At least you know Armand Dupre, and your family knows all of his.”

  Lucienne supposed she did have an advantage over that early bride. She’d been raised on the story of the young women brought to New Orleans by the Ursuline nuns to help civilize that newborn colony. The grandmother Madame Thierry recalled had come ashore with only the belongings she carried in a small casque to marry and raise a family in the wilds of a new land. These filles de la cassette were the foundation of families that prospered first under the French, then the Spanish, then the French again, until finally the Louisiana Territory fell to American governance. Lucienne found the story as tiresome as most family traditions.

  “Papa is very pleased with the arrangements,” Lucienne assured her grandmother. “The Dupre family, he says, is an honorable one.”

  “And Armand is so handsome and so gallant.” Pierrette lowered envious eyes.

  Lucienne bit back the desire to contradict her cousin. Armand’s a pallid shadow compared to Philippe.

  Pierrette moved closer to her grandmother and lowered her voice. “Grandmère, I overheard Uncle René telling Papa about a duel in the city last week. He hinted that someone from the parish was involved. Do you know about it?” Lucienne caught her breath in surprise. How had Pierrette heard the story? She seemed to know as much about it as Lucienne had been able to unearth.

  A wry amusement twitched at Grandmère’s lips. “Does anything ever happen in the parish that you don’t hear of it, Little Gossip? I know something of the story, though I suppose your fathers won’t like my telling you.” She sat forward in her low chair. “Men think themselves the rulers of the universe and believe their women too frail, too timid, to know of their husbands’ more sordid dealings. But where do they turn when they have a mess to be tidied away, a wound to be tended? To their mothers, sisters, and wives, of course. But they wouldn’t dream of telling those fragile females any disgusting details, for fear of shocking the poor thi
ngs.”

  Lucienne and Pierrette exchanged glances. Grandmère regarded men, especially her two sons-in-law, as necessary but inconvenient nuisances, to be managed, tolerated, and bullied whenever the opportunity occurred. Her visits were a major source of aggravation to the men and sometimes an embarrassment to their wives. One never knew what Grandmère would feel needed her attention or what secrets she might decide to tell.

  “Now, about that duel, let me think. A week or so ago? No, a bit more, perhaps ten days. I wasn’t sure what had disturbed my sleep. I wasn’t quite awake and at first thought I might have dreamed something unsettling,” Madame Thierry began. “Then I heard horses, four or five, in the calle beyond my house. It was just before daylight, and a kind of hush filled the air, as if the riders were making every effort to be secretive. I sent Obadiah to spy out things. He came back to tell me what I’d already assumed, men were heading for the Dueling Oaks. He couldn’t see who was involved, but I found out later.”

  “Who, Grandmère? It was someone from our parish? Someone we know?” Pierrette’s brown eyes widened with curiosity.

  Grandmère avoided a direct answer. “I surely hope your parents haven’t let you become acquainted with such riffraff. One of the parties was that upriver upstart Rezin Bowie, and he had been challenged by some man called Blanchard—people you wouldn’t know. The feud’s been going on for a good many years now, and it’s high time it stopped. It started with that other Bowie brother, the one that went off to Texas or some outlandish place, and some land sale that one of them thought was a little irregular. Now neither side will let it die. Nothing happened for quite a while, but Rezin had some altercation with one of the Blanchards over buying a horse or some finagling with a horse race. So that’s who was slipping through the byways before daylight. Rezin was badly wounded, but it seems he’ll recover. I suppose his kin will take up the fight. We’ll hear of another date at dawn with some other poor fool in a few weeks.”

  “M’sieu Bowie and M’sieu Blanchard are not people we associate with,” Lucienne murmured, her curiosity satisfied.

  “But I think we do…” Pierrette began.

  “Now about this wedding of yours, Lucienne,” Grandmère said, interrupting her granddaughter and firmly taking the conversation to calmer waters before the girls’ parents could return and overhear talk of the duel. “I suppose young Dupre managed to present you with some appropriate gifts to mark the occasion?”

  “Oh, the usual lace and a fan and so forth,” Lucienne replied airily. Then she added with a gleeful laugh, “And a most wonderful parure of pearls. The necklace is as long as a garden furrow. The beads are almost pink, such a becoming color. I’ll let you see them. They’re up in my room, but I’m supposed to pretend they aren’t, since I can’t wear them yet.”

  Grandmère gave her a sharp look. “You may not wear them, but I’ll be switched if I believe any young lady could keep from trying on the famous Dupre pearls.” A smile teased her lightly rouged lips. “I’ve seen the set from time to time, p’tite, and I know how handsome it is. Many a girl would marry the Dupres just for the sake of possessing such jewels.”

  Lucienne felt another pang at giving those pearls up when she eloped with Philippe. Why couldn’t the pearls have been the family heirloom of the Pardues?

  “Lucienne wouldn’t do anything so crass,” loyal Pierrette protested.

  Madame Thierry brushed imaginary dust motes from the folds of her plum linen dress. “I don’t suppose she would. Since the men have arranged her life for her, she needn’t worry about being influenced by the pearls, certainly.” Glancing at the glass of lemonade still half full on the table beside her, she made a slight frown of distaste. “I feel the need of my afternoon rest now. Ask Marie to make my usual tisane and bring it to me, will you, Chou-Chou? A cup, a bit of a nap, and then I should be down, completely refreshed, by dinner. I need to have a word or two with your fathers before we dine.”

  Lucienne and Pierrette exchanged amused looks. Madame’s “tisane,” as everyone in the family knew, was in fact a half glass of brandy punch she drank every afternoon. Marie, who had been with the family since she was a young girl, made up the concoction and delivered it in a porcelain cup whenever the grandmother was in residence. At home, old Obadiah, Madame Thierry’s houseman, managed the same chore.

  “I’ll send Marie along, Grandmère,” Lucienne replied dutifully, and kept her stifled laugh to herself.

  Once their grandmother had swept her long skirts up the stairs and strolled into the shaded bedroom at the back of the house, Lucienne held out a hand to her cousin. “Come up to my room and let me show you the things Armand brought me.” She was certain, after the exchange with Madame Thierry, no one could pass up such an opportunity.

  “Oh, may I see the pearls?”

  “I’ll even take them out so you can touch them,” Lucienne promised. “They feel so warm against your skin. Armand says they carry the warmth of the woman who wears them.”

  “Isn’t that poetic?”

  The girls whispered and smothered giggles as they scurried along the gallery and into the dimmer bedroom. With as many dramatic flourishes as she could devise, Lucienne showed her cousin the length of lace, fluttered the frivolous fan, and displayed the elegance of her locket and ring.

  “Armand spared no expense, did he? The locket alone must have cost the earth, never mind the ring.”

  “Papa said he would expect nothing less of a Dupre. The family honor demands it.” Lucienne tidied away the bundles, then drew out the longer box and carried it to the bed. Making a great show of pulling aside the dark velvet cover, she lifted out the brooch, then the bracelet, and put them in her cousin’s lap. Pierrette stroked the brooch against her cheek and wrapped the bracelet around her wrist.

  “You’re right, they do feel as warm as my hand.”

  “And look at this necklace.” Lucienne let it spill across the pink lawn of Pierrette’s skirt. “Did you ever see anything so elegant?”

  “They’re pink, they really are. Oh, Lucienne, he must be so devoted to you to make such a generous gift.”

  The thought made Lucienne decidedly uncomfortable. “It’s the traditional gift that his family brings to each bride.” Not wanting to linger over the pain she felt at parting with the pearls, she began to gather up the glowing jewels. “If you had come out first, they might have been yours. I think Papa Dupre would have been as pleased to have you in the family as he is me.”

  For a moment Pierrette’s cheeks flushed at the idea, but she quickly waved it away. “Oh, no, chèrie, I’m sure he always preferred you. In any case your dowry is larger, because you’re an only child. While I have brothers to share Papa’s holdings, you will be your papa’s only heir.” She reached out to take Lucienne’s hand. “Besides, you are so much prettier than I am.”

  Secretly, Lucienne agreed. Pierrette was like a smudged copy of her vibrant cousin. Where Lucienne’s hair was the blue-black of a raven’s wing, Pierrette’s was more like a charcoal cloud. Lucienne’s black eyes sparkled with vivacious wit, but her cousin’s glowed a gentle pansy brown. Though their coloring was similar, Pierrette seemed softer, rounder in feature.

  “No young lady of the parish is prettier than you,” Lucienne assured her mendaciously.

  “I will remind you of that on your wedding day and see if you don’t disavow that kindly lie, sweet Lucienne.”

  “Enough.” Lucienne put the tempting parcel away. “Your own wedding will be coming before too long. Have you cast an eye on any fortunate man yet?” She knew Uncle Gaston had given three or four young swains of the parish leave to call.

  “I’m sure Papa will make a wise choice for me. None so handsome as your Armand, of course. But there is only one Armand Dupre, more the pity.”

  “Oh, enough of this moon talk.” Lucienne grew weary of having the Dupre virtues paraded. “Let’s go and sit in the gallery. It’s comfortable there, with the afternoon sun warming it. You can tell me about the new g
owns you’re ordering for the spring balls, and the gossip down your way. You always know all the interesting news.”

  The girls took chairs at the far end of the long gallery, where they could see young colts romping in the paddock beyond the road. René Toussaint and his brother-in-law leaned on the distant rail fence, and past them Price directed three husky black men lifting dressed stone into place for a new well house.

  “Tante Charlotte told Mama that someone had been filching things from your storehouse.”

  “Oh, Mama is always worrying about something. I think she was more upset because some of Papa’s special wine was gone. He’s been raising the very devil with her and everybody else over that. I heard him tell Price to find out who did it or plan to have the cost taken out of his wages.” Lucienne wondered why Pierrette bothered to listen to such day-to-day details.

  “When we have households of our own to run, I suppose we’ll have to be just as vigilant as our mothers about such things. It will be our responsibility.” Pierrette looked out toward the workmen. “You don’t think that Tante Charlotte blames the overseer, do you? He’d have the best chance of taking things, since he’d know when the storehouse was unlocked.”

  “Oh, nobody would suspect Price. He pays no attention to small matters. Papa says he’s too busy running from here to there and back again. He has bigger things to care about. Getting the cane planted and seeing to the crop and the cutting takes all his time. He’s too busy to steal. And why would he? He and Dorcas have a good life here.” Lucienne brushed a lazy fly away. “I know Mama worries about all those bits and pieces of housekeeping, but I think I’d just scream if I had to do it.”

  “Armand will expect a wife to be vigilant and take good care of his home.”

  “Surely he doesn’t think I’ll count bags of flour and bolts of calico. I’m no shopkeeper.” A soon as she said it, she knew that was exactly what Armand would expect. I won’t waste my life on such deadly chores. I want more in my life than the kitchen and pantry of some man’s house. Lucienne recognized another fine reason to marry elsewhere.